Creepy, crawly, radioactive fun!

With Halloween approaching, it is my duty to remind you to keep the fun apace with the frightful for those movie marathons countless of us will indulge in. I can appreciate a good scare, but I need a good laugh along with it, because after all, I am The Queen Of Cheese. I need giggles. I need cheese. I need plots lifted from old black and white sci-fi thrillers that were funny mostly because they were so cornball bad. I need Eight Legged Freaks, and so do you.

We have the small, isolated town of Prosperity where the most popular jock tries to get in the pants of the lady sheriff’s hot daughter, young kids ride their bikes everywhere without much concern from their parents, local kooks collect spiders, and trucks drive through with radioactive waste. There’s also a mayor trying to revitalize the town after the mining has died by building an eyesore of a mall with the theory that people will just gravitate towards it like a moth to a flame. Reenter the long lost son of one of the mine workers who left over a girl (naturally), who is now the hot lady sheriff. We get painful attempts at him romancing her, lots of scenes with the young son trying to warn the town that spiders are coming to get them, all punctuated by the mildly delusional narrations of the town’s only apparent radio broadcaster.

The plot isn’t important, and the writers knew it. Instead they focus on the colorful characters populating the town (and soon the cocoons of one ton spiders). They also pay a lighthearted tribute to small town life against the backdrop of wonderfully CGI-ed spiders leaping through the air, skittering after their prey, lunging from trapdoors in the sand, or just lumbering through main street because they’re the big bad tarantula that can. The fact the spiders occasionally roar like a lion, mutter obscenities, and giggle fiendishly is all just icing on the cake.

Even if you’re afraid of spiders, you need to give this movie a chance. David Arquette (Scream) fits perfectly in his “lovable loser trying to win the girl of his dreams that he lost by punching out her jerk of a boyfriend back in high school and that’s why he left without a word and now has a lot of explaining to do” character. His aunt Gladys is divinely played by Eileen Ryan, right down to the cigarette habit that helps save the day. Kari Wuhrer is recovering from Sliders by playing a tough, beautiful, believably intelligent lady raising her two precocious kids single handed, while juggling her career as sheriff. Her eldest daughter is a barely recognizable Scarlett Johansson (before the bleach blond hair and what I think is some cosmetic work) who does a good job being a snotty teenager who still loves her mom, no matter how much she resents still living in this little town. Scott Terra is the little brother obsessed with sci fi movies, and who naturally no one believes because he’s a kid who’s obsessed with sci fi movies. Rounding out the main characters is Harlan, our conspiracy theory radio broadcaster, played by Doug E. Doug.

Whoever did the casting on this film did it with care and made sure the chemistry fit. This wasn’t designed to be a blockbuster, by any means (especially since it was up against Spiderman of all things), so they didn’t try to get a “name” to sell it. As a result the large cast all meshed together to form a believable community of small town folk just trying to jab a pitchfork in the belly of that spider trying to get in through the mall door.

The graphics on the spiders are a huge selling point for me, as well as the acting and the writing. Someone did a lot of research to get the variety of spiders right, and tended to the project with the love it deserves. Little things like spraying perfume at a giant spider demands that you see the mandibles frantically waving the offending scent away, or else why bother?

Eight Legged Freaks is one of my ‘go to’ movies when I need a good laugh. The fact this movie embraces the cheese and giggle factor make me love it all the more. I have pushed this on to friends and coworkers to initiate them into the world of cheese with good results. I now insist those of you who have not experienced this wonderfully cheesy movie treat yourselves now that the Halloween sales are on! For those who already know and love this movie, do as I will, and pull out your copy for a Halloween (or any time) viewing, and giggle away!

Tags: b-movie, bug attack, cheese factor, creature feature, David Arquette, Doug E. Doug, Eight Legged Freaks, Eileen Ryan, giggle factor, Kari Wuhrer, Leon Rippy, Matt Czuchry, movie review, popcorn munching afternoon, Rick Overton, Scarlett Johansson, Scott Terra

With a title like that, you know it's gonna be cheesy!

Once in a while I just feel like a very tame movie with lots of cheesiness, even at the risk of some awfully saccharin moments. When the movie features Christopher Lloyd, to boot, I can’t resist, and willingly plop myself on the futon to waste a couple of hours on a family-style scary film.

When Good Ghouls Go Bad is based on the R.L. Stine book of the same name, which, like all of his other works, I never got around to reading when I was in the proper age demographic. It’s set in Walker Falls, Minnesota, a town which hasn’t celebrated Halloween for twenty years after the tragic death of Curtis Danko, the local outcast. The story goes that Curtis created a sculpture so frightening that only the devil himself could look upon it. It goes further to claim that a message written by the dying Curtis swore revenge upon the town if they ever celebrated another Halloween. When a local boy saw the statue, he was rendered blind for three days, so no one else dared to look upon it. They covered it up and placed it in the crypt where Curtis Danko was laid to rest.

So poor Danny Walker ends up moving to town with his father, who grew up there, so his father could fulfill his dream of reopening the chocolate factory. His grand plan involves bringing in German investors and putting on a huge Halloween festival. In a town that is too terrified to celebrate Halloween, that poses a problem, and a handy conflict point. Danny gets picked on at school, naturally, and hears the frightening tales of Curtis Danko. Only his crazy grandfather, who insists on being called Uncle Fred, provides him some much needed protection and companionship.

Uncle Fred is a big fan of Halloween, as well, so he quickly becomes the focus of the town’s rage, along with his well meaning son. Odd things begin to happen in the town, and Uncle Fred meets a sad fate. As only a family-style movie can do, this tragedy turns into a lot of slapstick comedy, and Christopher Lloyd shines.

This isn’t anything that original, but it’s a story told with such a joire de vie that it doesn’t matter. We have a bunch of precocious kids with half-heartedly stern parents, allowing them run of the town to try to bring Halloween back for themselves. There’s a very tame romance between a single mother and a single father, just enough to keep the parents watching alongside their kids. But mostly there’s a lot of slapstick, a lot of cheese, and a lot of giggle factor, especially as the ghouls and zombies start walking around town doing their thing. Our creepy monsters are done up about as well as typical Halloween decorations, which just made me laugh all the harder. Glowing LED eyes, foam skeletons propped up and jiggled around on sticks, lots of smoke and fog… You’ve seen it all at that one house every neighborhood has that goes all out for Halloween.

In the end everything works out the way it should in a perfect world, where the good guys get their just rewards, and the not-so-good guys get their comeuppance in a nice, tame way. In real life there would have been arrests and jail time, but we’ll just overlook that for the sake of a nice, tame, escape from reality.

If precocious kids just give you a headache, steer a wide path around When Good Ghouls Go Bad. However, if you’re a Christopher Lloyd fan like I am, give this a viewing and enjoy him obviously enjoying himself. There are also a ton of secondary characters that provide plenty of distraction. Obviously this is a movie you can also sit and watch with your own little ones, if you have them, but if you don’t, there’s no shame in giggling your way through an afternoon watching something a little sweet, barely scary, and so very, very cheesy.

Tags: Brendan McCarthy, Brittany Byrnes, Christopher Lloyd, Curtis Danko, Fox Family, Halloween, made for tv movie, R.L. Stine, Roy Billing, Tom Amandes, Walker Falls

Lots of action, lots of cheese, lots of fun!

If you go to see G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra expecting a plot, you’re completely missing the point of a summer blockbuster like this. You’re supposed to be going for a good time, to see lots of action, cool C.G.I., and some cheesy, cheesy goodness! There’s sort of a plot here, but it’s threadbare, just enough to hang the goodies on. For The Queen Of Cheese, that was plenty for a rip roaring good time, one making me anxious for those two sequels Dennis Quaid is already lined up for.

The cast is huge, so that is a bit distracting at first, but once things get moving you’re able to stay focused on the main group. There are also a couple of cameos in pivotal roles, such as Jonathan Pryce as The President Of The United States, and Brendan Fraser as Sergeant Stone, responsible for whipping the two newest Joes into shape. Otherwise we have several character on the good and bad side to keep up with, and every single one of them was cast very well.

On the good guy side we naturally have Dennis Quaid as General Hawk, the man in charge of the Joes. He’s likable and charming, as only Dennis Quaid can be. Already on his team is Breaker, played by Saïd Taghmaoui, Heavy Duty, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, the awesome Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park, and the surprisingly not-irritating Scarlett, played by Rachel Nichols. Freshly recruited are Duke, played by Channing Tatum (who I still giggle over being in Step Up), and Ripcord, played by Marlon Wayans. This whole bunch have good chemistry together, making them a lot of fun to watch. All of the players keep their roles subdued, since an over the top performance would have just been lost in all of the over the top action and C.G.I. I was happy that the story skipped over a whole bunch of “you’re the new guy and don’t deserve to be here” crap they could have done. They hinted at it briefly, but quickly glossed it over to make them a team.

On the bad guy side we have a bunch of actors who get to have a lot of fun being bad. Christopher Eccleston (Dr. Who) plays James McCullen (and future Destro). Lee Byung-hun plays Snake Eyes’ rival, Storm Shadow, with lots of spectacular fighting as a result. Sweet little Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the evil Cobra Commander, and does it so well I didn’t recognize him. There’s a small part played by the wondrous Arnold Vosloo as Zartan, a master of disguise. They weave his part in well, and leave it hanging wonderfully for the sequels. And because it wouldn’t be G.I. Joe without The Baroness, we have Sienna Miller playing it to the hilt. There’s an awesome fight scene between The Baroness and Scarlett which goes above and beyond the typical “we have to have a girl fight” scene.

Okay, there’s a plot in here somewhere, but I didn’t really care, since I was so distracted by the wonderful explosions and tons of great action. It centers around nanotechnology and missiles built to exploit them. Naturally they’re dangerous weapons and end up falling into the wrong hands, and then the good guys have to chase them. There’s an underwater military base, some sweet gadgets and vehicles, and lots of firepower. What more do you need, really?

Despite a lot of folks giving G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra negative reviews, it still opened number one at the box office this weekend, and I think has secured the production of those two sequels. The action is intense, but I think even younger viewers won’t be overwhelmed by it, and will just be delighted at all of the eye candy in front of them.

I will be snapping this up on DVD the week it’s released, I enjoyed it that much, and will be in line opening weekend when the sequels do come out. I highly recommend giving this a viewing while it is on the big screen, and checking any high expectations for complex plots at the door. Go in expecting what I did, which is a cheesy good time with lots of giggle factor, and you will be very, very entertained!

Tags: action flick, action movie, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Arnold Vosloo, Baroness, Brendan Fraser, Byung-hun Lee, Channing Tatum, Christopher Eccleston, cobra, Dennis Quaid, Destro, Duke, G.I. Joe The Rise Of Cobra, giggle factor, Grégory Fitoussi, Jonathan Pryce, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marlon Wayans, movie based on a toy, movie review, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Ripcord, Saïd Taghmaoui, Shana 'Scarlett' O'Hara, Sienna Miller, Stephen Sommers, Zartan

Giggles galore!

As soon as I saw the title Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, I knew this movie was meant for me. I laughed my way through the wooden acting, and the frugally dispersed CGI of a cool looking Mega Shark and Giant Octopus. I even went so far as to watch the “special features”, and those were even funnier. The “outtakes” give one actor about five minutes more screen time than the two minutes he actually had, because he couldn’t get one of his three lines right. Listening to the four main actors discuss the movie is almost painful to endure. They try to talk it up, but look in their eyes. They’re dying inside as they do so. Three of the four don’t even get enough courtesy to have their interview conducted inside a nice, quiet room where you can even hear them. But that’s okay. For Debra Gibson’s segment I was too distracted by the guy working behind her who kept showing butt crack every time he bent over. The funniest extra was the short clip with the “cinematographer”, especially as he tries to get the poor camera person to help him demonstrate a cheap, but effective, technique to mimic a submarine being thrashed around.

But the special features weren’t what drew me in. It was the ridiculous plot, passable (I’m being generous) acting, and whiplash-inducing blips of CGI. C’mon, people, a giant shark takes out a passenger jet in mid-air! And attacks the Golden Gate Bridge! Show me that in the previews and you know I’m going to be salivating to watch the rest of what passes for the movie.

Sadly the previews give away the best parts, but this is such a train wreck I will be buying myself a copy when I see it cheap enough. $19.99 definitely is not cheap enough, but get down to the $7.99 range, and I’ll be reminding people about it at Xmas time.

So what’s all the hub bub about? Debra Gibson is an ocean scientist who is exploring underwater. She notices whales going nuts and crashing themselves into icebergs. This in turn knocks away enough ice for her to catch a glimpse of two prehistoric creatures locked in mortal combat, just before they come back to life and zip away into the murky depths. Giant sized incidents occur around the globe, including an attack on an oil rig, and our fun little plane munch. Governments naturally get involved, and our lovely scientist finds herself caught up in it, along with her former professor, and a forced love interest in the guise of a fellow scientist from Japan. After some lame science, an even lamer excuse for the main characters to have sex, and an even lamer resulting hypothesis about pheromones as a result of that sex, we’re off on a monster hunt.

Really, don’t bother trying to figure out the plot. It’s the same old stuff with government conspiracies, scientists saving the day, and narrow escapes thrown in. This is a low budget (comparatively) movie, and it shows in the small cast and limited sets. I’m actually pretty impressed with how much bang for their buck Asylum gets for their bad movies, and don’t mind how much they recycle things between them. I’m watching for giggle factor and cheese, and Asylum delivers at least one time out of five.

For the beleaguered cast I have to give props for at least having fun with the movie. Yes, in their little interviews they may be taking it a little too seriously, but at least that didn’t filter too much into the actual movie. There’s a lot of tongue in cheek delivery of lines, and I get the feeling that they were trying not to roll their eyes as they said most of them. Debra Gibson isn’t the best little actress in the world, but she’s definitely not as bad as some I’ve seen. She holds her own against poor bastard Lorenzo Lamas, who sounded like he really wanted them to kill off his character so he wouldn’t have to risk a sequel. Her professor, played by Sean Lawlor, is the believable mentor. The love interest, played by Vic Chao, plays his role a little too “this will get me an Oscar, right?”, but he’s still very likable, and has decent chemistry with Gibson.

All in all, Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus is a giant waste of time. However, it’s a funny-groaningly-bad-leave-you-giggling-and-feeling-slightly-guilty-about-finding-it-so-funny, giant waste of time. And for the Queen Of Cheese, that’s good enough!

Tags: "Not So Original" Movies, Asylum, b-movie, creature feature, Debra Gibson, giggle factor, Lorenzo Lamas, Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus, Sean Lawlor, Vic Chao

Look out! It's a floating triangle moving very, very slowly towards you!

Blue Demon is yet another entry into the “demonized shark” movie category. A secret lab funded by the government is researching ways to control sharks to do their bidding. The scientists believe they are doing work to benefit mankind, but unbeknownst to them the government has other plans. Plus, there’s someone hijacking their project with deadly results. dun, dun, dun, dun!

That’s about as serious as the movie gets, and I was so very happy to sit and waste an hour and a half of my time on it. It has a lot of goofy extras to it to provide much needed humor, and doesn’t go for the gore factor. This is a funny, good time movie with a decent cast to back it up.

I’ve made it clear that I think Dedee Pfeiffer is very difficult to tolerate onscreen for more than a few minutes at a time. She’s twitchy. She’s fidgety. I think they keep messing with her dosage. But in the very cheesy, gloriously ludicrous Blue Demon, she fits wonderfully! Her cutesy act isn’t nauseating. Her overly-caffeinated persona makes sense as a quirky scientist who’s just a bit too smart to speak with us ‘regular people’, let alone have more than basic social skills. Plus, she’s balanced out very nicely by her co-star, Randall Batinkoff, who plays her long suffering, potentially ex-husband. He’s the anchor that lets your eyes focus while she vibrates and hums herself practically into another dimension.

The rest of the cast all fit this odd little movie just perfectly. We have Josh Hammond playing a weird little lab assistant named Avery that you keep expecting to start talking about surfing, but plays with the computers instead. There’s also Danny Woodburn who plays the uptight, possibly corrupt, boss to our lab gurus, Lawrence Van Allen. He easily steals every scene he is in, and it’s not because he can’t help but stand out because he’s so much shorter. He’s got remarkable screen presence, and makes his character the most believable of the lot as he yanks food out of their hands because they’re not paying attention to him, and alternates between making the lab gurus lives hell, and needing an antacid to deal with them.

Then there’s our big, bad, evil military character, played by Jeff Fahey. He plays a character named, of all things, General Remora. Right there you know for a fact this movie is not taking itself seriously, which is why I love it so morbidly. Jeff Fahey plays it to the hilt, clenching cigars, spitting out orders, seething with righteous indignation when he’s questioned. He’s out to create a military weapon, gosh darn it, not out for a day at the beach!

But the cast is just the icing on the cake of Blue Demon. The “short bus” special effects are a riot, and almost painfully bad. I swear to god the shark fins in the water scenes are just waterproof cardboard cutouts painted black and on the slowest motor they could find. When people are frantically trying to get out of their way, I checked my watch several times just to make sure I hadn’t fallen into some kind of slow moving time warp. In all of those scenes I could have gotten up and microwaved another bag of popcorn and not missed a thing.

The little bit of CGI they went for is actually pretty good. They give the sharks expressions, and have them zip back and forth (not unlike the frenetic pace of Ms. Pfeiffer). Yes, it’s so obviously blue screen out of the water it’s laughable, but it just adds to the cheese factor, so I forgive.

If you’re tired of shark movies that flash way too much chomped flesh at you, Blue Demon will be a pleasant respite. If you’re also tired of movies taking themselves too seriously, especially when they should know better, this will be a breath of fresh air. And if you’ve been given a headache trying to keep up with Dedee in other movies, I think you’ll be as shocked as I was at how tolerable, and even likable, she is in Blue Demon.

With Discovery Channel airing Shark Week, Blue Demon should be on your watch list to help get over all that darn reality and education they insist on adding to their quest for ratings. It also has the added bonus of plenty of giggle factor! This is a Queen Of Cheese “must see”, or at least “must watch once, and wonder what the heck is wrong with that Queen Of Cheese to think this is watchable…”. Enjoy!

Tags: b-movie, Blue Demon, cheese, creature feature, Danny Woodburn, Dedee Pfeiffer, giggle factor, Jeff Fahey, Josh Hammond, movie review, Randall Batinkoff, shark attack movie, Shark Week

Cool shark graphics, horrible English dubs, and cheesy fun!

There’s just something about a shark attack movie I can’t resist. When it’s a German made flick with horrible English dubs, that just melts the cheese into a bubbly fondue.

In this case we have Shark Attack In The Mediterranean. A man, Sven Hanson, is trying to keep his life together after losing his wife in what we’re told is a horrific shark attack. His teenage daughter is into jet skies and stealing people’s boyfriends (even though she does it so sweetly, and the current girlfriend is such a snot you can hardly blame the guy), and rolling her eyes at her father. His best friend is head of the local police force, with a wife wasting away from cancer. Our hero flies a helicopter, and his latest passenger happens to be an attractive marine biologist, Julia Bennett, arriving on the island to help with cancer studies involving lots and lots of sharks. We now have our basic setup of conflict.

Right off the bat we get a young girl (horribly dubbed with a voice too young to fit the actress) setting the stage by telling a tale of tragic love that ends at the bottom of the ocean. The girl is with her family, all tourists in this Mediterranean paradise who wanted to cage dive with sharks. Well, the sharks aren’t biting, so the captain of the boat decides to drag the cage, with the tourists still inside, along the bottom to a more dangerous spot where sharks are guaranteed. The cage gets caught on the bottom, the rope breaks, one of the tourists cuts their hand, and they’re suddenly surrounded by an awesome display of fluid shark graphics. Even knowing it’s got to be fake, it really looks cool, and eerily realistic, including sharks biting at the cage trying to catch a nibble of fingers and other parts.

So our pilot and his passenger come along in the nick of time to save the day. It gives us a chance to see that they have a lot in common, and to make it clear they’re going to be love interests. We also get a chance to see our hero be an over-protective father when he sees that his daughter is part of the crew of the ship in such dire straits. Arguments ensue, we get some melodrama over the father wanting to move back to Germany and the daughter not wanting to go, and the police friend stepping in with his sick wife to talk about living every moment instead of living in the past. Good stuff, and probably very well acted, despite what the voice actors would have you believe.

But the meat of the story is about a megalodon. It’s entirely unbelievable how a renegade scientist came into possession of a megalodon, although believable that it then escaped. However, the ensuing graphics are so very cool I can forgive all of this movie’s plot holes. You really need to watch the movie so you can hear first hand all of the flawed science, but more to see the CGI of the megalodon as it cruises the Mediterranean. There’s a scene where the hero is basically fishing for it with his helicopter, and the megalodon grabs a hold of the lure. We get several minutes of slick, believable underwater scenes of the shark rolling and thrashing, putting the folks at Discovery Channel to shame.

There’s also plenty of humor throughout Shark Attack In The Mediterranean, provided both by the ludicrous storyline and by secondary characters that are riotously exaggerated. Humor is what’s missing from a lot of B-movies lately, and this was like a breath of fresh air for me. Finally, another movie that doesn’t take itself so seriously, and revels in the cheese!

Shark Attack In The Mediterranean isn’t terribly original, but it’s fun, and has the best shark CGI I have seen. Surprisingly there’s no gore, which made me happier yet. A little blood, a flash of a body, but nothing horrendous trying to gross you out. Basically this is a well done B-movie about a prehistoric shark come to life, and was worth every second of screen time. If you love Shark Attack 3: Megalodon in all of it’s cheesy glory, you’re going to enjoy this movie for all the right reasons!

Tags: "Not So Original" Movies, action flick, b-movie, German to English dub, giggle factor, megalodon, Patriq Pinheiro, popcorn munching afternoon, Ralf Moeller, Shark Attack In The Mediterranean, shark attack movie

Awesome. Simply awesome!

I came so close to dismissing The Gamers: Dorkness Rising when Netflix suggested it. But there was something about the idea of a bunch of adults sitting around playing D & D and taking it way too seriously that called to me. Not that I ever played D & D, mind you, but I knew plenty of people who did.

This independently made movie by Dead Gentlemen Productions is actually a sequel, but with more money behind it. For an independent film, the special effects are pretty slick, the costumes well designed, and the sets very authentic. It looked like they rented out a Renaissance fair location in the off season, or something.

The story centers around a man trying to write a Dungeons & Dragons module, but having problems finishing it because his buddies screw around while playing, so they never actually get to the end of it. In his frustration he tries to keep them under tight control, which in turn makes them figure out more outlandish things to do to undermine him and screw around with the game even more.

Early on the writer decides to invite one of the player’s ex-girlfriends to join the game, feeling that new blood, and an intelligent female at that, would help. The fact he obviously has a slight crush on her doesn’t hurt his cause. So they all start a new game with the experienced players laughing at the newbie’s choices for her character (”You only have 81 hit points!”), at least until a scene where she slays all of the foes in one turn. The bickering and bantering back and forth is what drives the movie, even with the entertaining medieval yarn being spun for game play.

To add to the ludicousness, one of the other players decides he will play a female in the game, and keeps arguing that this character isn’t evil, but merely “chaotic neutral”. This is in doubt whenever the sorceress does things like blow up a farmhand just because he’s taking too long to give directions. In the game world this character flips back and forth between a gorgeous blond woman, and the player in drag.

This isn’t a high octane movie by any means, but I was glued to the screen the entire time, and laughing most of my way through it. Between a gender-bending sorceress, newbies kicking ass, a bard that constantly gets killed (begging the question why anyone would want to play a bard) in between seducing every female character he meets, a warrior priest who tried to be an elf on top of that, and a goody-two shoes warrior trying to keep them all under control, the game play is a riot. Even for someone not all that familiar with the intricate workings of D & D, you’ll get the idea just from the arguing among the real world characters.

There’s just enough drama from the real world to keep things from dragging. One of the players (the ex-boyfriend) is just plain a jerk, and the type of guy who screams about the rules until the rules put him at a disadvantage. We get glimpses of the players out in their ‘real world’ to give a little background, but there’s never too much to get us sidetracked from the real heart of the movie: the new module being written.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is extremely well written. The actors, all unknowns, play their parts to the hilt. This is a wonderfully done independent movie, and one I will be adding to my wish list on Amazon.

For anyone who has ever played D & D, Magic: The Gathering, or any of those role playing games, or even just known someone who did, this movie will entertain you, maybe make you cringe as you see yourself in some of the characters, and will give you a strong urge to pull out that dusty box from the closet you’ve refused to acknowledge for so many years. The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a Queen Of Cheese “must see”!

Tags: Dungeons And Dragons, giggle factor, independent movie, movie review, role playing games, The Gamers Dorkness Rising

A lot of cheese, and a lot of fun!

I think I enjoyed The Spirit for all the wrong reasons. I have never read the comic books, so I didn’t have to worry about being horrified at how they were translated to screen, which is a complaint I’m reading from hard core fans. What I got out of this movie, however, was a long giggle fest, and my full daily allowance of quality cheese.

Right off the bat you know this is going to be a little awkward. We get a long soliloquy from The Spirit, played by Gabriel Macht, as he leaps across rooftops. He’s going on and on about how he loves the city and the city loves him, to the point where you wonder how long it’s been since The Spirit has been with a real girl. It’s so over the top, I started picturing another comic book hero, translated to small screen, The Tick, in his place, and didn’t feel I was very far off in my comparison.

Then there’s a long, drawn out fight scene between the bad guy, The Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson, and The Spirit. Silken Floss, The Octopus’ accomplice, announces that they’ll be there all night, so everyone may as well leave. The fight just keeps going, the banter gets ridiculous, and someone ends up with a toilet smashed over them. I think we may have a tone set here, folks, but it works for me!

The jist is Denny Colt was a good cop shot down in his prime, but miraculously rises from the grave to become The Spirit. He then hides his true identity, including from his former loves, the bad girl Sand Saref whom he loved from childhood until a terrible accident tore them apart (plus her lust for sparkly things), and the goody goody gum drops doctor he dated right before he died, Ellen Dolan. You know Ellen is the ‘real’ thing just because her name is normal. The Octopus has the same amazing healing abilities, but is going for true immortality, and doesn’t care if he destroys the city in the process of obtaining a vase with the blood of Hercules to get it.

The storyline is interesting, and doesn’t drag. This, however, is only because this is so over-the-top, comic-book-brought-to-life that you’re giggling too much to get bored. Some of the monologues are just plain weird, but it all fits the feel of the film. The characters are mostly ridiculous, overblown stereotypes, but there is some depth when it’s needed. Is Sand Saref a villain, or just a girl who likes her jewelry too much? The Spirit has become a notorious womanizer, who loves cats and his city, but does he ultimately love Ellen Dolan? And does Ellen Dolan really not recognize her dead boyfriend as she tends to The Spirit’s wounds?

Then there’s characters like Silken Floss, played to the hilt by Scarlett Johansson. She’s beautiful, brilliant, and just having fun being the right hand of the bad guy. Plus her line of “I have a lucrative business, and I’m great eye candy!” really sums up the movie. The film is glossy, very reminiscent of Sin City, but be careful you don’t look too close. There’s not a lot of substance holding this up, and it will shatter under any scrutiny or criticism.

Over the top characters, slick backdrops, funky black and white with red thrown in details, and lots of cheesy dialogue add up to a good movie for The Queen Of Cheese. It’s not great, and not worth running out to own a copy unless it’s on a super sale, but it is definitely worth sitting down with a big bowl of popcorn and no distractions so you can catch all the cheesy goodness!

Tags: action flick, action movie, Eric Balfour, Eva Mendes, Frank Miller, Gabriel Macht, giggle factor, Jaime King, Samuel L Jackson, Sarah Paulson, Scarlett Johansson, The Spirit, The Tick

Ah, Stan Lee. You have a sense of humor, I’ll give you that much. I’m pretty sure that’s the reason you put your name to this almost painfully bad, oddly endearing movie called The Harpy, a.k.a. “Stan Lee’s Harpies”.

It stars Stephen Baldwin desperately wishing he were as cool as Bruce Campbell in Army Of Darkness. After all, he plays pretty much the same character, where he’s sucked back in time, wields a shotgun to impress the medieval natives, romances a medieval wench who’s full of fire and initial hatred for him, and is proclaimed “The Chosen One” who will save the land from the evil that infests it.

This isn’t an Army Of Darkness ripoff, but there are enough similarities that I couldn’t help but hold it up in comparison. That’s just not fair, because Army Of Darkness is easily one of my favorite movies of all time, in fact one of the best worst movies ever made, and all else is going to come up frightfully short standing next to it. That being said, The Harpy has a certain charm that comes from a B movie that is really more of a B minus movie. It tries really hard to be funny in the right places, melodramatic in the right places, and action packed in the right places. It is very funny, often intentionally, so it wins points with me there. The action is mild, the violence very toned down, and the harpies are just too-skinny wanna-be models with too much eye makeup who run around in long white slips and horribly fake wings and laugh out loud hilarious fangs. The special effects are “special”, alright, but more in that short bus kind of way. This just adds to the giggle factor, especially when we’re expected to believe the harpies are taking flight, but they’re clearly just standing up straight really fast and having the camera flash to something else quickly while people scramble to get a blue screen in place.

I like to make fun of Stephen Baldwin, but he at least seems to enjoy himself in this movie more than he does in other ventures. He’s not as tedious as a result, and uses at least three expressions to convey his character’s emotional state instead of the one he showed for everything in Earth Storm. Keep up the good work, Stephen, and you may get up to an even half dozen facial expressions in your acting repertoire!

The actor I really watched this movie (twice) for is Scott Valentine. This is a man who knows how to run with a cheesy script and play it to the hilt. He’s a bad guy, and gets to be a wizard bad guy, to boot. He walks around in cloaks, consorts with the Queen Harpy, and generally makes sure every word out of his mouth gets some kind of overtone of smarmy bad-guy-ness. He even gets to play two versions of his evil character, one in present times who seeks to open the portal to the past, and then of course the medieval wizard seeking to open the portal to the future. So we get double the fun and double the Scott Valentine, who is the real star of the film in my opinion.

There’s a formulaic romance in the story which is at least entertaining. There’s also the stereotypical band of men who follow The Chosen One around so they can help defeat the bad guys, and provide additional comic relief, and the occasional emotional barometer for the audience. The storyline in general is nothing original, but the script has so much cheese and giggle factor that it doesn’t matter. Really I just watched it to see how bad it could get before it ended. And it got really, really bad, but in a good way! (Just not as good as Army Of Darkness…)

Tags: army of darkness, b-movie, Bruce Campbell, Earth Storm, movie review, Scott Valentine, Stan Lee, Stan Lee's Harpies, Stephen Baldwin, The Harpy

F'get about it!

Oscar is the latest entry in The Cheese Alphabet, and Sylvester Stallone’s second appearance in the list. This time he plays a gangster named Snaps Provolone trying to go straight per the death bed wishes of his father (played magnificently by Kirk Douglas). The farce which ensues is fast-paced, ludicrous, and a cheesy good time!

There are tons of secondary characters without which this wouldn’t stand a chance. I love Mr. Stallone in this role, and gotta give him props for comedic timing, but he definitely couldn’t hold the movie up by himself. His willful daughter is played by Marisa Tomei, and she plays it to the hilt. She throws temper tantrums. She launches into long speeches about how she wants to climb Mount Everest, write symphonies, run with the bulls, and other such grandiose ideas, but really she just wants to move out of her father’s house. So she takes up with the chauffeur named Oscar, and claims to be pregnant with his child. That sets one set of whirlygig lunacy in motion as her parents scramble to fix her up with a suitable husband, and she fights it every step of the way.

We have Tim Curry who plays the linguistic coach to Snaps Provolone. He’s an older man, still lives with his mother, whose head is easily turned by the lovely gangster’s daughter with ‘nicely rounded diphthongs.’ He ends up entangled in the marriage miasma with sweet, funny results.

Anthony Rossano (played by Vincent Spano) sets another farce in motion as Snaps’ accountant. While Snaps is planning to donate a large sum of cash to to a bunch of bankers in exchange for being named to their board of trustees (and thereby becoming ‘legit’), Anthony embezzles $250,000, tells Snaps he loves his daughter, and that he knows his daughter loves him because they’d already slept together. Being a good father, Snaps wants to kill the smug young man, but refrains, because that wouldn’t be the actions of a man whose gone straight. Instead, he decides that Anthony will indeed marry his daughter.

Problem is, Anthony meant Snaps’ other daughter, Theresa, from a previous relationship. Snaps never knew about her, and now is torn with fatherly devotion, and fury at being duped by an accountant. Plus, his wife (played by Ornella Muti from Flash Gordon) isn’t very happy about the whole thing.

The lunacy whirls all around, with fast paced dialogue and that whole ‘old time movie’ feel. Everything is harmless fun, and a lot of it. The entire cast is great, including Snaps’ thugs, which includes Chazz Palminteri who just can’t seem to remember he’s not supposed to pull a gun on people anymore. We also get a great performance out of That 70’s Show’s Red Forman, Kurtwood Smith, who is Lt. Toomey of the Chicago PD desperately trying to nail Snaps Provolone and prove he’s not really going to be a legitimate businessman. There’s a scene with your typical mixed up black satchels that has the classic old movie feel, and adds a great touch to an already riotous movie.

There’s no way you can take anything about this movie seriously, which is why I love it so much. After vampires, gun fights, ghosts, beasties, the occasional zombie or nasty virus, a movie like this with nothing supernatural about it is just what I need. The fact it’s a well-done parody/nod to those old time gangster movies that leaves my sides hurting from laughing is just icing on the cake.

If you’ve never given this movie a chance, I highly recommend you do so. There’s no shame in enjoying a Sylvester Stallone movie, especially when he’s having so much fun at his own expense!

Tags: Chazz Palminteri, gangster movie, Kirk Douglas, Kurtwood Smith, Marisa Tomei, Ornella Muti, Oscar, Sylvester Stallone, The Cheese Alphabet, Tim Curry, Vincent Spano