Coming of Age Flick – Missile Test

Shitty Movie Sundays: Teenage Cave Man, or, Teenage Caveman, Whatever

According to the internet, so it must be true, star of Teenage Cave Man, Robert Vaughn, called it the worst film ever made. The internet is an infinite repository of apocrypha and bullshit, so who knows if this is an actual quote. This level of disavowal seems harsh. Teenage Cave Man is no Vertigo (released the same year), but it’s also no Ed Wood joint. It’s a b-movie that had a low budget, a silly script, and kitsch value out the wazoo.

One of four movies directed by Roger Corman in 1958, and one of seven he produced in that year, Teenage Cave Man follows the trials and tribulations of The Symbol Maker’s Teenage Son (Vaughn), as he comes of age and begins to question the laws of his clan of cave dwellers. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Teenage Cave Man, or, Teenage Caveman, Whatever”

Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Seed of Chucky

What a stupid movie. When I wasn’t loving it, I was hating it, but never so much that I ever stopped enjoying myself. Even when the spirit-possessed Chucky doll (Brad Dourif, as ever) runs Britney Spears (Nadia Dina Ariqat) off of the road and her car explodes in a pique pop culture moment, there was but the briefest moment of doubt before buying into this ridiculous flick once more. This isn’t a good movie, but writer/director, and series creator, Don Mancini, along with producer David Kirschner, were right to go all-in on absurdity. Continue reading “Attack of the Franchise Sequels: Seed of Chucky”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Indian Paint, or, Oh Jeez, This Flick is Racist, Isn’t It?

It sure is. As always, I maintain it is pointless to try and impose today’s morals on the past. That doesn’t mean we can’t learn from them and become better people…by pointing and laughing at those freaking idiots.

From 1965, Indian Paint is the rare western flick that takes place in the days before the arrival of Europeans. There isn’t a single Caucasian character in the film. What there are, though, are a bunch of white people slathered in makeup so red it looks like they were rolled around in the mud in Utah. Even the actual Native Americans in the cast, of which there were two, by my count, were covered in it. This flick represents the type of deep, ingrained, and completely clueless racism which used to be okay not just in the film industry, but in society at large. It’s a useful reminder that progress has been made, despite the re-emerging bravado of white nationalism. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Indian Paint, or, Oh Jeez, This Flick is Racist, Isn’t It?”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Burnout

Scott (Mark Schneider), is a child of privilege. After he kills an old woman during an illegal street drag race, his hotshot father/lawyer gets the judge to merely suspend his license, rather than lock him away. This is not an auspicious start to the protagonist’s story in Burnout, the 1979 drag racing flick from writer/producer Martin J. Roseman and director Graham Meech-Burkestone. We’re supposed to be able to root for the hero in a film like this. There’s no hoping to see Scott’s redemption when he hasn’t had to suffer. It seems pretty tone deaf for 1979, much less today. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Burnout”

Empty Balcony: All the Right Moves

All the Right Moves movie poster All 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 “Empty Balcony: All the Right Moves”

Empty Balcony: 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 “Empty Balcony: Risky Business”

Empty Balcony: Taps

Back 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 “Empty Balcony: Taps”

October Horrorshow: The Lost Boys

To some movie fans, filmmaker Joel Schumacher is still paying penance for Batman and Robin. This page reconsidered that film a few years back, and concluded the problem lay more with viewers’ expectations than Schumacher’s final product. Still, no matter how people feel about that film, Joel Schumacher will be forever associated with putting nipples on the batsuit, when his greatest contribution to film was this operatic gem from the 1980s. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Lost Boys”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Best Friends

Best Friends movie poster I knew nothing about this film when I began watching it. I found it on a YouTube channel that collects old grindhouse and drive-in movies that have fallen into the public domain. That copy was crap, but being in the public domain meant that the film could be found elsewhere. Amazon Prime has a much better quality copy, so should one actually want to seek out and watch this turd, I recommend doing so on Amazon.

Keeping in mind where I first found this film, while I had no clue what it was about, or who made it, or who was in it, I did make assumptions about the type of film it would be. Nestled in a playlist alongside such gems as The Brain Machine, Night of Bloody Horror, and Legacy of Blood, I was expecting violence in this flick. There is some. But, at heart, Best Friends is a character study.

From director Noel Nosseck and screenwriter Arnold Somkin, Best Friends tells the story of two best friends, Jesse and Pat (Richard Hatch and Doug Chapin), who have a falling out during a road trip. They are accompanied on the trip by Jesse’s fiancée, Kathy (Susanne Benton), and Pat’s fiancée, Jo Ella (Ann Noland). The trip is the start of a new life for all of them. Jesse and Susanne are getting married at the end of the trip, while Pat just returned from a tour in Vietnam, where he was wounded. There’s a lot swirling around under the surface with all the characters, and now they’ve been jammed together in an RV for a multi-day journey. That’s a recipe for drama. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Best Friends”

Shitty Movie Sundays: Summer City

Summer City This flick is a bad one. This is one of those zero-budget plodding messes that would have found a ready home on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s one of those flicks that lacks most endearing characteristics, and only survives because it featured a future Hollywood star.

Summer City, from way back in 1977, is the first feature film on Mel Gibson’s IMDb page. He’s one of four main characters, all friends, who head out from 1950s Sydney for some fun and sun at an Australian beach.

How do I know the movie takes place in the 1950s? Director Christopher Fraser and producer/writer Phil Avalon helped us viewers with that, by providing an opening credits stock footage montage of scenes from the 1950s. This extensive sequence is amazing, because so much of the footage seems to have been chosen at random — the only prerequisite being that it looks like it was shot in the ’50s. How else to explain the repeated use of footage of a long-distance runner in training? It has nothing to do with the plot. This movie is about surfing blokes. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Summer City”