“Eegah” is, in my opinion, the epitome of the early 60s B-movie. There is a simple monster, unnecessary musical numbers, horrible voice-over, and nothing that approaches any sort of artistic depth. All of that said, I really don’t hate this movie. Despite all of its flaws, it is a not a difficult movie to sit through. It isn’t always particularly interesting (the scene where Eegah shaves isn’t exactly riveting), but I don’t recall ever being bored while watching it, which I can’t say about a lot of IMDb Bottom 100 movies.
Richard Kiel, best known as Jaws from the James Bond movies, does an adequate job of portraying the eponymous giant. Arch Hall Jr., who plays the swooning, dune-buggying “hero”, isn’t nearly so passable. I can’t even begin to describe how horrible his voice is in this movie, particularly in conjunction with his bizarre hair and perplexing face. The fact that his singing is so often spotlighted in the movie almost makes one long for his standard acting. Here are a couple of his numbers from the film:
As much as I dislike Arch Hall Jr. in this movie, those musical numbers are some of the most memorable segments of the movie, and his performance goes a long way towards distinguishing this movie from the pack of B-pictures from the time. That isn’t exactly a good thing in this case, but it could realistically be said that this movie would have been forgotten in time without his ludicrous performance.
I feel like it is worth mentioning again: I don’t hate this movie. I think “Eegah” is half decent for what it is: a cheaply made monster movie. Nothing about the movie is good, but outside of the acting, I think the weaknesses boil down mostly to the lack of funding available. Sure, the writing and directing aren’t stellar by any means, but they got the job done. There are some definite jarring moments of sound editing, but overall, nothing ruins the movie so much as to make it unwatchable. Arch Hall Jr. is the only huge problem I have with the movie, and he does at least serve to make the film memorable, so I can sort of forgive that.
The opening credits were pretty cheap, for example
As far as a recommendation goes, I can certainly say that the MST3k riff is worth digging up for any fans of the show. It is one of my personal favorites of the Joel years for sure. Otherwise, this sits right on the edge of being a good-bad movie. There are some good laughs to be had, but I don’t think it is quite as consistently over the top as “The Girl in Gold Boots”, if you happen to be looking for a fun music-infused B-flick. It isn’t excessively dull, which is ultimately its greatest strength, but there also aren’t a lot of gold moments to get laughs out of, making it not ideal for a bad movie night. I’d give it a generally loose recommendation, but I will also say that I will almost certainly be giving it another watch myself at some point down the line.
I don’t remember how exactly it happened, but I got into the “Highlander” movies when I was pretty young. I distinctly remember having all of the movies on VHS, including the ones that tied into the (in my opinion) not-so-great television series. In particular, I specifically remember watching “Highlander II: The Quickening” a number of times, and always feeling thoroughly confused by the plot and the seemingly incomprehensible details. At the time, I assumed it was just because I was a kid, but it turns out that the movie is actually deemed by society at large to be a babbling mess. Fun fact: I also thought that the only reason I couldn’t beat “BattleToads” was because I was a kid, and that it would be easy street once I got older. No dice there either, as it turns out.
I personally think of “Highlander II” as a good-bad movie, but only by a hair. The movie is powered by a handful of over-the-top performances that chew their way through the perplexing scenery and unnecessarily complicated plot. In particular, Michael Ironside and Sean Connery own the movie whenever they are on screen: Ironside as the primary villain, and Connery reprising his role as Connor MacLeod’s fan-favorite, katana-weilding mentor, Ramirez.
Unfortunately, Connery does not get much screen-time, and doesn’t factor into the plot in any way. Apparently, star Christopher Lambert only agreed to return to the movie if Connery was brought back, which led to some shoehorning of the script to bring the Ramirez character back to life. Even though he isn’t in it much, I am thankful that they made the effort to bring Connery in, because his comic relief is top-notch. Watching Ramirez interrupt a production of “Hamlet”, ride in a plane, and invade a tailor are all highlights in what can be a rather dull movie.
Michael Ironside, on the other hand, plays his villain as over the top as possible. In his own words:
“Yeah, listen, I hated that script. We all did. Me, Sean, Chris… we all were in it for the money on this one. I mean, it (the script) read as if it had been written by a thirteen year old boy. But I’d never played a barbarian swordsman before, and this was my first big evil mastermind type. I figured if I was going to do this stupid movie, I might as well have fun and go as far over the top as I possibly could. All that eye-rolling and foaming at the mouth was me deciding that if I was going to be in a piece of shit like that movie, I was going to be the most memorable fucking thing in it. And I think I succeeded.”
-Michael Ironside
To say that Ironside is a delight to watch in this movie does not even scratch the surface of how entertainingly ridiculous his character is. He essentially enters the movie by hijacking a subway, and subsequently wrecking it. He takes over a super-corporation via a *literal* hostile takeover of the board of directors. His performance is nothing short of amazing.
The writing of “Highlander II”, for better or worse, is thoroughly baffling. The primary plot involves a massive energy dome that has been constructed to protect society from the sun, constructed after massive casualties sustained once the ozone suddenly depletes. Inexplicably, the dome is revealed to have been designed by protagonist Connor MacLeod after the events of the first movie, after his love interest is murdered by the sun. It was never implied previously that MacLeod would be able to design such a device though, so this revelation comes purely out of left field. As the story begins, the audience is introduced to a terrorist group that believes that the “shield” is no longer necessary due to the ozone having repaired itself. They claim that the private interests behind the “shield” don’t want the world to know about the healthy ozone layer due to the profitability of the shield. MacLeod, by this time an old man, comes across the leader of this group, giving the movie an inexplicable, shoe-horned love interest.
As complicated and unnecessary as the primary plot is, it pales in comparison to the secondary story. It is revealed through flashbacks that the “immortals” depicted throughout the first film (MacLeod and Ramirez included) are, in fact, exiled aliens. All of these “immortals” were members of an unsuccessful rebellion, who were banished into the future by Michael Ironside and forced into murderous competition until only one remains. After the competition concludes, the winner is theoretically given the option to either return to the past or live our his life in the distant future. At the beginning of the movie, Ironside is somehow aware that MacLeod has won the competition, but it unsatisfied that he is slowly dying of old age in the future. Perplexingly, he send two porcupine-headed assassins to kill the aging MacLeod, which predictably goes awry.
After MacLeod defeats the porcupine twins, his youth and strength is restored, which Ironside should have seen coming from a mile away. Instead of leaving well enough alone and leaving MacLeod to his shitty future world, Ironside decides to hunt the Highlander down himself.
If those two plots are not mind-numbingly bizarre for you, there is a third level introduced at this point in the story: the resurrection of Sean Connery’s Ramirez. Apparently, due to their BFF status, the process by which MacLeod’s youth and power are restored (after defeating the porcupine twins) also revives the centuries-dead Ramirez. Again, the only reason that this was written in was because Christopher Lambert threatened to walk off the movie, and it very much feels like it. Connery has absolutely nothing to do in this movie: the only real action he takes is sacrificing himself to a giant industrial fan, which was hardly a necessary aspect of the movie.
The plot fragments do eventually synthesize together into a conjoined wreck, but it never starts to make sense. The motivations stay unclear, the actions illogical, and the plot remains ludicrous. Luckily, the performances also stay hammy: apart from Ironside and Connery, John C. McGinley gets some solid time in the film, and that usually means it will be a good ride.
I love bad movies that have fascinating stories behind their productions, and “Highlander II” definitely falls in that category. Apart from the issues with the actors already covered, the IMDb trivia section seems to go on forever. The director was at odds with the producers and the backers, there was all sorts of on-location drama in Argentina, the actors couldn’t behave themselves, and even some notable on-set injuries occurred. I think it all adds some flavor to the film, which does it some pretty big favors. Apparently there is documentary out there about the production, as well as a Director’s Cut of the film (known as the Renegade Version). This revised version of the movie is the one I have most often come across, but it cuts out some of the more ridiculous elements, so I can’t recommend it at the same level I can recommend the theatrical version.
And yes, I definitely do recommend this as a good-bad movie. It doesn’t pace itself incredibly well, but there are enough baffling plot points and laughable performances to make it very much worth the time. The more you read into the stories behind the movie, the more interesting it becomes (not unlike “The Creeping Terror” and the enigmatic Vic Savage). “Highlander II” isn’t in the IMDb Bottom 100 anymore, and I think that actually makes sense. In a strange way, this is a genuinely enjoyable flick, and it perhaps doesn’t deserve the dishonor of being in the honest ranks of the bottom 100 movies of all time.
“The Mangler” is a movie about a laundry folding machine that becomes possessed by a demon during a collision with an ice box, after which it goes on a killing spree.
As you could probably guess from that brief synopsis, “The Mangler” is an adaptation from one of the lesser works of Stephen King. The premise is a bit over the top for sure, but it actually works better than I had expected. The bigger flaws with the film come from issues with the structure, as well as the constraints of the budget and available technology at the time.
Before diving into the negatives, there are actually some solid positives in “The Mangler”: Robert Englund plays a fantastically hammy villain who lights up every scene he is in, there are some pretty great gore effects, and the film does a good job of making the eponymous “Mangler” machine look honestly intimidating.
On to some negatives: the bulk of the story is put on the shoulders of Ted Levine, who seems incredibly miscast and uncomfortably as the lead. The plot gets really repetitive for most of the movie, with minimal forward momentum of the story until the last act. Worst of all are the special effects, which are glaringly terrible in the botched, awkwardly shot finale where the Mangler becomes mobile. It is evident throughout the sequence that there was no money available to show what the transformed Mangler looks like, so the audience is treated to awkward angles and the occasional CGI’d mechanical hand.
If it weren’t for the poor pacing and repetition in the body of the film, this would be an easy bad movie recommendation for me. There is hammy acting, silly effects, and the premise is unparalleled in outlandishness. The fact that the Mangler goes super-powered due to consuming antacids is just icing on the cake. If you can find a copy on the cheap, I can recommend giving it a shot, with the caveat that the entertainment value is inconsistent throughout the film.
Over this past summer, I spent a little time on the Alabama gulf coast in Orange Beach, AL. It is a pretty small town even during the tourist season, so I wasn’t expecting to find any Bargain Binge locations to spotlight. However, it turns out that Orange Beach still has a little local video rental shop up and operating. I’m honestly not sure what the name of the place is, but I am pretty sure it isn’t “BOOKS DVD Rentals”.
Typically, I adore local video shops. I have featured a goodnumberofthem on this blog, and I look for them in all of the places I travel to. That said, this place was shitty. I went a number of times over the course of the week, and nearly every visit was horrible.
The first time I went into “BOOKS” was on a whim after a grocery trip, when I first spotted the place. It was roughly 3:00pm, and I was alone in the store for about 5 minutes before the old lady behind the counter kicked me out to “go to lunch”. This, for the record, is not a stellar business practice.
The second time I went into “BOOKS”, it was with a mission in mind. We all decided that we needed to watch “Deep Blue Sea” and “Twister” to break up the Great Gamera Marathon, and I wasn’t about to pay full price for either of those DVDs. To the credit of “BOOKS”, at least the store had both of those movies. Unfortunately, the visit was once again sunk by the customer service. The same old lady was in the store, this time sitting quietly next to the entrance. She didn’t say anything when I walked in, and made no motion during the handful of minutes that I stood at the checkout counter, movies in hand. I actually gave up and left the store, as she once again gave no signs of recognition as I left the store. Once again, this is not an ideal business practice.
A few minutes later, after spot-buying some groceries, I went back into “BOOKS”. Because damn it, I wanted “Twister” and “Deep Blue Sea”, and this old woman was going to take my money whether she wanted to or not. This time, she was standing behind the counter, which was already an improvement over the last visit. I brought the movies up, and so began the marathon of membership registration.
Most video rental stores need to keep some information (via a membership typically) so that they can track you down if you abscond with a movie. Typically this is a quick and painless process: they might make a copy of your ID or have you fill out a form, and you’ll be on your way in a minute or two. At “BOOKS”, this process lasts a lifetime. She first asked if I was already a member, to which I said “no”. She then asked me if I was sure, and transitioned into the story of the 20+ year business and it’s many re-brandings and relocations in that time. I know I rented at least once from a store down here before, so I figured I might as well see if I was in the system. I mean, it could save me a minute or two, right? As she started hunting and pecking at her ancient keyboard, I instantly knew I had made a mistake. Even after she discovered I was not in the system, she kept looking and saying every name aloud that sounded like a vague permutation of “Gordon Maples”. I eventually had to interrupt her to ask for a new registration.
Around this time, one of my friends walked into the shop, wondering what on earth was taking me so long. As soon as he came in, the lady looked over my shoulder and said, in a unnecessarily harsh tone, “Can I help you, sir?”, as if he was about to steal her precious collection of beach reads on display.
Apparently the looming threat of having two individuals in the store caused her to pick up the pace, because the rest of the process went relatively smoothly. She hunt-and-pecked my information into the computer at a steady pace, and I was on my way.
The last time I went into the store, to return “Twister” and “Deep Blue Sea”, nothing eventful happened, which I was kind of disappointed by at that point. When you get that far, you have to hope for a thrilling conclusion to the epic, but that was not to be. The same elderly lady was there, but she was quick, pleasant, and sufficiently acknowledged my existence. It didn’t make up for the previous encounters, and the prices were ridiculous ($4 per night per movie as I recall), but it was definitely improvement.
I do not recommend going to “BOOKS DVD Rental” if you happen to find yourself in Orange Beach, AL. Bring your own movies, or download something, or hope your vacation internet can sufficiently handle streaming. Or, shit, go outside. The place is gorgeous, enjoy it. Don’t be like me and spend your vacation watching Gamera movies.
On this entry of the Bargain Binge, I’m going to spotlight one of my favorite little used media chains: Edward McKay used books of North Carolina!
Not to be confused with the similarly-named regional chains “McKay Used Books” or “Mr. K’s Used Books”, “Edward McKay Used Books” has locations throughout North Carolina, specifically in Fayetteville, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh. I have been to three of them (the only exception being the Fayetteville store), and I absolutely adore the wide selection of DVDs they typically have had to offer.
I have most recently visited the Raleigh location, which seems significantly smaller than the others to me. It also is located right next to one of my favorite bargain hunting locations: “Trade It!”, and it is probably hurt by the direct comparison. That said, the chain has a unique charm to it, and I always aim to pick something up when I go through. I mean, just look at these t-shirts:
If you ever find yourself traveling through North Carolina, definitely seek out a local Edward McKay. I have found some great obscure and rare stuff in their cult section before, and almost picked up the Hasselhoff “Nick Fury” movie on my most recent visit. They are mighty cool spots with decent prices on DVDs, books, and albums, so you are bound to find something you’ll like there. They also usually have an extensive DVD bargain section of movies between 3-5 dollars, which certainly isn’t bad.
On episode 2 of the (Plot)opsy Podcast, I decided to talk about something a little different. Instead of a movie, I decided to take a look at the aftermath of the collapse of BlockBuster Video, and the current state of the physical media market for movies. There is more to movie shops than just movies, after all: there is the movie shop culture to be considered.
You can check out episode 1 of the (Plot)opsy Podcast, on “Guardians of the Galaxy” and James Gunn, here.
Potomac Video, of the DC Metro area, shutting down in May 2014.
A MovieStop location in Huntsville, AL
McKay Used Books of Nashville, TNOne of the last BlockBuster video stores, just days before closing in southern MS.Videodrome of Atlanta, GAAdvertisement for Scarecrow Video of Seattle, WAVideo Central of Columbus, OH
“On Deadly Ground” is a grand tale of the many loves of Steven Seagal: explosions, tasseled clothing, wanton murder, the environment, fighting bears, and bad film-making. It is almost like a visual scrapbook that allows one to peer into the mind of a man who some have referred to as an “actor”.
JACKET-TASSLES
If you cut 45 minutes out of “On Deadly Ground”, you could have an amazingly entertaining (yet horrible) 50 minute TV movie. Unfortunately, this movie is filled with massive lulls in the action where little-to-nothing happens. You are presented with all of the lovely scenery Alaska has to offer, but that sort of spectacle starts to get old after a few minutes without any plot momentum. As with many bad movies, the lack of cinematic pacing is the #1 problem with “On Deadly Ground”, but it is far from the only major flaw with the movie. I will say that it becomes mildly more watchable (and significantly more hilarious) if you watch through all of the dragging scenes at 1.5x speed.
Next on the laundry list of problems with this movie: the acting and directing (read: Steven Seagal). All of the villain characters in “On Deadly Ground” at least do an excellent job of hamming it up and making their screen time count, including notables such as Michael Caine, R. Lee Ermey, and John C. McGinley. However, unfortunately, most of the screen time in this movie is devoted to the never-charismatic, gargantuan wood block that is Steven Seagal. The fact of the matter is that Seagal just cannot act, and his presence never improves a film. In the unfortunate case of “On Deadly Ground”, he is not only the lead of the film, but he was also given the directorial reigns of the movie (for reasons that I will never comprehend). Apparently this decision led to some rather questionable calls on Seagal’s part, which significantly inflated the budget. My guess is that he needed more dramatic explosions, tasseled clothing, and oil for Michael Caine’s hair than initially projected. This movie being Seagal’s directorial debut almost certainly explains the aforementioned poor pacing as well, a not-uncommon issue for first-time directors.
“On Deadly Ground” has an excellent cast of villains, including R. Lee Ermey’s moustasche……Michael Caine……and John C. McGinley of “Car 54, Where Are You?”
If you have heard anything about “On Deadly Ground”, you have heard about its heavy-handed environmental message and plot. The plot centers around Michael Caine’s character, an oil baron, and his plan to deny land right to a native tribe through the construction of a massive oil refinery-thing. Steven Seagal, whose character is a member of a local tribe, is introduced to the audience as a high-level employee in Caine’s company, who specializes in resolving oil disasters and other such shenanigans. Seagal turns on Caine and ultimately destroys the refinery for the good of the local peoples, but not before murdering and exploding a significant number of people. In most movies, the credits start rolling after the resolution of the plot. In “On Deadly Ground”, however, the movie doesn’t end until after a significant, rambling lecture on environmentalism delivered by Steven Seagal over a montage of stock footage. It isn’t an epilogue so much as it is a debriefing of the film’s message: just in case you didn’t get that oil companies are bad from Michael Caine’s cartoonishly evil performance. This message isn’t heavy-handed: it is lead-fisted.
For all of the issues with “On Deadly Ground”, it almost classifies as a good-bad movie for me. There are some ridiculously over-the-top deaths, an extensive sequence where Seagal booby-traps a forest for no reason, and all of the villains are just astoundingly silly. Seagal also take a significant vision quest where he fights a bear. All of that aside though, this is a boring and poorly-paced movie, so it is certainly not ideal for a bad movie night. I would recommend looking up a couple of clips from the movie, though. In particular, there is a brilliant game of slaps that features some of the worst, most unexpected dialogue in movie history. I mean, just check this out:
Also, there is a brilliant environmental commercial in the movie, featuring what is sure to be Michael Caine’s career low-point. Fun fact: there is a cameo in there from famed director Irvin Kershner. That has to be one of the least fun ‘fun facts’ in history.
There you go! That’s pretty much all you need to see from “On Deadly Ground”. Don’t forget to recycle.
It is astounding that the movie “Foodfight!” was ever completed. An entire decade went by between the start of the project and the much delayed release, which is unfathomable for a movie with such low quality. Apparently, hard drives that contained the lion’s share of the film were stolen during the initial development, forcing the project back to square one. Understandably, that would cause an exceptional delay for a CG animated movie, if not the outright cancellation of the project. In any case, that setback should not have pushed the movie back an entire decade. That is just ludicrous.
Despite the ample time given to production, the final product that is “Foodfight!” is an abysmal sight. The animation is amateurish at best, and nightmare-inducingly horrific at worst. I have heard that the budget ultimately exceeded 45 million dollars, which is a dumbfounding number for what looks like a community college commercial. Then again, I have to assume that a lot of that money went towards work time: 10 years is a lot of hours, no matter how you cut it. It is anyone’s guess how much was spent on the initial stolen animation as well. Regardless, the movie is a multi-million dollar visual train-wreck, and that is only the beginning of the issues with this film.
Doing the already poor-quality animation no favors, there is a clear attempt to imitate the frenetic style of Tex Avery cartoons in this movie. Not unlike in “Son of the Mask”, mixing poor imitations of Tex-style cartoonishness with computer-generation is nothing but horrifying. Just take a look at a couple of .gifs from the movie:
“nightmare-inducingly horrific”
To say that product placement features prominently in “Foodfight!” would be a dramatic understatement. The entire premise of the movie centers around the idea of brand recognition and competition between brand-name and generic products. Even the poster for the movie emphasizes the background real-world brand mascots over the actual stars of the movie.
stars of the movie are in the bottom-left corner
Blatant product placement on top of some of the worst CG work in decades? Surely this movie couldn’t get any worse, right? I wish that were true, I really do. But, I can’t avoid addressing all of the other evident issues with this movie. Let’s start with the innappropriate sexiness for a children’s film:
Yeah, there’s a lot of this. The two central women in the story, voiced by Eva Longoria and Hillary Duff, are constantly depicted as sexually as the filmmakers felt that they could get away with. Why is Eva Longoria’s character in a schoolgirl outfit in the picture above? No reason. Why are the two characters dancing like that? In fact, why are they dancing at all? There is no reason for them to be dancing, they literally start dancing out of the blue in private, without any music playing. It is absolutely unprecedented in the movie. Hillary Duff’s character isn’t as blatantly sexual as Longoria’s, but there are a lot of almost-upskirt shots that tread a very fine line of inappropriateness, and the movie doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.
Last but not least, the writing and performances in this movie are about as bad as any I have come across. The plot is primarily pulled out of other movies, most notably (and baffling) from “Casablanca”. There is an argument that it is just an homage, but I think it goes more than a few steps beyond a mere send-up: it treads the line pretty close to being a full-blown re-imagining of the story. The dialogue is both lazily recorded and poorly written: you are given a mix of lack-luster, dull performances (Charlie Sheen), excessively over-the-top deliveries (Christopher Lloyd, Wayne Brady), and nearly inaudible ramblings (Chris Kattan). It all ultimately blurs together into the twisted mess that is this movie, however.
It is hard to separate this film out into its individual, abysmal parts: it all synthesizes together into a maelstrom of incompetence, that has contributed to this film becoming a cult favorite of bad movie enthusiasts since its 2012 release. I can personally recommend watching this movie at least once: not because there is much humor to be had, but because it is a spectacle and experience that must be seen. There is nothing quite like “Foodfight!” out there, and who knows if we will ever see something like this again.
Here are a couple of popular reviews of “Foodfight!” worth checking out:
“Surf School” is a bad movie with no redeeming value that should never be watched by anyone. It is a comedy without any sense of timing, or, for that matter, humor. However, if you think the idea of having sex with a monkey is absolutely hilarious, then maybe this is for you.
“Surf School” is like a massive lamprey that gorges on broad stereotypes, and then excretes lazy attempts at humor. It doesn’t release itself until the stereotypes are dry, withered, bloodless corpses, at which time it waits for the next virile stereotype to stumble along. It is a thoroughly nauseating thing to watch, and the concept that it was designed with entertainment in mind is truly repulsive.
This is a lamprey. Lampreys are way more interesting than this movie. Here is the wikipedia article on this particular species of lamprey: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_lamprey
“Surf School” follows the journey of a group of outcast high school kids who seek revenge and glory against their bullies through the world of competitive team surfing. The leader of the rag-tag group is a handsome, athletic transfer student who is apparently a near-professional lacrosse player. That, however, apparently means that he isn’t cool by California standards. The rest of the squad includes a fundamentalist Christian who is constantly tormented for being a virgin, a “goth” girl who refuses to communicate for most of the movie outside of glares, a sex-obsessed punk character, and a couple of token minorities that are somehow less developed than the aforementioned characters. If making fun of all of the above-listed stereotypes isn’t your cup of tea, then you are SOL on this movie.
In order to compete in a surf competition against their rivals, the group goes to Costa Rica (I think?) for a week to learn how to surf. That’s right: none of them know how to surf. Their rivals, however, are already competitive surfers. I still don’t understand why this is what they decide to do, but that is the premise for the movie.
The eponymous “Surf School” is taught by a washed-up former pro surfer, who is one of the least funny characters in the history of movies. He primarily exists for gross-out humor, and to pronounce things in a peculiar way. This is a very deep film, folks.
I wonder when he will say “mahi mahi” in a weird way next.
While in Costa Rica, the students stay with two more unfunny characters, who are revealed to be terrorist expat former hippies. They also only exist for gross-out humor, and to occasionally say things with accents. Also staying in the complex are three Swedish students, who are treated like cardboard cutouts and given as little dialogue as possible. This is a pattern for the majority of women in the movie: they get almost no dialogue, and are awkwardly showcased for the camera like models on a runway. Not only is this incredibly lazy pandering, but it also throws off what is already anemic pacing in the film. Even the “goth” girl takes a 180-degree turn in the last act, and becomes a blond, bubbly cheerleader for the surfing team.
I don’t remember if they even had names. I wouldn’t be shocked if they didn’t.
This is a boring, predictable, unfunny movie that doesn’t have a firm grasp on what humor is, or how to synthesize it. It clearly attempts to sell itself on sex appeal, but it is all done uncomfortably and strangely: almost like an alien is inhabiting the movie, trying to do what it thinks humans find attractive and funny. The movie draws so heavily on stereotypes that many characters have no traits outside of those associated with their race/sex/sexual orientation/clique. It is incredibly boring to sit through due to the poor writing and pacing, and the failed humor makes the entire experience of the film exponentially worse.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of doing some travel around the country for work. Whenever I get the opportunity, I love to dig around in new locales and find their local used DVD shops, and see what specific cities have to offer. In fact, I have done enough of this recently that the activity inspired this specific section of the blog. I started the “Bargain Bin(ge)” feature in order to spotlight local physical DVD shops and the hauls I pick up from them, particularly in the aftermath of the fall of BlockBuster Video.
One of the areas that I hit on this most recent trip was Washington, D.C.: the U.S. Capital, and one of the major metropolitan areas in the states.
Given the size and population of the DC Metro area, I expected to find a wealth of used DVD and physical media stores. Unfortunately, this was not at all the case. While my initial Google-ing yielded a number of results, it didn’t take long for me to find that almost all of them had closed. In particular, I found out that the DC area was once home to an expansive local video rental chain called “Potomac Video”, which only shut its doors in May of this year.
That really is a shame, because it looked like quite a fantastic place from all of the pictures that I have seen.
I am curious as to what became of the extensive stock of these Potomac Video stores, as it doesn’t seem that any heirs have popped up in the area. I have noticed that a number of thrift stores bought out the stocks of local BlockBusters as they fell, and I can’t help but wonder if that may have been the same case here. In any case, I didn’t find any promising DVD shops in the DC Metro area, which I was really disappointed by.
On a whim, I decided to check out a record shop in Arlington, VA on my way out of town. I have noticed that record shops will sometimes carry a decent stock of DVDs, but it is never really a sure thing. Luckily, in this case, CD Cellar had a small, eclectic collection of cult movies and rare finds.
One of the coolest finds here was a copy of Larry Cohen’s early mob feature “Black Caesar”, starring Fred Williamson. If you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend it. I think it far surpasses “Scarface” (1983) on just about every level while dealing with similar themes, and it predates that film by a whole decade. It might be my favorite movie to chronicle the rise and fall of a gangster, and that is saying something for this low-budget feature. It is worth noting that this was the first time, outside of Atlanta’s rental location “Videodrome”, that I have found a physical copy of this movie.
Apart from “Black Caesar”, there were some great cult deep cuts like “Head of the Family”, “The Ice Cream Man”, and “The Mangler” that don’t make your typical DVD store catalog. That said, the prices were far from stellar, but I wasn’t particularly surprised by that. I still walked out with a few DVDs, even though none of them were what I consider “bargains” (most DVDs were 6 dollars and up, a handful got down to 4). Regardless, I was happy to not leave the DC area completely empty-handed.
I am hoping that perhaps MovieStop or another chain will make its way to the area before long to pick up the slack in the wake of Potomac Video, or maybe someone else will get something started locally. I’m sure that DC could use a reasonably priced movie shop, or even a eclectic video rental shop along the lines of Atlanta’s Videodrome or Seattle’s Scarecrow Video. As for right now though, the area is regrettably a desert for people looking for bargain DVD shops.
Reviews/Trivia of B-Movies, Bad Movies, and Cult Movies.
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