Today's Movies

Video Game Movie Night

Movies based on video games are on an amazing run. They've yet to make a good one. Even board games have a good movie under their belts.



The first video game movie was Super Mario Bros. and it ruined it for everyone. Now there will never be an Alex Kidd movie with Ben Savage as Alex Kidd



and Ron Perlman as Janken the Great.



John Leguizamo (Luigi) returns to Bad Movie Night for the first time since Land of the Dead. That was shown on Dennis Hopper Movie Night so it's the return of him (King Koopa) as well. Because of Terminator and Millennium I always need to be reminded of Lance Henriken's (The King) extensive B-movie credentials. He's back for the first time since The Visitor. But the actor who maybe has the record for the longest absence (it's not like I have a team of researchers) is Fisher Stevens (Iggy). It's been 470 movies since we've seen him in The Burning.



On the Double Dragon side of things Al Leong from Savage Beach is back, Michael Berryman breaks Fisher Stevens record from a minute ago with 521 movies since Invitation to Hell (Standard Invitation to Hell clip:)



and Vanna White breaks Michael Berryman's record from a second ago with 527 movies since Graduation Day. Standard Graduation Day clip:



Because of Terminator 2 and X-Files I always need to be reminded of Robert Patrick's B-movie credentials. He's in Future Hunters, which we haven't seen.



But what I find most curious is that Dennis Hopper, Fisher Stevens, Al Leong and Michael Berryman are all in the seemingly unrelated My Science Project. Weird.



Here's what happened last week:

Today's Movies

Green Movie Night

Who boy this night was cobbled together. I think elves made it for me in the middle of the night. But no Bad Movie Night is scheduled before I'm excited about it. So even though the "theme" is that one movie is from Ireland and the other has "green" in the title it's still going to be a good one.

The Green Slime is from Kinji Fukasaku, who directed Battle Royale. Those movies were made 32 years apart, which has to be a record at BMN. The closest (farthest) I can think of is Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case and Bad Biology at 26 years apart.



The Green Slime is written by Bill Finger, co-creator of Batman.



That was you being amazed by that fact. Wait until you read this though: He also wrote Track of the Moon Beast. Which means he could have written:



Fatal Deviation has a small but passionate following. A fatal devotion if you will. You won't? Cracked named it the worst movie ever made. Reviews use phrases like "my favourite film of all time and a piece of Irish film history", "brimming with titanic soul" and "Back Kick Heaven". Plus someone named Nessa Johnston gave a presentation about it at the Society For Cinema and Media Studies Conference titled "“Fuck you and your gun, ye prick”: Fatal Deviation (1998) and sonic taste frameworks".

Here's what happened last week:

Simpsons Referenced Movie Night

with


and


With the news that Westworld was picked up by HBO to possibly become a series it seemed like the perfect time to watch the 1972 movie. So you can be like one of those people that read A Song of Ice and Fire before Games of Thrones debuted and pat themselves on the back for not ruining the Red Wedding for everybody else.

Except there's not a lot to spoil about Westworld. Robots go crazy in an amusement park. Is that going to happen every week on the show? Why would people go there? As Dr. Ian Malcolm said, "Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists."

I've always been interested in BMN helping people get Simpsons jokes. I wrote this in an e-mail invite once:

Motel Hell stars Rory Calhoun, so now you'll get that joke in the Simpsons when Mr. Burns compares puppies to "little Rory Calhouns" because they're "always standing and walking".  He totally does that in this movie!

See also my Convoy entry. So why not go the extra step and watch the Simpsons episode too? I don't hear any objections so I will proceed.

Westworld is parodied by "Itchy and Scratchy Land". It may have more elements of Jurassic Park but both Jurassic Park and Westworld are written by the same person, Michael Crichton. That's right. Crichton just rewrote his robot movie and made them dinosaurs. Clever girl.

The Brady Bunch Hour is parodied by "The Simpson Family Smile-time Variety Hour". It may have more elements of Laugh-In but Laugh-In isn't considered one of the worst TV shows of all time. You're thinking of Viva Laughlin.



Here's what may or may not have happened last week:

Today's Movies

High School Serial Killer Movie Night

Of course these movies aren't really about serial killers in high school. They're about society. In fact Heathers just comes out and says it:

"People will look at the ashes of Westerburg and say, "Now there's a school that self-destructed, not because society didn't care, but because the school was society." Now that's deep."

The best I can come up with on the IMDB quote page for Massacre at Central High is:

My pa, he doesn't like strangers coming around... says it upsets the chickens.

but it's essentially the same thing.

Massacre at Central High, or as everyone started calling it MACH, sees our first five-timers club update since March. This time with a new entry, Rainbeaux Smith:


Caged Heat
Phantom of the Paradise 
The Incredible Melting Man
Laserblast 
Massacre at Central High

Most of those are smaller roles. In fact, she was really in six Bad Movie Night movies. She's uncredited as "Girl buying ticket at rodeo" in Evel Knievel. Should that count?



You will recognize Robert Carradine. You know him as Lewis Skolnick in Revenge of the Nerds. Those Carradines are everywhere.



I just found our Martha Plimpton is one! Of course David Carradine was in Death Race 2000, Q and Crank: High Voltage. It's almost like the Sheens.

Martin's daughter Renee plays Betty Finn in Heathers and we've seen her previously in Sleepaway Camp II and Intruder. Winona Ryder's film debut was in Lucas with Charlie Sheen. Who we saw in Red Dawn and Grizzly II: The Concert. We saw Joe Estevez once.



So I declare the Carradines, Sheens and Jacobys/Jaynes as the three dynasties of BMN.

Here's what happened last week: