Showing posts with label bad movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad movies. Show all posts

Jun 14, 2020

DANGEROUS MEN (1984 / 2005 / 2015)


Filmmaking is the most communal artistic medium there is. The impassioned spend years watching and studying films, then attending film schools, and then striking out on their own and working on guerilla-style film sets just to hone their craft. And when everyone comes together, bringing their own specific expertise--whether it be writing, cinematography, or editing--a film happens, and it's through everyone's combined efforts that such a thing were possible.

The opening credits for Dangerous Men prove that everyone's been doing it wrong, as it proudly displays the names man that helped bring Dangerous Men to fruition:

A John S. Rad film.

Created and written by John Rad.

Original music, songs, & lyrics by John Rad.

Producer: John Rad.

Executive producer: John Rad.

Directed by John Rad.

A joke surely made a hundred times by now, that opening credits list perfectly sums up Dangerous Men: Rad. Rad all over. Rad through and through. Every inch of film, every stick of production design, every B♭on the keyboard is pure, 100%, unfiltered Rad. But you'll somehow realize this before a single Rad ever flashes on screen, because you'll already have witnessed the title--DANGEROUS MEN--roar onto the screen, only to crash into each other and explode. Following this, you will know there was only one man capable of creating what you are about to witness. Neither David Lean, Howard Hawks, nor Martin Scorsese, literally, could have ever made Dangerous Men. 


If you clicked on this review already having heard of Dangerous Men, then you likely know the backstory of the very complicated and unorthodox production. Entirely self-funded, auteur John Rad shot portions of the film when he had the money to do so. When there was no money, there was no film. The shooting just...stopped. As you can imagine, this approach made the shoot last just a little longer than usual--like, 22 years longer.

Do you know what happens over the course of 22 years?

EVERYTHING.

Actors quit; technology upgrades; "plots" can become lost over the haziness of time; calendars (seen prominently in the background) can say 1985 in one scene, and 1994 the next.

Haphazardly rewritten to conform to the changes that occur over time (like, say, a lead actress who quits after becoming injured on set), Dangerous Men's plot makes very little sense. Characters are introduced and then completely forgotten. Other characters are introduced at nearly the end of the film and somehow become essential catalysts to the resolution of the conflict. Even Wikipedia, which knows everything about everything, has no fucking idea how to explain it: "The plot of Dangerous Men is somewhat unclear, and changes abruptly towards the middle of the film."


Dangerous Men has something for everyone: unsexy sex scenes, terrible karate, ageless fathers, wet kissing, buttcrack knives, badly obscured accents, repeated attempted rape, childish/murderous bikers, tedious strangling, the line, "sweet like cake!"; multiple scenes of knee love; a stabbing-murder sequence shot entirely from the point of view of the human ass; an inadvertently sociopathic heroine; endless scenes of a naked British man dancing in the California desert; poor, poor, poor...just, the poorest acting; funky, upbeat, joyful synth scores used for scenes of rape, stabbing, murder, or, you know, whatever; zero-hour appearances of albino villains; inescapable scenes of belly-dancing; near-cunnilingus; and so so so much more.

Dangerous Men is completely incompatible with the art of film criticism. There'd be no point in calling out the horrendous acting, writing, directing, etc., or the numerous continuity errors, when you're dealing with a film that feels like a fever dream. It doesn't matter that shot composition is worrisome, or that the movie is clearly comprised of multiple film grades, when there are literally instances of actors reading their lines from on-screen scripts, or the same punch sound/"agh!" yell is used fifteen times in a row between two different characters during a fight scene, or the avenging heroine is obviously holding a boom mic almost-but-not-quite out of the shot, even pointing it back and forth to whomever is speaking at that moment. Critiquing Dangerous Men is like going to PetSmart and complaining that it's a shitty zoological exhibit. It's like licking the inside of a Chinatown dumpster and wondering why you feel so ill. Dangerous Men aims a nuclear-propelled rocket at a planet called "Merely Satisfactory Filmmaking" and falls short by thirty million light years. Dangerous Men trails in every election poll except the one called "Hilarious Tits and Stabbing." Dangerous Men shows up to your mother's funeral in Crocs and board shorts, but you honestly don't care because you LOVE Dangerous Men. Someone once tried to battle Dangerous Men with nothing but hyperbole, at which point hyperbole was added to science books as an official unit of measurement.

Dangerous Men can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop. Ever. 


Being that Dangerous Men was shot in chunks over the course of 22 years, some portions of footage look better than others. As you can imagine, the look and integrity of the film gradually improves as it plays on, being that it was shot in mostly chronological order. There are also signs of your usual mistreated footage--print damage, marring, speckling, etc. There's even a cigarette burn or two, which will serve as your befuddling reminder that, yeah, this fucker actually played in a theater. Along with that, the audio on this thing...it ain't great. If someone is sitting in a quiet room, dialogue is clean and clear. If someone is outside on the beach, say, getting almost-raped, or stabbed to death, dialogue is likely muffled by exterior elements, like crashing waves or steady winds. In the film's opening scene, set in a restaurant, all audio has been completely removed between dialogue exchanges, which also contain your usual amount of restaurant ambiance. The very very repetitive and tonally inappropriate synth score by (you guessed it) John Rad can also overwhelm dialogue at times. To summarize, Dangerous Men is capable of offering any kind of consistency when it comes to how it looks or sounds, but seriously, who gives a shit? You didn't even know this thing existed until a month ago, and now you're going to complain? 

For years now, people have asked me, "Why do you love bad movies so much? What's the point of watching something bad...on purpose?" Films like Dangerous Men are my answer. And it needs to speak for itself. If you're a bad movie connoisseur, run--don't walk--to the phone in your hand probably right now and order up this bad boy. You will not be at all disappointed.

Dangerous Men is now available on Blu-ray from Drafthouse Films.


Mar 27, 2020

MAC AND ME (1988)


(Sung to the tune of Mack the Knife)*

Mac and Me, babe, has such balls, dear
And it slams them on E.T.’s face
Just a rip-off with more McDonalds
And it whores it without shame
Ya know that Mac dance, in his bear suit
The creepy creeps start to rash
Coca-Cola, oh, and that McD’s, babe
Mac and Me just wants to sell you trash
Now in his wheelchair, huh, huh, whoo, Eric rolls down a hill
Splash goes his body into the lake
And some movie thought this was a good idea
Could that movie be Mac and Me?

There’s a dance scene, huh, huh, down at McDonalds, don’tcha know
Where life is senseless, just a-chaos on down
This movie has an Eric cuz E.T. had an Elliot
Whereas E.T. smiled, Mac only fucking frowns
Now d’ja hear that awful soundtrack? Songs about friends, babe
“Take Me, I’ll…Follow You,” ha-ha
And like E.T., Eric loves Mac
Mac eats Skittles – this feels against the law

Now Macky’s family, ho, ho, yeah, they scare me
Ooh, huge cheeks and eyes, and their boily skin
Oh they’re searching for their dumb son
Now that Mac is lost in town
Once reunited (spoiler), whoa, they become citizens(?)
It makes sense if you don’t think about it, and go about your day
For many years, we were safe, babe
But now Macky’s back in town
Look out, old Macky is back!


*My apologies to the estate of Bobby Darin.

Mar 8, 2020

TROLL (1986) & TROLL 2 (1990)


Why is a film about a troll terrorizing an annoyingly happy white American family so dull? How does that even happen? Well, you'd have to ask director John Carl Buechler (director of the entertaining Friday the 13th: Part VII -- The New Blood), who dedicates the first 40 minutes of his film to the little sister character, who I guess becomes semi-possessed by the troll that already lives in the basement of their new apartment building and turns into kind of an asshole. Mushrooms come to life, trolls partake in a sporadic rock-opera, and Phil Fondacaro charms the pants off the Potter family. Eventually the titular mythical being shows up. Or maybe not, who knows? Legend says no one has ever finished Troll and lived to tell the tale. Honestly, what would have been so wrong with having the troll itself running around that apartment complex terrorizing everyone on his own? Why have it terrorize vicariously through a Carol Anne doppelgänger? Because it was cheaper?

Troll could have been wonderful B-movie cheese, but instead it's just pain.

The only laudable aspect of Troll is its eclectic stunt casting, which features no less than June Lockhart (Lassie), Michael Moriarty, and Sonny Bono, whose second most embarrassing moment was skiing directly into a tree and dying. The first is Troll.

The first Troll actually serves as a pretty interesting counter point to its in-name-only sequel, Troll 2, in that films of immense disastrous proportions can provide such disparate reactions. Troll is a piece of shit, just like Troll 2, but where Troll causes nothing but misery, Troll 2 is wondrous.

Say, speaking of...


What more can be said about Troll 2? Commonly accepted as the king of bad movies, Troll 2 is infamous for its ineptness, terrible performances, ludicrous plot, and "OHMYGAWWWWWWD!" A film originally called Goblins before it was re-appropriated and shoehorned into the Troll "franchise" (a trick the Weinsteins have pulled many times with their Hellraiser and Children of the Corn sequels), it has, as you might imagine, absolutely nothing to do with the Troll that came before it. An even dumber version of Larry Cohen's The Stuff, a vacationing family and some tag-along teens fall victim to an evil-queen-worshiping town who force-feeds goblin slime to the unsuspecting to turn them into trees. 

I...don't know why. But it also doesn't matter. 

Troll 2 will be discussed long after the last surviving print of Dr. Zhivago melts into nothingness. Where Citizen Kane will have bit the dust when it comes to even the most casual of film conversation, people will still be laughing uproariously at Troll 2's strange and impromptu dance number in front of an RV mirror. I'm not saying that's the way things should be; I'm just calling it as I see it. Troll 2 will never stop being laughed at, discussed, dissected, and reenacted. Generation after generation will be laughing at clips on Youtube (or whatever the future version of Youtube will look like), hosting screening parties at their homes with troll-themed foods and drinks, and ordering the digital download from Shout! Factory's future imprint, Brain! Factory, which beams digital files directly into the official Brain! Factory chip in your cerebrum.

I will say this: I recognize that Citizen Kane is one of the best films of all time. But I also recognize Troll 2 has done way, way more to improve my life. And yours. How's that for taste?

(As an aside, if you haven't yet had the pleasure, seek out Best Worst Movie, a phenomenal documentary that examines Troll 2's very unlikely popularity while also looking at the appeal of cult cinema appeal and the nature of cult appreciation in general. It also presents an interesting character piece, in that it focuses mostly on lead actor/hero George Hardy, who goes from being folksy, charming, and enthusiastic to kiiiind of a dick toward the end, all before turning it back around and ending things on a more positive note.)

Well then. We've come to the end of our Troll journey. We learned a lot about the world, and each other. For instance, I learned that, though Troll 2 is as delightful as I remember, I never ever want to watch Troll ever again in my life. Ever.