Costly Sunglasses

In The Name Of The King might require a 2-part episode, there is so much delightfully terrible goodness to discuss. An entire episode could be devoted to the ridiculousness of Burt Reynolds as the king. And the same goes for Ray Liotta's performance. Epic levels of so-bad-it's-goodness.

As far as Stallone movies go, there are a few that would be on my list before Tango & Cash or Over The Top: Rhinestone Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot Judge Dredd Cobra Staying Alive

Oh my God. I remember driving 2 1/2 hours to see this with a couple of friends in Atlanta. I had been looking forward to seeing it for quite some time because I was interested in experiencing something I thought would be wildly original and very different than some of the mindless drivel that's force-fed to audiences on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, the most "wildly original" part of the night was the three of us breaking out into what can only be described as spontaneous, uncontrollable laughter as the end credits rolled. We knew that we had just witnessed what was easily one of the worst movies of the last 10 years. The only question is, does it get points for trying to be different? Nope. A point that was driven home to me on that night - in excruciating detail - was that "different" is not synonymous with "good" or even "mediocre". And would it really serve any purpose to say, "good try, guys!", especially when it's pretty far from being a good try? I don't think so. To make matters worse, the movie was practically screaming at the top of its lungs, "I will be a cult classic! Gather round, all you outcasts, misunderstood and brooding children of the night...and LOVE ME!!!". It was designed, almost completely it seems, to become an instant cult phenomenon. There's one big flaw with that sort of mindset - it doesn't work. If you make a film with the obvious intention that it become a cult classic, you will, in all likelihood, fail. Those kinds of things happen organically, and if you try and force it... well, it just looks obvious and stupid. Let's get one thing straight: Repo is not The Rocky Horror Picture Show, will never be The Rocky Horror Picture Show...and any ridiculous attempts to "make it happen" as a widely seen "midnight movie" are just pointless and sad. In fact, it's not close to being in the same universe as The Room. Hell, it's not even Birdemic. Did I mention it looks like ass? One of the most glaring problems (other than the fact that it contains some of the most atrocious writing since cavemen began doodling on walls with their dung), is that the film looks absolutely horrible. It's as if the production designer snuck into a junior high school somewhere and stole all the unfinished sets from an upcoming production of "Transylvanian Blade Runner In The Year 6000 (as imagined by a 13 year-old Tim Burton)". And then, deciding that wasn't bad enough, the DP chose to shoot much of the film through what appears to be either a lens covered in vaseline, wax paper, or possibly one of those sliding shower doors they use in movies when they want the illusion of nudity but don't really want to risk losing the PG-13 rating. Then there are the songs, which range from breathtakingly terrible to merely forgettable. The music sounds like the wet fever dream of a goth with horrible taste (in other words, a goth). At times, it's actually aggressively terrible. So terrible that it's hard to imagine anyone ever wanting to listen to it again (which is sort of important for those pre-planned repeat "midnight screenings"). To make a film that relies so heavily on its original songs and have not a single one of them be memorable or even mildly enjoyable (with the possible exception of about 30 seconds of Zydrate Anatomy) is really a pretty amazing accomplishment. So I guess that's something. There are a lot of films that deserve consideration for HDTGM, and they fall into many categories. You've got your good-bad, your campy, your campy good-bad, your campy bad, and your plain-old bad. Guess which category Repo falls into? None of them, actually, because I left out your gouge-out-your-eyes-with-a-spork-and-stick-knitting-needles-into-your-ears bad. So I'm not convinced that Repo would be a good choice for the show, since there's not really a lot of fun to be had with this absolutely wretched mess. I'm sure the gang would somehow find a way to make it entertaining, though.