Infamous Films: Supergirl

Ah yeah, this is (the) shit!  Today's Film is Supergirl, the Film that the Salkinds couldn't salvage.  Based on recent experiences of mine, it is clear that not enough people know about the Salkind Family and what they did for Superman- right and wrong.  Basically, they ended up as Producers with the rights to the Character for awhile.  They Produced the first 3 Superman Films, basically dumped the 4th one on Cannon Films, made this Film, made the Superboy TV Show and even have an Executive Producer Credit on Superman Returns!  So yeah, they were pretty influential- you can decide in what way.  After Superman II, they though about branching out and reaching a new market.  The result- Supergirl.  In this Film, Kara is forced to leave Argo City to return a life-or-death item.  Naturally, she starts out doing that...and then enrolls in College for no good reason.  Meanwhile, the item is in the hands of...a Witch?  This is an odd one.  I should also note that I'm reviewing the Director's Cut, a Version so important that it was hidden in a Film Can marked 'Do Not Use' for nearly 30 years!  It is the definitive Version though, so let's go for it!  To find out if this deserves the infamy it has or is actually good, read on...

Somewhere in Space (don't ask for details) lies Argo City, a land where many Kryptonians are still living.  Their most famous inventor is Peter O'Toole here.

He makes the mistake of letting Kara do something and she manages to lose the city's other power source!  Within 10 minutes, she manages to doom her people!

Wow- way to build her up!

The object ends up on Earth, so Kara follows it in O'Toole's ship.  It ends up in the hands of Faye Dunaway- who is a Witch seeking power.

Naturally, this alien battery helps her cast spells...

After learning that she has powers (which she should know if she has been watching her cousin Superman) and seeing some girls in School, she changes her clothes and hair color...somehow to become Linda Lee.

Here's another weird thing: her roommate is Lucy Lane- Lois' Sister!

Now empowered greatly, Dunaway and her friend see a random Landscaper and decide to cast a Love Spell on him.

That's...that's your only goal right now?

It gets better!

When the guy wanders away before he can see Dunaway again (to fall in love), he wanders into Town...so she animates a Forklift to catch him.  Supergirl springs into action and he ends up seeing her first.

Upset, Dunaway now wants to kill Supergirl/Kara.  That is her only motivation to do so!

After a few failed attempts, Dunaway manages to capture Supergirl and send her to the Phantom Zone...somehow.  Was that place just public knowledge after the events of Superman II?

In there, she runs into O'Toole- who sent himself there as a penance- and they must find a way back.

They do, leading to a final showdown with Dunaway.  It looks bleak at first when Supergirl seems to forget that she can fly for a while.

She eventually remembers, leading to Dunaway summoning the source of her powers.  Tres freaky!

Supergirl manages to beat Dunaway by...flying around her to make a small tornado.  Sure- why not?

In the aftermath, she just flies back (without her ship!) to Argo City and...that's it, huh?  K.  The End.

This is pretty damn silly.  I have a soft spot for silly, over-the-top stuff like this though.  I like Tank Girl.  I kind of like Bates Motel.  I like Action Jackson.  Let's look at this fairly though.  The Story is just plain weird.  A Superman spin-off involving a Witch, invisible monsters (the one with lightning being shot at it) and a Cthulhu-style monster- huh?!?!?  A Superman spin-off with no appearance from Christopher Reeve- nice.  Apparently, there was talk about him making a Cameo, but that didn't happen.  Instead, you get a bit of Radio Exposition explaining that he's '70 Trillion Light Years away at a Galactic Peace Summit.'  Really, guys?  In the first 2 Films, he never left Earth and we only saw Kryptonians, so...how did this make sense?  The only real connection to the Franchise is Jimmy Olsen appearing here.  Mind you, his role involves him going to the small town to hit on Lois Lane's sister- creepy, right?  One thing that is really surprising is the caliber of people that are actually in this one.  Faye Dunaway.  Peter O'Toole.  Mia Farrow.  Peter Cook.  Wow- just wow.  The Special Effects are decent at times and not so good at others.  The Rear Projection work is a bit iffy and the use of wires is not that subtle.  The whole thing is especially silly in how it treats its female characters.  Consider this: there are 6 Comic Book Superhero Films with Female Leads.  Out of those 6, only two of them have Female Leads and Female Villains.  In Catwoman, the Villain is a Trophy Wife who works for a Make-Up Company.  In Supergirl, it is a Witch who spends the majority of the Film pining over some guy she just saw once.  Wow.  We'll see how Wonder Woman turns out.  In the meantime, check out this amusing time-capsule of a Film if you like the goofy stuff.  Just watch your skirt as you land...

Next up, another Film about an Angel courtesy of the 3-Film Set.  Let's just pray that this turns out alright.  Stay tuned...

Infamous Films: The Fat Spy

Oh my...this one hurt.  I won't sugar-coat this one: it is bad.  It is real, real bad.  On the scale of Bad Movies, Bad Action Films are generally the least-offensive, since you can usually laugh at how bad they choreograph/stage their scenes.  The worst kind of Bad Movies, however, are Bad Comedies.  Bad Musicals are right up there, since the Songs are so painful to your ears.  So what happens when you get both?  The answer- The Fat Spy.  This mostly-forgotten Film was given to me a while back in 2014 because 'it looked pretty bad.'  If only they knew how right they were!  How do I begin?  There's a paper-thin Plot, bad Songs, bad Acting, bad Writing, bad Film Stock (since nobody gives enough of a shit to restore it), bad Jokes and just a general feeling of cheapness.  This is a Film that wasn't even finished due to the Budget drying up.  How they handle that is...well, I'll save that for later.  The Story, as such, involves the search for the Fountain of Youth.  Two Industrialists seek it out and two Twins work for their respective sides.  When a bunch of 'teenagers' show up to look for treasure, things get complicated.  On the plus side, this is one of the last few Films in which Jane Mansfield appears.  On the negative side, she was about 5 months pregnant when she shot this, so her appeal is a bit faded for many here.  I'm not quite that superficial, but enough people are to make mention of it.  How bad can this be?  To find out, read on...

Yes, normally the Title Card comes first, but if this Film feels like beginning cold with 3 minutes of these guys singing is a proper way to open, then so do I!

Anyhow, this guy wants the Fountain of Youth and has had a guy on the Island that supposedly hide it for 6 months.  For no clear reason, his daughter- Junior (Mansfield)- is in love with the titular guy.

These 'kids' show up on the same island, since apparently everyone in the 1960s went on Treasure Hunts for Spring Break.

Seriously, was that ever really a thing?

To save you much time, here's a breakdown of how this movie works.  You either get mostly-terrible Songs...

...mostly-terrible Comedy that usually involves mugging and/or talking to camera...

...and occasionally a bit of Story.  Rinse and repeat for 70ish minutes.

Cutting even farther ahead, here's a big problem with the film summed up in one shot.

1) Cheap, non-restored Film Stock (not the strand hanging on the film).
2) The Film cheating by just exposition dumping to cover for Scenes they couldn't afford to film.

So, as it turns out, the Fountain is actually two Roses (why not?!?).  The bad guys eat one and become talking babies, while the second is given to an old couple...who claim to be Ponce De Leon and his wife.

Before you can even begin to process that, the Film stumbles to an end with...

...a wall of text showing the rest of the Film's conclusion that they didn't film.  Damn.  The End.

What a hot mess this is!  Let me get right to the big question: was anything done right here?  In a word....no.  The Comedy is just stilted, Dated and couldn't have seemed that good even in its day.  The Acting is either ridiculously-overstated (like Mansfield's Monroe impression) or ridiculously-understated (like the Acting from the Band).  There is really no middle-ground here.  The Story is not completely-worthless in theory, but is definitely made so by the Film.  The main Story is too thread-bare, so everyone and their random Stories fight to fill out the barely-appropriate Runtime.  Here's an example: one of the Teens meets a Mermaid...and goes to meet her later, but that's it.  Was his Ending just not shot?  If so, why bother putting half of it in?  If not, where did it go?  The Songs are generally just so forgettable or mundane that I just skipped through them.  They felt like filler from the very first one, so I don't think that I missed much.  A girl says that she loves a boy...and they sing about it.  Do I gain more insight if I sit through their 2-minute song about how much they love each other?  I can't imagine that I do.  This is...look- just don't bother.  Jane Mansfield was obviously in better Films, so watch them instead.  Phyllis Diller is in the same category and, if it helps, she is barely in this.  Despite how happy these 2 look, I assure you that you can just move along quickly...

Next up, a weird Film I found from France.  With a masked killer, a mummy and a Cat, it's...something.  Stay tuned...

Infamous Films: Howard the Duck

If he's important enough to get a Cameo in Marvel's biggest film of the year, he's important enough to get his film reviewed.  Today's film is Howard the Duck, the film that inadvertently helped form Pixar.  Yes, you're welcome.  I'll get to that weird little factoid more deeply in the Closing.  Back in the mid 1980s, George Lucas was riding high in the wake of Star Wars.  He put about $50 million into building his now-famous Ranch and looked to Produce a film to make some of that back.  The film was this one.  You know how that ended up.  While it is by no means one of the most financially-unsuccessful films ever- that still belongs to recent far like 47 Ronin or John Carter-, it got a reputation as being a bomb.  That led to the goofy Cover Art showed the other day when Europe/Asia were the film's last chances to make its money back.  So who is Howard the Duck?  He's a weird and wacky one-off Character created by the late Steve Gerber (who wrote a couple of the My Crazy Youth Episodes of Batman: The Animated Series) that spun off into being a minor, pop culture icon.  This led to the acerbic quacker getting the first feature-length Comic Book Film (not counting a Theatrical release of the Captain America Serial)!  Yes, the rise of Marvel and DC in Theaters (and countless billions in Box Office) started here!  The movie excises alot of what made the Character work and really makes you wonder how films got a PG back in 1986!  You may know the film's reputation, but do you know the film?  To find out, read on...

Howard is a formerly-ambitious Duck who lives a life of unhappiness.  The Universe has something to say about that though.

While many focus on the infamous 'Duck Tits' moment (and I do too), I would like to focus on the 'guy' on the left.  As the Internet likes to ask 'Is This Racist?'

Howard is transported to Cleveland and is very upset about it.  When some overzealous 'fans,' try to mess with a lady Rock Singer, he jumps into action with his Quack-Fu!

Howard, his new friend Beverly and (Future Academy Award Winner) Tim Robbins try to find out what happened.  For no good reason, Howard is kind of an asshole to the guy trying to help him...

On his own, Howard runs into some issues.  The highlight for me is this lady at the Unemployment Office who thinks that Howard is a guy in a weird costume who doesn't want a job.

Yeah, the three-foot tall talking Duck is clearly...someone trying to 'live on the dole.'  Reagan's America!

Somehow this film got a PG Rating.  Even with this scene that involves Beverly putting the moves on Howard (with a boner joke!) and only being interrupted by Robbins and two other Scientists.  Weird.

Howard gets in trouble with the Cops after an attempt to send him back to his Planet ends in an exploded piece of Equipment.  The Police Captain is...Captain Brass from C.S.I.!!!

Were you always a Cop?

The earlier explosion put the spirit of a freaky, space Demon in the body of the Lead Scientist (Jeffrey Jones).  He eventually gets all of his powers and plans to send more of his people here.

Fortunately, they get him out of Jones.  Unfortunately, he reveals his true form!

Thanks to a bunch of silly science, the creature is destroyed and the invasion stopped.

Unfortunately, Howard is stuck here...but he can at least rock out here on Earth now!  The End.

This one is...weird.  Is it a Kid's Film?  Is it a film for Adults?  Is it a wacky Comedy?  Is it a Science-Fiction film?  Well, I guess it is sort of all of them.  The tone, style and substance are all over the map.  In one bit, Howard is interrupted from starting to look at Playduck Magazine, while in another he's doing karate.  One Scene has him cleaning up a Strip Club Bathroom, while another has him flying in an Ultra-Lite Plane!  It is not easy to see why alot of people don't like this.  It is pretty simple: the film itself doesn't know what it wants to be!  If you can't agree on what kind of film you want to make, how big can your film be?  Having said all that, I...don't hate it.  As a film, it is a weird and bizarre mess...but what a fun mess it is.  I will freely admit that I like the crazy stuff and that my views don't represent everyone's.  Of course, it is my site, so you clearly care what I think.  Well, that or you really love that one Ramone's album- if so, sorry.  I should review that sometime, huh?  On the plus side, the financial failure of this film forced Lucas to sell his new CGI-Animation Division to Steve Jobs and give us Pixar.  If you love Toy Story, you have this one to thank.  Howard the Duck is one of the more infamous train wrecks in cinema history.  Does it deserve to be?  Yeah, kind of.  Much like stuff like Tank Girl, I just can't hate it though.  Just to complete any review of this film, here are the infamous 'Duck Tits'...

Next up, a Video Game tie-in Film that's actually...good.  While I'm not a big Halo fan, this one does what so many others have failed to do!  Stay tuned..

C.Y.A. Cover Art: Howard (The Duck)...A New Breed of Hero

As a sneak Preview for the next review, here is some interesting Cover Art used over in Europe.

The background: after Howard the Duck was such a famous bomb, it was retitled (but not reshot) for its European release.  See if you can spot the subtle differences...

Oh yeah, that's a little sad.

Instead of saying 'The Duck,' they just add the tagline instead.  Note the use of big, bright imagery...of everything except Howard himself.

Oh wait- he's there...in shadow.  You can't lie...but you can do your best to make people look elsewhere.

In case there is any doubt to the validity of this, here is another Pic of it (from someone trying to sell it)...

Yep, still ridiculous.

Infamous Sequels: Superman III

It is pretty much as bad as they say.  Some films are known as Classics.  Movies like Citizen Kane sell themselves at this point.  You should still see them, but you get alot of the same effect just from hearing about it.  On the flip-side, there are films that are so famously-bad that they sell themselves (as shit) at this point.  If you haven't seen Plan 9 From Outer Space, you probably already know that it is bad and full of Continuity Errors.  On that note, I present you with Superman III.  If you don't know why it is so bad, let me lay it out for you.  Superman is practically the secondary Lead, it is chock full of stupid Comedy, it has about three actual Plots and is chock full of Filler.  Is that enough for you?  Let us get down to the 'brass tax' (or whatever out-dated expression that you prefer) now.  This film is bad.  I knew that it would be bad.  Even going in expecting bad though, I still found a way to be disappointed.  Yeah, it's that bad.  You see, there are more problems than just the obvious one.  Watching Superman III is kind of like digging through your Christmas presents, but only finding socks...that aren't even the right size.  You keep going, thinking that a great gift- like a Castle Grayskull playset - is hiding in there.  What you get is just more and more socks.  That is not to say that NOTHING in the film is good.  There are a few hidden gems in this movie, which is why I don't feel bad for having watched it.  You want to find out the good and the bad?  If so, read on...

The film begins with Richard Pryor as a schmuck named Gus.  He has no job and no money.  Naturally, he's perfectly-suited to become...a Computer Programmer?  F--k you, College!

Oh and is this subtle racism to have the black Comedian playing a jobless loser on Welfare (especially in the 1980s)?  Maybe...

Following that, we get the Intro scene that sums up the film quite well.  It is a long series of bad slapstick scenes with no rhyme or reason.  It is just...wow.

For those of you who wonder what Richard Lester added to Superman II, you can see it now: stupid, stupid comedy.

Here's a part that is often forgotten: Margot Kidder is barely in the film.  She has one scene near the beginning, leaves and reappears at the End.  Bye!

If you want to know why, she didn't like how the Salkinds (the Producers) treated Richard Donner, so this was her 'punishment.'  Um...damn you?

In a nearly-pointless diversion, Superman stops a chemical fire and Jimmy Olsen breaks his leg, cutting his screen time down as well.

Instead of focusing on that, let's focus on how he freezes THE TOP of a Lake and drops it on the fire, causing it to turn into rain during the descent.  Oh Mythbusters...

In Plot #13, Clark/Superman returns to Smallville for a story and meets Lana Lang.  He befriends her and her son Ricky.  The name choice is all just to set up an I Love Lucy reference for all five of you that remember that Episode.

Seriously, Richard Lester is old and only cares about old-timey jokes.  Please don't die anytime soon, Mr. Lester, or else I will feel like a real asshole (more than usual)  UPDATE: Still alive in 2018.

In the actual Plot, Not Lex Luthor (since Gene Hackman also was mad at the Salkinds) hires Gus to help with his plan to conquer the world...by way of forcing control of Coffee and Oil Reserves.  Yeah, the land ownership plots are better.

The only good part here involves Gus and Company making Kryptonite that acts like Red Kryptonite and makes Superman turn into a dick.  Highlights include adjusting the Tower of Pissa and blowing out the Olympic Torch.

Kudos to Reeve for his two performances (three if you count him as Clark) here.  Not Kudos to just about everything else.

I should mention that an early Draft of the Script- Written by Mrs. Salkind- included Mr. Mxyzpztlk and Braniac.  I say that since the finale- involving a Super Computer, Drones and a Kryptonite Beam- has the villain's sister turning into this...

Since Gus helped save Superman- after poisoning him with Kryptonite, stealing money, working for the villain and just generally being annoying- he gets off scot-free.  He doesn't take the job offered to him though, since...funny?

So we end with Superman flying into Space...in a shot from the first film.  Leave it to the Salykynds to end their involvement in the Film Franchise with Stock Footage.  The End.

Wow.  Just wow.  This is bad.  You already knew that though, right?  I will say that the film's bigger problem is the pacing.  I mean, just wow.  They waste so much damn time just to get to around two hours.  The chemical fire is long and drawn out.  What is the point of it?  Just to introduce the Acid at the Plant for Superman to use later.  That's it?  The numerous Sub-Plots- like Clark and Lana, the Contest at the Daily Planet, the Drunk Football Star- just pad the Run-Time out like crazy.  If you can get past this, the film is just not funny.  I rarely laughed.  I like to think that I have a broad sense of Humor, enjoying quirky jokes, dark humor, some slapstick and word-play.  This film was just dumb Slapstick with almost no logic.  The 'Worst Street In America' Opening bit is a great example of this.  Random Phone Booths that fall over, penguin dolls set on fire (foreshadowing Batman Returns) and Superman changing in a Photo Booth (since I guess all of the Phone Booths were no on their sides?) are just some of the 'wacky' moments here.  As a side note, I need to get Bob to review the Paperback Book Version that I bought for 50 cents.  Get on that, won't you?  In summary, this film is terrible.  I wonder if I should make Bob watch this next Round of Project Terrible.  In the mean-time, enjoy this weird and off-putting 3-D effect on the Credits (despite the Film not being in 3-D)...

Up next, I switch gears completely to review a Dario Argento film that I bought a while ago.  I'm kind of sticking to my New Year's Resolution...sort of.  Stay tuned...

Infamous Week: The Adventures of Ford Fairlane

Why God why?!?  Andrew "Dice" Clay is a comic that you either love or hate.  Basically, if you were a frat boy in the early '90s, you loved him.  If you were everyone else, you hated him.  Guess what I am.  In spite of that, I had to finally cover his big-screen debut.  If I didn't, I could never get that damn movie out of my Queue!  This film was made by Renny Harlin and was made to showcase Clay's comedic talents.  Yeah, it's that bad.  The plot is a neo-crime noir yarn about a missing groupie, some discs and Freddy Kreuger.  Yes, Robert Englund is among the many actors whose career is tarnished by being in this movie.  This movie was a chore to get through, so feel free to relive my pain.  Forced humor and terrible acting ahoy...

After ripping off Sunset Boulevard, we see Clay enter a bar and almost immediately break the Fourth Wall.

It never happens again, making this joke- Entirely Pointless.

As the 'rock-n-roll detective' Ford has a young kid who emulates him.  Please, Clay, you've done enough- don't ruin the Youth of the Nation.

His job: to find this blond bimbo at the behest of Gilbert Gottfried.  That man is killed moments later, leaving us wishing that the roles could have been reversed.

"Hi, I'm usually in better films.  Plus, I don't usually do a crappy Australian accent in those films.  Sucks to be me, Robert Englund."

Prop comedy involving a corpse- nothing is too high-brow for you, Clay.  She turns out to not be dead, but the damage is still done.

He eventually finds the bimbo and she knows...nothing.  Yeah, she was worth the effort.

As it turns out, she has the disc they need to unravel a scheme by the Record Company President to defraud his company.  His punishment for said crime: death...by burning.

In The End, our hero gets all he wants by winning $1 Million via a phone contest...despite his phone being blown up (alongside his house) and not connected to a phone line.  Bull and shit, movie.  The End.

Seriously, shut up!  The plot of this movie could have been good if...well, there are a lot of ways that it could have been improved.  For starters, no Andrew "Dice" Clay.  That schmuck couldn't act, react or even tell a joke right.  Is your joke funny?  No?  Well, just shout 'OH-H!' at the end of it, so we'll know to laugh.  Second, don't make your film hinge upon something so stupid!  The plot is all about him finding this girl, only it doesn't actually solve anything.  Instead, he gets one disc to start with, one from the girl and has to find the third one.  Of course, he loses his prize, Jimmy Hendrix guitar in the process, so was it worth the price?  Third- not so much stunt-casting.  Clay is bad enough, but they throw in Vince Neil as a rock star (acting?), Robert Englund as an Aussie, Priscilla Presley as...herself and Wayne Newton as the bad guy.  Wayne Newton?  Was Charro busy?  Did Barry Manilow bail on you?  Did the Bee-Gees stop acting after Sgt. Pepper?  There are many, many things that I could complain about in regards to this movie.  It thinks that is amazingly-cool.  It's plot resolves itself in cheap ways.  The writing is lazy.  Phones work without being attached to phone lines (and are made out of Adamantium).  There once was a girl from Nantucket, who told you to never see this movie!  Take us away, barely-hidden product placement...

Next up, I begin my round of Project Terrible.  Did Gaming Creatively break me right away or do I kick the ass of 1990's future?  Stay tuned...