Tag: Action Flick

Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments

Movies tell stories. No shit, right? But, besides the story told up on the screen, there is the story of how a movie gets made, and that story, hidden from the audience, can have its own elements of inspiration and perseverance. That’s the case with today’s flick, Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments, filmmaker Erica Benedikty’s magnum opus from 1995.

Shot on videotape with a robust budget of 250 bucks Canadian, Phobe follows an interstellar cop or soldier-type who is hunting an escaped alien killing machine in and around the area of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Benedikty, a part-time employee of Cable 10, a local cable access channel, managed to convince her bosses to let her use the channel’s equipment and facilities to make a movie. She enlisted friends and family as cast and crew, convinced local businesses to let her shoot on their properties, and, over the course of a year, made her movie. Continue reading “Phobe: The Xenophobic Experiments”

Skin Trade

This flick was close, oh, so close, to not making the cut for Shitty Movie Sundays. We have an informal slogan here at SMS: Not every shitty movie is bad, but every bad movie is shitty. Skin Trade, from 2014, is not a bad movie. It’s better than mediocre. It’s damned entertaining and on occasion dips its toes into being good. It’s a cheapie action flick that one has to actively scan for its failings. It’s the ersatz stuff that sealed the deal. The poor CGI muzzle flashes and blood spatters; the poor CGI backgrounds in driving scenes; the poor CGI explosions and fire. Yeah, it was mostly the poor CGI. It was a symptom of this flick’s low budget and the willingness of the filmmakers to take shortcuts. I wouldn’t say that it doomed this flick to a spot in the Watchability Index (because inclusion is an HONOR), but a little more flexibility in director Ekachai Uekrongtham’s budget would have worked wonders. Continue reading “Skin Trade”

Last Man Standing (1987), aka Circle Man

Filmmakers Damien Lee and David Micthell have been in the b-movie business for over forty years each. Their work graced the trashier shelves of video stores from Vancouver to Hamburg, and now reach wide through the tubes. To Shitty Movie Sundays, their contributions compare favorably to contemporaries such as David Winters, Mark A. Prior, or Cirio H. Santiago. None household names, but for the mutants, solid bona fides.

Last Man Standing is an early effort from both, with Lee and Mitchell sharing screenwriting and producing credit, while Lee directed. The film is a heavy-handed depiction of underground bare-knuckle cage fights. It was a surprise to see how earnest Lee and company were at times. This flick can be dreary here and there, and has the feeling of a shitty version of On the Waterfront. Continue reading “Last Man Standing (1987), aka Circle Man”

Deadly Force

Shitty Movie Sundays All-Star Wings Hauser has one of the best 1980s action flick character introductions in Deadly Force, from 1983. Viewers first see him on the gritty streets of New York City, playing a game best described as ‘rat roulette.’ Next, he’s drunkenly tickling piano keys in a bar, not without some competence. Then he’s a passenger in a speeding cab driven by none other than Estelle Getty. Finally, with complete disregard for his personal safety, he talks a distraught suicide bomber out of blowing up himself and everyone around him. And he does all of this before he hops on a plane to Los Angeles, called west by an old friend, Sam (Al Ruscio), whose granddaughter has fallen victim to a serial killer. Continue reading “Deadly Force”

The Super Cops

What a gloriously stupid movie. The Super Cops, an adaptation of a nonfiction book titled The Super Cops: The True Story of the Cops Called Batman and Robin by L.H. Whittemore, follows officers Dave Greenberg (Ron Leibman) and Robert Hantz (David Selby) as they tear through the criminal element of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. At no point does director Gordon Parks go for realism. Greenberg and Hantz, aka Batman and Robin, throw themselves at suspects with abandon and total lack of skill. They yell, flail about, fall, punch, jump, leap, climb, roll, bash, karate chop, kick, knee, shoot their pistols, and look like total idiots doing it. Remember, these guys are supposed to be super cops, but they’re really a pair of clowns. Continue reading “The Super Cops”

Most Wanted (1997)

Way back in 1988, budding comedic talent Keenen Ivory Wayans wrote, directed, and starred in I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, a silly and, at times, brutal parody of 1970s blaxploitation cinema. He followed that success by creating the groundbreaking sketch comedy show In Living Color. Wayans, and his extended family, became a comedy dynasty that still produces works to this day. But Wayans, as many creative people are wont to do, wished to expand his horizons. He wanted to do more than just comedy. He wanted to be an action star.

That desire led to A Low Down Dirty Shame, also written, directed, and starring Wayans, in which he plays a gritty private eye. The film wasn’t well received, but it did decent numbers, returning three times its modest budget at the box office. It was his next project that was his moon shot, with an increased budget, greater scope, and a main character fit for the likes of every action star from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Michael Dudikoff. Continue reading “Most Wanted (1997)”

Alien Outlaw

It’s the overall picture that makes a movie shitty or not. There is never just one thing that earns a flick a spot in the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index. Sometimes, though, there are individual things worth pointing out. Take today’s movie, for instance. Alien Outlaw. It’s right there in the title. Alien Outlaw, singular. One alien who is an outlaw. But, this movie has three outlaw aliens. Why not title the movie Alien Outlaws? Surely the opening credits were made after filming had wrapped. The title wasn’t carved into stone. At some point writer/director Phil Smoot had to have noticed the title on the front page of the script versus the amount of aliens in the movie. Yet, there it is. Singular title, three aliens. Continue reading “Alien Outlaw”

City Cops, aka Miao tan shuang long, aka Free Fighter

City Cops movie posterWay back in the 1980s and ’90s, martial artist Cynthia Rothrock was one of the queens of late night cable television. Unlike others, such as Shannon Tweed, who were known for their topless contributions to b-movies, Rothrock was an ass kicker. In her flicks, she usually played a tough cop who used her black belt skills to kick ass all over Southern California. Today’s film is a bit of a departure. Not because she didn’t play a cop or didn’t kick any ass, but because she pulled heavy supporting duties in a Hong Kong martial arts flick, something she did only a handful of times in her extensive career.

From 1989 comes City Cops, from director Liu Chia-Yung, who was mostly known for acting and stunt work.

The film follows Hong Kong cops Ching Shing (Michael Kiu Wai Miu) and Tai Kau (Shing Fui-On), as they search for fugitive Kent Tong (played by, and this is not a typo, Kent Tong). Tong fled the United States with an audio tape containing evidence of crimes, or something. The tape matters less as a MacGuffin than Kent Tong. Flying in from the States is Inspector Cindy of the FBI (Rothrock). Continue reading “City Cops, aka Miao tan shuang long, aka Free Fighter”

Hard Ticket to Hawaii

What a gloriously stupid movie. Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Andy Sidaris’s magnum opus from 1987, is not the most watchable shitty movie of all time, but it is a contender for the ‘so bad it’s good’ championship belt. It’s a subtle distinction, I know. But, if boxing can have dozens of belts, why deny such granular categorization to misfit movies?

Written and directed by Sidaris, Hard Ticket is very self-aware. There are no pretensions of narrative weight, or, since this is an action flick, realistic violence. This is a bloody flick, to be sure, but it’s how the blood is spilt that is hooey (see, skateboard scene, frisbee scene). Continue reading “Hard Ticket to Hawaii”

The Bodyguard, aka Bodyguard Kiba

Once upon a time, Sonny Chiba starred in a film adaptation of Bodyguard Kiba, a popular manga by Ikki Kajiwara. Chiba played the titular Kiba, who offers his services to anyone willing to expose crime and corruption. Perhaps, with Kiba’s protection, his clients will live long enough to see justice done.

As happened quite frequently with movies and TV shows from overseas, an American distributor got ahold of the rights, and released a bastardized version here in the States. Bodyguard Kiba became The Bodyguard; the name of Kiba’s character was changed to ‘Sonny Chiba,’ so the flick now features Sonny Chiba playing Sonny Chiba; and ten minutes of new footage shot in Times Square, that has nothing to do with the rest of the film, was added at the beginning. Oh, and the film opens with a reading of Ezekiel 25:17, just like Jules Winnfield says it early in Pulp Fiction, misquote and all. (The more genre films from the 1970s I see, the more I see where Quentin Tarantino found his influence. In fact, it seems as if his entire career has been remaking the movies he saw in his adolescence, bringing a high sheen to exploitation cinema. But, that’s an article for another day.) Continue reading “The Bodyguard, aka Bodyguard Kiba”