Alien Rising, aka Gemini Rising

What a bottom-feeding pile of garbage. This reviewer has seen many bad movies — enough bad movies that I’ve ruined any arthouse bona fides I may have had — yet, sometimes, I’m still surprised that something so amateurish manages to get made. This is one of those shitty movies where no one involved, even the professionals, seemed able to capitalize on their work.

Alien Rising, from 2013, is a direct-to-video shitfest brought to viewers by screenwriters Michael Todd and Kenny Yakkel, and director Dana Schroeder. This was Schroeder’s second directing effort, and, if his IMDb page is any indication, it will be his last. Thank goodness. We shitty movie fans may be into flagellation, but everyone has limits. Continue reading “Alien Rising, aka Gemini Rising”

All the Right Moves

All the Right Moves movie posterAll Stef Djordevic (Tom Cruise) wants is to get out of town, and I don’t blame him. All the Right Moves, the 1983 film from director Michael Chapman and screenwriter Michael Kane, opens on a rather depressing moment. It’s morning at the steel mill, and Stef’s older brother and father are shown wrapping up their graveyard shift. They leave the mill in silence, their fellow workers just as spent as they are. The message for viewers is clear, if not all that accurate for some (my grandfathers used to hit the bar across the street from their mill immediately after work — end of shift was a time for jollity, not introspection). The mill takes all your hopes and dreams, and crushes them. But at least it keeps food on the table and a roof over one’s head…until the layoffs start.

The two get home in time to watch young Stef, a defensive star on the local high school’s football team, start his day. Stef’s life, like the lives of the young should be, is all possibility. He has yet to reach the age where the days threaten to spread out, mostly unchanging, all the way to life’s end. His future is bright, helped along by his talent at football. Stef has no illusions about parlaying his skills into a career in the NFL. He wants to be an engineer, but there’s no way he can afford college. It’s a football scholarship or bust for Stef. Continue reading “All the Right Moves”

Hell on Wheels

Hell on Wheels 1967 movie posterNot all shitty movies are bloody horror, or borderline pornographic sleaze. Not all shitty movies are cut and paste westerns, Italian sci-fi ripoffs, or rubber monsters. Some are family flicks, featuring well-known country/western crooners in tales of race cars, music, and moonshine. That particular formula is followed by Hell on Wheels, the 1967 star vehicle for singer/songwriter and gentleman race car driver Marty Robbins.

Directed by Will Zens from a screenplay by Wesley Cox, Hell on Wheels follows Marty Robbins as Marty Robbins, a fictionalized version of himself. Marty has built a nice life. He’s a successful musician, and that success allows him to pursue his passion as a stock car driver.

Something similar happens to a number of people after they attain fame and riches. Auto racing is an addictive pursuit, scratching an itch in one of the more primal areas of the brain. It’s a fast and dangerous occupation, and for men like Robbins, Paul Newman, James Garner, Patrick Dempsey, Steve McQueen, and even Frankie Muniz, it has an irresistible lure as a risky pastime. Continue reading “Hell on Wheels”

Risky Business

When I was a child, my parents made a poor decision. They wanted to go see a movie, but they couldn’t find a babysitter. I don’t recall if a sitter canceled, or they decided to go out on short notice, or if I was such a young terror that I’d burned through all the numbers in the address book. Either way, my folks were determined to go see a movie, and if no sitter could be found, then I was going to see a movie, too. If that movie was an R-rated feature about a lustful teenager and a smoking hot call girl, then so be it. Besides, as my parents reasoned, the boy is only six years old. Not only will he forget what he sees, he won’t understand any of it, anyway. Continue reading “Risky Business”

Point of Terror

Point of Terror is the final film in a career cut short. Actor/producer Peter Carpenter only has four credits on his IMDb page, and this is the last. There are conflicting stories in the tubes, but what they all agree on is that Carpenter is dead. It happened at any time between 1971, not too long after this film was released, and the early 1980s. Either way, Carpenter was poised to have a fantastic career in shitty movies, akin to that of Andrew Stevens, but it wasn’t to be. Continue reading “Point of Terror”

Taps

Taps movie posterBack in 2014, Missile Test held Arnold Schwarzenegger month, where I watched and wrote about every significant Arnold flick. There was no abiding reason for featuring Arnold movies for an entire month, other than I just felt like doing it. I followed that up in 2017 with a month of Sylvester Stallone reviews. Then I got the bright idea to do a month of Tom Cruise flicks, but my soul ran dry after watching Rain Man. Anyway, I’ve had ten reviews of Tom Cruise movies sitting in a folder for years, now, collecting digital dust. So, since Cruise month isn’t likely to happen, for the next couple of months I’ll be posting these old-ish reviews on Wednesdays.

Cruise’s filmography has fatter pickings than Arnold’s. I was surprised by this, at first. But, Arnold had his peak as a movie star more than twenty years ago, and it was not all that long. Arnold has also never been content with being just one thing. Champion bodybuilder, movie star, politician. He has filled all these roles in succession. I can only guess, but Arnold seemed to be moved by new challenges. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, he’s already looking about for another mountain. Cruise, on the other hand, has always seemed to pursue Hollywood stardom as a singular obsession. His career and public persona are no less manufactured than Arnold’s, but success doesn’t seem to create longing for something else in Cruise. Arnold is about the journey. Cruise is about the destination, and, once arrived at, staying put until age finally takes its toll. Continue reading “Taps”

Battletruck, aka Warlords of the Twenty-First Century

When is a shitty Italian Mad Max ripoff not a shitty Italian Mad Max ripoff? When it’s a shitty American/New Zealand Mad Max ripoff!

Battletruck, also released under a number of different titles, comes to viewers from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures stable, although his name is nowhere in the credits. From 1982, it was written by Irving Austin, John Beech, and Harley Cokeliss, with Cokeliss also sitting in the director’s chair. Continue reading “Battletruck, aka Warlords of the Twenty-First Century”

Trip with the Teacher

When a b-movie from 1975 has a title like Trip with the Teacher, all sorts of filthy stuff comes to mind. That decade remains amazing because of what filmmakers could get away with.

Written, produced, and directed by Earl Barton, Trip with the Teacher tells the story of four high school girls and their teacher on a bus trip into rural southern California or northern Baja. The idea is to get these girls some life experience outside of the sunny confines of Los Angeles. The teacher and her girls are: Miss Tenny (Brenda Fogarty), Bobbie (Dina Ousley), Julie (Cathy Worthington), Tina (Jill Voight), and Pam (Susan Russell). They are joined by a bus driver named Marvin (Jack Driscoll). Barton didn’t do much to differentiate the girls from one another. He just made sure to cast actresses who were pleasing to the eye. Continue reading “Trip with the Teacher”