Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

3 Ninjas Kick Back - Kicked Out

3 little hemorrhoids, who are trained to be silent assassins by their "Ninja Tournament" winning grandfather, go to Japan to recover/keep a dagger that is used to unlock a treasure vault/give the same dagger to the winner of the "Ninja Tournament" in time to get home for little league played by adult men and farts.
I can't express my contempt for 3 Ninjas Kick Back in words. I will instead commit Seppuku because I have made suck poor choices in my life that I have dishonored my family name by seeing it. Goodbye, cruel world.
Ok, well now that that is over with, I'll try to demonstrate why you should avoid 3 Ninjas Kick Back like North Korea (perhaps not coincidentally, this movie is beloved by Kim Jong Un). Nothing works here. These children are not ninja. They are karate kids. Ninjas are trained silent assassins and they don't have competition tournaments for high schoolers. Then there's the dagger- Nope. I can't. I hate this movie so much that I am going to drink strychnine and think about how I've disappointed my father once again as I drift off to eternal damnation. See you in a minute, Satan. Oh? You hate this movie too? It's banned in Hell? Sweet!
Yeah, it's a don't.

Volcano - Stinker Madness Rerun

Tommy and Anne face off against some hot magma ("What's Magma?") in the first of two 1997 volcano movies. This one features a lead character who should be fired and never hired for his job, a slew of disaster movie clichés (Dog never dies, anyone?) and Stan, the Man-Chucking Man in possibly the stupidest movie we've ever seen on this show.
Let's start off by declaring how incredibly dumb this movie is. Every single bit of "science" is telegraphed to the audience because "Hey! They're stupid!" such as the definition of tectonic activity, gravity and magma. The volcano has a mind of its own and has Tommy Lee Jones sense meaning if Tommy is coming its sneaky and hides from him. The government officials of LA have no clue how things should work and it seems Tommy's Roark is the mayor as everyone calls him or reports to him daily even before the eruption. The Chief of Police even calls to obligatorily yell at someone, even if its completely unrelated to Emergency Management of which Roark is the director of. I can in no way define how stupid this movie is because in order to define something you must possess some semblance of intelligence. That would be a slap in the face of this movies lack thereof.
Then there's the effects. Too many people over use the "effects that don't stand up to time" but this thing never had a chance to stand up at all. I specifically talk about "the building" (and why there is a character to just set up that a building exists is beyond me). At one point, the cast stands in front of a large photo of the building as if they are there. Usually when someone looks at something fake they are looking at a painting that's supposed to be real but this time it's a photo....that's out of focus. Seriously.
"Hey I went a took a picture of that building you wanted for a backdrop", says the studio photog. "I used my camera phone and also my finger is over the lens a little. Do you want me to do it again?"
"Nope" says the director as he pencils in more exposition about what a volcano is to the masses of morons who never passed the 3rd grade who are watching this.

Hell Behind Bars - I’d rather go to actual prison

Well here it is - this is the absolute worst movie we've ever had on the podcast.
Ok so what must a film do to be a 1 star film? Well, first it obviously must suck. It has to be a terrible viewing experience. It has to contribute NOTHING of value to the viewer. But with all those pieces, we still give 2 stars for just those items. Making a movie is damn tough and just getting it done gives it a single star from us. BUT there's one very special piece that is needed to be 1 star - at the end of the movie, you realize the movie doesn't exist. What could I mean? Well think of Monster-a-Go-Go and at the end a title card and narrator tells you that the scenes you've just watched were fake and didn't happen. Its the WORST!
How does that relate to Hell Behind Bars? The "plot" of the movie revolves around some diamonds. Our lead lady in prison is there because when she sold the diamonds, cops arrested her for killing a guy in front of them. Yet, the rest of the film is both "breaking out of prison/getting those diamonds" - including people going through such stupid acts as killing themselves to get those diamonds - BUT THE DIAMONDS WERE SOLD TO A FENCE!!!! She doesn't have the damn things! We see it on screen! And the rest of the movie is about the damn diamonds and getting them.
So there's that. This thing is also a terrible soft-core porn with some of the most unattractive people to have ever been nude on screen. Then the sex scenes themselves are Neil Breen inspired as no one actually knows how to screw. And they are all so gross that if you saw this as your first exposure to sex, you'd be so scarred you'd become asexual. Ick.
Everything sucks. I'm mean it. There's no good here which is an incredible achievement. You can usually trip into something good in almost any production yet they managed to absolutely fail on every level. It should be in the bottom 100 if not the bottom 5. It's that bad. Do not watch.

Drive - it ain’t about cars, but its about awesome

The guy from Double Dragon teams up with the guy from a spinoff of The Cosby Show (ew) and that lady who died of mold in that documentary in one of the most under-rated bonkers banana business masterpieces of karate comedy ever put to film. 
What a undiscovered treasure this masterpiece is. Just one year after this was released to video a movie was put in theaters and received much acclaim, success and two sequels called Rush Hour which is a clinic in film ripoffery if I've ever seen one after 20 years later watching Drive for the first time. There is no possible way that Brent Ratner didn't watch Drive and then say "yeah I'm gonna do a lot more of that in my film". There's no way. It's a travesty that this film wasn't a bigger deal because it is SOOO vastly superior to Rush Hour. Maybe just not as marketable to a mass audience.
Every aspect of this is phenomenal. Dacascos is electric and displays skills that arguably rival any other movie martial artist, yes even Jackie Chan. Its not just his exceptional athletic, he's oozing charm. Kadeem Hardison is a perfect straight man in a very difficult comedic role. Brittany Murphy is stand on the table and applause good. Tracy Walter and John Piper Ferguson are brilliant as a couple frustrated redneck assassins.
Its a wild, wild ride and everything you want in a fun karate movie. Stop what you're doing and go watch this now.

The Flintstones - Its a yabba dabba don’t time

Good ol' Fred Flintstone gets caught up in a criminal conspiracy to defraud Slate Co's investors and embezzle millions of shells all while risking the lives of his family and destroying his neighbor and best friend's career, home, family and his dignity. Whatta guy!
From the get-go you know something is wrong here. Fred is just a big of piece of toxic garbage. Yes, I know the character was based off Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners but it is a real experience to go back and watch what a huge POS he was. The guy's entire existence is centered around being "the tough guy" that everyone loves and has only one motivation - being liked and admired. And that's where the movie takes us. Its such a far cry from Homer Simpson whose real sin is being a lazy moron. Inside and past the undigested donuts is a true golden heart. A loving father and faithful husband. But that ain't Fred... at least not until he has an epiphany while on the end of a hangman's noose (yup, you read that right). You might see something similar in other family movies where the guy goes from a great dude to being corrupted by money only to be redeemed in the end. Nope, not our Fred. He's always been a chauvinistic lay-about, with a fragile little ego that makes him ripe for storming the capital. Fred Flintstone is a bad person throughout this whole experience.
Outside of Fred's weakness, the production of this film is second to none. From the casting to the design, costumes to effects (remember its 1994) its a spectacle to the eye of adapting such a unique universe from cells to celluloid. Despite how unfaithful the writing is to the original series, the world itself is about as Bedrockyen as you could do with twice the budget and the effects teams from Pinewood and their fancy computers today. It really is an achievement in production design. BUT.....
I just can't stand it. I despise and loathe this movie. Not because there's really anything terrible wrong with it. Its a fine family comedy. I just absolutely can't stand family comedies. Maybe my soul is black like Fred's and I only want to drink too much and fall asleep in my yard. Whatever it is makes me want to take everything about this movie, collect it in a bag with the nukes of the world and toss it all into the sun.

Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) - I was gone in 20

A tow truck driver decides to make a movie that teaches us a master class on how to boost cars. Someone knows way too much about stealing cars here.
So along the same vein as Miami Connection, Deadbeat by Dawn, and The Room a guy who doesn't have any training or experience making movies uses his dubious personal funds to make his dream project - a movie. That's what H.B. Halecki did here. But he made a movie about what he knew - stealing cars. Ol' H.B. or Tobey by his friends, had a successful tow truck company which to me says he repossessed a lot of vehicles and so made a movie about breaking into cars and moving them without any one knowing. 
Sadly, car thieving instructional videos aren't very exciting. That's the front 5/8s of the film. There's an attempt to church it up a little with a little bit of ADR comedy and you know how that always goes. There was no script for this movie and so that just makes a pile of movie. Its just scenes spliced together in no meaningful or predetermined manner. That's kind of important and there's a reason. If you don't have forethought in your film, you've just got a pile of movie and that doesn't work. Seriously, Tommy Wiseau makes better movies.
However, one can just go to the chase scene that lasts 40 minutes. The stunts are incredible and incredibly dangerous. They're not really stunts when they are real and you're just filming carnage though. But even then, it gets stale. They are long nonsensical sequences of cops getting Eleanor surrounded and then he gets away until the next location where he's surrounded again. I'm sorry but H.B. isn't Hal Needham. You STILL NEED TO HAVE FORETHOUGHT IN YOUR SCENES!!! The Eleanor sequence has a smatter of amazing moments but is stuffed around a bunch of boring. 
I'm sorry to those who think this is great (including our own Sam) but the story of making the movie is way more exciting and interesting than the film itself. Its the most exciting boring movie ever. Like a cocaine Valium.

Cannonball! - Or Belly Flop!

Getting from here to there has never been so dangerous! Dom Delouse wouldn't have survived 30 feet from the start line. So yeah, its a Cannonball run. That's about all it has in common with the Burt Reynolds classic. This isn't much of a laugh goofball screw fest. What we have here is something in between Deathrace 2000 and Cannonball Run. Its not really funny. Its not really that campy. But its not really a race movie either. Its like a little bit of everything. But wow does it have a lot of Hal Needham shenanigans that is missing from most Corman movies. Speaking of Corman, talk about a huge amount of cameos. Corman himself, Don Simpson, Martin Scorsese, Sly Stallone, Paul Bartel and Dick Miller! Wahhoo. I think what Cannonball suffers from is a very bad job explaining what the heck Dick Miller's character, Bennie, is up to. It turns out that he's trying to help his brother Coy win, but it appears up to about 9/10s of the way through that he's trying to kill Coy. So maybe people just couldn't really put together what was going on and that's completely up to the fault of the editor. And there's quite a bit of bad editing here. Carradine's kung fu is quite terrible. The car chases are moderate. And the driving is lack luster. But when it gets to its second climax (this movie has too many of those) it lights up on fire. It's no Deathrace 2000 but this isn't exactly a pile of dook either.

Shakedown - Dirty cops and human meat in NYC

One tough cop and one tough public defender team up to take down the entire NYPD and one guy who owns a sex club and likes illegal street racing. The only thing standing in their way? More grenades.
Do not be mislead by the very positive reviews by the critics here. This has got a 70% on Rottentomatoes. That is absolutely insane. This movie stinks, in a good way, but it stinks and it stinks hard. I mean, what did they see that we didn't? Oh, well there's lots of commentary about racism and corruption within police departments at that time. Yeah we saw that. Well what about the conflict within Roland on choosing money or his passion? Yep saw that too. What about Richie's path to lead him to this point in life? Wait, you're arguing that this is a good movie because his girlfriend waxed her apartment floors and the dog flew out the window because it couldn't stop? THAT'S YOUR ARGUMENT?!?!? He lives in a movie theater because of slippery floors?!?!?
Did you see the part where a cop and public defender chase down a goon on tricycle? Did you see Richie use children at Cooney Island as bullet shields? Did you see the word salad love talk between Roland and the assistant district attorney that is prosecuting Roland's client? Did you see the end that has the quality of Megaforce? This movie stinks and you should have said so, critics! If you'd done your job properly this movie would now be a thing with people like us and it just isn't because of you and how you mistreated it by saying it was good. Boo, shame, shame, hiss, hiss.
This is an undiscovered gem of a stinker. If you can get your hands on a view, its worth it. Do it.

Thrashin’ - Clean up Venice Beach, please

Sure, its just West Side Story with skateboards but its....uh....hmmmm. I guess that's it.
What you've got here is your classic tale of boy wants to win skateboarding competition, boy meets his rival, boy meets girl, girl is rivals sister, boy and rival skateboard joust with bean bags in a burning drainage ditch, boy blames girl, boy beats rival in downhill skateboarding competition, rival and boy become brothers in law and America is united. That ol' joint, you know.
So if you're a skateboarder or someone who enjoys watching skateboarding, you're gonna prefer Gleaming the Cube over Thrashin'. Here the skateboarding is pretty sub-par for a film about a sport (aside from the pool competition that appears to be helmed by Steve Caballero and Tony Hawk). What Thrashin' does right though is ratchet up the corny cheese to about 50. The dialogue is so bafflingly terrible, the "tough" guys are comically fancy, And time after time, the characters make hilariously stupid decisions and then throw hissy fits about their actions. It was not a good look for a budding subculture in sports at the time and very far from what the culture actually was. I mean, nothing is more about fellowship and a communal love than skateboarding. Yet, here comes Tommy Hook and his band of ne'er do wells sabotaging competition because they came onto their turf.
Come on! Skateboarding gangs?!?! And they have turf?!?!? That they presumably acquired from actual gangs....you know...the kind with guns?!?!? Its so preposterous. Whats next? Xanadu skaters conquering Times Square???
Its so incredibly stupid that you can't help but love it and its a pure riffers paradise. Drop in and do it.

200 M.P.H. - Not so fast

When the only way to get revenge for your brother's death is to drive at 200 MPH, don't. Because apparently you don't need to, or can't, or it really wasn't anybody's fault except your brothers. I mean the list goes on and on.
So this is an Asylum movie, which we tend to steer very clear of because of the complete lack of writing that takes place and their usually horrible visuals. Well this makes no exception. The writing is incredibly terrible and the visuals are horrendous. What is hard to clarify is that somehow this one feels different from their other rubbish. There's really not any "boxes of dialogue" in the middle. There's no standing around with quick cuts between characters not really talking about anything but pretending their doing something important. 200 MPH is more just wandering between scenes that may or may not have anything to do with the plot but its too hard to tell because you're never really sure what the plot is exactly. 
Maybe we're so desensitized that we can't see how cringey this thing is but in the parts that are possibly that way, we actually laughed. Its almost Neil Breenesque in how it handles motifs that should be handled by more qualified people. Its so far from reality that you laugh at some pretty gross stuff (see every scene in the strip club for reference). 
I will say that this is viewing for the advanced class only. The students in Bad Cinema 330. Go in at your own risk, but for many of you, 200 MPH is a good time.