tambora

An American classic. Ed "Brain Smasher" Molloy (Andrew "Dice" Clay) is a bouncer who must help a beautiful model (Teri Hatcher) protect a magic flower, which is being sought by a group of Shaolin monks who are NOT NINJAS! Also, the NOT NINJAS have kidnapped Teri Hatcher's hippie sister, I think. I watched this movie repeatedly when I was 13-ish, because Teri Hatcher was hot and this movie was on either HBO or Cinemax all the goddamn time, so the coherent plot escapes me. This movie is very bad, but just strange enough to be interesting. Dice is playing himself playing a bouncer who acts just like Andrew "Dice" Clay, so there's an indignant desperation to his performance that people who remember when Dice was really popular will find hilarious or sad. As a cheesy 90's action movie, the fight scenes aren't terrible (as far as cheesy 90's action movies go), and there are some genuinely funny bits, so I think the HDTGM crew could very well enjoy this movie in all its stupid, stupid glory.

Oh man, Orca... It's not quite as bad as "Jaws IV," but that's like saying "herpes ain't as bad as gonnorhea." Truth be told, I saw it when I was 10-ish and it fucking terrified me. Young Me remembers the scene where the orca attacks the house as some seriously harrowing shit, but the half-drunk High School Me who caught the movie on Cinemax remembers laughing like it was a Mel Brooks movie.

About the giant bird that so gallantly sacrifices its life for young Jaden Smith... That giant bird used to exist. It was called Haast's Eagle, it lived in New Zealand, and it lived concurrently with the Maori, who told legends about it to bemused white people, pretty much all of whom said, "Yeah, sure, a giant eagle. Yeti? The Loch Ness Monster? I buy that. But crazy, man-eating birds? Go fuck yourself." I haven't seen the movie, but judging by its brief appearance in the trailer, I'd say Jaden's heroic murder-bird is larger than a Haast's Eagle, but not by a whole lot. Of course, Haast's Eagle went extinct over 500 years ago, so the likelihood that it would suddenly reappear to harass someone in a sub-par sci-fi movie is approximately "Never." And the likelihood of any extant bird species (the largest of which is the ornery but rarely deadly swan) evolving to Jaden-Smith-killing-size in only 1000 years is also "Never." This has been "Scientific Pedantry for Bird-Lovers." Thank you, and good night.

I didn't (and likely won't) see this movie. Based on the episode and the various trailers, however, I can make a few observations. 1. "Cypher Raige" is a name an 11 year old boy makes up for his Warhammer 40000 fan fiction. 2. Is "Dad thinks his son is a pussy" then "Dad doesn't think his son is a pussy" really the main emotional arc of this movie? 3. Regarding the "animals have evolved to kill humans," the "hot spots," and the alien beasts that are blind but smell fear; I'm guessing Will and M. Night played sci-fi Mad Libs and, somehow, they both lost. 4. If M. Night had decided to be a DP instead of an actual director (and "visionary"), none of us would be talking shit about the guy. 5. Great to have PFT back. I wonder if he could help set up an episode with his buddy Werner Herzog as the guest? Any movie will do, but a "Fitzcarraldo" director's commentary would be nice.

If you have not seen this movie, it is far worse than you think it could possibly be. First of all, the fake country is called "Parmistan." Like a combo Italian-Indian dish at the worst fusion restaurant of all time. Second, gymnastics can be used to fight off dozens or hundreds of people armed with weapons! Screw legitimate martial arts or that other pussy shit! It helps if the shitty, Soviet-era, faux-Eastern-Europe village just happens to leave pommel horses laying around. Third, um... I... I don't know. This movie is just so, so aggressively badly made in every possible way that it is genuinely entertaining. And now I kind of want to watch it again.

Great idea! I'd expand it to include bad scores as well, where an already badly acted scene (or entire movie) is amplified by tedious, melodramatic, counter-intuitive, or just flat-out awful background music. For example, I laughed harder at the shitty 80's horror-score in "Sleepaway Camp" than I did the rest of the movie. That shit was seriously, oppressively, distractingly bad. Ditto for "On the Line." Normal people (who aren't obsessed with movies) don't realize what a large role music plays in setting the overall tone of a movie. Hell, Spielberg is the undisputed master of using manipulative music to evoke emotions, for better or worse. It works well in "Jaws" (try to imagine the best scenes from the movie without the iconic music), but not so much when he forces overwhelming saccharine, bathos-y shit into everything else (looking at you, "War Horse"). There should be a special category for movies that used Clint Mansell's "Lux Aeterna" or Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" in their trailers. That should cover every shitty action movie in the last 10 years. And Aerosmith's "Don't Want to Miss a Thing" should be considered a fucking war crime. If Spielberg re-cuts "Schindler's List," it could easily play over the concentration camp scenes.

This movie was in whatever the opposite of my wheelhouse is. Several things... 1. Was this supposed to be a juke-box musical? It kind of felt like it wanted to be both that and a legit drama, and ended up failing spectacularly on both ends. I mean, either go "full Moulin Rouge!" or don't, guys. Full disclosure: I hate juke-box musicals, but the movie would've made more sense that way. 2. Same thing with the Christian overtones. Was this a Christian movie? As other people (and Paul, Jason, June, and Fred) pointed out, there was a lot of decidedly un-Christian shit going down. For a general, mainstream Christian audience, I suppose it's fine, but without the overall redemptive Christian themes playing any major role in the story, the only thing making it a "Christian movie" is the fact that it's about a gospel choir. And since it's not Christian enough for the fundamentalist, evangelical crowd (we call that going "full Kirk Cameron"), what's the point? That's the problem with making any movie with a religious theme; the religious theme either means something or absolutely nothing. Which brings me to... 3. This movie is a perfect example of what happens when you try to appeal to the broadest swath of popular culture possible. "I know! Let's make a movie about a gospel choir! That tries to be hip by singing popular music! With a popular (former) hip-hop lady! And a (once) popular country singing lady! And they're both sassy! And there's a love story! And a bad boy! And a good girl! And a kid with a disability! And drama! And comedy! And sex! And death! Christians will see it! Women will see it! All coveted demographics will see it! AHHHH-HAHAHAHA!" It's like making a simple beef stew and then throwing LITERALLY every possible ingredient within five feet into the pot. "This beef stew has beef! And chicken! And cinnamon! And ketchup! And glazed donuts! And peanut butter! And popcorn! And Earl Grey tea! And a whole grapefruit! People like all those things, right?" 4. Dolly Parton was fucking atrocious. "9 to 5" was great, and Dolly was respectably good (though she was no Lily Tomlin or Dabney Coleman), but that was 1980. Surely there was another sassy Southern Belle past 50 that could've lip-synched to Dolly's voice. WHY NOT MARY STEENBURGEN?! 5. Queen Latifah deserves waaaay better than this.

If ever there was a movie made to punish kids when they have a substitute teacher for a high school lit class...

Another movie I watched all the time on HBO back in the day and still sort-of love. I also sort-of hate myself, so it all works out. It's obviously bad, but strangely watchable. The 80's sensibility is overwhelming (Count Spretzle's bodyguards are rocking the day-glo gym gear SO HARD!) and let's not get into the whole "beautiful woman falls in love with some guy because random arbitrary magic bullshit" love story, but it's... I don't know. Funny-ish? It almost funny-ish. Meshach Taylor is funny despite the stereotypical flammability of his character and Terry Kiser straight-up kills. I love how William Ragsdale takes the steering wheel off his Jeep in what seems like the best part of town. Like anyone is going to steal that fucking Jeep; this ain't Florida. And kudos to the single dude who composed and performed the score on his shitty Casio; the synth-strings are both magnificent and haunting.

Yes! I just rented this off of Amazon the other night because I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, and I still loved it! There's a whole bunch of weird, very-specifically-late-80's/early-90's shit going on, especially in the TV/movie parodies. Salt-n-Pepa appear as themselves in this movie and it is not ironic. John Ritter and Pam Dawber are excellent, Eugene Levy Eugene-Levy's the hell out of his scenes, and there's a lot of great meta-comedy, some of which isn't totally heavy-handed. And, yes, you can see Baby Doakes in all his not-crazy-muscles-having glory (CREEPY MOTHERFUCKER).

I love this movie! Guy Pearce is (as always) amazing and Robert Carlyle is (as always) fantastically psychotic, and the whole movie is just a weird blend of thriller/horror/black comedy/historic drama that should never work but, somehow, works very effectively. Also, Jeremy Davies absolutely kills the line "HE WAS LICKING ME!"

This would be a great episode of HDTGM only because this movie would absolutely infuriate Paul, June, and Jason.

Oh, please, let this come true. This is by far the worst movie that I love unconditionally. I challenge anyone to watch this movie and not go up to the first person they see and scream "LEROY! WHO'S THE MASTER?"