Total Crap Shoot Friday: Kiss Me, Killer

Ok, everyone! Put your cat to bed, and throw the kids outside. It's time for:

Total Crap Shoot Friday!

Yep, tonight I get a random movie from Netflix's archive, gird my loins, watch the sucker, and review it for your (dis)pleasure! So, without further ado, I present tonight's offering... 
Genre-14 Thriller
Position- 536
Kiss Me, Killer

It's a 1977 French film, dubbed over into English, quite poorly, I might add. The voice cast seems to have phoned in their lines since they deliver it with the enthusiasm of an emo kid at a pep rally. And, since this is an older, poorly transferred movie-to-DVD, the soundtrack is warbily and distorted. Makes for a fun viewing, let me tell you.

Speaking of a fun viewing, this being a 1970's French film, it's very... (ahem) European. There is lots of nudity. LOTS of it. Gratuitous amounts of it. I'd go so far as to say this movie is a not so cleverly disguised softcore porn. Netflix, really?!? Which, according to my exhaustive five minute research on IMDB, is par for the course for this director.

Since I'm not really in the business of reviewing that type of movie and to keep the blog family(ish) friendly, I'm going to skip over those parts (which, incidentally, makes the movie about 20 minutes long) and, instead of putting up screen caps from the movie, here's a picture of a baby piglet:

awwwww...

Piecing together a plot is pretty tough to do. There's lots of characters and, seeing as though I've had very little sleep, it's hard to keep them straight. But, the gist of it is that a group of thieves steal some dope but the heist turns bad. Seems a guy named Radeck blames a dealer name Carter who is a part time composer and wrote a song for his wife. The song gets played at a club after Carter is "killed", his wife recognizes it, and the question is if Carter's alive or not.

You've also got Moria, a stripper that has an agenda, and you know is up to no good. As an aside, in my expansive fact-finding mission of clicking on her name in IMDB, the actress who played Moria died this year from cancer. To make up for that bit of bumming out news, here's a picture of a baby otter:

Awwwww!

The movie has lots of weird misplaced bits and pieces too. As an example, for no good reason that I can fathom, there's a moment in the middle of the movie where an Asian lady pops onto the screen shouting, "They got what they deserved!". She disappears and is never seen again. It's moments like that that are both mind boggling, and yet in any other movie would be just so deliciously awesome.

But, they're too few and far between to save this movie. The movie is merely a vehicle for the parts I mentioned at the start of this entry, and not a very good one. There are too many characters, too much confusing dialogue, no real character development, confusing and distracting tangents, and bland dubbing. Even the jazz based background music seems slapdash and bored. Bottom line, don't even bother with this one.

Now, on to the weekend! To send you off right, here's a picture of a baby hedgehog:

AWWWWW!

Sam's rating: 0 out of 5 formula ounces.

Rubber

I saw this movie on Netflix a while back and never really paid it too much attention. As it flashed by, it looked like some sort of documentary on tires and that's not really my scene, baby. But, then I started to write this blog and take a deeper look at some of the overlooked gems in the Netflix archive. The movie that I pass over today may be the next Machete in disguise. A diamond in the rough, so to speak. Why can't a movie about a tire go on to be a hidden cinematic masterpiece?

Because it's really, really stupid, that's why.

Rubber's a 2010 French comedy  horror  drama  thriller revenge movie. It's hard to classify this simply because it has way too much going on, but too little at the same time. I guess I'll start at the beginning and let you make up your own mind.

The film's premise is that all good films have an element of "no reason". Things happen and choices are made for no real purpose other than it's a movie. So, Frenchie-French director/writer Quentin Dupieux made an entire movie about no reason. It follows a sentient car tire with the "psychokenetic" ability to kill people by blowing their head off, a la "Scanners", as it goes on a killing spree in the desert. And he follows one female driver across the desert like he's infatuated with her. When he finally meets his end, he gets reincarnated as a tricycle. And his name, according to the credits is Robert. No, I'm not making any of this up.

There's no origin or reason for this sudden turn of events. It just wakes up in the desert one day with psychic powers and a penchant for head asplodin'.

Top that with an in-story sheriff that frequently destroys the fourth wall and is introduced by climbing out of the trunk of a car at the beginning to give his diatribe on the point of the movie. (spoiler: there is none) At one point he tries to convince his fellow officers that they're all in a movie by having one of them shoot him. It seems that the movie has become real life...

And then there's the audience watching the whole thing from a vantage point in the desert.They act as sort of a Greek chorus for the first half of the film breaking down events in a meta sort of way. They watch events unfold through binoculars for two days without food and at the beginning of the 3rd day, they're fed poisoned turkey. Since the movie can't end until the audience stops watching, they have to kill them.

If this is sounds surreal, just imagine watching it. The film is all over the place. It tries really hard to be edgy and experimental while also trying to be campy and zany. It really is like trying to watch a feature length student film. Much like a carpenter's nail in a tread, there's something in this movie, but you have to really dig for it. 

Also, there's a fracking TIRE that fracking KILLS PEOPLE by BLOWING UP THEIR fracking HEADS with his MIND BULLETS!

That's telekinesis, Kyle!

That premise alone could have sustained a movie for about 45-60 minutes if it had been a campy, slasher type of flick, especially if it went full throttle with it and accepted its ludicrous plot at face value. Can you imagine watching a psychic and killer car tire sneaking up on an unsuspecting co-ed and her dumb jock boyfriend (while they're having sex of course). The jock's head asplodes, the girl screams, and runs through the forest as we follow on a chase cam. Cut to the police chief standing over the treadmark covered body of the girl thinking it's a serial hit-and-runner. The girl's best friend who's also the chief's daughter knows better, but who would believe her? It'd be an roller-coaster romp and a guaranteed cult classic! 

Heck, if they can make a movie out of a killer turkey going on a Thanksgiving rampage (which is in the queue, coming soon!), then they can make this one. But as a "deconstruction of film" or some other pompous b.s., it runs flat after about 20 minutes. So much wasted potential.

Of course, I might have totally missed the point. Such is the danger of late night, half-asleep reviewing...

Sam's rating: 1 of 5 formula ounces.

Tappy Toes

From Wikipedia: Mockbuster: (n) a film created with the apparent intention of piggy-backing on the publicity of a major film with a similar title or theme and are often made with a low budget.

This... is a mockbuster.

It's a children's movie designed to capitalize off the success of Warner Bros. "Happy Feet". While that movie was a showcase for CGI technology, THIS movie is low budget animation. Think less Pixar and more South Park.

But, I would be doing this movie a disservice if I reviewed it alone, after all, I am a jaded, sleep deprived adult, scarred by an uncaring and cruel world, with a heart as black as night itself.

Clearly, I'm not the target audience.

If only there was a small child nearby that could help me review this. Oh, wait. There is! Say hello, ladies and gentlemen, to my infant son, and guest reviewer, Sam!

Sam: Hey, everyone! Glad to be here to pick up Daddy's slack and do his job for him. Tonight, we watched "Tappy Toes". It's a cartoon about a penguin named Pingo (that's Bingo with a "puh"). Daddy made me watch this tonight, even though I was tired after having my bottle.

Me: Sam, I didn't MAKE you watch anything. You liked the colors and the movement.

Sam: Whatever, dude. You kept waking me up by shaking me. Yeah, you shook a baby. How do you sleep at night, you monster?

Me: First, I don't shake you. Second, I don't sleep. You keep waking me up. But, let's focus. The movie?

Sam: Oh, yeah. So, Bingo with a "puh" is taken away from home as an egg by two birds that want to eat him. Eventually, the birds grow to love him and decide to raise him with them as his uncles. But, they can fly and he can't and it's so depressing and there's a sea lion after the three of them who's taking orders from a crab and now I've gone and soiled myself.

Me: (sigh) OK, kid. Feel better?

Sam: Much. Anyway, Pingo stumbles upon a pair of tap shoes from a lost steamer trunk the birds have. From that, he learns he can tap dance and the noise from it scares away the mean old sea lions. Then, he reunites with his real mommy and daddy and everyone lives happily ever after. It's actually a pretty clever movie, for a mockbuster. It has some funny bits and some snappy dialog. The best part was a funny section about irony between the sea lion and the crab. You can even learn a thing or two from this movie! For instance, did you know that penguins can't fly, Daddy?

Me: Yes, son, I did. Did you know that a pingo is also a mound of earth-covered ice found in the Artic?

Sam: Oh, look at Mr. Smarty Pants over here! A regular Bill Nye, this one. Nobody likes a showoff, pal. Way to go, showing up a 4 month old!

Me: This is not turning out like I expected.

Sam: What, this review or your life?

Me: Wow, what's with all the hostility, little man?

Sam: I'm sorry, I get all cranky when I wake up in the middle of the night.

Me: You and me both, son. Let's wrap this up and go to bed, OK?

Sam: OK, as mockbusters go, this one's not that bad. It's entertaining for a 4 month old and there are worse things you could do with 40 minutes.

Me: Like what?

Sam: Oh, I don't know. Stew in your own filth while your father writes a blog?

Me: Message received, son.


Jon's rating: 4 out of 5 beer ounces

Hobo With A Shotgun

Rutger Hauer is nine kinds of awesome. He's one of  those actors that you know, but you don't really know. He's not flashy or A-list or a Scientologist. He doesn't have to have leading roles to get the job done. He's done tons of work and, chances are, you've never heard of him. Or maybe only vaguely. He does serious roles in serious films such as an SS officer in a made for TV movie. He does blockbusters such as "Batman Begins" and "Sin City". He can be thought provoking (Blade Runner), or just downright cheesy (Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie). And then, sometimes, he can do something that is totally off the wall and ridiculous and no one thinks anything of it.

Like tonight's movie.

A history lesson: a while back, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez did a double feature send up of old '70's-80's exploitation movies called "Grindhouse". It was for the most part a little forgettable, except for a series of fake trailers done by guest directors. Intentionally over the top and wildly insane, the trailers did leave quite the impression on people who just love awesome. I mean, who doesn't want to see "Werewolf Women of the S.S"? Especially if Nicolas Cage really does play Fu Manchu?

You know it'd be awesome.

So much awesome was put on screen that all of the trailers are now either being considered for real movies, in production, or filmed. The first one done is undoubtedly one of my favorite movies of all time, "Machete". The movie itself is campy, cheesy, and gloriously unforgiving in its level of insanity. It doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is; a movie about a ex-Mexican Federale day laborer hired to kill a senator who gets double crossed, shot, and goes on a wild rampage of revenge. How can you go wrong with that setup? It's the kind of project that pulls in stars like Robert De Niro and Jessica Alba, then ratchets up the awesome with Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Michele Rodriguez.

And, of course, Danny F*****G Trejo.

Above: 100% pure Badass

The second trailer to be given the full feature film treatment was tonight's selection, "Hobo With a Shotgun". If you can't guess the basic premise just from the name, you probably shouldn't be here. A transient ends up in Hope City, a place filled with drugs, prostitution, and violence. He gets fed up with it, gets a shotgun, and proceeds to cleans house. That's the short version.

The long version gets progressively strange. The Hobo, played by Rutger Hauer, wants to earn $49.99 in order to start a lawnmower business and make something out of himself. The town is run by a utterly evil man, The Drake, and his two sons of equal amoralness. The Hobo (no, he doesn't have a name aside from The Hobo) befriends a prostitute, Abby, and has a complete non sequitur conservation with her about bears. There's a pair of assassins encased in head to toe armor sent after The Hobo called the Plague. A school bus gets torched, a hospital gets wrecked, lots of limbs go flying, one of the Drake's sons gets electrocuted by getting the hockey skate he's wearing caught in a toaster, the cops of the town are in the pocket of The Drake and don't care who knows it, Abby creates a shield out of the lawnmower that still works and a shotgun/axe combo since she's an expert welder.

And Rutger Hauer is a hobo. With a shotgun.

Rutger Hauer as The Hobo. Shotgun as Himself.

The absurdity of the whole movie is it's biggest asset and its biggest liability. While "Machete" was absurd, it managed to temper it a little and try to make the movie fun and the plot at least marginally convincing. It didn't rely so much on the shock value of massive amounts of gorn (though it does have a bit of that) as it did on set pieces of awesomeness bordering on insanity. But, never once in that movie did I say "Well, that's just wrong on so many levels".

Not so much with HWaS. It doesn't border on insanity, it goes over to it full bore (pun!). It's sole intention seems to make every scene more offensive and grotesque than the last. Sometimes this kind of boundary pushing is OK. It can be fun to shut off your brain and just have a good time with a movie. But, there's a difference between pushing boundaries and obliterating them. No, I haven't seen someone's head get torn off by a rope pulled by a speeding car, and a woman in a bikini dancing in ecstasy in the fountain of blood it produces. And I probably didn't need to see it.

But, like "Machete" the movie does stay true to itself. It is what it is and it makes no apologies. It goes for over the top at full speed and never stops until it hits the credits. It's insane, visceral, campy, and it has Rutger Hauer. Being Rutger Hauer. So, it's not ALL bad.

Now, when am I going to get to see "Machete Kills"?

Sam's rating: 3 out of 5 formula ounces

Total Crap Shoot Friday: George A Romero's Deadtime Stories: Volume 2

Happy Friday everyone! As a special end of the week treat, Sam and I are giving you a very awesome gift. Step up, ladies and gentlemen, because it's time for:

TOTAL CRAP SHOOT FRIDAY!!!!

You see, during the rest of the week, I at least have some sort of control over what movie I watch for you, either through my instant queue or reader suggestions. But, on Friday, I leave it completely in fate's hands. 

Using a random number generator, I find out which one of the 14 genres I get to watch. Then, whatever movie is in the numerical position it selects in the gallery view, I have to watch it. No matter what. Could be something awesome, like Machete or Steel Magnolias. More likely something terrible, though. 

For instance, this week's winner is genre 11-Horror, #212:

Yeah, there is a volume 1 and it's on streaming, but, the rules are the rules, so here goes.

If you don't know, George A Romero is the writer/director of the Night of the Living Dead series. Well, most of them anyway. He's something of a horror icon, but mostly his stock has been a bit on the decline recently. Probably because of projects like this one. 

I actually do love the horror genre. There's not much like a pants wetting good story to get the blood (and urine) a flowin'! But, you have to do it right using just the right amount of subtlety and finesse to evoke fear in the viewer. 

Oh, I get it. Instead of BEDtime stories, it's DEADtime stories. See, because that's way super scarier. Pretty sneaky, George!

He also serves as something of a narrator, introducing the stories and telling really lame puns. Or opening the movie with a gem like this: 

"Now I lay me down to rest, but there's a goblin on my chest. He's gray and ugly and very gory and he wants to tell me a deadtime story."

Approves

It's a 2011 trilogy of short films shot with very low budgets and telling tales that have pretty much been told elsewhere. And better. Also, since this is a nearly 2 hour movie, and they have to fit 3 stories in, it doesn't leave a lot of time for character development. In horror, you also have to make sure the audience relates to the characters and can easily put themselves into their place. If we're the ones in danger, it serves to heighten the fear.

The first short is titled "The Gorge" and features 3 cavers... going into a cave. They said their names, but I don't really care and it doesn't matter all that much, so I'll call them Huey, Louie, and Dinner. Down they go into the bowels of the earth, of course without telling anyone where they're going, since that would assassinate the plot and display a level of common sense reserved for monkeys. There's a cave-in that blocks their exit and Dinner gets his leg injured under falling rocks. If this is starting to sound familiar, then you're pretty much right. I'm sure it's not a intentional rip-off of the infinitely superior "127 Hours", but it sounds oddly similar. However, this did come out AFTER "127 Hours", so...

Except this one has way more cannibalism. You see, they're down in this cave for 27 or so days and you can only eat so many trapped hibernating fake bats that oddly resemble Peeps. And, although they have matches and candles (who brings candles on a daytime cave hike instead of flashlights?), they insist on eating the bats raw. Instead of using the matches or candle to cook it a little, since rabies is delicious.

Approves

So, after 27 days with no visible water source, food is of course their main priority. Dinner has developed a rather nasty case of gangrene and, short story long, he eventually lives up to his name. It's shown in most of its over the top gorn goodness, and it's just as awful as it sounds. And, as is want to happen in these types of stories, they get rescued shortly after the dessert course. Dinner is never found, so Huey and Louie get off a murder and cannibalism charge.

While recuperating in the hospital, Louie decides that Jell-o and hospital food is not to her liking as much as sweet, sweet human flesh. Now, having spent nearly 2 months in the hospital with Sam when he was born, I'm inclined agree with her. So, of course, she goes after Huey, takes a doggie bag of him with her (since it is a whole corpse and she's watching her figure) and flees the hospital to live out the rest of her life in a cave, trapping unwitting victims and snacking away. Which of course transforms her into some sort of sub-human goblin cave dweller thing, which I'm sure is a real side effect of cannibalism and 100% medically accurate.

Approves

"If you're done screaming..." says George in a smug way. "Really?" says me in a resigned way. "Om nom nom" says Sam in a creepy way. (As an aside, if you're concerned, Sam can't see the screen, and I have earbuds in. He never sees nor hears the movie, unless it's a children's movie... Stay tuned for that)

On to #2: "On Sabbath Hill". This one follows the story of a family man and university professor who happens to be a complete jerkface. Let's call him Professor Joe Schmuck. After a montage of him getting ready for his day, he proceeds to his job at "Sabbath Hill University". (as a rule, I tend to avoid places named insert vaguely ominous first word Hill, like Sabbath Hill, Silent Hill and Cyprus Hill) There, he belittles a student in the middle of class who was sick the day before and actually had the decency to call him and let him know why. Finally, he leers at another female student, named Affair Bait who you know he's just going to have an affair with, since that's how things work in these types of movies.

Cut to said affair. She's upset at the end, and not for the reason that I experience the most. It seems she's pregnant and there's no doubt it's his. Look, I know you're not going to listen to me, sir, since you're a fictional character and probably going to get what's coming to you, but don't be a total monster and ask for an abortion, ok?

After he asks for an abortion, she storms out of the sleazy hotel room, as he says, "Don't stop coming to class."  Oh, Professor Schmuck, you cad! The next day, she doesn't miss class. Or her head with the pistol she brings. Some of Ms. Bait's classmates want to go to her funeral. No dice, we're having class and don't you miss it! University of Phoenix is suddenly sounding pretty good.

Now with 100% less on-campus suicides!

Our plucky hero starts hearing voices. Oh, yes sir, Prof. Schmuck, she's haunting the crap outta your cheating butt! All sorts of weird things start to happen, and he starts seeing Ghost Bait everywhere, but especially in class. Eventually, there's a ghost baby birth in the middle of an exam and it's just as awful as it sounds. Prof. Schmuck can't take this anymore and he follows Ms. Bait to that big quad in the sky.

On the bright side, no class Monday!

"Fasten your seat belts, we're off again!", says George superiorly. "Oh, no, really?", I say mockingly. "Zzzzzzzz", Sam says snoringly.  

#3 "Dust" It's a dark and stormy night at Ellerton Research Laboratory. (No, I kid you not. They really pull out that cliche.) The kind of night that permeates into a man's soul. Intrepid security guard Dumpy McDumperton walks his beat at the Lab. Working the night shift, Officer Dumpy struggles to pay his cancer stricken wife's medical bills. Bills that weigh him down, saddle him to a life he never chose and can never leave.

Sorry, enough of the noir stuff. A scientist that looks about 12 sits late at night working with... wait for it... martian dust. As in, from Mars. No, I'm not kidding. Dr. Doogie Howser tells ol' Dumpy that this stuff is the bomb at curing cancer, but not yours, cannot have. 5 points if you can guess where this is going...

Yep, he totally steals it.And injects a turkey baster full of the stuff into her morphine. This has solid plan written all over it, Officer Dumpy! Well, it does work. It completely cures her cancer, except it turns her into a raging nympho.

Cut to old people doing it. Yes, it is a gross as it sounds. The things I do for you people... Come to find out, the effects are also temporary. So, Dumpy has to steal more, until Dr. Howser catches him in the act. Our brave protagonist has no choice but to hit the good doctor over the head so hard it knocks his eyeball out. Cleanly. Yes, severing the optic nerve. Now, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen. Ever. You fail anatomy.

Of course, at this point, he's way in over his head, and he does the sensible thing. He goes to the nearest police station and turns himself in. No, just kidding, he wraps the body up, puts it in his car and drives it home. They put Doogie's remains into their giant floor freezer which in every movie ever is only used for storing murdered corpses wrapped in plastic tarps. Seriously, my in-laws have one, and I'm not going to dig through it anytime soon.

Sears' new CorpseChiller 5000. In stores now!

More old people grossness. I know nothing turns me on more than a heaping dose of martian dust and murder. Oh, and as an aside, Mrs. McDumperton has also developed a mean raw meat eating habit.Oh, yes, two cannibal stories in one night!

Except this one has way more necrophilia.Well, this one quickly devolves into a zombie flick and it's so underwhelming and sloppy that I'm just going to give up on it.

"Stay scared", says George pompously. "I have to start first.", I say sleepily. "Poop", says Sam's pants nosily. 

And that about sums it up. Happy Friday the 13th everyone!

Aeon Flux

Let's just get this out of the way first. Charlize Theron is hot. Most red blooded Americans think she's hot. Women think she's hot. Near middle age men with 2 children think she's hot. Teenage boys with BOATLOADS of discretionary income think she's hot.

With that in mind, let me take you back to 2005. Hurricane Katrina has devastated Gulf Coast, Pope John Paul II dies, and YouTube is founded. (Yeah, I just killed your buzz, didn't I?) Also, MTV Films releases a movie designed specifically to separate the groups in the preceding paragraph (read: fools) from their money. Unless you're late to the party, like me, and paid Netflix for it instead. The crux of the plan at MTV was this: 1.For 90 minutes, film CT in a skintight bodysuit 2.Revive an obscure animated show that we still own the rights to, and use it as a reason to put CT in a skintight bodysuit. 3.Profit in a skintight bodysuit.

Speaking of MTV, if you were born in the early '80's and had access to cable, then you might remember that in the '90's MTV didn't suck quite so hard as it does today. Aside from living up to the "Music" part of their name by actually playing music videos, they also ran original programming that was, for lack of a better term, totally fracking awesome. Among those shows was a popular one called Liquid Television. It was a program for edgy, experimental western animation shorts that completely blew our 14-18 year old minds. The show brought us iconic cartoons like Beavis and Butthead, The Head, and a short, somewhat non-nonsensical, head checking "cartoon" called Aeon Flux.  This is the movie that dumbs down the cartoon, tries to get it to make sense, and squeeze Charlize Theron into a skintight bodysuit at every opportunity.

Of course, they chose the bizarrely animated and ultra high concept Aeon Flux cartoon as the sleek, yet thin fabric that covers the sensual, seductive curves of this film mostly because the main character spends a lot of time in as little clothing as possible. Plus, the director and producers can use the cartoon's deep, intricate plot to add a little subtext and message to the film and try to maintain SOME semblance to artistic integrity.

Pictured above: A double dose of Artistic Integrity.

Not really. Here's the plot rundown: in the far off future of 2011, 99% of the human population of the Earth is wiped out by a virulent plague. Yep, I'm reviewing another dystopian future flick. Get over it.

400 years in the future, the remaining people live in a walled off city called Bregna. It's idealistic living at it's finest with clean streets, clean people, armed security guards, citizens disappearing off the streets seemingly at random, disturbing dreams every night and other joys of modern, walled off city habitation. And of course, an all-powerful dictator named Trevor Goodchild, who just so happened to cure the plague of 400 years ago.

But Jon, you ultimately disappointing lover you, how in the world is he alive after 400 years? Shouldn't he be dead by now. Well, there's clonin' afoot, you see! CT plays Aeon; a member of the rebel group (there's always a rebel group in these films), assassin, and total fox. There's something about her sister and DNA harvesting and retained memories from previous cloned lives and sterility, and... look, I'm just going to be honest, I didn't really pay too terribly much attention to the plot.

Not totally sure why...

It's the kind of movie that, in theory, summer blockbusters are made out of. Lots of gun-fu and kicking and action and explosions and cool special effects and skintight bodysuits. But, for some reason, it just falls flat somehow. Maybe it's the overly ambitious plot. Or the lack of connection to the characters. We'll never really know.

Sam's Rating: 2 out of 5 formula ounces.

Death Race 2000

As the first film of the blog, I pull out a real gem from the archives. No, this is not the Jason Statham movie from 2008. (They wisely dropped the "2000" part of the title for that one) And, it's not the straight to DVD sequel/prequel.(They wisely dropped the "000" part of the title for that one).

No, this is the grandaddy of those two and the video game "Carmageddon". It's also, arguably, the precursor to "Grand Theft Auto".

On paper, this movie has got a lot going for it. It's from Roger Corman, the B-movie king. It stars "Mr. Kung Fu and autoerotic asphyxiation" himself, David Carradine (in head to toe pleather, no less!) Throw in a dash of pre-Rocky, post-porn Sylvester Stallone. Set it in "the year 2000", which actually means, "1975-ish 2000" complete with disco hair, matte painting backgrounds and more female exposed flesh than a truck stop arcade. Season with a generous portion of creepy/hilariously over the top (another awesome Stallone flick, find them all!) host "Junior":

1975: smarmy game show host. 2012: smarmy pedophile

Plus, it's got the status of "Cult Classic", so it must be so bad, it's good, right?

Kind of. I mean, it's fun if it's 3AM, you've had about 4 hours of sleep and think to yourself, "Hey, Death Race 2000 sounds like a good idea!". Also, drugs or booze would probably help.

The idea behind the movie is that some sort of catastrophe strikes the world in the late '70's, gets blamed on the French and now the U.S is ruled by Mr. President; a seemingly benevolent authority figure. As any genre savvy, new Willenium reader should know is really just a front to control the hearts and minds of the masses. And how do they control said body parts? Why with the titular race of course! (which, in a brilliant bit of double speak, is not called "Death Race" but "The Transcontinental Road Race")

This movie actually forecast the rise of reality TV by about 20 years. You see, the race is televised to the masses and everyone watches. Five racers are driven (!) to victory (!) by cannonball(!)ing from New York to New L.A., all the while trying to earn points by running down pedestrians. Yep, you read that right. You score points for committing vehicular homicide, broken down by age group. Old people score the most, followed by children 0-12. Women are worth 10 points extra, since... women... suck? I guess. No real reason given for that. The old and the children I can understand (in a sick sort of way); the old are a drain on resources and, therefore, expendables (!) and children make good TV.

Also, I guess not everyone is watching the race and are complete idiots since the first blood (!) of the race goes to Sly's character ("Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo) in the form of road construction workers. Working on the roads. During race day. Where the primary task is to KILL PEOPLE ON THE ROADS!

But, logic and common sense are not why we're here. After all, this is a movie featuring a hot-headed Italian racer, a western themed racer (Calamity Jane), a roman themed racer (Nero the Hero), and a freakin' NAZI racer (Matilda the Hun, no less!). The star is, of course, David "Bill" Carradine as "Frankenstein", the most famous of the racers, a national hero, drives a car that looks like a bad-ass cobra (!), and apparently cybernetic, having lost most of his body during previous races. Not that you would know by looking at him.

Part Man. Part Machine. Mostly Pleather.

Granted, that might just be in-universe hype on the part of the government. Or the film is super cheap and couldn't afford the look of cybernetics. So, they made them human looking. Whichever.

There's also a plot about rebels lashing out against the government for holding back freedom and undertones of the American people being easily led sheep and things that, today, are common in every work of dystopian sci-fi. But, it did come out in 1975, so it might have been revolutionary for it's time.  

All in all, the film is not terrible. It's great, if you want some mind numbing fun for a little over an hour. It's schlocky, hammy (especially Sly!), a little heavy handed, and oh-so-'70's. Take it for a spin, if you've got an hour to kill.

Sam's score: 3 of 5 formula ounces.

Blog 2.0

On my other blog (jonandcarlywest.blogspot.com), we've talked about lots of things, and I've been toying with the idea of making a focused blog that might be able to keep my attention for more than 5 sec-oh, pretty bird!

Where was I?

As you may know, I have 2 children, one of them is an infant. You also may have heard that infants require quite a large amount of attention. Especially at hours of the night/morning that no sane human should be awake. There's also not a lot that you can do during that time of the night while feeding a baby. You know, except sleep. A few weeks ago, during one of our numerous late evening/early morning formula snack fests, an idea popped into my head: "Hmm, we do have Netflix. And our instant queue is getting a little long..."

You see, whenever we're on Netflix, we sometimes see new stuff that comes out on it. If it even remotely piques our interest, we'll throw it on the queue promising ourselves that we'll watch it eventually. If you've never been on Netflix instant streaming service, it's mostly a pile of crappy mockbusters and B-movies with a few good ones thrown in to get you to join.

Of course, once it's in the queue, we forget about it and we just watch more"Saved By The Bell"or drink to "Ancient Aliens". And those little gems of cinematic goodness in our instant queue are lost forever.

Until now...

Here's how this works: Sam (the infant in question) will wake me up at some ungodly hour for a changing and a feeding. While that's going on, I'll find a movie on the Netflix queue that was either put there by us, or suggested by you, the reader. Alternatively, you can suggest a random number on our queue for me to watch. Then, it's a total crap shoot. I review it on here afterwards. Sam has the dinner, I watch the movie (for good or ill), and you laugh at my sleep deprived delusions. It's win-win!