Welcome [2007]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

It's been three weeks since a Bad Movie Night post and with good reason. One of those weeks Adam and Sarah were on vacation in Boston. The other two weeks were spent watching this Bollywood comedy "Welcome." Usually we try to avoid comedies because deliberately trying to make the audience laugh usually ends up more painful than actually funny and there are fewer opportunities for unintentional comedy, but after covering the "Singham" films we needed a different Bollywood genre. Critically, this movie got mixed reviews but it came unironically recommended by one of Sarah's coworkers who thinks it's really funny. It also has a sequel called "Welcome Back" which we will not be watching because this one was not enjoyable enough to warrant us wanting more.

The plot of this movie is actually surprisingly simple considering it's three hours long. Rajiv, boy from a decent, normal family, falls for Sanjana, a girl from a crime family. The normal relatives do not want to the marriage to happen so the boy and girl try to get her brother and his fellow gangster to pursue decent careers with the influence of Ishika, a girl they hired to make them fall in love with her. That's it really. There are a lot of hijinks. The courting of Sanjana by Rajiv takes over a half hour in itself. Towards the end there's a lot of nonsense when Sanjana accidentally shoots the boss's son, ironically named Lucky, and there's a whole "I'm Not Dead Yet" series of body swapping with a funeral pyre (Adam: "This guy's gonna pull a Denethor"). This also eats up about a half hour of the film. The climax of the film culminates in all the characters together in the boss's unstable house playing a murder version of hot potato while government brokers try to push the house off a cliff and solve their crime problem and their housing violation problem at once. The twenty minutes of them trying to escape the house that's suspended over a cliff are mindless.

The film had some redeeming qualities. Music numbers never fail to amuse us for instance. We are always able to amuse each other when we have ridiculous content to base jokes off of. There are a lot of misplaced sound effects that feature Adam's least favorite instrument in existence: the slide whistle. Our subtitles kept saying "rascal" when the actors were literally saying "bastard." We weren't bored. But we've seen better.

And if you're wondering if there's an awful ear-wormy theme song, you're in luck.

Spoon Rating: 4.5

Note: Grandma is currently in a nursing home. It is unclear whether she will be able to return to Bad Movie Night for her poignant reviews.

On a side note, the bad movie shelf has been updated. Feast your eyes on this glory (you can click on the picture to get a better look at what's on it):

Hollywood Cop [1987]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

While we wait on a Bollywood movie to come in the mail, we decided to explore another earlier film by Amir Shervan, the director of "Samurai Cop." This one is, of course, "Hollywood Cop." Adam called Shervan's earlier works before the all amazing "Samurai Cop," "knock off Andy Sedaris films," which is a pretty solid description. There's a lot of lame, low tension violence, lots of topless women, and lots of silly scenes for no reason other than to pad out the movie. He doesn't go full force with it like Sedaris, director of "Hard Ticket To Hawaii" but he's trying.

In this film, a motorcycle gang kidnaps a kid (a human child, not a goat although there is a goat there) from the same ranch house featured in "Killing American Style" and asks for a ransom of six million dollars. The Hollywood cop and his partner team up with the mother and the estranged father of the boy to try to track him down. The movie takes a break to watch girls wrestle in oil while the boy makes friends with his doberman guard who helps him escape because children and dogs are magic and can communicate. The good guys find the escaped boy and all is well for a brief few minutes. Romantic music plays during the father-son reunion and it is uncomfortable. Then the boy's father dies protecting him after confessing that he has cancer and also has been watching him over the years and leaving presents in his attic. The kid is kidnapped again and there's a bunch more running around until they get him. The mother hooks up with Hollywood cop in a scene that is devoid of emotion. At the end of the film, the kid goes into the attic to try to find the present his dad left and instead they find six million dollars. Hurrah!

This film was okay. It had more funny lines than "Killing American Style" but overall the plot was far less engaging and didn't hold up well amongst the sleepier group members. We had started the evening by making Keith listen to the most intolerably hard to listen to songs that Kay and Adam could find and that was ultimately a more amusing experience. You could watch this movie and it would be an okay experience but we highly recommend torturing your parent's ears.

Quotes:

"She's a little upset. Her son got kidnapped."
Note: This is followed by the cops asking her multiple times what's wrong.

"I've got blood cancer and sometimes . . . it hurts."

"Every day ends with a Tums festival. Because of you I have to go to the bathroom."

Spoon Rating: 4

REWATCH: Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke Of The West [2005]

Out of sync with the scheduale, we decided to do another rewatch. "Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke Of The West" is still on YouTube and still hilarious. You can read the short first review of it here.

 We managed to learn more of the characters' names this time. Instead of just Allah Gold (Anakin) and Speaker D (Palpatine), we also have Ratio or Ratio Tile (Obi Wan), The Plum Of (Padme), and Blow The Skin (C3PO). Here are some of our favorite lines:

Killing American Style [1988]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

One of the things we are doing in order to find new movies to watch is looking into the works of directors who have managed to get a movie into our upper rankings before. "Killing American Style" is a film that is written, directed, and produced by Amir Shervan, the director of "Samurai Cop," although it is not as good as the film that succeeds it. Like Neil Breen, Shervan probably needed to evolve to the true heights of bad-moviedom that "Samurai Cop" encompasses but this earlier film is an okay effort. It definitely made us keen to watch another film by Shervan in the future (probably "American Cop" because why not more cop films). Also, this movie has Robert Z'dar, who was clearly a principle actor for this director during his relatively short American career.

The film opens on some kind of audition where girls get mostly naked and dance but we weren't totally sure what the audition was for. The auditioner is interrupted by Z'dar to carry out some kind of money stealing endeavour. They get caught by the cops after stashing the money but come up with an elaborate plan to thwart their transport to jail that involves Z'dar's brother in drag. Brother gets shot and the escaped gang decides to infiltrate the first ritzy house they find to make their safe haven. The house they find is on a horse ranch in the middle of nowhere where they haul up with the family: the terribly dressed father (and you should know that everyone is terribly dressed; he's merely the winner), the mother who gets raped (why), their son, and the mother's sister who is conveniently a nurse. They end up calling in a doctor to try to treat the gunshot wound and the friendly Hispanic-stereotype ranch hand gets offed. Eventually the dad is blackmailed to do a money exchange with Z'dar's stepmom (?) at a motel but he hides the money outside his house and claims she ran off with it. A final showdown happens when the family tries to take control of their home, we get a totally misplaced title drop, and the bad guys are done for. In the end, the dad gives the hidden money to the ranch hand's grieving widow who goes straight from "how will I feed our children" to "what husband."

Overall, this movie was not a terrible watch. Every fight scene went on too long to keep our attention and it didn't have as many "what" moments as "Samurai Cop" to keep us entertained fully but there were some good things. We had a couple solid quotes, some reaction shots that didn't make sense, and, most of all, the terrible, terrible wardrobe. The main protagonist and antagonist in this movie at minimum were wearing shirts that had a deep V down to their navel. The bad sidekick wore a shirt that said "100% cotton prewashed" on the front which was just confusing. The dad in the movie at one point seems to be wearing a pink sweatsuit only to take off his jacket to reveal pink overalls with a huge opening right at the stomach. We all asked Keith if this is how people actually dressed in the 80s and he said, "In California, yeah." The hair was also a tragedy I can't even fully get into but it was heavily variations on a mullet. This movie is a good argument for killing American style.

Oh, and then there was this confusing still of the motel:

I think there's something wrong with your color balance.

Quotes:

"I killed five police officers on the way here and if they come looking for me . . ."

[while holding a gun up to a woman in a bath]
"You make one sound and I'll turn this into a blood bath."

"You've got guns but you still don't have a chance."

Spoon Rating: 4

REWATCH: Undefeatable [1994]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This week we did a rewatch of the classic Cynthia Rothrock movie, "Undefeatable." Keith and Grandma hadn't been around the week we watched it, something we had all forgotten, so for them it was actually a first watch. They had both been exposed to Rothrock in "China O'Brien" but this movie is superior in every way except the sound effects.

I missed very little in my first review of the film, which you can read by clicking the link, but we didn't have spoon ratings at the time that we first watched it so here you go.

Spoon Rating: 8

Repligator [1996]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Upon trying to find the cover for this week's movie, "Repligator," I discovered something interesting: there's no Wikipedia page for this movie. That is never a good sign. We probably should have looked first before watching but I don't think it would have mattered. We were all so horrified and intrigued by the movie cover that there wasn't any way we weren't going to watch this, which is sad because it was a rough ride. It was mercifully not boring, but it was definitely written by a man who is actually an eleven-year-old boy who just discovered how awesome breasts are and wanted to combine them with his other favorite things: sci-fi, the military, and alligators. And this eleven-year-old boy-man also cast himself in the role where he gets to make out with all the women who find him irresistible in spite of him being the least appealing person in the entire movie. This is why some people make movies (N.B. It's definitely why Neil Breen and Tommy Wiseau make movies).

Basically the plot of this movie is that the military spent a bunch of money to make a "replicator," which is really a transporter, to be used in war but it has a weird glitch that turns everyone who uses it female. Another scientist combines the replicator with mind control software which basically results in a bunch of half naked, horny women. When they orgasm their DNA goes bananas and they turn into gator ladies who turn people into zombies when they bite you. The scientists solve the problem they created. That's it.

Here's a top ten list of the worst things about this movie:
1. When the military guys get turned into women, they suddenly embody all female stereotypes i.e. "let's go shopping!" etc.
2. And inexplicably change their sexualities so they are all into the male characters.

3. Some of the military people are unaware of the sex change after it happens??? Or how to pee as a woman????

4. Female nudity for no reason every two seconds.

5. Gay stereotype zombie.

6. Nagging wife joke that goes on for a painfully long time.

7. Already hot scientist lady who suddenly becomes hot when she takes off her glasses.

8. God, this movie was so sexist.

9. They had an opening scene and later they used the entire scene a second time as a flashback.

10. Did I mention how the writer cast himself as the guy all the girls want to bang? Yes? I needed to again.

Three good things about this movie:

1. The terrible paper mache gator heads.

2. Awkward falling.

3. An actual trans character who is relatively well presented especially considering that this movie was made in the 90s when trans people were still the punchline of horrible jokes. She even gets a happy ending with the guy she's in love with who is initally freaked out by the situation. The writer probably didn't even mean to be this inclusive since everything does end up completely hetero but still!

Regardless, no.

Quote: "If you have a sexual experience, you will turn into a walking alligator."

Spoon Rating: 1

International Guerrillas [1990]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Here's a Bad Movie Night first: our first Pakistani movie. Like with Bollywood movies, this film was almost three hours long so we needed to watch it in two nights but unlike the Bollywood movies we have watched so far, it should have been much, much shorter. That's some real cultural exchange for you, I guess. In America there seems to be this unwritten rule that a movie needs to be at least an hour and a half to be considered the right movie length so a lot of films will be padded out to reach that timestamp. This movie would have been padded to reach an hour and a half but was instead padded to two hours and 45 minutes. Yikes. It took 50 minutes of movie before we even got a title card. Towards the end, everything was so repetitive and boring, Keith actually set a timer on his watch for the last 12 minutes. I say all of this because my description of the movie will not make it sound as long as it is and you need to be warned that this movie is a real undertaking.

The plot of "International Guerilla's" is simple but insane. The antagonist is British-Indian author Salman Rushdie who is some kind of evil mastermind who has many clones of himself and an Israeli army and is trying to destroy Islam. If the idea of a real author being the evil villain seems strange, here's a little history lesson: in real life Rushdie wrote a book called "The Satanic Verses" that pissed off a lot of Muslim leaders and lead to a lot of people wanting his head on a platter (He's fine, by the way. At the time this movie came out he even made a statement about this movie and how he supports free speech even when he is made into basically a comic book villain). The protagonists are three dudes and a chick who are styled as defenders of Islam. Most of the plot involves battles between the two sides occasionally interspersed with songs from this girl who sings about how she's so beautiful while doing very violent dances in various outfits. In a footnote it is also mentioned that she is Jewish and in love with one of the guerrillas but they can't be together because, fight. At one point two dudes from Dubai who smoke giant cigars come in, possibly as comic relief. At the end, the guerrillas are captured by the Israeli army and strung up on crosses and they all have a big "Life Of Brian" style music number about how Allah is great, complete with text appearing in the sky and a veil literally coming down from the heavens to convert the Jewish girl. I guess this means the guerrillas won.

From a production standpoint, the absolute best thing about this movie is that the director is obsessed with zooms. This movie tries to make it seem like everything that happens is dramatic and important but the only way this is done is through the use of zooms on someone's face which happens probably over 100 times during the film. Also, the dancing is nuts. We just wrote this off as a product of 1990 which was still suffering from the 80s. And it's really anti-Semitic but this time it's Muslims discriminating instead of Christians. We're really diversifying our repetoire of movies with terrible messages.

Quotes:
"I am a proprietor of salt, no potato chip."(we're assuming this is a bad translation but who knows)

Spoon Rating: 3.5