Unwatchable #30: “Alien from L.A.”

Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Back at the former home of Unwatchable, the late, lamented Screengrab, the venerable Leonard Pierce was moved to pen a tribute to Albert Pyun, perhaps our most underrated terrible director. “Both in his ridiculously prolific output and his utter lack of talent and shame, Albert Pyun leaves Uwe Boll in the dust,” Pierce boldly proclaimed. Urban Menace, Brain Smasher…A Love Story and Captain America were among the Pyun titles cited by my esteemed colleague, but somehow this early effort got off without so much as a warning. The time has come to correct this egregious oversight.

Unwatchable #31: Snowboard Academy

Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

When I wrote about Meatballs 4 a few months ago, I offered the following advice free of charge: “Note to aspiring filmmakers: if the success of your movie is dependent on the audience perceiving a character played by Corey Feldman as ‘the cool guy,’ you have already failed.” It should go without saying that the same rule of thumb applies to Corey Haim, but if the makers of Snowboard Academy know this, they learned it too late.

Unwatchable #32: Car 54, Where Are You?

Your fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Welcome to the semi-triumphant return of Unwatchable! I was going to say I wish we had a better movie to discuss…but then it wouldn’t be Unwatchable, would it?

Car 54, Where Are You? was not the first movie based on a sitcom and it was far from the last, but it just might be the most perplexing. It wasn’t adapted from a beloved childhood favorite like The Brady Bunch or a staple of syndication like The Beverly Hillbillies or The Addams Family, but from a fairly obscure early ’60s series that doesn’t even boast an easily marketable hook like My Favorite Martian. Whatever popularity it had was largely dependent on the comedic chemistry of its cast members, notably leads Fred Gwynn and Joe E. Ross as NYPD officers Francis Muldoon and Gunther Toody.

It would only seem logical, then, that a revival of Car 54, Where You Are You? would serve as a vehicle for the storied comedy duo of David Johansen and John C. McGinley.

Unwatchable Update

First, my thanks to those of you who have contributed to the cause so far. Thanks to your support, Unwatchable will continue with an all-new entry next week, and the pledge drive has brought in enough to cover at least five more after that. It’s certainly not too late to make a donation to ensure the completion of this very important project (which for some reason has attracted no government funding whatsoever). Your name will be added to the Unwatchable Golden Circle of Honor!

Tune in next week for Unwatchable #32, and in the meantime, enjoy the archives!

Unwatchable Recap: 33-40

40. Son of the Mask. “If he keeps working hard and honing his craft, Jamie Kennedy may one day achieve his goal of becoming a second-rate Jim Carrey. On the evidence of Son of the Mask, that day has not yet arrived.”

39. The Invisible Maniac. “Although Rifkin was no doubt inspired by the rich history of invisibility literature and film, I’d have to guess that the opening scene of Carrie served as his primary muse. He seems determined to absolutely exhaust the possibilities of the high school girl’s locker room and, more specifically, the showers within, which he envisions as an all-singing, all-dancing nonstop party of sudsy boobs and steam rising from glistening buttocks.”

38. Chairman of the Board. “Larry Miller in particular seems to retreat to a safe place in his mind every time Carrot Top gets near him (perhaps the place where he cashes his paychecks).”

37. Bad Girls from Valley High. “Aside from providing humiliating late career roles for Christopher Lloyd (as a suspicious, accident-prone teacher) and Janet Leigh (as a comatose stroke victim – don’t ask), Bad Girls from Valley High is just the sort of dopey, barely competent high school comedy you’d expect to go straight to video after sitting on a shelf for five years, which it did.”

36. Daddy Day Camp. “There’s a recreation of the famous Blazing Saddles campfire scene, except with belching instead of farting. But don’t worry – there’s also farting! Also vomiting, pooping, nut-punching and balloons filled with piss. All the classics!”

35. Santa with Muscles. Unavailable on DVD and so far unseen by me. If you somehow have a copy you’d like to donate to the cause, hit me in the comments. Otherwise I’ll find a suitable replacement.

34. House of the Dead. “To give Mr. Boll his due, I must admit House of the Dead is a groundbreaking work: it’s the first movie based on a videogame that is actually less entertaining than watching someone else play a videogame for two hours.”

33. Glitter. “As played by British-born Beesley, Dice has to rank among the top five worst romantic leads in motion picture history. He’s a sleazy mook in a wife-beater, gold chains and a Ratso Rizzo accent, but we’re supposed to think he’s a tortured artistic soul because he has a marimba in his apartment. Come on, that’s the oldest trick in the book!”

Unwatchable Recap: 41-50

50. Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace. “Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace is, as you may have deduced, the sequel to The Lawnmower Man, which was once known as Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man until the master of horror sued New Line Pictures to have his name removed from the credits. When you consider some of the movies Stephen King has seen fit to leave his name on, this would seem to be quite an indictment.”

49. Laserblast. “I’ll say this much for the aliens: they may be cheaply made, but at least they have personality, which is more than I can say for Billy or any other human in the movie. Otherwise, Laserblast has little to offer besides periodic explosions and a chubby girl in a bikini eating cake. I know some of you are into that sort of thing.”

48. Cool as Ice. “Here’s a little-known etymological fact for you: the term ‘assclown’ did not exist before 1990. It was specifically engineered by a team of Harvard linguists assigned to devise a shorthand description of Vanilla Ice.”

47. Creepshow 3. “I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from Creepshow 3. For instance, I learned that, at some point, there must have been a Creepshow 2.”

46. 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain. “Since these kids are no-names, however, we need an actual trio of big stars to headline the picture. I have placed the names of 732,891 members of the Screen Actors Guild into this hat. Please choose three. Let’s see…Loni Anderson…Jim “Ernest” Varney…and Hulk Hogan! Perfect!”

45. Another 9 1/2 Weeks. “Now that the Mickey Rourke comeback arc is complete – with our redeemed hero falling just short of the ultimate prize, a Best Actor Oscar – what better time to look back at one of the movies that made a comeback necessary in the first place?”

44. Leonard Part 6. “The joke of the title is that Leonard’s previous five adventures have been confiscated in the interest of world security. Sadly, the same criteria apparently did not apply to the Ernest movies.”

43. American Ninja V. “I didn’t think there was enough of a shortage of official Karate Kid sequels to warrant a fake one, but then again, I didn’t know there were five American Ninja movies and four 3 Ninjas movies until I started this project. I am learning so much.”

42. Zombie Nightmare. “I’ll just say this: nobody’s life should have this many zombie movies in it. OK, maybe George Romero is an exception, but at least he’s made a good living at it.”

41. Troll 2. “There’s more, oh, so much more. There’s a general store that sells only curdled milk. A witchy temptress who uses a corn cob as a means of seduction. The revelation that Nilbog is…wait for it…”goblin” spelled backwards, and that the town is populated by goblins who use their bright green food to turn humans into plant-people they can then consume.”

Unwatchable Recap: 51-60

60. Carry On Columbus. “It’s stunning to think it was actually made in the ‘90s; you would think medical science had brought us no advances in humor since 1958. If you enjoy old-school sniggering innuendo (“Come up my end!”) or jokes that would have slayed your fifth grade classmates (“We just had a leak in the hold!” “Did you? Well, next time go over the side.”), you may find my judgment too harsh.”

59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone! “I have since learned that Don’t Go in the Woods was made for about $12,000, which is about $4000 more than I would have guessed.”

58. Ed. “Anyone who knows me will tell you there are two things I love above all others: baseball and monkey movies. So it would only stand to reason that Ed, in which Friends doofus Matt LeBlanc befriends a baseball-playing chimpanzee, would be my favorite movie of all time. This turns out not to be the case.”

57. Phat Girlz. “The lesson is, of course, that Jazmin is beautiful inside and out. Except I saw little evidence of her inside beauty on display here; she’s mostly loud, obnoxious and shallow, although she goes through bouts of self-pity just to spice things up.”

56. Araf (The Abortion). “This could be a scary scenario (or just an offensive one if you choose to read Araf as an anti-abortion screed), but the video effects are so poorly rendered, it just looks like a junior high AV club’s remake of The Ring.”

55. A*P*E. “The United States Army cooperated with this? For what possible reason? Did anyone in charge read a script?”

54. Meatballs 4. “Note to aspiring filmmakers: if the success of your movie is dependent on the audience perceiving a character played by Corey Feldman as “the cool guy,” you have already failed.”

53. Baby Geniuses. “I really wish something bad would happen to everyone involved in making Baby Geniuses. I’m not talking about something life-threatening or even physically debilitating – I’m thinking more in terms of a flat tire, a tax audit or perhaps a visible soiling of pants at a high-profile public event.”

52. In the Mix. “Comes described as an ‘edgy romantic comedy,’ which I guess is a romantic comedy in which people shoot at each other.”

51. Simon Sez. “One thing I don’t recall thinking is that Rodman would have a long and successful film career. In fact, I very specifically remember not thinking that, and I think history has proved me right.”

Unwatchable Recap: 61-70

70. Epic Movie. “The only good news is that, much like Spartans, Epic Movie barely crosses the 60 minute mark before the extended credits, complete with dance sequences and hee-larious outtakes, begin.”

69. The Perfect Holiday. “So far so bland, but on the family holiday movie scale, there’s nothing out of the ordinary to justify The Perfect Holiday’s place in the Bottom 100. Except…I haven’t mentioned Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard, have I? Well, they’re in the movie too, although I’m not sure I could tell you why. I guess they’re angels or magical elves or…some sort of shape-shifting Greek chorus, anyway.”

68. Kazaam. “To his credit, Shaq does an admirable job of convincing us that he is, in fact, seven feet tall. Honestly, I would place little of the blame for Kazaam’s failures at the big man’s big feet, even if they are encased in goofy pointy-toed genie shoes for much of the running time.”

67. Nine Lives. “As a blizzard swirls outside, the very, very boring young people drink wine and exchange snooty quips. One of them – it’s either Tim or Tom or Pete or Paul or Andy, I’m not sure – finds a musty old tome telling the tale of the ancient Scot warrior whose name alone evokes the most primal of terrors: it is he who is called…Murray.”

66. Jail Bait. “Wait – the gun is jail bait? Oh, Edward D. Wood, Jr.! I see what you did there! You got me again.”

65. Meet the Browns. “Basically what we have here is another bowl of Tyler Perry’s usual tepid gumbo of sermonizing, self-help platitudes and ham-handed ensemble comedy.”

64. Angels’ Brigade. “Reasonable people can disagree as to the film’s moment of greatness. Some would single out the beach scene in which the gals strip down to their bikinis and seduce a couple of yahoos responsible for bringing a drug shipment ashore, or perhaps the slow-moving rooftop chase in which Palance barely breaks a sweat in his leisure suit. I would point to the white supremacist group led by Jim Backus in a Sgt. Pepper outfit.”

63. Alone in the Dark. “Of the many fine and noble reasons to take on this Unwatchable project (a paycheck, an outlet for repressed hostility, an excuse to put off watching Berlin Alexanderplatz), the chance to familiarize myself with the oeuvre of Uwe Boll certainly ranks…somewhere.”

62. Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. “I always associated the Power Rangers with the Teletubbies: Both were programs that, although intended for children, held great appeal for the 420 crowd. Both centered on a group of color-coded characters, one of whom was gay.”

61. Yu-Gi-Oh! The Movie. “There are episodes of He-Man from 1983 that are more artistically accomplished.”

Unwatchable Recap: 71-80

80. The Smokers. “They smoke. They smoke a lot. They smoke the cigarettes and they smoke the pot. Also, they have boy troubles.”

79. Anus Magillicutty. “When it was over, I found myself actively wishing harm on those who made it, any loved ones who encouraged them to make it, and their employers (should they exist) who wittingly or not subsidized its making.”

78. The Quick and the Undead. “What we have here is your basic meat-and-potatoes (but mostly meat) post-apocalyptic zombie western.”

77. BloodRayne 2: Deliverance. “Sure, in her leather cowgirl outfit she looks like she should be pouring Jager shots and dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly, but she’s handy with swords and guns that fire silver bullets rubbed in garlic and blessed with holy water. Her showdown with Billy the Kid is one for the ages, assuming the ages were between 9 and 9:30 last night.”

76. Kickboxer 3: The Art of War. “The high point of Kickboxer 3 arrives with a montage of wise Xian’s efforts to heal Sloane in time for the fight. He collects various roots and mouse tails and the venom from a snake to prepare a healing elixir, then smears Sloane’s body with some sort of fungal poultice. Hey, it works!”

75. The Last Sign. “I’m immediately suspicious of any movie that opens with a shitload of logos for companies I’ve never heard of. This makes me think what I’m about to watch is more of a tax shelter than a motion picture.”

74. You Got Served. “Can David and Elgin squash their beef in time to bring home the big prize? And did it really, really embarrass me to type the phrase ‘squash their beef’ just now? The answer to both questions is the same.”

73. Fascination. “The first liaison between Scott and Kelly takes place on a slanted corrugated tin roof in a photogenic rainstorm that comes out of nowhere. Just when you’re thinking, ‘Gee, looks like fun, but also a good way to fall to your death,’ Scott and Kelly slip and nearly fall to their deaths.”

72. Meet the Spartans. “Really, it’s not like I’m looking for some explanation for Britney Spears being in ancient Sparta. I realize it’s all part of the free-wheeling zaniness. But you can’t just have her shaving her head and flashing her girl parts. We’ve already seen that.”

71. Gigli. “J-Lo is also stuck with a sub-Tarantino soliloquy on the subtleties of ripping someone’s eyeball out of its socket. It’s almost harder to listen to than ‘Jenny From the Block’.”

Unwatchable Recap: 81-90

90. The Bat People. “If The Bat People is notable at all (hint: it’s not), it’s as one of makeup guru Stan Winston’s earliest efforts, though I suspect he’d leave it off his resume if the IMDb didn’t exist. When we finally get a full view of the transformed John, he looks less like a bat than an extra who stole a mask from the set of the Planet of the Apes TV series.”

89. Bloodlust! “The exclamation point means extra thrills! At least, I wish it did.”

88. College Road Trip. “Fathers, it’s not a good idea to sneak into the sorority house where your daughter is staying and hide under her bed. In fact, it’s a good way to get tazed. And young ladies, if your dad hides under your bed, that just means he loves you. But not in a creepy way. Really.”

87. The Sidehackers. “Vince Rommel (gravel-throated biker movie stalwart Ross Hagen, a poor man’s Steve McQueen) is the king of the sidehacking, “a new and exciting sport filled with thrills and spills you’ve never seen before.” And after you’ve watched The Sidehackers, you still haven’t seen them, despite the copious footage on display. Many minutes of sidehacking are presented for our consideration, none of them exciting in any way.”

86. Hobgoblins. “We’ve all heard of doing more with less, but somehow Sloane has managed to do less with less; if he spent any more on Hobgoblins than I spent on lunch today, he didn’t get his money’s worth.”

85. Battlefield Earth. “For a while, we were all so happy for Travolta and his big screen comeback. By the time Battlefield Earth rolled out, there probably wasn’t a person left on the planet who was still happy for him besides his agent.”

84. It’s Pat. “The premise was so thin that the true joke of the sketch quickly became: Can you believe we’re doing this fucking Pat sketch again? So it’s no wonder that the 1994 feature film version became a punch line long before it was given its belated, limited…I hate to even call it a ‘release.’ More of a parole, really.”

83. First Sunday. “The only point of interest is the flamboyant choir director played by Katt Williams, who walks a fine line between mincing gay stereotype and recently arrived space alien.”

82. American Soldiers. “Your old-timey war movies may have been cliché-ridden, but at least you could count on some reliable caricatures like Brooklyn, Country, Mad Dog, Four Eyes, Mama’s Boy and Sarge to help you tell the members of the unit apart. Here you have Sarge, and I think there’s another Sarge, and definitely a medic called Doc and then a bunch of beefy guys with very few acting credits among them. One of the Sarges spends most of the movie in a stretcher, so I was able to keep track of him pretty well.”

81. Soccer Dog: The Movie. “There’s a million family flicks like this – in fact, there’s a whole subgenre of “dogs playing sports” movies like Air Bud and its sequels, and even a Soccer Dog sequel, European Cup. (There’s also the baseball-playing monkey movie Ed, but I have a feeling we’ll be getting to that eventually.)”