Battle of the Worlds

Before I begin, I wanna add a note, or really just do some begging. It's probably no surprise to many people that half of the reviews on this site that features images, I just Google the movie and use whatever photos pop up to place on my site. This past Christmas I got a DVD burner/player, so when I review a movie I have on DVD, I use the burner/player to capture images. So now the only problem is when I watch a movie on VHS. See, I don't have any fancy gizmo that hooks my VCR to my computer so I could capture some photos. So I just been stealing from Google. Until I got to this movie. Apparently, no one has taken any images from this film and put them on Google, hence I won't be able to place any photos from this movie on this review. But if anyone out there has access to a VCR/Computer hook up type thing, or has this movie on DVD, could you snag a few photo stills for me, please? I'll make it worth your while and send you something in exchange that can be worked out. If this is possible, email me. Thanks.

Now onto the review.

This movie is really boring. That kinda sucks since it's about a cranky scientist and a planet that moves on its own whose inhabitants are dead aliens. But sadly, any excitement is killed off by endless scenes of astronauts in space ships looking like they have to take a crap and said cranky scientist trying to talk to a bunch of disembodied heads, pleading they heed his words. I guess you want to hear about it a little bit more in depth. Ok, fine.

We start off with Fred half naked and swimming in a lake/ocean/pond/ some source of water. I should point out that we never find out where this lake/source of water is, or where most of these characters hang out are at. I'm going to go on a limb, though, and say it's probably Italy, only because everyone is dubbed, and most of the credits feature Italian people. Anyway, Fred is swimming half naked when Eve runs up shouting for him. Fred pulls her in and we get a sweet shot of Eve all wet while wearing white. I guess she wins the Wet T-shirt contest by default.

Anyway, Eve tells her this guy named George wants to see him about something. So he dries up and pays a visit. George tells Fred some boring science-y stuff about airwaves and gravity and stuff (I tried to pay attention, but frankly talk like this bores me) and George freaks out about something. George runs out of the room where a chick, who I think is suppose to be a secretary, asks, "Why is Fishface so worked up?" This is gonna be the best line in the whole movie and it's only 5 minutes in.

Fishface runs to Dr. Cornfield and shows him whatever it is he found out. What he found out is that some giant ass thing is heading toward Earth, but it's moving kinda slow so there's not much of a danger of impact, but it's all possible. Fred states he knew about it for some time but it didn't bother him. As punishment for not telling everyone and putting everyone's lives in danger, he becomes head of FEMA. Er, I mean, he must go visit "the old man.”

The Old Man turns out to be Benson (Not THAT Benson), who lives in his greenhouse with his dog. Fred walks in and immediately gets chewed out by Benson, but then states that he knew about this thing for a while now, and shows a potted planet with some numbers and other science stuff written all over it. Fred studies it and says, "Uhhh, yep. This is it." Benson then states that "them idiots on Mars" should've seen the planet way before anyone here on crummy ol' Earth.

We then get a shot of Mars, where a base station is set up. So I guess this is the future? Yet again, no idea, it's never said. Maybe the film makers should've just handed us the plot in three paragraphs and told us to make our own damn movie.

There's something going on that has Bob, who runs this little base on Mars, all worked up. Apparently a ship has lost control but we don't know why. We do eventually figure it out, so at least the movie is willing to share SOME information. Bob sends up another ship to rescue them and the rescue ship is full of constipated people. See, I wish I was able to take screen caps, so you could see I'm not making this up. The people in the crashing ship leave and in an effect that looks like my 8-year-old sister cobbled up together, two toy figures representing the astronauts randomly fly from one ship to the other. This doesn't make sense, I mean they just hurled themselves toward the ship? And they went pretty fast too. I guess in space, in the future, things up there is gonna go a lot faster then it is now.

The hapless astronauts are saved, but now THIS ship is about to go down and we figure out why. They're close to this planet that came out of nowhere and headed toward Earth. Oh and in case you haven't figured it out, this is the thing that was discussed earlier.

Now that everyone on Earth knows about it, they need a way to stop it from colliding with Earth. They reject the idea of sending some oil drillers up there to break it in half, cause that just sounds stupid, I mean, who'd do that? Instead, Benson insists everyone leaves it alone cause it won't crash into the Earth.

After a weird awkward edit and jump cut, Eve is running out of Fred’s, I'm gonna say house, that's way up on a cliff, and involves 800 flights of stairs to get back and forth from. Fred calls out to Eve, but she decides to dis his macho self and latch onto the cranky old man. Eve states that Benson was right, it didn't crash, but instead it's just orbiting the planet.

This causes Benson to freak out and he immediately knows that the planet is still gonna destroy the earth, even giving it a countdown of 810 hours. Thankfully, he didn't say 525,600 minutes, otherwise he'd have AIDS and he wouldn't be able to pay his rent. Oh, and Benson thinks we should NOW blow it up.

Now, this seems like a basic plot idea. An alien planet somehow travels to Earth, remains in orbit with us, and in roughly 800 hours, it's gonna attack. So if a good screenwriter wrote this, some kind of battle would play out with us versus them, maybe even people stranded on the alien planet and fighting within. But no, instead we get some more boring science stuff.

See, because this planet is in orbit with us, it's gonna cause all kinds of fucked up weather problems, which I guess is the official cause of El Nino. Benson leaves his greenhouse for once and talks to "The Heads of The Nation Committee" or something long sounding like that. Benson gives a long speech about the planet and how it'll destroy us and that he should lead the expedition to the planet to explore it. The Head Head says "No, it's war,” which causes Benson to say "Ah yes. And I'm not of draft age." Ha-ha...but I am...Ha-ha...hey, wait.

Ok, I'm back from shooting myself in the foot. And a war has started. Bob is suppose to go up and blow the planet up. Kathy wants to go along because she loves him so damn much and they never want to be separated for the rest of their lives. In movie speak, that means one of them is gonna die. I'm gonna say right here and now if I ever become part of some group that's gonna do something remotely dangerous, I'm making sure everyone is single before leaving. Because as you know "Attached man/woman=certain doom.” It's even worse if said person has kids, and if they haven't seen them in a few years, just blow yourselves up now and get it over with.

For some reason, Bob allows Kathy to go up there. Fred wants to go too because Eve left him for Benson, which comes as a shock to Eve. Hey, babe, you been leaving poor Fred to look at Hustler all these nights while you feed this old dude Viagra. Don't be that shocked. Benson allows Fred to go and off they go.

Up in space, one ship head toward the planet and before it can blow it up, a bunch of tiny saucers come out of nowhere and attack the ship. But that ship was full of old guys, so don't worry. And I'm sure they all haven't seen their wives and kids since World War Two. Realizing that anytime one of their ships goes near the planet, these saucers come out and attack, they try to trick them into shooting each other.

While flying around all Hans Solo like, one of them gets super close to Earth and our gravity causes it to weeble wobble, but not fall down. The other saucers retreat. Finally, the wobbly saucer crashes to Earth. Bob didn't tell the people of Earth about this, so I guess we have to assume this thing took out an entire village or city or something.

Benson tells Fred to grab whatever's inside and bring it to him immediately. Inside the saucer is just a cylinder thing with light in it. Kinda like a florescent bulb, but thicker, like Ron Jeremy size. (Oh, you were thinking it too.) Fred brings it to Benson and Benson studies it.

He realizes the light is some kind of communicating device and it's linked to whatever's on the planet. Benson then freaks out Bob, Kathy, Fred, Dr. Cornfield, and Eve when he starts laughing like a maniac and says, "IT'S LIKE MUSIC!!! I'LL COMPOSE THE MUSIC!!!! AND YOU'LL PLAY IT!!!!!". Now we know what happened to Mozart.

So they all head back into space, play this "music,” which just sounds like sci-fi noise to me, and this causes all the other saucers to crash into me...baby...and I'll come into you. Er...sorry. Crash into each other. On Earth, Benson is throwing another temper tantrum when he insists he goes up and studies the planet before they (the military) blow it up. He says he learned from the light that there are some smart beings on the planet and he wants to study them. The Head Head says, "Ok, but you got three hours then we're blowing it to hell!".

So this time Benson tags along with Bob, Boyd, Kathy, Fred, and Eve to the planet to check it out. Benson, who got a psychic link with the planet a la "E.T", guides them to below the planet, where a bunch of dead aliens are. Well, he says they're dead aliens. I just see some black dots on the ground. And a more giant version of the florescent light is here, this time John Holmes size. Some dude who looks like Jerry Orbach tells Bob that the missile is gonna be launched in 5 minutes so hurry the fuck up already.

Benson insists on communicating with the John Holmes Light and runs off. Eve, who still has her crush, goes after him. Then Fred goes after her, causing Bob to go after him, causing Kathy to go after him. Boyd says "Fuck this" and goes back to the ship to beg Jerry Orbach to give them more time.

Jerry then puts Baby in the corner and launches the missile. Benson tells Eve to go back with Fred, who comes along. He drags Eve away and they get lost, along with Bob and Kathy. Kathy simply trips on a rock and falls down, but for some reason this makes her give up on life and tells them to leave her behind. Bob says "NO! I wanna break this stereotype right here and now!" and drags her along. Meanwhile Race Bannon is crying like a bitch when Bob and company show up. They launch. Benson is talking to John Holmes Light and says "I KNOW EVERYTHING!! AND YOU'RE GONNA KILL ME!" In other words, Benson knows the meaning of life now, but because the military are war mongers, they decide to blow it up. And oh boy, what an explosion. I think it actually did come from a Jonny Quest cartoon.

Eve cries out, "So long, professor...and thanks for all the fish." Kathy is lying down, apparently sick from tripping on a rock, and decides to play into the stereotype and die. Then Benson's dog runs to the greenhouse window, whimpers, and stares up in the sky. And...fade to black.

I probably made the movie sound 10 million times more exciting then it really is. And it would've been exciting if we didn't get all this weird Technobabble throughout the movie. Oh, and I did forget about a female character, but she wasn't given a name and she didn't do much except taunt Fred and Eve every now and then. So if while getting photos from this movie you figure out her name and what she did in the movie, let me know.


-Jason

Batman and Robin

In our second entry for "And You Call Yourself A Super Hero Month", I present to you the worst thing Joel Shaumaker has ever done. Possibly. Well, I hear "D.C Cab" is pretty awful. Well, let me re-word that. I present to you the worst "Batman" movie ever, ruined by Mr. Shaumaker.

I think I know what Shaumaker and writer Akiva Goldsman was going for: a big budget modern version of the campy 60's "Batman" show. That's all well and good, because I liked the 60's show, but however when you fill up your movie with stupid needless puns and just horrible acting, it makes any Batman fan boy want to run into their rooms and cry until their mommy's call them for dinner. And no, I wasn't talking about myself. (Ahem.)

This wreck starts off with Batman and Robin suiting up. Gay guys, pay attention cause you see their crotches and asses in full display here. Once they're suited up, the Batmobile comes from below. After spinning around for nearly 3 minutes, Robin states, "I wanna car! PLEASE!!!" To this, Batman says, "I wanna fuck Superman", er, "This is why Superman works alone." HA-HA-HA!

Batman gets in the car and Alfred tells Batman if he ruins this car, he's cutting off his allowance. Batman takes off, and Robin's motorcycle gets its own special entrance. After taking off, Alfred shows signs of made up disease.

On the way to wherever the hell they're going, Commissioner Gordon calls Batman and tells him Mr. Freeze is, well, freezing the Museum. We go there and find 20,000 security guards get beaten by Mr. Freeze and his Freeze Gun. To get the sub plot out of the way now, Mr. Freeze wears this special suit that keeps his body chilled to 0 degrees. Why is explained later. But what powers this suit are crystals, so he's at the museum to steal a big fuckin' crystal.

But of course Batman shows up and slides down a dinosaur and instantly fights Freeze. During the struggle, Robin shows up (and somehow making the Robin sign on the door. Don't ask, I don't know) and joins in on the fight. They go their own separate ways, with Robin going after the crystal and Batman chasing after Freeze.

And their plan to get their objects? Kick their feet to reveal skate blades popping out from their boot. I dunno about you, but I think this poses some problems, one of them being "How in the fuck do you store skate blades in the soles of your shoes?" Anyway, they skate around the museum and Robin eventually gets the crystal. Freeze makes his escape but grabs the crystal when one of Freeze's goons bumps into him, causing it to fall. Good kung-fu grip you got there, Robin.

Freeze takes off in some kind of space ship thing, with Batman jumping in. Robin, with the help of invisible wires, flies to the side of the ship and grabs hold as it goes into the sky. Batman gets in the shuttle and a very weak fight happens, where Freeze just makes Batman lose his balance, then freezes his wrists to the wall. Then Freeze tells Batman that when they reach 300,000 feet, the ship will freeze, then plummet down to the ground. This causes concern for Batman, not only because he'll be inside the whole time, but because the crash will kill "millions of people.” Well, I dunno about THAT.

Freeze escapes the shuttle and in comes Robin. Instead of being grateful to see him, Batman tells him why he isn't back at the museum rounding up thugs. Hmm, maybe because he wants to save YOUR FUCKIN' LIFE! Jeez...

Anyway, Robin uses a laser pointer to free Batman, then Batman plants "Bat-Bombs" (Something left over from the 60's show, taking an object and placing the word "Bat" in front of it) around the ship, to blow it up. Wait...so a solid frozen ship will kill millions of people, but thousands of little pieces of ship, on fire no less, won't? Where the hell did Goldman go to school, in Bizarro World?

Batman and Robin use the escape hatchway doors as surfboards and fly back down to capture Freeze. Robin grabs hold of the crystal, but he and Batman go crashing into a frozen furnace, thanks to Freeze. Robin lunges after Freeze, but he uses his Ice Gun on him, freezing him. After snatching the crystal, Freeze helpfully tells Batman he has 11 minutes to unfreeze Robin, then escapes. Batman throws Robin into some body of water and using the laser pointer, and heats up the water, so Robin unthaws.

We later find ourselves in a greenhouse somewhere in the jungle. This turns out to be South America, but if it wasn't said earlier, we wouldn't have had any idea. We meet. Dr. Pamela Isley, who looks like Charleze Thron in that one movie about miners sexually harassing her. (I don't watch chick flicks unless I want them to appear on this site. Current number of chick flicks on this site: 0) Isley is talking into a tape recorder and says, "Diane, this evil doctor dude is using my formula named Venom to make his own muscle-bound army! Oh, and try the cherry pie!"

She then sneaks into the evil doctor's lab, where some type of meeting is going on. He's showing off what this venom can do when injected into a body. He grabs a weakling serial killer and straps him to a table. He then pumps him full of venom and suddenly he turns into Barry Bonds. I guess what's going on here is the evil doctor wants to sell the Barry Bonds guy, named Bane. Cause, you know, he's "The Bane of Humanity" or some lame crap like that.

While Bane throws a temper tantrum, the evil doctor finds Isley hiding in the corner. Nobody puts ISLEY in the corner! The evil doctor asks Isley to join him and together they can rule the galaxy as father and son, er no. She says "NO! I'll NEVER JOIN YOU!" Er..no..well yeah...but...

Anyway, she says no, so he does what every minor evil guy did in the previous Batman films, kills her by throwing her across a table, then having venom fall on her. She eventually falls into the ground somehow and vanishes.

Back in the Bat Cave, Dick is getting over hypothermia while they watch a security footage of Mr. Freeze being turned into Mr. Freeze. In this sub plot, he was a scientist working on a cure for a made up disease called MacGregor's Syndrome, because his wife had it. Hmm, she had it, Alfred has a mysterious made up disease. Gosh, could these things be related???

We see pre-Freeze Freeze working on something when he somehow stumbles back into his wives cryogenically frozen chamber, turning his body into ice, thus him needing to be kept at 0 degrees at all times. After learning this back story, we get a small hint of the future rift between Dick and Bruce when they argue about Dick feeling like Bruce is holding him back when they fight crime. Alfred takes Dick's side, saying that Bruce is a controlling asshole.

Bruce then has a weird pointless flashback.

At Freeze's hideout, he's trying to get his goons to sing along to some cartoon song, but they won't do it. He gives up and we get even more back story about Freeze. I'll number them:

1. He likes the dark meat.
2. He is still trying to find a cure for his frozen wives’ made up disease.
3. He is building some kind of super frozen thing so he can freeze Gotham and hold it for ransom.
4. In case you forgot, crystals power his suit.

After a shot of Freeze looking at his frozen wife in the tank, we go back to South America, where the evil doctor is cleaning up. All of a sudden, Isley appears out of the ground...AND SHE'S FUCKIN HOT!! YOWZA! Anyway, she tells the evil doctor, who calls him by his name and his name is...aw fuck, his name is Jason. See, every guy in a movie named Jason is evil, an asshole, a weirdo, or a complete useless tool. ARRGH!

Sorry. She tells this Jason that the earth transformed her into a human plant, stating that her blood is chloroform and that her lips are venom. She then kisses Jason, and it kills him. Uma then decides not to waste her acting skills by hamming it up while trashing the place. She notices Bane in the corner and they take off to Wayne Industries for no good reason.

Back at Wayne Manor, a girl in a school girl uniform shows up and starts knocking. Dick answers the door and falls in loves with Alicia Silverstone's legs. She asks for Alfred, then spots him and runs in. This turns out to be Alfred's niece, Barbara. She is from England, despite not having an accent, but on the other hand, we would've had to tolerate Alicia Silverstone trying to use an English accent. She's here to visit Alfred and Bruce insists she stays there with them. Alfred, scared of her finding out about "the secret" gets worried.

We then get a little "remember this for later" bit where Barbara says she's scared of motorcycles. To further showcase this, we cut to later and Barbara walks into Alfred's room, saying goodnight. Alfred is looking at video of some people in India, and there's an elephant, and everything. According to Alfred, his brother is a servant to some dead dude who rides around on the elephant in India all day. Boy, that sure sounds exciting. We then find out that Barbara's mothers name is Margaret, Peg for short, and then Barbara takes off. She sneaks out of the house, actually using a rope made of bed sheets, steals a motorcycle, and takes off.

The next day, I guess, Bruce and his arm candy Julie are at Gothom Observatory, showing off to the press this fancy new telescope thing that he donated, I guess. It's supposed to look at any part of the world at any time using satellites and mirrors. It's kinda complicated, don't ask me to explain it. During this, Poison Ivy shows up, disguised as Isley. She barges up to Bruce, saying she has this plan that'll somehow rid the earth of people and put nature as number one. Bruce states that people come first and Isley says that the plants will come after them. Everyone oddly laughs at her, saying that Batman and Robin protect them, even from plants. Then Bruce invites Isley to an auction where Batman and Robin will be auctioning off The Wayne Diamond.

The whole auction thing is a ploy to trap Mr. Freeze and as we see, Mr. Freeze falls for the ploy. But before he shows up, Poison and Bane show up, wearing really stupid looking monkey outfits. Ivy blows some kind of dust all over everyone, making the crowd, even the females, be totally enchanted by her. Of course, she goes after Batman and Robin, taking the diamond. During this, everyone starts bidding on Ivy, including Batman and Robin. Batman pulls out a credit card. Ugh... Then guess who shows up with more God awful frozen puns.



Ivy tries to enchant him, but according to Freeze "You can't enchant the cold hearted." Sure ya can, look at The Grinch. So Freeze takes the diamond and Batman and Robin go into hot pursuit. There's a big chase on the streets that somehow end up on this giant ass statue that's just there in the middle of town. When both Freeze and Batman are about to make a jump, Batman tells Robin not to make the jump. Robin insists he can make the jump, but Batman cuts off Robin's engine. Yeah, that's safe.

When they come crashing down, Batman grabs Freeze and arrests him, no doubt using Bat Cuffs. Freeze is taking to Arkin Asylum, which was mentioned at the end of "Batman Forever.” The guards, one of whom is being played by Jesse "The Body" Ventura (Seriously), is escorting Freeze to his cell. The cell looks out of place at first, it's only a bed and a sink that's under a blue light and that's it. They place Freeze under this light and Freeze attempts to escape. Suddenly, he falls on the ground, like he's choking. It turns out the blue light is called "The cold zone" and as long as Freeze stays in this light, he'll be alright (hey that rhymed).

Back at the cave, Robin is pissed that Batman cut off his engines and says that Batman is just jealous cause Ivy likes him. Batman keeps telling Robin that Ivy did something to them to make them fight like this, but Robin says F.U and storms off.

Man, this is probably gonna be my longest review to date. Feel free to stop now, take an intermission, smoke something, have sex, whatever.

Back? Ok, let's get this over with.

Alfred is putting together some type of package when Bruce walks in. When he asks Alfred if Robin is right, Alfred takes his side again and says "Yep." After another odd flashback by Bruce, we cut to the garage, where Barbara is sneaking in, with a motorcycle. Dick sneaks up on her and she judo CHOPS him to the ground. When she realizes who it is, she remains unapologetic. Well, no. She does apologize and makes up a story about taking the motorcycle out for a spin. Man, I hope this whole thing goes somewhere soon. I'm losing my patience.

Now it's time for Poison Ivy and Bane to find a crib to kick back at. She picks a closed up Turkish Bath for some reason, and this is even weirder when the place is occupied by day-glo gangsters. When the gangsters try to beat up on Bane, Bane teaches them a lesson and they go running off. Soon, Ivy is planting some seeds and suddenly vines grow all over the place.

Next is a pointless scene (Hell, they're all pointless) of Bruce and Julie having dinner. This is here for two reasons that I see. To remind us that Julie exists and to show that Ivy has some kind of hold on Bruce. Bruce hallucinates that Ivy is there instead of Julie and Julie gets kinda ticked about it. The scene ends with Julie asking "Who's Ivy?" And Bruce replying "I wish I knew." Smooth, Bruce.

That same night, the next night, next week, who knows, Dick is working on something when the computer tells him there's an intruder in the garage. Yes, it's Barbara, big surprise. Dick decides to follow her to see where she runs off to at night.

And that turns out to be a night time motorcycle racing thing. And it's run by Coolio. Come along for a ride on a fantastic voyage, indeed. Barbara and Dick sign up and get ready to race. Barbara immediately runs afoul with a fellow racer, who is painted up like a skull. Skull Dude secretly (Read: really loud so everyone in the race can hear him) tells some of his posse to get things set up at the bridge.

And they're off! It's your typical action filler race, with Barbara doing pretty good and Dick being just behind her. She squares off with Skull Dude until they reach the bridge. Some other Skull Dude's set a part of it on fire and both Barbara and Dick slides through it and of course the bridge is out, so Dick uses his acrobat skills to grab onto Barbara and the way they swing probably gave Alicia Silverstone flashbacks to the video of "Cryin.”

Back at Wayne Manor, Barbara says she's been secretly racing to raise enough money to get Alfred out of being a slave to Bruce, stating that he isn't happy. Dick swears Alfred's ok and happy, but Barbara drops a bomb on him: Alfred is dying from made up movie disease. Bruce confirms this, as he creepily overhears their conversation.

Back at the Asylum for the Typical Batman Villains, Freeze is getting good at ice sculpting. Jesse The Former Governor tells the future Governor that he's got a visitor. It turns out to be Ivy and she kisses the two guards, which kills them dead. Bane is off getting Freeze's ice suit and brings it via a shopping cart. Freeze puts it on and after a stupid joke about winterizing pipes (ARRGH SHUT UP!), the wall breaks...somehow. I'm tired of thinking of this movie already and there's still like 40 minutes left. God help me.

Batman and Robin find out about Freeze's escape with the help of Ivy and they head over to Freeze's hideout, where Batman and Robin realize they've been stupidly fighting over Ivy and they're both over her. More lame jokes about her stems (you figure it out) and they stumble upon Mrs. Freeze. Below them in a grate is Freeze and Ivy. Freeze goes to get the crystals for his suit, Ivy is trusted to get Mrs. Freeze. Ivy blows some horny dust all over the place while Freeze turns the heat off and puts the air on. Somehow this causes all the police to say their lungs are freezing.

Batman & Robin go after Ivy but meet up with Bane, who instantly lays the smack down on them. Ivy appears and makes Robin more horny while Batman fights Bane. Bane throws Batman to the ground and Ivy climbs on him, in riding cowgirl position. She starts to woo the bat and Bane comes to finish the job of killing Batman. But he manages to kick some ass this time and stop Ivy from kissing Robin, finally deducing that she has poison in her lips. Robin of course doesn't believe this horsehockey and goes after Ivy. Batman's solution: push Robin into a vat of ice cream.

Back in Copland, Ray Liotta is...er, I mean, Commissioner Gordon finds the Ice/Heat switch and turns it back to heat, making everyone's lungs unfreezing. Freeze snags his ice gun and escapes, along with Ivy. Gordon is pissed off that Batman and Robin lost their villains yet again. Maybe Gordon should out source to Superman or something.

Oh and just so you know: Ivy turns off the power in Mrs. Freeze's chamber and Robin declares that he's going solo. The More You Know! (Star)

Ivy and Bane return home and find Freeze has made himself at home. Ivy tells him that Batman killed his wife and Freeze goes on a rampage, although not a lyrical one. Then it's decided that they're gonna freeze the entire world so only them two can live on the planet together. And I'm assuming Bane, but if it's only them two, who are they gonna need Bane's protection from? This plan involves the Gotham Observatory and the telescope.

Meanwhile at Wayne Manor (Pretend that was said by the narrator of the old Batman show), a doctor checks out Alfred and declares that he has...you ready for this mind blowing shocker?? ARE YA?!? Alfred has MacGregors Syndrome!!! THE SAME AS FREEZE'S WIFE!! WHA?!?! Oh and there's nothing nobody can do. At least until the end of the movie, which is about 30 minutes away. Hey, I'm typing as fast as I can here.

Another thing for you to know: Alfred gives Barbara the package he was making earlier and tells her to send it to his elephant serving brother and only family can open it. Oh and at a party at the observatory, Ivy tricks Gordon in giving her the keys to where the bat signal is. So she and Bane steal it.

Guess what? Barbara declares herself family and pops in the CD that was in the package. The thing is encrypted, so Barbara spends about 35-40 hours typing in stupid random passwords. Like Alfred, Wayne, and probably even "Giant ass house", to no avail. Hey lady, the first rule in picking a password is not to make it something that everybody can figure it out. I mean my password to all my accounts is "Pulp Fiction Is God" and...oh.

Back. The actual password turns out to be "Peg", which we get thanks to the picture on Alfred's desk. Check out the picture though. One shot, there's nothing written there. Next shot there is. CREEPY!! So once she types in the correct password, Barbara finds out that Bruce is Batman, Dick is Robin, etc.

When Bruce returns, there's a Robin signal in the sky and Robin is ready to take off. Bruce tells him that it's Ivy and it's a trap. Robin gets all pissy again and says that Bruce is just jealous. Finally Bruce says "SHUT UP YOU STUPID BRAT! THIS IS GONNA BE THE FINAL MOVIE YOU'RE GONNA BE IN, SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Thankfully, after that, Robin listens to Bruce.

Or does he?!?!? We see Robin driving up to the Robin signal and goes into Ivy's lair. She's sitting inside Audrey 2 and is wooing Robin. She asks to kiss Robin, but before she does, she gives into the typical James Bond Villain Syndrome where she reveals her plan before killing Robin. Then she kisses him and...nothing.

Turns out Robin had on wax lips, so she shoves him into some water where he'll remain for the next 5 minutes for some reason. Batman shows up, saying he too pulled a trick and is gonna clean her clock. But some vines show up and trip Batman so now he's trapped too.

What's this? Our tangled up troops caught in a weed of deceit? Is the earth gonna freeze and be green at the same time? STAY TUNED! Same bat time, same bat channel...

Ok, not really. What really happens is Barbara breaks into the bat cave, a computerized Alfred tells her he knew she was gonna do that, so he made her her own special bat suit. Then we see her suit up and leave the cave. She arrives in time to kick Ivy's ass. Ahhh, that's why Batgirl was introduced in this movie, so two guys wouldn't have to beat up on a girl. But...what about Batman Returns? Ah, hell, my brain hurts.




Anyway, Batgirl shoves Ivy back into Audrey 2, which somehow kills her? I dunno... Once freed, Batman and Robin meet Batgirl and they take off to the observatory.

There, Freeze is already hard at work starting to freeze the town. Our trio show up and Freeze vanished. Batman says if they position the mirrors and the satellite’s n'stuff, they can thaw out the city. So they do so. During this, Freeze appears and starts kicking the crap out of Batman. The struggle causes Robin and Batgirl to fly out and not fall and die. Bane comes out of nowhere and fight them two, but they get the idea to pull the giant ass tube from the back of his head. When they do so, he turns back into a wimpy guy. Freeze continues to fight Batman until the telescope is nearly destroyed. Batman places some kind of Bat-heater on him, causing to him roast slowly, I guess.

When Robin and Batgirl get back to the observatory, they state that their original plan is shot to hell now. But they can position the satellite to direct sunbeams to the city. Suuuure... Well, they do so. And everyone thaws out. Yay...I guess.

Finally, Batman asks Freeze for the cure to MacGregor's Syndrome. Freeze gives him two bright blue vials and tells him to call "me in the morning." ARRGH!! Just die, damn you!! And it turns out that Freeze is gonna share a cell with Ivy, who somehow isn't dead. Oh and Freeze finds out from Batman that Ivy is the one that killed his wife...but she isn't really dead. This is too confusing, let's move on.

Bruce puts the vials on Alfred's IV and they just sit around and wait. The next morning, Alfred wakes up, cured, and hugs everybody. After a small fight about whether or not Barbara can be Batgirl, Bruce gives in and they do the typical put their hand in the middle of the circle thing. Then we get our final shot of them three running towards the camera.

Wait..the end? It's over?!?! I SURVIVED!!! WOO!!!! Thank ya, JESUS or whoever!

Ok, here we go. Bad puns=sucked royal ass. Acting=Really sucked royal ass. Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone=Horrible but still pretty hot. The entire plot=Didn't need to exist. Bane, however, was pretty friggin cool. I wish he was the main bad guy. I dunno, I just like bad actors in Mexican wrestler masks, don't ask me why. I can only be thankful that the entire Batman series is starting anew and that "Batman Begins" kicked royal ass. Just don't ever let Joel Shaumaker direct a Batman movie ever again. K'Thanks.


-Jason

Basket Case

All I wanna do with my review of "Basket Case" is just make it one sentence long. And that sentence would read: "This is greatest fucking b-movie ever made ever in the history of the world." Then give my rating and go in my kitchen and start making dinner. But I suppose I have to back up such an extreme claim by telling you what happens in this movie. So I shall.

Some dorky looking doctor is leaving what I guess is his house for what I guess is a house call at night. He spots some trees moving and then a bush and instantly runs inside. Scared of the wind, are we Dr. Dork? He calls the police (seriously) on the wind when suddenly all the lights go off and the phone is disconnected. Soon a weird hand pops into screen and kills Thaddus Q. Dork, Ph.D. Ok, that's not his name, his name is Dr. Liftlander.

Duane is roaming around New York City carrying a wicker basket. If you read the character descriptions above, or you know ANYTHING about this movie, you know that inside is his deformed twin brother. But you possibly don't know the how or the why's of the situation (unless you seen it before) and therein lies the fun part of this movie.

Duane comes across a shady hotel that has hourly rates. Not getting it, he rents a room for "a few days" and pulls out a wad of cash like he's Jay-Z or Diddy or whatever he's calling himself now. Some drunk dude hanging out with the hotel manager notices the money and we're left with a big flashing "remember him" sign. And since this is one of those types of hotels, the sign is neon.

While feeding his brother in the basket rolled up foil (I suppose there's food inside but whatever), we discover that Duane and Basket-Bro is on a mission, to seek out the doctors that separated the two brothers. The next doctor up is Dr. Needleman.

I'm guessing Needleman was an actual doctor at some point in time but had his license revoked or something, but he signed up with that program Sally Struthers use to offer on TV in the 80's (before the "feed the starving kids" thing) and now he's a "practicing" doctor again. I'm judging this by the sight of his "office" which looks like a broom closet with some walls and a few chairs.

The Receptionist thinks Duane is the typewriter repair man and after chewing his ear off about it for five minutes realizes her mistake. Duane uses a fake name to get into the doctor's office and he goes in with the basket in tow.



Now I thought the whole thing was Duane was gonna bring the basket in, open it, Basket-Bro leaps out and kills the doctor and that's that. But instead, Duane leaves and the doctor's still alive. So...what the hell happened inside? We don't really know. We kinda get a hint later, cause Needleman knows now that he's the same Duane he operated on 20 some years ago.

Apparently there was some romance that I missed cause Duane and Receptionist agree to go on a date, but Duane doesn't want Basket-Bro to hear cause he's the jealous type of blob. And Duane's visit made Needleman nervous cause he spends the rest of the evening just sitting at his desk, sweating, and looking even more slimy. He decides to call a Dr. Kutter, another doctor chick that was there the night Duane and his special blob brother got separated.

Kutter is on some date with a model or a male call girl, er, guy...whatever. She's pissed that this sleazy doctor she met once 20 some years ago called and interrupted her fantasy date. This is the last we see of her for about an hour.

Receptionist goes home, leaving Needleman alone. Duane and Basket-Bro sneak into the doctor's office and Duane lets Basket-Bro out. Here we find out that he spends all his time in the basket lifting weights cause he's able to pull a solid steel door off it's hinges. With Basket-Bro loose, he rips Needleman into half and scales down the side of the building, with the phone number and address to Kutter's.

The next day, Duane tells his brother that he's just going to scope out Kutter's place to see if there's a way to sneak in and there's no need to drag around a big wicker basket. He provides some entertainment in the form of a TV and a newspaper for the small blob and leaves.

Turns out Duane lied! He's actually going out on a date with Receptionist. They're at the Statue of Liberty and both instantly say that they're horny for each other and start making out. Since Duane and the dude in the basket are mentally linked, Basket-Bro flips out and through the clever use of Clay-animation depicts him going on a rampage in the small hotel room.

Every one in the hotel hears the rampage and cause a big ruckus, causing the hotel manager to run into the room. The brother is back into hiding in his basket and all the residents are confused. We focus on the drunk dude who spots the wad of cash just sitting on the dresser. Before he can take it, the hotel manager kicks everyone out of the room. But once alone, drunk dude breaks into the room and attempts to steal the money. When he gets curious about what's inside the basket, well, let's say that the old geezer has gone to the big liquor store in the sky.

Because of the psychic link, Duane knows that his brother has killed and hastily leaves his date to run back home. There, he finds the cops and is told about the dead drunk dude. Duane is questioned by a cop and they search the room for "some animal that Duane no doubtedly smuggled in", but find nothing, not even anything in the basket.

With everyone gone, we find the brother was hiding in the toilet! See, this is just one of the many advantages to being a small deformed human blob-guy, you can hide in the toilet after committing a crime! Imagine robbing a bank, then just hiding out in the bank's bathroom until the cops are gone! I wish I was born a small deformed human blob-guy. Oh well...perhaps some day.

Duane appears to be having a one-sided conversation but his Basket-Bro can communicate to Duane mentally and Duane answers out loud. The reason given is cause since their separation, Duane lost his super twin mental powers, but Baskey still has his. Duane admits to lying about going to Kutters and confesses he was on a date but swears he'll never abandon his brother. Hm, this is starting to feel and sound like "Dead Alive". We just need a zombie. And a kung-fu priest.

Later that night, Duane (along with the basket of course) is out drinking and runs into Casey, the prostitute with a heart of gold. This is obviously Duane's first time drinking and gets really hammered. After sitting in a private booth, Duane gets so drunk that when asked by Casey what's in the basket, he tells her (and us) the full story, which needless to say freaks her the fuck out.

We get a flashback to when Duane and his human growth was born. Giving birth to them killed their mother and the father (who looked a bit like Michael Moriarty but I'm sure it wasn't him) wants to kill the damn thing. Now this is making me think of the beginning of "Batman Returns".

The only person in the family that loved Duane and "Belial", the thing growing on Duane's side was their Aunt. I put Belial's name in quotes cause he's called that maybe twice in the whole movie so I dunno if that's really suppose to be his name or what. Guess it is easier than coming up with basket puns all the time.
Forward twelve years later and some case worker wants to meet the twins cause the Aunt is gonna home school them. When she did, her report read "ACK!!!! BURN IT WITH FIRE!!!" with a big red APPROVED stamp across it.

Sometime even later (maybe even that same day?), Duane overhears a conversation with the twin's father and all three doctors. They say this isn't gonna be approved by any hospital in the country so they have to do this on the hush-hush.

Judging by the money Duane has in NYC and the size of this house, I'm guessing his family was rather wealthy, like maybe his dad was some government official or a doctor or something. None of this is explored of course, we just wanna see a deformed freak that lives in a basket kill people.

The dad and the doctors drag Duane into, seriously, the dining room, which is now transformed into a operating room and they proceed to knock him out and start the operation. It's at this point that I saw what each doctor did and as I glanced down at my notes of characters names that I realized that these doctor's names reflects what role they had. Dr. Kutter did the "cutting", Needleman gave Duane the shot, and Liftlander carried Duane into the room. Seriously, the screenwriter deserves a Pulitzer for this or something.

So they separate Duane and Belial and what they did with Belial is priceless. Duane wakes up and is still mentally linked so he goes outside and find Belial simply placed in a standard garbage bag and placed next to a garbage can. I heard of a dumpster baby, but a dumpster tween? Since they didn't use Glad's Flexibags, Belial busts out and Duane saves him.

Later that night, Dad wakes up to the sounds of hammering and sawing. After roaming around for 20 minutes, Dad finds in the basement this big contraption with a GIANT ASS SAW on wheels. Hm, did someone accidently splice in a scene from one of the "Saw" movies?



With Dad dead, custody of Duane goes to the Aunt, who knows that Belial is still around and they're one big happy family until the Aunt died. And now...we're pretty much caught up. Duane and Belial wants to get revenge on the people that separated them, as I said, and Duane is telling this to a drunk, possibly coked up, hooker.

They go back to their rooms and Duane instantly passes out. Casey looks inside the basket but finds it empty. I thought a "Fight Club" scenario was playing out here and Duane was imagining Belial or something. But nope. When Casey goes to her room and goes to sleep, she finds Belial next to her in bed groping her boobie.

Screaming, all the tenants rush, more screaming, hotel manager is pissed. Same deal as before. Belial goes back into his basket with one of Casey's panties. Eww...

The next morning, Duane wakes up with a hang over and the desire to see Dr. Kutter killed. He and Belial head over to her place to find out she's a veterinarian. Boy, Dad was desperate for a doctor, huh? When the doctor and Duane meet, she instantly realizes who he is and immediately insults him, not putting together the reason why he might be carrying a medium sized basket. Soon, Belail goes to work on Kutter and this is a long kill, with her screaming her head off. She tries to fight back, and Duane doesn't do much of anything, but Belial finally wins when he stuck a bunch of scalpels on her face. Oops sorry, I meant to say IN her face.

Now a fugitive from the law cause everyone saw Duane go inside the office, he disguises himself-

Ok no. That's what SHOULD'VE happened. Instead he just moseys back home where Receptionist is waiting. She tells him Needleman is dead and she's in love with Duane. They go into his room and they're about to fuck when Belial's jealous gets the best of him and makes an appearance. Receptionist freaks out and wants answers but Duane wraps her in a blanket and throws her out. I guess it's cold in the hallway? Since some screaming is happening here comes all the hotel tenants and the hotel manager again. Sheesh, any little thing and these people are on the scene.

Later that night, Belial gets red eyes (I think he needs some Clear Eyes) and leaves. Duane has a vivid dream that he's running the streets of New York City completely naked. Hey ladies, you tired of watching bad movies that don't cater to you? Well, you're in luck. When you put in "Basket Case" you get dong! Lots and lots of dong! And running dong too! Aren't you lucky?

Soon, we're in Receptionist's apartment and we see Duane's hand pull the sheets down and grope her boobie. Man, these guys are as obsessed with boobies as I am. Soon, the POV goes down a bit and starts rocking a bit. Duane wakes up and realizes Belial is gone. He puts his dream together...

What I'm about to tell you is the 100% truth. I swear this happened in this movie, which is part of the reason why this movie gets high praise for me. I can't believe this movie had the balls to do this.

Duane arrives at receptionist's house and Belial is somehow FUCKING HER!! AND there's blood!!!

........WHAT?? What is he fucking her with??? Oh my God this is-I don't know what it is. It's great and disturbing at the same time! I had to pinch myself to make sure I was seeing this. I mean let's break it down. A girl got fucked, TO DEATH, by a deformed human who may or may not have a dick and if he does have a dick, his dick must really be deformed as well to cause her to bleed to death.



This is the greatest movie ever. And we're only getting started.

Duane throws Belial in the basket and when they get into the hotel, he starts fighting with it and yelling at it. Of course hotel manager and all the tenants are there to witness this and when Duane runs into his room, he's about to kill Belial. Hotel manager bursts into the room in time to find Belial coming out of his basket and lifting Duane 15 feet in the air BY HIS NUTS!!!



Holy fucking shit, dude.

Belial then throws Duane outside through the window but Duane grabs on to him so now they're hanging on the hotel sign. Belial strangles Duane and when he dies, Belial lets go and they both go falling to the pavement, instantly dying. Knowing that nothing else could possibly top that for an ending, we get credits.

That's it. I got nothing else to say. This movie fucking rocked my face, ass, stomach, and possibly brain off. I can't believe I've gone this far in life without seeing this movie. And because of the death fucking and nut lifting ALONE I feel it is my duty to make history on the site. For the first time in the three and a half years I've run this site, I must award this movie


-Jason

Mass Invasion: Barbarella

For our 8th Mass Invasion, I left it up to the Mass Invaders to pick. I was in a pretty open mood that day, meaning I was too lazy to think about it too long. The general consensus was we should do "Barbarella". Ahh, Barbarella. My first introduction to this film was at B-Fest '08, which is the perfect film for that fest. This film needs to be riffed endlessly, mainly because most of the dialogue in this movie is one long "That's what she said" joke.

A bit of history on "Barbarella". It stars Jane Fonda and we see her tits a lot in this movie, which surprised me. I guess it's best to see them then than now. This movie came out in the lat '60's and was produced by famous foreign producer Dino de Laurentiis. As you'll soon see, the entire movie is one big groovy experience, with trippy scenes and psychedelic music. And plenty of excuses to have Barbarella fuck. This movie is a perfect movie for a Mass Invasion cause the entire thing portrays different adventures Barbarella goes on, so it only makes sense that different people cover each adventure, no?

With that out of the way, let's get to it. Joining me is Maria and my fairweather friend Rachael, who had to explain to a delivery guy what the hell she was doing, by telling him all about this site. So delivery guy, if you're reading this, hope you enjoy. And please don't break into Rachael's house at night. Thank you.

***

Jason

The first 20 seconds of this movie starts off in complete silence. I thought I was having problems with my speakers. I turned the knob all the way up, then went down to my computer to check for any connection problems. At the 21 second mark, suddenly my apartment was filled with the groovy theme song for "Barbarella". I scrambled to turn the sound down but the damage was done. My neighbors started pounding on the walls and called the police, convinced I was having some sort of old fashioned Playboy-type party with naked women and cocaine.

After being questioned by the police, I sat down to watch the most amazing opening sequence ever. It's just 4 minutes of someone in an astronaut suit taking the suit off ever so slowly. It's reveled to be Barbarella herself and holy crap, we're not even five minutes in and we got tits. Thank you, the 1960's!

But damn, her space ship leaves much to be desired. The interior is 90% shag carpeting, even the walls. It's like she hired Bob Guccione to decorate her ship. Anyway, the credits go by slowly while Jane Fonda slowly gets naked and even though we're suppose to think she's in zero gravity getting naked, I can easily tell how this was done. To maintain any suspense, I won't reveal how it was done. If you really wanna know, email me.

After I learn this movie is based on a French comic (no surprise there), Barbarella gets a call and falls to the ground. I guess the "zero gravity" and the wall phone share a fuse or something. Barbarella takes the call, naked, and of course it's the President of Earth. Jeez, doesn't it suck when the ONE time you're naked, the President called. That's like the one time I was about to get in the shower and the Pope came for a visit.

The President, staring at Barbarella's tits the entire time, tells her that a famous Earth scientist named Duran Duran has gone missing and was found near some planet. Duran Duran invented some sort of weapon, which baffles Barbarella cause it's the future and there's peace everywhere. The President is baffled too, but he wants this Duran Duran stopped before he looks bad.

He tells Barbarella she's his only hope cause she's a "five star double rated" Government agent and "she must use all her talents" to find and stop Duran Duran. Oh, I think we will be seeing her use all of her "talents" to find and stop Duran Duran. After being given some wrist thingy that will tell Barbarella who Duran Duran is and a armload of weapons, the President ends the call, no doubt to go jerk off. Unfortunately, Barbarella gets dressed.

Maria

After Barbarella finishes speaking to the president in the buff, she puts some clothes on! But don't worry my friends you can still pretty much see everything. Barbarella and her goofy, shag carpeting lined, space ship named "Alfie" set out for Tao Seti. I assume everything in the 41st century is covered with shag carpet. It makes perfect sense! It's gonna take 154 hours to get there so Barbarella decides to take a nap. She lies down on this plastic sheet and we look at her from underneath. This way we can see her boobs pushed down into the plastic. Nice! Actually it looks like she is a having a horrible time trying to get comfortable on the thing. Oh and for some reason outer space looks a lot like soap bubbles from the inside of the spaceship.

When Barbarella wakes up, "Alfie" sings to her and says "Prepare in insert nourishment!" which is a goofy way of saying, "Have some grape juice." Then there are magnetic disturbances, but it's really just the stage hands shaking the spaceship set. Good thing the whole ship is cushioned or she might get hurt rolling around and tossing her hair about sexily. Well they're gonna crash and the spaceship voice says they are doomed. That was a short movie!

Wait... she manages to press enough buttons so they have a gentle crash landing. I guess the movie can go on. After the ship analyzes the conditions outside Barbarella decides to check it out. But first she has to change outfits! It's a little chilly outside so she puts on a shiny cape and shiny silver boots. Oh great there's a big hole in her goofy Peptol bismol pink spaceship. Now what will she do?!

And just when we thought things couldn't get worse for Barb two little twin girls show up! "What marvelous little girls!" she exclaims. Watch out, Barb, identical twins are almost always pure evil! While she's trying to communicate with them one of the twins throws an iceball at her head knocking her out. They tie Barb up and put her on some kind of sleigh. "But I haven't skied in ages!" I think that is the least of your troubles, Barbarella!

They take her to another broken down ship and she realizes it's Durand Durand's. But before she can ask them any questions about it they tie her to a pole. There are about 5 more sets of evil twin space children inside the spaceship. These kids have plenty of evil hellish nightmare dolls that they set loose on Barbarella. They snap and bit and start taking little chunks out of her and of course ruin her clothes. All while the little children laugh at her.

Rachael

If I based my review of Barbarella on this section of the film alone it would be my favorite film. Kids in a net. Monsters whipping them. What’s not to like? Well, there’s more to the film.

Barbarella finds herself in a room with assorted characters including some blue rabbits. Are they the new addition to Lucky Charms? Yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, blue rabbits. Something like that.

Hey hey it’s a hairy guy. And mention of adjusting one’s “tongue box.” This movie is really tickling my inner 13-year-old’s funny bone. Or funny boner. My instincts tell me that back in the day the uber-hairy Hemingway type of man was quite the catch. Now, however, he is used for comedic effect in things like the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” advertisements.

This is the Catchman. He rounds up stray children when they reach a “serviceable” age. What the heck is the service? I probably don’t want to know. With the general H.R. Puff N Stuff feeling of this movie, it could be anything.

Are you familiar with the classic pizza delivery guy porno? A tedious scene with no sexual tension suddenly becomes comically horny. When Barbarella says, “I’m so grateful for what you’ve done. I hardly know how to thank you.” Yeah. That’s where we’re going. Catchman would like Barbarella to let him make love to her. But she has no idea what this means as Earthlings have sex by taking pills.

An interesting commentary takes place here. We learn that the only people having actual physical sex are the very poor because ego support and self esteem have been controlled. Sex isn’t necessary. Not only is it unnecessary, but it is a result of some kind of self loathing. Odd statement to make on the verge of a major sexual revolution.

When Catchman disrobes, he exposes even more fur. But it’s his own and attached to his body. It’s like a hairy dream involving Borat, Austin Powers, and the High Priest from the movie Year One (yeah, I saw it). There’s a sex scene happening but we don’t get to see. Instead of the classic cliche of intertwined fingers and rumpled bed sheets we get the Catchman’s vehicle spinning around on the ice. It doesn’t even go into a tunnel. Letdown!

After the sexytime business, Catchman agrees to repair Barbarella’s space ship. Interesting to note that Barbarella is a highly respected super queen of the universe on a dangerous government mission but can’t fix her ship. She can, however, whip up a hell of a hairdo and wear a fur like nobody’s business. Speaking of furs, Catchman tells Barbarella she may help herself to any of his furs. I think she already did.

There is a sweet scene in which Barbarella’s post-coital glow is particularly beautiful and Jane Fonda looks remarkably like her newly married character in Barefoot in the Park. She has learned that sometimes the old-fashioned way of doing things is better, hairier, and much more fun.

On that delightful revelation, Barbarella and her space ship go up into the sky and quickly crash down through the ice. She navigates her ship from the shag carpeted console right into what looks like a humongous and dirty chunk of intestine.

It’s not an intestine. It’s the Labyrinth. Some kind of Purgatory for people between the home of the Great Tyrant and whatever else is out there. (Hairy guys on ice and other equally awesome places, I assume. And by the way, I would totally buy tickets to see Hairy Guys on Ice.)

Barbarella falls victim to a rockslide and is knocked unconscious - but sexily so. And since this is Barbarella, there is groping upon impact with this part of the planet.

Is there some kind of philosophical saying that goes, “Blind angels have hooked toes?” No? Just me making this up? Okay. I see. But Pygar doesn’t! Barbarella says, “Look at my space ship!” Then whoooops. Blind guy alert. This movie is funnier when it doesn’t try to be funny.

It's the blind leading the blonde! (I had to keep that joke.)

Barbarella isn’t bothered by the groping. She’s more concerned about whether Pygar knows anything about Duran Duran. He says, “I do not know of these things.” Which is how I feel when I ask the baggers at the grocery store if they know about Duran Duran. They don’t. They’re only 16. And this makes me feel like Methuselah. Thanks, kids!

So, the Labyrinth. It’s like that really bad party you attended in college with people you weren’t too sure about and everyone told you not to say anything negative or you’d freak out the people on acid and you ended up walking home. And while you played Nintendo back at your house you realized that sometimes it’s better not knowing everything that’s out there. That’s the Labyrinth. Weird people with nothing to say. A little groping. No fun at all. Playing Mario Kart alone is ten times better than the Labyrinth.

But there’s Professor Ping. He’s like a precursor to the Doc Brown in Back to the Future. A little zany. A little clueless. Apparently a genius. However, the doctors in Barbarella, well, as you may have guessed, don’t wear pants. Not even in dirty hippie Purgatory. (I’d want to wear pants. Who knows what you’re sitting on or in.)

Professor Ping is yet another man who can fix Barbarella’s spaceship. There must be some joke in here about women drivers. But I’m not going to be the one to make this joke. Genius takes time, says the Doc. It could take weeks to fix the spaceship. Barbarella asks Pygar to fly her to find Duran Duran. He can’t. He has lost the will to fly. And what follows is essentially an Enzyte commercial, complete with a “sproing” sound effect. Just mute the sound and whistle the Enzyte song from here on.

Barbarella and Pygar head to his nest. Which is literally a nest. Made of twigs. Barbarella calls it “marvelous” but I have seen bird nests. They’re full of bird poop. So, different strokes and all that.

Barbarella basks in the afterglow of Pygar getting his groove back. Pygar can fly. But I just feel like calling the ASPCA.

Jason

I just want to point out that not even an hour has went by since she fucked that hairy dude and now she's gotten laid again. Jeez, I can't even get laid twice in the same month. And she got it on with an angel of all things. Of course, this was the motivation Pygar needed cause now he's flying all over the place. Fucking Barbarella: It'll give you wings!

Now that Pygar can fly, Barbarella asks if he'll take her to SoGo to find Duran Duran. After reminding her and us he's blind (so I guess she was on top?) Barbarella says she'll play navigator. There's also the problem of flying black guards, which Barbarella will kill with the weapons she never used in her life.

So now Pygar is carrying Barbarella's slutty ass over the Labyrinth and sure enough here come some flying black guards. It turns into a video game with Barbarella saying "LEFT" or "RIGHT" while she shoots down the guards. This takes up about 5 minutes of screen time. At one point, the guards shot at Pygar and he starts to fall. Uh oh, we got a fallin' angel! But thankfully he wakes up and Barbarella shoots until she realizes her "energy box" is empty. Oh, I'm sure she'll find someone to fill her box up in SoGo.

Pygar insists they land in the backways of SoGo cause being seen with an angel is wrong or looked upon or something. Considering what they go through when they land, they probably were better off. They start walking around this weird ass city and there's naked chicks hanging from sheets hanging from the ceiling and a random dead chick lying in the road.

Soon, some ruffians show up, simply shove Pygar down and take Barbarella to a back alley. Well, this was suppose to be the back alley so I guess the back alley's back alley. The two guys shove Barbarella down and she goes "What do you want of me?" then instantly goes "Oh" and seems ok with it. Then a random one-eyed chick shows up and kills both dudes.

Barbarella thanks one-eyed chick, who keeps calling her Pretty Pretty. Barbarella insists this is not her her and runs off to find Pygar. Pygar, for whatever reason, is just standing in the middle of a room, with his wings up, and a group of douchebags are just waving knifes in front of him. They're not stabbing him or cutting him, just waving them around. One douche goes to finally stab him but Barbarella gets in the way, stopping them.

Huh. Some five-star rated agent she is. You'd think a five-star rated agent would know how to fight or something but all she does is just jump in harms way and fuck everyone in sight. I guess being dumb and slutty does have it's advantages. This only proves that one day, Paris Hilton will take over the world.

Barbarella and Pygar end up in a room called The Chamber of Final Solution. It's kind of like a futuristic version of that story the Tiger or the Woman where a person must choose the right door or else gets killed. Or maybe it's like "Let's Make A Deal". Whatever.

Some chick appears out of nowhere and we see her choose a room, which I guess was the wrong one. A calming voice, much like Magic Voice, then urges Barbarella and Pygar to choose. They're about to when suddenly a dumpy old guy and some guards appear, telling them to stop. Jeez, people come out of nowhere in this room.

The dumpy guy calls himself the Concierge. Hey, great! I need to know where I can get a bite to eat. Concierge lowers a net on Pygar where Barbarella literally went "oh no not Pygar oh well" and kept on going with Concierge. He leads her to some pipe where she's forced down. She ends up in Level 1-2. Good luck getting THAT music out of your head.

Barbarella actually ends up in some room where a weird ass party is going on. And I think the twin girls from earlier are here as well but it's not made too clear. And they actually do say "come play with us", so that joke I made up there earlier probably is ruined.

Barbarella is lead to a smaller room where that one-eyed ho that called Barbarella "Pretty Pretty" is, but she has both eyes now and she's actually the Queen or Tyrant. She explains that she took Pygar from Barbarella cause he committed a bunch of crimes and his sentence is her boning the shit out of him and I guess Barbarella has to watch. Like that'll show her.

Barbarella remembers placing a weapon next to Pygar's dick and goes to grab it (the weapon, not his dick) and points it at the Tyrant, threatening to melt her face. This works cause she's a vain bitch (True fact: The Tyrant can be now seen on "The Hills") and she releases Pygar. Concierge is wise to Barbarella's game and notices the energy pack for the weapon is gone. So in the future our weapons become even less practical. The NRA must either love or hate this movie. Barbarella's sentence for pulling an empty gun: TORTCHA!!

Rachael

Poor, poor Barbarella. Stuck inside the giant Heckle and Jeckle cage. Her captor really does look like Jon Lovitz in a caftan. But he’s still capable of such terrible tortures as... tiny birds! About 100 parakeets begin mercilessly pecking Barbarella. So this is the future. People advance to the point of fully understanding ego and self esteem but our torture methods involve song birds with pointy beaks.

And with that we meet Dildano. He springs Barbarella from the tiny birds of doom and tells her that he’s leading a revolution against the queen, saving the lives of political prisoners, and seeking a better tomorrow for the people of his planet. All while wearing no pants.

And of course he wants to have sex with Barbarella. With the Earth pill - not the old fashioned hairy way. Which is strange because he says he’s been waiting five years for this opportunity. That’s quite a dry spell to end without an actual bang, if you get my drift. But the guy doesn’t wear pants, so maybe he sees enough flesh.

Barbarella and Dildano take the pills and it looks a lot like a bad high school drama class learning the mirror exercise. But with smoking fingers and hair curling. I’m not quite clear on what exactly they’re experiencing but if body parts are smoking, it has to be good.

Dildano reveals that his sexytime Earth pills were obtained from Duran Duran. Barbarella is that much closer to her goal of finding Duran Duran now. However, she (and we the audience) have to put up with the explanation of a very elaborate plot to overthrow the evil queen. A successful revolution relies on Barbarella’s weaponry. Which hasn’t helped her one bit so far in this movie. But, gosh darn it, the guy with no pants is gonna make this happen.

Maria

I hate this stupid underground rebel guy. Once he comes into the movie it gets boooring. Also his outfit is as disturbing as hell. He has on little brown leather shorts and a cape. That's not something I want to see! Barbarella wants to call Professor Ping but he can't find his radio transmitter because he sucks. And once he does find it he tries to call Professor Ping, "Professor Ping to Headquarter! Professor Ping to Headquarters!" It's the other way around Stupid!

Ping says that the ship is fixed and they are all ready to go. Dildano tells Ping to meet at the rendezvous point while Barbarella breaks into the Chamber of Dreams. Mr. Boring gets Chamber's spare key which turns out to be invisible. "Only an invisible key can open an invisible wall!" he says. I guess that makes sense. Of course the moron dropped the key so they have to search around on the floor for it. This is supposed to be funny it's not because Dildano isn't funny and it's too bad that this scene is like a third of the movie. When he finds the key he ties it around Barbarella's "secret" neck. And the gets her the "secret" map that he'll lead her through the "secret" corridor.

Barbarella finds herself in a freaky room with a bunch of stoned people lying around. She asks one of them for directions to the 12th corridor but they just offer some "essence of man" to smoke instead. And she seems to like it. She's caught by the Tyrant's Concierge almost instantly after accepting her secret mission and he tells her that it's time for her to amuse him. You know what that means my friends, it's Orgasm Machine time!

The orgasm machine is used for executions. You feel pretty good until your head explodes I guess. She is strapped inside something that looks like an organ that the Concierge plays. All the time she squeals and moans and squirms and gets sweatier and sweatier as he plays faster and faster. The Concierge also gets sweaty as he tries harder and harder to kill her with pleasure. "What kind of girl are you?!" he yells as the machine bursts into flames. "Have you no shame?!" It seems that the machine was no match for Barbarella's sexiness.



Barbarella's Durand Durand detector finally goes off and she finally realizes who the Concierge really is. She tells him she's been sent by the president to bring him back to Earth. But he's not going back, he's gonna to stay on this planet and continue being pure evil. Barbarella stupidly tells Durand Durand that she has the key to the Tyrant's Chamber of Dreams, and he happily agrees to take her there.

Jason

Barbarella and Duran Duran arrive at the Chamber of Dreams. Barbarella runs into the "invisible wall" aka the solid piece of plastic cause you can clearly see Barbarella's reflection in it. She tries to find the key hole (another "that's what she said" moment) but Duran Duran gets impatient and fights Barbarella for the invisible key and it falls into a pond.

Somehow this opens the door and he shoves her into the Chamber, steals the other Key, then locks Barbarella in the Chamber. Duran Duran has a total "Mu ha ha ha" moment when he practically says "Today SoGo! Tomorrow! THE UNIVERSE!!" and he runs to steal the throne from the Queen.

Barbarella gets lost in the Queen's dream in this movies last of many LSD inspired scenes. The Queen finally wakes up and is told the bad news. She "just so happens" to have some kind of view screen to look into the Throne Room just in time to find Duran Duran sitting on the throne, about to be crowned and everybody in the city calling him "Your Majesty". Man, he takes power fast. It was only, what, five minutes since he locked Barbarella in the Chamber. Maybe he also invented a time machine too.

Some guy runs in and tells Duran Duran that all the other characters we met earlier in the movie are now teaming up for a revolution! Duran Duran goes "Mu ha ha ha! I have my top secret laser ray thing!" and goes into the Top Secret Laser Ray Thing room and starts using it to kill everyone.

The Queen is like "Aw crap. Well, time to end the world" and she lets loose that watery crap that's been mentioned a few times. Apparently it's some force that controls this world and can kill people if not treated right. And also it doesn't like good people cause it puts Barbarella in a bubble "to protect her innocence". What innocence? She either fucked, and tried to fucked, everyone she came across and was proven too slutty for a pleasure machine. She's about as innocent as Britney Spears.

Duran Duran gets pissed he's losing, but accepts his fate pretty well by declaring that Earth is losing a great dictator. I think Earth had it's fair share of dictators, thank you very much. The Laser Thingy suddenly explodes, killing Duran Duran. The lifeforce water saves Barbarella and the Queen and when they arrive on the surface, they find Pygar just lying there.

The Queen tells Barbarella to use some of that "mouth-to-mouth". The way she says this, you can tell the Queen is jealous that Barbarella got it on with everyone else BUT her. Barbarella comes up with another plan: to flap his wings for him until he wakes up. This works somehow. He's still blind though. I guess sluttiness only does so much.

Pygar then picks up Barbarella and the Queen and starts flying them to Barbarella's ship. Barbarella asks Pygar why he's taking the Queen after all the horrible stuff she did to him and he says "Angels never remember anything."

...WHAT?? The hell does THAT mean? What do you mean you don't remember anything? You mean you forgot who Barbarella is? And that she fucked you so hard that you wanted to fly? The hell are you talking about? Ugh, what is it with the final lines of bad movies that make me lose my shit? Let's just be glad there's nothing else after this but groovy ending credits.

***
Maria
Barbarella, she's so swell-a! Definitely not a fella!

Rachael
Why is this such a cultural legend? It is so reminiscent of 70's porn but without the actual porn. I will give this movie 3 stars because, to be completely honest, Jane Fonda’s acting is great. And she looks fantastic. Some humor - both intentional and not. Cheesy sets. Great hair.

Jason
Much like any other groovy movie from the '60's, it feels like you are on drugs when you watch "Barbarella". I felt the same way when I reviewed "Candy", except that made even less sense. At least in this one we got to see Jane Fonda's tit's. This movie isn't bad. It's really entertaining and kinda neat to look at. Just don't expect to understand what the hell is going on, that's all.

Anklebiters

I totally discovered this movie on accident one day awhile back. I was at the library, looking for another movie (I forget which one now) and I see the title "ANKLEBITERS" staring at me. I'm like "The fuck?" and I just had to rent this. And as a result, this movie has changed my life because I have now officially seen everything.

What we are dealing with here is midget vampires. Who look like bikers. On top of that, this whole movie has that "locally made" flavor where everyone involved was just minding their own business one day when some dude walks in and says "I'm making a movie, who wants to be in it?" and since they had nothing better to do, they all said "sure".

We start with a guy in a TOOL shirt running. This goes on for about five minutes so the credits can roll. We finally find out what he's running from: midget vampires.

They all attack the Tool-wearing Guy when we get the very dramatic entrance of our heroes Drexel and T-Bone. And by dramatic I mean Drexel yells out "hey" and everyone looks and they're just standing there. Both Drexel and T-Bone shoot the mini-vampires (sorry, had to) but this doesn't stop them (of course) but it does make them run away.

Drexel interrogates Tool Guy by asking where they ran into him at. Tool Guy says it was at a rave. Ah, that's why I avoided going to raves all these years, because I'd be attacked by midget vampires. After Drexel tells Tool Guy to shut up cause he's a major bad-ass, we get more credits. Wow! Two sets of credits for the price of one! Lucky me!!!

After the other set of credits, we meet two dudes walking down some railroad tracks. One of them looks like Stan Lee. Boy, he does accept any type of cameo, huh? Anyway, Stan Lee and his partner Skinny Guy are meeting the three main midget vampires. Stan Lee is gonna give them this sword which houses the blood of the last "big" vampire. This is sort of explained later.

But a recurring theme among the tiny vampires starts here. Stan Lee and Skinny asks for the money (in which Skinny shouts out, no lie, "SHOW ME THE MONEY!") but the vampires says "Umm....no" and starts biting them. And what's interesting is even though Stan Lee and Skinny is on the ground, they are biting them on the ankles. Hey, they came up with a catchy title, dammit they're gonna use it.

Drexel and T-Bone walk into a bar (no joke) and talk to the bartender who gave Tool Guy the flyer to the rave where the vampires were. Drexel thinks Bartender is working for the vampires and want information. What he gets instead is an ass beating by the local bar-goers, being played by local bar-goers.

We then meet John who is just roaming around in some art gallery. He stops at a painting and looks at it for five seconds when some guy comes out of nowhere and says "Nice choice sir. I'll have it wrapped up and sent to your house". Man, is that all it takes to buy stuff around here, just look at it? If that was the case, I would have this god awful Dora the Explorer lamp in my possession, along with several lesbian orgies...er, um..nothing.

Anyway, the evil midget vampire crew meets up with some random guy hanging out somewhere and he gives them some information on some dude. Yet again, Random Guy asks for money but instead he gets bitten. They shoulda called this movie "Slacker Vampires". They're always hungry and never have any money.

After a pointless shot of John at home where he receives a call about vampire activity, he and his trusty sidekick/butler Edgar suit up and pack up every weapon known to man-kind and takes off to Vampire-ville. And another pointless scene of Drexel and T-Bone going to some accountant's office to take care of a random guy who somehow turned into a vampire. To pile on to the pointless shit never referenced again in the movie, some guy steals Drexel and T-Bone's motorcycle. Maybe the bike symbolizes the hunt for these tiny vampires and now they lost it? Along with that loving feeling?

We then come to a scene that gives me a startling revelation. During one of the sets of credits, every other name mentioned was Holcomb. In this scene, it takes place at a mechanic shop, which is named...Holcomb Repairs or something. That explains a lot. No wonder everyone's cars are never the same when they get it back from the shop, all the mechanics are daydreaming about making a crappy vampire flick with midgets. Whenever I finally get a car, it's gonna be a Christian Scientist.

Ok so, this one big dude named Rafe is visited by the tiny vampires and using the sword, they turn him into one. Rafe's sister Karen was in the other room when this happens and she calls the police. They show up like 45 minutes later and the detective realizes he's got a vampire problem on his hands, so he calls Drexel.

Drexel realizes he needs new wheels so he beats up some guy and steals his. I wish I was kidding about that. He runs into the vampire gang, with their new tough guy vampire, and a showdown takes place. Apparently the people who made this movie seen "Blade" and "The Matrix" a lot because this whole fight scene is basically just a rip off of those fight scenes. John shows up and takes aim at Drexel but because Drexel jumps off a railing, he didn't get shot. Instead of just reloading his gun and shooting again, John just says "Next time". And instead of Drexel just grabbing the midget vampires right then and there, he simply walks past them and says "Next time". Man, these are some lazy vampire hunters. Don't you just feel safe knowing they're on the case?

Karen thinks T-Bone was one of the midget vampires that took her brother and she starts beating the shit out of him. Drexel pulls her off and says "wrong tiny guy", and they take her to their hideout to explain what the fuck has been going on in the movie for the past 45 minutes.

See, a long time ago there was this tall vampire named Pedro or Paco or Pascal or something and he was the last tall one. Before he died, he put his blood into a sword. Then there were nothing but midget vampires but they are all dying out and the group that we been seeing this entire movie are the last kind. So they need to start up another vampire takeover and since there isn't a lot of midgets in the world (cause only tiny vampires can turn tiny people into tiny vampires), they need a big vampire guy to turn other big people into big vampire guys. So that's basically our plot. And which is why they grabbed Karen's brother.

There's a knock on the door and it's John. It's also revealed that John has been hunting for Drexel for a long time, despite the fact that he's only half-vampire. Um...it appears that John found Drexel's hideout easily, why didn't he just come by earlier and kill him? Oh, right, this was made by a bunch of mechanics and drunk people.

John says he needs Drexel's help cause now they got a big vampire and only big vampire blood can kill a big vampire. Sheesh, what's with all the only something sized something can do something to another something sized something? Can cats only kill other cats? How about trees? Can tree blood kill only trees?

Alright, I keep getting sidetracked. So Drexel puts some of his blood into some syringes and we get a montage of everybody packing up their weapons to fight off the vampires. Meanwhile, we get another pointless scene of two stoners somewhere getting attacked by the midget vampires and the big vampire. Oddly enough, they didn't turn into vampires, but I always notice that in vampire movies. Sometimes when a vampire bites a person they either die or turn into one. Guess it depends on the plot.

The Evil Vampire Gang show up at some dance club where they're all raising the roof and turns them all into vampires. This would be a cool scene except it's so god damn dark you can't see shit. So what I think happens is Drexel and John show up and kills the bad dancing vampires, with the help of a bitchy stripper. But the Evil Vampire Gang show up at Drexel and T-Bone's hide out and turn T-Bone into a vampire and kidnap Karen. When Drexel returns, T-Bone attacks and John is forced to kill him. Drexel buries his little friend (sorry again) and the main little vampire Korel calls saying "Let's end this!"

We get ANOTHER packing up weapons montage, still in the dark, and John informs us that a character named The Cowboy is gonna fly in and help them. Despite the rest of the movie taking place at noon, it's still dark. The evil tiny vampires show up at a biker bar and turns them all into vampires.

So now it's John, Drexel, The Cowboy, and Edgar against a biker vampire gang. And the movie immediately turns annoying when we get a five minute scene of the bikers just riding around in circles and whooping. It was like watching the worlds most annoying car show.

Finally the fight begins and all of the bikers are taken down easily. Vampire Rafe stabs Drexel with the vampire blood. John (who by the way just randomly found Karen) says "either it's gonna kill him or make him stronger". Guess what it does? He's the hero of the movie, so come on take a guess?

I dunno about stronger though. He looked about the same. But he eventually defeats Vampire Rafe and shoots one of the vampire midgets. The Cowboy is about to shoot Drexel but John lets him live. Drexel gets on a motorcycle and takes off.

Then the screen says "Nine months later, Atlanta", like some person named Atlanta asked "When does this scene take place?" One of the midget vampires is about to attack a kid (does that count has a "small person"?) when Drexel and John show up and kill him. And....that's about it. The end. We do find out that the vampire biker gang was a real biker gang. That explains a lot.

For a movie that was filmed possibly during a weekend in someone's hometown, using local actors, and possibly borrowing equipment from someone's uncle, this wasn't that bad of a movie. There are a bunch of laughable moments and it's a movie with midget vampires, you can't hate it too much. The only problems I had was the sound. By that I mean it sounded like someone shoved the boom mike down the actor's throat. And as I pointed out already, the lighting at the end of the movie sucked.
So the only thing left to do now is to have vampire animals. I'd pay to see someone fight off a dog while it's trying to bite it's neck. And wearing a little black cape.


-Jason