Movie reviews

Classically Bad : Stars Zero or Minus.

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Retik, the Moon Menace (1951/1967)
Rating : minus 3 stars.
TERRIBLE. INANE. Unrelentingly STUPID.
Before "Plan Nine from Outer Space", this was the worst film I'd ever seen. Being a fan of z-grade high camp achievements, it was a test of endurance to sit through the nearly 2 hours of this.
Highlights include a group of people (in ordinary clothes) walking into a rocket (lying flat on the ground) preparing for takeoff. The rocket is upright and taking off less than a second later. While heading for the moon, our interpid heroes drink coffe from cups, sit around a kitchen table and chat.
And it doesn't get any better !
Anyone who can sit through this one is either a complete imbecile or a die-hard bad-movie fan.
More likely both !

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen Of the Desert (Australia, 1994)
Rating : minus one star.
Dreadful, over-rated, overblown. Full of great one-liners (one of it's few saving graces), but most of them are already well-known. Don't be sucked in !

Chung King Express
Rating : minus one star.
Hong Kong's answer to L'Avventura ? Not quite, but they have many similarities.
* Critics love them both.
* Anyone else, with half a brain or more, finds them unbelievably boring, pointless, indulgent and just a waste of time.
The only action in Ch Express is a few blur-action scenes in the first half, where blonde-wigged Brigitte Lin chases a bunch of indeterminate middle-easterners with a gun. Hopes of what little action this section promises are quickly dashed.
The second half of Ch Exp has apparently no connection with the first. It is more or less a one-hour music video featuring
* "California Dreamin'" played (in part or full) no less than EIGHT times at MAXMIMUM volume. It starts to grate after the second playing. The only reason this great song of the 60s is thrashed is to indicate that Faye Wong's character is thinking of travlling there.
* Also features Faye Wong's cover of the Cranberries first single, plated FOUR times (and that's three times too many).
* And some dreadful Jamaican reggae tune is played four times in the first half (which is four times too many).
Conclusion : either avoid this film altogether (recommended), or watch it once, just to satisfy yourself that a thousand critics, speaking the same opinion, CAN be wrong !


Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)
Rating : minus 2 stars
Same applies as for "Star Crash", except worse. This one has several well-known actors who should have known better !

Fire Birds
Rating : minus 1/2 a star
Terrible, tacky rip-off of Top Gun. A definite must-not-see.

Glen or Glenda (aka I Led Two Lives)
Rating : minus 2 stars.
It's unforgettable, mind-bendingly weird, deeply personal, at times thought-provoking and above all deadly serious in it's intent.
The acting is truly woeful. Drugged out of his mind, Bela Lugosi is so awful he's compelling (to hilarious laughter). Direction is astonishingly jumbled (two narrators ? well, All About Eve had four, but that was a masterpiece). It's worth watching for the middle scene alone. In a sequence which has no demonstrable link with anything, possibly a dream sequence, you'll see probably the sexiest antics of any movie to even get near general release in the US in the 50s. It's wild !

King Kong (1978)

Rating : minus one star
Possibly the worst big-budget remake of all time.

L'Avventura
Rating : minus 2 stars
Mad Magazine got it right. Of all the films you've ever heard the critics raving about, for no apparent reason other than a two-hour attack of brain-death, this is possibly the dullest, most pointless and lame-brained. Its one saving grace (the beautiful scenery and camera-work) wears thin after about 20 minutes (if that). You'll need an ocean of strong coffee to stay awake through this one.

Pennies from Heaven (1981)

Rating : minus one star
Example of what can go wrong with all the best intentions. Steve Martin in his worst ever piece of miscasting, genius Dennis Potter's brutal mutilation of one of his great works (originally one of the best ever big British TV mini-series), and given much too expensive a treatment. Worst of all, when MGM bought the rights to the script, part of the deal was to keep the original series locked in a vault, where it languished for over ten years. Accept only the real thing - this is a fake.

Plan 9 from Outer Space
Rating : minus 5 stars (perfect negative score). As a fan of z-grade movies, this one has no equal, and only a few peers (see Robot Monster & Retik the Moon Menace).

Star Crash
Rating : minus 1.5 stars
Atrocious sci-fi nonsense. Bad enough to make compelling non- viewing.

Weekend (1967, France)
Rating : minus one star.
Atrocious load of unconnected and indulgent drivel. There is one good scene. Near the beginning, where there's a woman burning while reciting something - it's hilarious. The rest is crap !

Doctor Dolittle
Rating : minus one star.
Sure-fire cure for insomnia. Unrelentingly boring and much too long.

Exit to Eden
Rating : minus one star.
Worst film I saw in 1995. Atrocious waste of film and talent. Terrible direction, jumbled confusing storyline, far less shocking and erotic than promised by the publicity. A couple of nice (if tame) nude scenes.

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