#64 Eegah (1962) (Colin)

I don’t know much about our next movie, heck, I don’t even know how to pronounce it. I do know, however, that it stars Jaws, who has already featured in our top 100 list and who, quite frankly, was as convincing a shark as a gerbil with a pair of false teeth.

So it was no surprise that our old animatronic rubber pal was back in our top 100 bad movies list, but what was surprising is that he made a film outside of the Jaws franchise. The only other thing I knew about Eegah, (our next movie), is that it is about a caveman who has somehow ended up in 1960’s America. I really couldn’t imagine a scruffy looking big fish with long hair, wearing clothes which predates Christ and wielding a big club, (actually maybe I can as I think I’ve just described Peter Stringfellow).

Then I realised it was Jaws as in the baddie from the James Bond movies and all became clear…….

#64 Eegah (1962)

The plot of Eegah is a lot like Eegah's clothing, ie, there's not a lot of it. The story starts when 60's cool chick Roxy Miller, (Marilyn Manning), nearly drives her car into Eegah, (Richard Kiel), a giant caveman who appears to be a little lost both in location and time.

Roxy informs her equally cool, guitar playing, surf singing, boyfriend, Tom Nelson, (Arch Hall Jr.) and her dad, Robert Miller, (Arch Hall Sr., which is a bit confusing if you tend to mix reality with the show you are watching as this would mean Roxy is dating her brother), about the giant. Her dad, a writer, (which as he wrote this movie, is not something he should really shout about), smells a story and sets off armed with a camera, (I would have thought a pen would be easier to write with), in search off Eegah.

When Robert fails to turn up to meet Roxy and Tom as arranged, they go out into the desert to look for him. Tom allows Roxy to wander off alone, (keeping the nice big gun all for himself), and the inevitable happens when Roxy is kidnapped by Eegah. Who would have thought a giant caveman armed with a blunt instrument would pose any threat to a 5ft nothing, 100 pound unarmed girlfriend?

Roxy is taken back to Eegah's cave where she is re-united with her father. Her dad explains that he has learnt a little of Eegah's ways and that as long as they do what he wants, then it appears he will not harm them.  What Eegah wants, however, is Roxy; Robert, ever the worried father, shows his concern by telling her to stop being frigid, (I paraphrase slightly).

After giving Eegah a shave and a hair cut, (really), they decide now is the time to escape. Tom, showing all the sharpness of a blunt football, finally discovers them and helps them by driving them away in his dune buggy at a whopping 6 mph. Fortunately for them, Eegah can only manage a snail like 4 mph and so the world's slowest chase ends and they all manage to flee from Eegah and return to the city.

Eegah is a bit miffed his new found love has gone, (I think it's Roxy, but he may have had a thing for her dad too. He did have a nice moustache) and decides to track her down.

Thinking they are safe, Roxy and Tom are at a pool party and are stunned when Eegah makes an appearance, (he was not on the guest list and was not wearing a black tie). Being the civilized humans which Eegah is not, the guests all gang up on him and then get the police to shoot the unarmed giant dead. They all feel a bit bad, but the party carries on, the end.

Overall this movie has a familiar look and feel to previous films from our list.  It is set mainly outdoors and has a very small central cast, like Robot Monster From Outer Space, (If you'd like to read my Robot Monster blog, click here!).  It tries to use ‘youth culture’ especially ‘modern music’ (modern to the 60’s off course), to make it’s movie seem cool and appealing, like The Horror of Party Beach (If you'd like to read my Horror of Party Beach blog, click here!).

All of these movies have appeared on MST3K, (which regular readers will know is one of my all time favourite shows). I must admit I have not seen the MST3K with Eegah yet, but I will do as soon as I’ve finished this blog, (if I watch it now, I’d be a bit deflated as these guys will come up with something far wittier and funnier than I ever could have done!).

Because of these similarities, it is difficult not say the same things about this movie than what was said in my reviews of the previous films.  However, one thing that does stand out is the poor audio of this movie.

Everything seems to be re-dubbed and it is terrible.  Mouths move and the audio does not follow suit.  Eegah is particular bad as he doesn’t actually speak throughout the movie, merely grumbles, but his grumble sounds in no way match his facial movements.  I have no idea why the director felt the need to re-dub a grumble unless they had forgotten to purchase microphones whilst shooting the movie, (which is plausible as they forgot to purchase a script as well).

Another bit of bad dubbing is when Tom starts randomly singing in the movie.  Now firstly, I hate musicals anyway.  The idea of people spontaneously breaking into song and dance just scares me and if it ever did happen in real life, I’d be walking slowly to the nearest exit or under the nearest train.  When Tom starts singing he has a magical guitar, for not only does his ACOUSTIC guitar have a nice electric sound, but it also provides bass, drums and backing singers for Tom.

At least when there was music in The Horror of Party Beach, they actually had a band and you could kind of believe they were playing live.  The sight of Tom lip-syncing to a pre-recorded track in the movie just makes him look daft.  This does not need to happen as his hairstyle had already done this for him.

As briefly mentioned above, Richard Kiel does not speak in this movie, which I believe he also didn’t in the James Bond movies.  This leads me to think he’s not much of a voice actor, but judging by this movie he’s not much of a facial actor too.

Eegah has 2 expressions, angry and puppy dog whining to the camera.  He loses Roxy, puppy dog whine, followed by angry.  He finds Roxy, puppy dog whine, followed by angry.  He sees the script, puppy dog whine, followed by angry.  I really don’t get if we are supposed to feel sympathy or be scared of Eegah as he swaps between the 2 continuously throughout.  I suspect it’s scared as there is no scarier sight than Kiel gurning into a camera trying to portray hurt, but looking like he want’s an extra treat for pooping outdoors.

But the real problem with this movie is the fact that it takes 90 minutes in which to tell a story in which 90 seconds would have been more than adequate.

There really is too much filler, for example when Roxy's dad flies by helicopter to the spot where they begin the search for Eegah, the director felt that we had to experience every millisecond of the journey.  The journey being over featureless dessert probably gives everyone a clue about how interesting this actually would be, (although not to the director!).

The story is actually so short and basic, that had it been produced today, they probably would have tweeted it, rather than bother with the expense of a movie:

EEgah @Eegah Bumped into woman, kidnapped dad, woman came to cave. Had a shave. Dad and woman escaped, found them at a party; was killed. #puppydogwhine

So would I watch this movie again? Well, I suspect I am going to enjoy the MST3K version as they always elevate the bad to genius, so maybe I’ll watch that more than once. As for the original movie? Sorry, I’m not Eegah!

#65 Chairman of the Board (Wes)

Chairman of the Board

So there I am sitting innocently looking at what movie is coming next up on out list and it’s one I’ve never heard of before, Chairman of the Board. In my mind I picture a boring movie about corporate take-overs and dodgy dealings, a little in the vein of maybe The Hudsucker Proxy, or possibly Wall Street. Obviously not as good as it wouldn’t be on this list, but surely something that is, if not interesting, then at least amusing in it’s complete ineptness at understanding the world of business. Then I looked at it on IMDB and saw it starred an actor by the name of Carrot Top and a little more of me died inside.

Surfer Edison (Carrot Top), is threatened with eviction after he spends his rent money on developing his useless inventions. Following a string of failed jobs, Edison meets elderly company owner and fellow surfer Armand McMillan (Jack Warden), when he helps him after his car has broken down. When Armand suddenly dies, Edison gets left all of Armand’s stock and becomes the new owner of McMillan industries. Of course he hasn’t a clue what to do, and it isn’t long before he runs afoul of Bradford McMillan (Larry miller), Armand’s nephew, who is bitter that he wasn’t left the stock himself. Bradford plots to run to companies share prices down so he can legally claim the stock from Edison. Edison must fight back and make the company successful and defeat Armand’s nefarious plans to sell the company to a rival firm. I on the other hand really need to find a new hobby.

The film starts off with Edison getting born. Even as an unborn baby he is mixing up chemicals and trying to invent things whilst in his mothers womb, which seriously leads to some worrying questions. Firstly and foremost being, where the hell did he get all the test tubes, beakers, and chemicals from? (I can only guess that his parents must have been up to some REALLY crazy shit), and who lets a baby play with chemicals in the first place? Once the baby is born (blown out of the womb in a chemical explosion), you see that he has a massive crop of ginger hair, showing anyone who may not have understood why Scott Thompson called himself Carrot Top in the first place (he has ginger hair you see. He even had it as a baby. I know these jokes are a little highbrow, but stick with me, and I’ll walk you through them).

Soon (after the credits) you see a grown up Edison asleep and being fondled by several girls arms and being told that that he was “incredible last night” and that they want him. Hilariously they’re just part of an invention that seems to be part of his alarm clock that catapults him from his bed. I’m not sure if this is meant to endear him to the audience, but I found it to be more Wallace and Vomit, than Wallace and Grommit.

  

This movie reminded me massively of Freddie Got Fingered (to see how much I hated that piece of crap see here http://100reasonstogooutside.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/73b-freddy-got-fingered-wes.html), so I decided to dub it Freddie got Gingered. Like a slightly less irritating, slightly more family friendly Tom Green, Carrot Top gets up to all sorts of hilarious high jinx. No wait, that should read, Carrot Top desperately tries to be as wacky as possible in a way that could only amuse eight-year old boys who have the attention span of a goldfish, which is suffering from short-term memory loss. Ooh look, Carrot Top has a bug zapper hat and has released some killer bees! Ooh look, Carrot Top beats up a corpse whilst trying to borrow a tie. Ooh look Carrot Top covers himself in post it notes. Ooh look, Wes is so bored of these tired antics he’s rocking back and forth and is softly crying to himself to make it all stop.

It’s actually like he decided he wanted to be like Jim Carrey after he stopped being funny. Perhaps he would have had a better acting career if he decided to try and break the Nickelodeon market and become a kids TV star. It worked for Paul Reubens with PeeWee Herman, so I’m sure with a good writer behind him Carrot Top could have had a successful career (he actually was the continuity announcer on the Cartoon Network for a few years in the mid nineties, so he was halfway there). Nowadays he still performs stand-up comedy (and seems to spend the rest of his time in the gym (and I just bet that he tells everyone on Facebook that he’s been there every time he goes)), so I guess he has his fans, but then again so does Tom Green, so there’s really no accounting for taste.

Being a massively ginger haired person must be hard in Hollywood. I’m sure it’s bad enough for them growing up, with the relentless teasing that most ginger people I know suffered in school, but to then go on to somewhere that is obsessed with looks is a brave move. Then to call yourself Carrot Top, so that people can be in absolutely no doubt about your inability to go out in the sun without immediately looking like you’ve just been dropped in boiling water, is a brave move that NEARLY paid off.

Sure he got the starring role in this movie, but this is the only one. Three years too early for the ginger revolution that the Weasley family would kickstart in the Harry potter movies (I see Rupert Grint as the ginger version of Rosa Parks. The boy who sat down in Hollywood and refused to be moved), the only other hugely popular ginger star I can think of who was around that time wasn’t even a real person (and I'm not talking about Ginger Spice and her "acting" in Spiceworld). However comparing Carrot Top to Chucky, (the doll from the Child’s Play movies), would be an easy, but totally unfair thing to do (even if they do pretty much have the same pyjamas, I can’t decide if this was done on purpose or not). Chucky was witty, had screen presence and managed to keep me watching his movies long after I felt I shouldn’t have. I suspect the same could never have been said for Carrot Top if he had more success.

It strikes me that so many of these movies that we’ve watched so far are supposed to be comedies, that fail to deliver on the even the most basic of levels, and once again Chairman of the Board is another poor comedy by numbers movie, that has such a formulaic plot that even Mystic Meg couldn’t fail to predict the ending. It’s a 24 carat flop that should be avoided by anyone who has even the slightest modicum of taste.

#65 Chairman of the Board (1998) (Colin)

Our next movie is a ‘comedy’ and it is fair to say, we have not had a lot of luck with comedy movies in our list.

Whether it’s the racial stereotypical nonsense of Soul Plane, the hit and miss sketches, (mainly miss), in Underground ‘Comedy’ Movie or the Tom Green ego wankfest, Freddy Got Fingered; all of these films have one thing in common: There is absolutely no comedy in them.

The fact that the ‘star’of our next movie, Scott 'Carrot Top' Thompson, has been described as zany and wacky, also got me worried.  In my experience, the words zany and wacky can be defined as: someone or something which is trying desperately hard to be funny, but does not succeed and fails miserably.

So safe in the knowledge that I won’t crack a rib or funny bone, we started our next movie, ‘Chairman of the Board’ (1998).

The movie centres on surfing dude Eddison, (Carrot Top), who has been trying all his life to invent the next big thing.  On his way back from yet another rejection meeting of his ideas, Eddison bumps into an older gent, Armand McMillan, (Jack Warden), whose car has broken down.  Eddison and McMillan form an unlikely friendship when it turns out that McMillan is the owner of an inventions company and that he admires Eddison’s determined attitude and imagination.

McMillan dies soon after and leaves his majority shareholding to Eddison, much to the annoyance of McMillan’s nephew, Bradford, (Larry Miller), who has worked all his life for McMillan and expected to inherit the company.

Eddison with his large ginger hair and bright coloured dress sense, does not fit in immediately with the board of directors, who are all grey suits, grey hair and grey personalities.  However, when Eddison invents the TV dinner, (a ready meal in a tray with a TV in its lid), it is a massive success and the huge rise in the share price, gains him acceptance from the board.  Bradford, who had been hoping that Eddison, with his quirky ways and bad ideas, would fail, is rather miffed, to say the least.

He hatches a plan in which someone would claim, on a live TV news show, that the TV dinner had led to radiation poisoning.  Bradford gives the ‘radiated’ man some glow in the dark paint invented by Eddison, (erm no, this had already been invented surely?),  so that when the lights are dimmed, radiated man glows brightly from head to toe.

The game is up when Eddison, (who is not the brightest spark throughout the whole movie, but then suddenly remembers he did a 4 year degree in Chemistry), realises that radiation poisoning would have caused sickness and probably death, rather than glowing like a novelty condom.  Bradford is confronted and unwittingly wearing a shirt invented by Eddison that emits lights and alarms when it detects bullshit, is found out when he tries to lie his way out of it.

The company is saved and Eddison hands over control of the board to a rather sensible lady, (and potential love interest), Natalie Stockwell, (Courtney Thorne-Smith), who probably won't balls it up like Eddison eventually would.

If you think you’ve heard this story a million times before, that is probably because you have.  There is not a single original character, idea or plotline throughout the entire movie.

Carrot Top’s Eddison is a character we’ve seen countless times.  He’s the outcast of society, with a big heart, who, against all the odds, succeeds in the modern world and becomes accepted by the masses.  Bradford is the baddie we have seen time after time, he feels threatened by Eddison and will try everything in his power to stop him.  He becomes more outlandish and desperate as the movie goes on, but, just when it appears he has finally won, he gets his come uppance.

For this reason the movie feels very familiar and familiarity breeds contempt.  You know what happens way in advance and you feel so confident in your new found abilities that you end up putting all of your savings on 6 numbers, (Which reminds me, totally unrelated, but, can someone lend me a fiver till payday?  I think I’ve managed to delete the ‘screw you’ message from my bosses voice mail but I'm not great with technology))?

The script itself is not very good and the gags are slapstick and juvenile.  The use of primary colours and puerile jokes throughout the movie, makes it feel like this was written by a child with a large crayon, (although in truth, a child would be funnier and more original than Carrot Top).  Whilst I like a good gag about trouser trumpets and botty bugles, by the 500^th time the joke is used, it becomes predictable and, more importantly, unfunny.

The use of stupid sound effects throughout, also becomes annoying very early on and feels like those lazy radio shows who rely on slide whistles, fart noises and clown horns for their comedy.  Carrot Top really is an unfunny *fart noise* who I would gladly kick in the *clown horn* and frankly, he can shove this unfunny movie right up his *slide whistle*.

Whilst Carrot Top is firmly to blame for the script, the person responsible for the look and feel of the movie is director, Alex Zamm.  Zamm has directed box office gold such as Inspector Gadget 2, (there was a sequel?), Dr Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts and Beverley Hills Chihuahua 2.  All of these films were straight to DVD and this may explain why this movie has the feel of a badly made, cheap, and bland comedy.  It feels rushed out to try to make some easy money for the studios Christmas do.  Chairman of the Board is a straight to DVD movie and then straight into the bin.

It was as feared then, for this ‘comedy’ movie.  The movie was not funny in any way and I can not remember a single incident that left me half smiling, let alone bursting out into laughter.  Carrot Top seems to suffer from the same problem which Tom Green had in Freddy Got Fingered, in that the movie has to completely revolve around him and his ‘funny’ antics.  If you want to know what Green + Ginger equals, then this movie is the result, (or as Wes offered, the movie could be retitled, Freddy Got Gingered).

I guess the most obvious pun to finish this blog on would be something along the lines of ‘Chairman of the Board?  Chairman of the BORED more like’.  But that would be unimaginative, obvious and not funny.  This is exactly why I will finish with this gag, after all, if the makers of this movie couldn’t be arsed to come up with something witty, original and funny, then why should I?

#66 Time Chasers (Wes)

Time Chasers

Twice now we’ve failed to find the movie we was supposed to watch, and twice we’ve had to replace that movie with two from our back-up list. For the third time on our list this looked like it was going to happen again as Time Chasers was proving impossible to track down. This time round we had a Get Out of Jail Free Card to play as Mystery Science Theatre 3000 had done a show featuring this movie. Of course watching Mike and the robots taking the piss made watching this movie way more enjoyable than it should have been, but don’t you think we’ve suffered enough?

Time Chasers (AKA Tangents) follows the story of inventor Nick Miller (Matthew Bruch). Nick has invented a time machine that is built into his small plane. He manages to licence this technology to GenCorp via its CEO J.K. Robertson (George Woodard). After he takes his old girlfriend Lisa Hansen (Bonnie Pritchard) on a date to the 1950s, he takes her to 2041 only to discover that GenCorp have abused the technology and destroyed the future. After trying to warn J.K. about this, and then prevent this from happening themselves, J.K. tries to kill them both (Surely this should be the end of the movie?). But no, there's so many past and future Nick's running around it's all looking like somebody married their own cousin. This mess eventually all ends up with a fight during 1777 in the middle of the American Revolution and time paradoxes so ridiculous that it made me want to go back to prehistoric times and stamp on anything that crawls from the ocean in a bid to stop its ancestors from ever evolving into anyone responsible for this movie.

David Giancola was only twenty years old when he directed (and wrote) this film, which sounds like an impressive feat. Unfortunately his inexperience really shows through and he made an absolute stinker of a movie. It was so unappealing to audiences that only the appearance on MST3K managed to pull it out of the red. So what exactly did Giancola do wrong?

Firstly Matthew Bruch really is a terrible choice for the lead role. In a media where you either have to have a lot of sex appeal, or be extremely talented to become a household name Bruch really didn’t stand a chance. There have been many strange and creepy looking actors over the years who have managed to become stars because of their acting abilities or just sheer charisma (for example Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe and Vincent Schiavelli), but unfortunately for Bruch he really didn’t have their abilities. Even though he was cast in the lead in this film he only managed to get two bit parts after this movie.

  

I know it’s shallow to criticise an actor based on their looks. It’s something I usually try to avoid, but when you have to spend an hour and a half looking at a man who could use his chin as a bike rack then it really puts you off of a movie. If this man was doing your tax inspection, then you wouldn’t think twice about him, but in a film where he’s supposed to be an action hero, you just can’t quite believe it. He looks like the sort of man who says “yes please” out loud when a filling in the sex question on a survey. The sort of man whose favourite cheese is “medium”. He’s the sort of man who thinks that a mullet is great choice in haircut…. Oh wait. That one was true.

As for the other actors in this movie, they all possess about the same acting talent as Bruch (or to put it another way, significantly less than the puppet Basil Brush). Bonnie Pritchard is now officially the worst actress called Bonnie that I’ve ever seen in a time travelling drama (I never thought that Bonnie Langford would lose that title). Again this is reflected in the fact that she’s only ever been in one other film, and an episode of Kids in the Hall. George Woodard is a dairy farmer when he’s not acting. If you look closely you can actually see him milking cows in this film, because he certainly wasn’t acting in it. The only actor I liked was Peter Harrington, who plays Matthew Paul, and that’s only because he looks like Brian O'Halloran wearing a Magnum PI moustache. In fact he even sounds and acts a little like him.

  

Secondly Nick Miller is possibly the worst scientist ever. Sure some scientists have made some terrible errors over the years, and some have just been totally evil, but selling the rights to time travel to a corporation is just ridiculously stupid. It’s so dumb that it makes the Jack selling his cow for some magic beans look like Forbes businessman of the year. Surely he knows what the consequences of messing with the space-time continuum can be, so why would he allow an entity that is only concerned with making money access to that power?

If he’s really that desperate for money, why not go down the Back to the Future 2 route of finding out who wins what and making money that way? Or if he thinks that’s too morally dubious, then traveling back in time and buying a couple of copies of Action Comics issue 1 so he can auction them off? Sure every action will have a rippling effect through time, but surely that would be better than selling the rights to time travel to a man who would be more subtle in his evil schemes if he was tying somebody to some railway tracks whilst signing the contract.

  

Thirdly, the time travel technology looks terrible. Even on a low budget more effort could have been made than putting a Commodore 64 keyboard, a crappy monitor, a few wires, and what looks like some plastic packaging material sprayed silver into a plane. I know Back to the Future had a much higher budget, but the flux capacitor in that looks much more like it’s part of some new technology and that’s just a few LED’s in a metal casing. You could probably knock something like that up really cheaply. But this movie isn’t ripping off any of the ideas from Back to the Future. They had a time machine in a car, Time Chasers had a plane that was a “time transport”. Totally different.

This film is the motion picture equivalent of a dog chasing its own tail. It runs round in circles, but never manages to achieve what it wants to. For a first time effort, Giancola showed enthusiasm, but that’s about the nicest thing I can say really. When we decided to watch the MST3K version of this I felt we was cheating a little, but now I’m glad that we did. This movie is so bad that I’m currently taking flying lessons and trying to buy a working Commodore 64 so I can go back in time and stop myself from ever watching it…

When this baby hits 88mph you're going to see a massive pile of shit...

#66 Time Chasers (1994) (Colin)

 

Our next movie is a low budget film called Time Chasers (1994), so low budget it seems they did not have enough cash to press a DVD in the UK. We could not find this movie anywhere, 2^nd hand DVD stores, Amazon, behind the sofa, we looked everywhere. In the end we had to make a decision a) try harder or b) go back to our substitute bench and replace this movie with 2 bad movies as punishment. We went for option c).

Option c) involved watching the MST3K version. By now I’m going to assume you know what MST3K is, (please Google or YouTube if you do not and watch at least one episode. If you share our humour, you will find it funny), and this is by no means a punishment. However, it does pose a small problem.

Throughout the MST3K version, the team are constantly firing out gags and these gags are going to be way funnier than anything I could have come up with. They also are so funny that I get distracted and the gags and movie merge so I’m not entirely sure what is MST3K and what is storyline!

For this reason I need to start with a disclaimer. I have no intention of using any gags from MST3K and any similar gags are by mistake and will not be as good as the original. For this reason I ask that after you read my blog, you delete it from your floppy and then watch the MST3K version which is on YouTube, (and the link is at the bottom of this blog).

Anyway, for now, here’s my take on the movie……

The story centres on Nick Miller, (Matthew Bruch), who has no beginning to his talents. He’s a physics teacher, an amateur pilot and has a chin which you could set your watch by. He is also a genius as he has managed to harness all the power of a Commodore 64 and has turned his small plane into a time travelling machine!

Keen to make a few bucks and to develop an even better time travelling plane, (this time powered by an Amiga), he calls the local newspaper and a multi-national evil bastards company, GenCorp, to come and take a peepers.

The reporter from the paper turns out to be a high school ex- with whom he got jiggy with called Lisa Hansen, (Bonnie Pritchard). GenCorp send exec, Matthew Paul, (Peter Harrington), and to our knowledge, Nick never did the biz with him, but as Matthew has such a nice moustache, he could have afforded to turn him down anyway.

Nick shows off the plane by taking them to 2041, (and if you are wondering what the world will look like in 27 years’ time, then glance out of the window). Matthew is so impressed he sets up a meet with CEO of GenCorp, J. K. Robertson, (George Woodard), who wastes no time and snaps up a licence from Nick.

Meanwhile, Lisa was so impressed that she agrees to a date with Nick back in the 1950’s, (where her hair is finally in fashion) and before long the 2 do snoggies.

Nick drops Lisa back in 2041, (Lisa wanted to be dropped off in 2023 and walk the rest of the way, but Nick was insistent), where they discover that either: a) by selling a licence to JK, the future has been destroyed and the planet is now a crumbling, grey, concrete war zone or b) they’d accidentally gone to Hull.

Nick and Lisa rush back to the present to warn JK of what could happen. JK already knows, as he has already built his own plane time machine, (powered by an electric kettle). He tells the duo that quite frankly, as he was going to make a large wad of cash, he couldn’t give a flying hoot.

Desperate to save the future, Nick and Lisa escape JK’s evil clutches and set about travelling back to just before Nick sells out to GenCorp.

As they fly into the past, JK and Matthew catch up with them in their own 8-bit time machine and shoot Nick’s plane down. Unfortunately Lisa is killed and unfortunately Nick is not.

Lisa from the past is called to report on the crashed plane and finding out that it’s past Nick’s plane, she goes to interview past Nick. Past Nick, whose past plane is still in one piece, is a bit confused by past Lisa’s tale of a crashed plane. Past Lisa is also confused when she learns that the body in past Nick’s plane is Lisa. Past Lisa is freaked out and by now I’m past caring.

Past Nick, past Lisa and present Nick all eventually meet and are pursued by present JK and Matthew. Somehow, they all end up in 1777 along with past mechanic lesser character whose name I forget.
JK and Matthew hunt down past and present Nick and past Lisa and in the background the American and British are fighting in full period clobber to remind us that we are not in actual fact in an unrealistic battlefield in 1994, but still in 1777.

In summary, (I’m doing you a favour by skipping detail, trust me), JK kills Matthew and then Nick and then JK’s time plane crushes him, (hooray, most of the cast gone in 2 scenes). Unfortunately past Nick and past Lisa make it back into the past and the movie continues.

They return to the point where JK comes to see the time machine, but Nick has managed to hide the Commodore 64 and pulls out an old lady instead whilst muttering something about an ad campaign. A furious JK fires Matthew for wasting his time and a furious Colin fires the laptop out of the window for wasting his time.

And so ends a fantastic 90 minutes of pure entertainment. However, don’t forget, I was watching the MST3K version and unfortunately, underneath their quick witted, brilliant humour, is an awful, cheap and dull movie.

The acting has more wood than Ron Wood on a family picnic in a forest. Bruch gurns and splutters his way throughout the movie and is never convincing as a leading actor. The MST3K guys allude to this, but Bruch really does not have the screen presence or looks to pull this off.

The chin with 2 time zones, thick glasses and mullet hairdo does not say all action hero to me. It actually says Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, (OK a hero, but of the wrong variety).

The supporting cast is weak. Pritchard gives whining puppy dog eyes throughout, Harrington’s talent is moustache grooming, not acting and Woodard’s baddie is one-dimensional, (ironically, One-Dimension are way more scary than this guy!).

According to Wikipedia, the budget for this movie was $150k. This is all well and good, but I am left wondering what on earth they spent the other $149,999.99 on. It certainly couldn’t have been the lavish special effects, as even the Commodore 64 was laughing at them.

It almost definitely was not the plot as this was printed from the generic time travel storyline website and the character’s names were added in large letters with a crayon.

No money was spent on the sets, as there are none, (it’s mainly set outdoors). The future looked suspiciously like the present; the alternative future looked suspiciously like the present in a disused warehouse. The past looked like the present despite 5 cars from the 50’s and the 18^thcentury merely looked like a gang of drunken battle re-enactors had stumbled onto set, (probably not far from the truth).

The hairstyles, clothing and computer technology all belong in the 80’s and I can imagine had I watched the movie at its release, I would have thought, ‘wow, this looks really dated!’. (Actually, there is a boring explanation as the movie was apparently shot in 1990. I guess when you produce crap this bad, you need to really let it mature for 4 years for maximum crap effect!).

Therefore, be under no illusions, I only enjoyed this movie thanks to the guys from MST3K. Without them, this is a very dated, paint by numbers time travel story with no redeeming quality.

That’s my take anyway, if you want to hear a funnier take on Time Chasers, then read Wes’ blog and once you’ve done that, dust off you Commodore 64, grow a mullet, strap a pork chop to your chin and treat yourself to the MST3K version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddHfau_ONSw

#67 Leonard Part 6 (Wes)

Leonard Part 6

Bill Cosby is an excellent comedian. His stand-up show Himself is brilliant, and shows such an assured comedian that he spends much of it sitting down, a move that many stand-up comedians would never do. After years of being a guest star on other peoples shows, he became one of the most loved TV stars playing Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show which ran for 8 years between 1984 and 1992. In fact he’s still performing stand-up shows now at the age of 76. So how did it come to pass that in 1987, as he was so successful elsewhere, that he was the lead in Leonard Part 6? A film that he was so ashamed of, that he publically told audiences not to waste their money watching it. Was he over-reacting? Let’s find out…

Leonard part 6 (you haven’t missed parts 1-5, that’s supposed to be a joke which is explained at the beginning of the movie), centres around a spy (Leonard – played by Bill Cosby) who is forced out of retirement when an evil vegetarian, Medusa Johnson (Gloria Foster) tries to take over the world with animals that have been trained to attack humans. That’s it. That’s the whole plot. Even Kids Say the Darndest Things had more of a coherent narrative. In fact I think that this film may have been written in crayon on a kindergarten wall by some of the future stars of that show.

 But it wasn’t just the script that seems to have been written by a bunch of six year olds, no it seems they designed the opening credits too. When a movie starts with a bunch of poorly drawn animals plastered over the credits then you can pretty much guess what level the film is going to be at. It actually looks like it’s going to be a movie that was a junior school project. Hardly the image that any professional movie maker wants to project I’m sure. Maybe it was a prototype for Cosby’s next project: Kids Design the Crappiest Things.

Then the movie starts. For some reason it starts with an amalgamation of scenes that are quite near the end of the film. Bill Cosby, jumping a tank off the top of a road, Bill Cosby ballet dancing and Bill Cosby jumping off of a roof riding an ostrich (unfortunately it was a “real” ostrich, and not a Bernie Clifton style ostrich costume). Now I can see why they did this: The movie is so dull that starting it with something wacky may hold the audience in place just to see how Cosby got into such a crazy situations, but maybe if somebody just pointed out that holding an audience’s attention is much more easily done by making a movie that doesn’t make The Only Way is Essex look like it was written by Shakespeare.

  

As I’ve already mentioned, the plot is spread so thinly it could be mistaken for the sandwich filling in a motorway service station café. It’s only a few minutes before you’re introduced to Medusa Johnson’s plan, when a rainbow trout is shown a picture of a CIA agent he wants assassinated, and like the last vindictive fish we saw, the shark in Jaws: The Revenge, this trout barks (it also pauses to look at a discarded copy of Playboy, which raises all sorts of questions that I’m not sure I want answered…). I know this is a family film, so I can understand the bloodless death, and the use of something silly like a rainbow trout over something that may be scary like a piranha, but I can’t overlook the fact that even the child that sits in class eating glue would realise the size difference between a man and a single trout. Maybe a shoal of trout attacking him could have worked, but nobody involved in this movie seemed to credit children with any intelligence.

The movie continues in its stupidity from there. A man is killed by a bunch of frogs gathering under his car and hopping it into the river, Leonard spends four minutes choosing a tie (I’m not kidding), Leonard gets some ballet shoes and a queen bee from Nurse Carvalho (Anna Levine), a fortune teller he doesn’t understand, which are soon used in a fight/dance-off seemingly against the cast of The Lion King Musical, and then to empty a room of bees that were guarding something or other (yeah I really wasn’t paying attention at this point). Eventually the stupidity culminates in a battle between Leonard and Medusa’s vegetarians which includes Medusa’s head henchman, Man Ray’s (David Maier) head exploding as he meat for the first time (now I’ve had a dodgy hot dog or two in my lifetime, but it was never my head that eventually exploded…).

  

I think there’s maybe one thing we can all take from this movie, and that’s not to trust Morrissey. This movie really is like an anti-vegetarian propaganda film. It’s actually worse than the short movie “The Meat Council Presents Meat and You: Partners in Patriotism” from the classic Simpsons episode Lisa the Vegetarian. The message in this film seems to be that veggies are both evil, and that they can’t handle the taste explosion that is a hot dog (for the record, I do actually eat meat and my blood type is probably gravy. But I still think this is a crappy message to be sending out to the audience).

The acting, whilst not brilliant, is standard for most low budget family films of the time and whilst the costumes and sets look crappy, again this is pretty much what you’d expect from any similar film from the time. The fact that this movie is so dumb and yet so boring at the same time really is the only major problem with this film. Bill Cosby not only starred, but co-wrote it too, so most of the blame should rest with him. He obviously didn’t have the ability to write outside of what he knew. His comedy was always based around family life and trying to write a spy comedy just didn’t suit him.

  

As a movie it’s just a confused mess that wastes the talent and charisma of Cosby, but then again that could pretty much describe any film that he starred in. Cosby was better off on TV, or sitting on a stage telling jokes, but he seemed to be determined to try and conquer the movie world too. When Leonard Part 6, and later Ghost Dad were the results, you wonder why he bothered. I really can’t recommend this movie on any level, it really is an absolute joke. Which is funny really as jokes are exactly what Cosby forgot to include.

#67 Leonard Part 6 (1987) (Colin)

The next movie on our list is another comedy movie, Leonard Part 6.  I must admit, I think I have laughed twice during our ‘comedy’ movies so far.  This is pitiful and if I’d wanted to write about unfunny comedies, I would have written a Birds of a Feather blog.  Hell, the comedies have been so bad, that I would almost rather watch Michael McIntyre or hammer a rusty croquet hoop through my testicles, (both as painful as each other).

Anyway, the writer, producer and star of Leonard Part 6, was Bill Cosby who, in the 80’s, was a global superstar.   He could do no wrong and was one of the highest paid and most respected comedians / actors of the time.  ‘Therefore we’re in safe hands aren’t we Colin?’, I hear you cry, alas dear reader, I am afraid no, no we’re not.

You see I’ve already fallen into that trap.  ‘A movie directed by Guy Ritchie? Why’s this on our list?’ I thought before watching the awful ‘Swept Away’ and quickly realising why it’s on the list and questioning why it wasn’t higher.  Or ‘Bruce Willis? Wow, we are really in for a treat’, I thought before embarking on the long boring journey of ‘North’, (actually, I should have realised after ‘Last Boy Scout’ that the name Willis does not guarantee a quality movie, but I thought he deserved a second chance).

So the fact that Bill Cosby was behind our next movie, did not fill me with confidence.  Even when I considered the fact that it was made at the height of Cosby’s epic career, I still had a sense of dread.  But being the little troopers Wes and I are, we watched the movie, (so you don’t have to).

Leonard Parker, (Bill Cosby), is a retired secret agent and we begin the story with his butler, Frayn, (Tom Courtenay), explaining why there are no Leonards parts 1 thru 5.  Apparently, the first 1-5 stories had to be destroyed for the sake of national security.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, *pisses self* hilarious!

After I changed my trousers, I carried on with this piece of comedy gold.

The start of the movie, begins with the end in which we see Bill Cosby riding an Osterich, (not like that), whilst all hell is breaking lose around him with big explosions and stuff.  Frayn tells us this is the end and he’ll now explain how Leonard got to this point.  I guess this is to whet our appetite and interest in the movie, but frankly I couldn’t give a flying ostrich what happens next.

The plot, (thinner than an Asda Dustbin liner, but a plot nevertheless), revolves around evil vegetarian Medusa Johnson, (Gloria Foster), who is reprogramming animals to kill humans.  She begins her evil plot by assinating 2 secret service agents, 1 by rainbow trout, the other death by frogs.  The CIA are obviously a bit angry at their agents being killed in stupid ways, (whatever happened to the good old days of death by poisoned tipped umbrella), and convince Leonard to come out of retirement to bring Medusa and her evil, (stupid), plans down.

Leonard sets about the task by firstly dressing up as an idiot as he puts on his costume of an astrounaut suit and a cycling helmet, (?).  He then arms himself with the most advanced gadgets of the time: mini missiles, a car with a tank turret and the world’s smallest camera, (which is about the size of house brick).  James Bond?  More like James Corden.

Crap outfit and gadgets in hand, he goes to evil Veggies HQ where a rather long and unfunny scene of Leonard trying to break into the HQ, bring down Medusa and ultimately failing ensues.  1 particular part of this unfunny scene involves a swarm of bees being held in a lab and Leonard pulling his own bee, (behave yourselves), out of his spacesuit and somehow Leonard’s bee breaks them out of the lab and all the bees flee!  Tee-hee?  No wee,(way, alright that last bit didn’t work!)!

After this failure, Leonard then takes us on his back story, (yippee!), which is basically a long drawn out episode of The Cosby Show.

Leonard’s daughter, Joan Parker, (Victoria Rowell), has just started to date a man who is older than Leonard and he is not best pleased, (original), and Leonard’s wife, Allison Parker, (Pat Colbert), has left him after she caught him sharing a sauna with a 19 year old, (man, woman or horse, I’m not sure).  Leonard desperately wants his estranged wife back and invites her to dinner.  In doing so, he also invites us to a very long boring and unfunny scene in which Allison, ends up pouring soup all over Leonard.

Leonard obviously loves them both and when Joan appears starkers in a play she is starring in, he goes bonkers dolally.  When Leonard’s wife then gets kidnapped by Medusa, he moves up a notch to pretty darn miffed and sets about to rescue her and to defeat Medusa once and for all.

And so the end battle ensues which sees Leonard fight his way through veggie HQ, armed only with various meat products, (eh?).  He defeats the hench men with beef patties and the main baddies with hot dogs.  The hot dogs, for some reason, when shoved into the big veggie gobs of the baddies, causes their heads to explode!

With all hell breaking lose and explosions caused by mechanically recovered meat, (yum!), Leonard makes his escape on an Ostrich which he has liberated, (Ah, that explains it!) and so we come full circle.

The film ends with Leonard and Allison together again at last and sharing a tasty meal.  Then, and I’m struggling to type this as it is soooo hilarious, Allison serves soup but even though they are back together again, she pours it over his head.  Ha ha ha ha ha it’s funny because she did it earlier!

And so ends another truly unfunny movie in our list.  So what went wrong?  How on earth did Bill Cosby, at the height of his super stardom, manage to produce such a stench?

Well, firstly there’s the character of Leonard himself.  As the hero of the story, I assume that we are meant to like him, will him to succeed and cheer him on as he defeats the bad guys and gets his wife back; but not once did I feel the need to do so.  This is mainly due to the fact that Leonard comes across as arrogant, cold and obnoxious.  This, off course, is completely Cosby’s fault.

This project is Cosby’s baby and Cosby’s alone.  He created Leonard and then played him, so he had ‘carte blanche’ over his portrayal.  If his notes for this character were, ‘appear sweaty, tired and bored throughout’, then I apologise as he got it spot on.  If his aim was to produce a lovable character whose down on his luck and with whom the audience will empathise with, then he got it hopelessly wrong.

The plot is thin, confusing and muddled.  The main story is just ludicrous and I still don’t really get what Medusa’s beef with the world really is, (see what I did there?).  The back story is just sugar coated boredom and does nothing for Leonard’s character.  It does not provide an interesting backdrop to the main plot and quite frankly I could not care less what happens to his family.  I’ve been more interested into the future and wellbeing of potato peelings.

The part which should be Cosby’s strong point, but is the movie’s weak point is the comedy.  Yet again this is another comedy movie on our list which is just not funny.  The main problem, I think, is that Cosby has tried to change his style.  Gone is the family based situation comedy humour and in its place is surrealism and randomness.  Unfortunatley for Cosby it does not work.

Surrealism is difficult because the audience will either get it, or miss the point, find it funny or just find it plain weird.  I’ve spoken before about how unfunny Monty Python’s last season was and they were the kings of surrealism, (or at least on an equal footing to The Goons).  That last season’s only difference was that John Cleese had left the team, but otherwise the formula was still there, the bizarre was still there, the cartoons, the rest of the cast, but for some reason it just did not work. 

For Leonard also, it doesn't work.  Beef pattie fights?  Escaping on an ostrich? A ballet fight scene?  They are not funny and give the movie a weird, disjointed feeling and all too often you end up staring at the screen thinking, ‘what’s all that about?’.

In fact you spend the whole movie thinking, ‘what’s all that about’, and this is because the movie does not really know itself.  Is it a children’s movie?  No.  Is it an espionage thriller?  No.  Is it a comedy?  Most definitely no.  And this really is a problem and I believe if Cosby had worked out what on earth he was trying to produce, then this could have been so much better.

For me, this should have been a children’s comedy movie.  As Lenoard’s costume and gadgets are made up from bits and pieces you’ll find around the house and as the ‘comedy’ is childish, I think Leonard should have been re-cast as a kid or a bunch of kids.  It could have been a sort of espionage ‘Bugsy Malone’ and there could even have been a ‘is this real or just their imagination’ element to it.

Unfortuantely nothing as clever or as funny as this was produced.  Cosby could do no wrong in the 80’s but that seems to be largely because he surrounded himself with yes men, who, dared not criticize him or his ideas.  Someone should have said ‘No!’ and made Cosby listen.  As it turned out, the penny did drop for Cosby that this movie was no good, but unfortunately only after it had been made.

Cosby did disown the movie and did urge people not to waste their money going to the cinema to watch it.  For this, I respect Cosby and fortunately for him his legacy goes way beyond this stinker of a movie and he will rightly be remembered as one of the most successful comedians and writers of a generation.

So whilst Cosby's warning and honesty is refreshing and welcomed, I only wish Cosby had gone one step further and did the same thing with Leonard Part 6 as had happened with parts 1 thru 5!