Archive for category New Reviews

Thigh High Spy

THE IMPOSSIBLE KID

My guess is that if you don’t know who Weng Weng is by now, you’re probably not the kind of person who’s going to care who Weng Weng is anyway. And if that’s the case, you obviously came upon this site by mistake. Then again, I may be wrong about that. After all, those who keep abreast of internet memes and those with a taste for obscure cult movies are not necessarily one and the same — just as, conversely, it’s a rare type who will go from chuckling at the exploits of Weng Weng or Little Superstar in a two minute YouTube clip to actually seeking out and watching one of their movies in its entirety.

Hard to watch

Hard CashDoes Hard Cash have hardcore action? A hardass protagonist? Hardly. We get not one, but two former major studio movie actors (Christian Slater and Val Kilmer) transplanted to the B movie hotspot of Bulgaria, once again trying to pass itself off as the United States. Verne “Mini-Me” Troyer appears in a key role.

Justice League Mexico

CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE

With the genre flagging, producer Rogelio Agrasanchez Jr. — (in)famous among fans as a man willing to squeeze every last possible penny of a cinematic concept so long as he could put midgets in it — decided that if one couldn’t (or, more likely, wasn’t willing to) provide audiences with quality, then one could make up for it with quantity. If people weren’t going to pay to see one wheezing old luchador punch a werewolf, then maybe they’d be more likely to pay to watch like seven or eight luchadors punch an army of werewolves (preferably midget werewolves). The resulting era of movies eschewed any attempts at the Gothic classiness or psychedelic weirdness that permeated the best of the earlier production and simply went for goofball comic book action. Think of it as the luchadors’ Jun Fukuda years, and if we accept that, then Champions of Justice is the Godzilla vs. Megalon of Mexican wrestler movies. Given the all-star line-up you might think that Destroy All Monsters is the more accurate comparison, but the problem there is that Destroy All Monsters still maintains some vestige of classiness.

A nerd, a leprachaun, and a cheerleader walk into a bar…

GETTING LUCKY

A teenage nerd discovers a leprechaun in an empty beer bottle. The nerd is in love with a cheerleader and the leprechaun must grant three wishes to escape from his glass prison. If you think this sounds like the setup for a teen sex comedy, you are right.

Review Snippet:
Sometimes I wonder if I will ever outgrow my ability to enjoy teen comedy films. More accurately, I worry that I will eventually outgrow my ability to enjoy comedies made for teenage males. I say this because “Better Off Dead” and “Bachelor Party” still make me laugh, and most of my enjoyment while watching “Hot Tub Time Machine” was noticing the homages to earlier teen comedies. Sooner or later (probably when I am in my seventies), I am suddenly going to decide that a nerd accidentally dumping five gallons of yogurt on a blonde wearing a bikini is not funny.

When that happens, I want you to smother me with my pillow and escape to Canada.

Lesson Learned:
Miniature golf has never gotten anybody laid.

Horrible News: RIP Yvette Vickers…

The body of early Playboy Playmate and cult film icon (the memorable bad girl of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman and Attack of the Giant Leeches) Vyette Vickers was found in her Beverly Hills home yesterday.  Horribly, the body was literally mummified, indicating that Ms. Vickers had passed away and remained undiscovered for up to a year. She would have been (approximately) 83 at the time of her passing. Rest in Peace.

Getting all Gigli with it…

Jabootu contributor Eva Vandergeld has watched Gigli so you don’t have to…and more importantly, so that I don’t have to. Yuck.

Meanwhile, Jabootu correspondent (are you seeing a theme here?) Rock Baker managed to cadge an exclusive interview with Lost Sketlton of Cadavra director Larry Blamire. See what he has to say here.

Ever get a feeling of deja vu?

Yes, even updates to movie review websites can have sequels, and that sneaking sensation you have that you’ve read all this before is quite correct.

The Frozen Ghost (1944), in which there is not a ghost to be seen, frozen or otherwise, but Lon Chaney Jr. just might be able to kill people with his mind…

I Am Virgin (2010), on which basis I think even Anktastic will be able to agree that I Am Legend wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been…

Let Me In (2010), in which a revived Hammer Film Productions does as good a job as we could ask for of remaking a movie that had no reason to be remade…

Pillow of Death (1945), in which the spooky house formula is clearly ready for the nursing home…

Strange Confession (1945), in which you never can tell what sort of person could be walking around at night with some other guy’s head in a bag…

and…

Toolbox Murders (2003), in which a different guy with a toolbox commits a different bunch of murders, apparently because doing so will help him live forever somehow.
 
 
 

Dim Reaper

Another attempt at a podcast:

Grim Reaper (2007)

What’s that? Sounds like it was recorded over the course of three years, in four or five different locations? Funny you should say so… I guess if I could have mustered any feeling other than complete contempt for the movie in question, I might have got it finished a little earlier.

Well, I'll tell you

Tell No OneThe movie Tell No One answers with a big “OUI!” to the question, “Are the French now making movies that would actually entertain an audience?” But I know that is not the first question that comes to mind when you think of the French and films. The question that first comes in your mind is, “Do the French really love Jerry Lewis films?” Well, I’ve done research concerning that question, and I have the answer in my review.

Sacre Bleu!

FANTOMAS

If I rack my brain, I can come up with an English language corollary by which to describe Fantomas. But that doesn’t change my perception that there is something irreducibly French about the character. Certainly, Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu is similar, in that he is one of those rare examples of a villain serving as the central figure and driving force behind a popular series. But, while Fu Manchu’s representation was that of a monstrous “other”, playing on the racial anxieties of the age in which he was created, Fantomas seems more like a personification of the id unleashed. As such, he engages his audience in fantasies of a life lived without borders or moral constraints, with the traditional heroes and cops-and-robbers aspects of the stories serving to house those fantasies within a socially acceptable context. It’s as if Bataille or De Sade had chosen to couch their transgressive works within the format of a dime detective novel.