Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Moonfall - So where’s Adele and James Bond?

The moon is falling! Deploy Operation: Duck and Poo Yourself. Roland Emmerich takes us on another destroy Earth roller coaster, but does he capture the any of his past or is this just another Midway?
So the moon is a big space base and because of rogue nanobotic AI trying to destroy mankind, it sucks up all the moons power supply like a Tesla's battery going uphill and causes it to plummet towards Earth. So with what minimal resources can be mustered, a disgraced astronaut, the director of NASA and Art Bell's nephew must fly to the moon and punch that AI in the mouth! Seems legit. Lets move on.
What works here: the insane visuals. We're very accustomed to seeing Roland Emmerich destroying New York time after time after time. Its become quite stale, right? Well what changes here is that he learned how composition works. The shots are beautiful rather than just visual effects crammed. So expect to see something new, in something old. There's also the right amount of light heart in the adventuring, its not as bleak as Day after Tomorrow  nor is at as corny as 2012. The trio of leads work together well. Patrick Wilson won me over finally. Halle Berry didn't piss me off. John Bradley is well, John Bradley.
What doesn't work: Roland has a problem with his writing. He has again made a film with too much front loaded character story. Its not that the movie is too long (it is) but it especially feels that way by his inability to tell about his characters alongside the plot. You have to wait for 30 minutes for the start of the movie, just so you can get to know his characters. Its a shame he still hasn't learned his lesson here and keeps this film from being amazing.
Moonfall is still a great theater experience and is a popcorn-face stuffer. I would love to see the sequel that Emmerich wants to make but probably won't be able to.

51st State - POS 51 is right

Samuel L and Robert Carlyle team up in this drug/money caper/heist that looks like a Ritchie/Boyle knock-off/bandwagon romp/joint. We'll be leaving/running away now.
Uh......it sucks. I would love to say that this is an undiscovered gem that the critics harpooned because it was ahead of its time (much in the same manner as they treated Snatch) and that this will become your new favorite movie. I can't say that. The critics got it right. Its vapid, cloney and drivel.
Look, I can't fault anyone here though. I watched Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch back to back in college and thought that I was Bullet-Tooth Tony for about 2 years. I got hit in the face a lot and deserved most of it. So when you see a script that is a British crime caper in 2000, I really can't fault you for wanting to be involved. And everyone involved goes all in on this. I can't pick on anyone. Its just the fault of wanting to do a film like this and having no business doing such a film. Its just the nature of art. I mean, I'm sure there was a lot of Samuel L's seeing The Mona Lisa and saying "I want to do that". Maybe that's why Caravaggio was thrown out of his guild. (Oh that was for murder? Oh...well)
I want to tell you that you're gonna find something worth watching here, even with low expectations, but I just don't think you will. Skip!

Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects - Rolex Ala’ Mode

An aged Charlie Bronson finds himself having to stop a sex-trafficking pimp by giving him a new diet and having a Borderlands boss fight set piece at the end. So its Tuesday!
What I don't enjoy about this film is that has no business existing. This is a perfect example of something that happens far too often in film. Its two movies.
A dark, horrific look at the world of a Vice officer who struggles to do his job not because he hates the beat but he seems himself so little differently than he sees his perps. He masks all this self-loathing with racism until he finds himself having to find the daughter of a foreign national who molested his own daughter. Do I do the job and save this girl or do I stand by my disgusting self hate?
The other is a Cannon movie.
This material is too dark and disturbing to be juxtaposed against a Charlie Bronson action movie. When you have material this heavy and dark, you gotta end up with The Deerhunter. You can't lighten it up with some one-liners and some explosions. You can't swing an audience from the lowest feeling possible one second to car chases the next. Its water and oil. 
Sadly, if they had done one or the other, I would have really liked it. Option one, wouldn't be on Stinker Madness and wouldn't have ruined my Sunday. Option 2, likely would have had 8 stars as the bad movie shenanigans in this are high level. Its really a great tragedy.

Alien Resurrection - Horny science....in space!

Horny scientists in space! Everything in this movie is gross sex! Everyone has messy pants including the aliens! Ever wanted to see a xenomorphs vagina? You can now! What a pitch...
Essentially, scientists want to cure disease and they think that making a human/xenomorph combo will give them the answers which has its own set of problems. BUT, instead they make some regular xenomorphs too and some Ripley abominations who tear apart a handful of scientists and Michael Wincott too early in the film. This results in the science vessel automatically crashing into the Earth at the speed of 176 million MPH causing an extinction level event and ushering in a nuclear holocaust. Thanks Ripley!
While all this shakes out, we follow the path of a group of space pirates from the mess hall back to their ship. Occasionally they have to escape xenomorphs, but mostly they have hang down contests with Ripley having the biggest of hang downs. Ron Perlman's "Johner" tries his best but has met his match in big dicking by the lady that is part alien and can now dunk it. Winona Ryder's "Call" eyeball rolls behind them, thinking about her sole mission of destroying all xenomorphs and anyone who stands in her way....until she meets a guy SHE helped kidnap who has one inside of him. She's ok with him. Not just ok, vehemently defends saving his life. What?!?!
This thing is one of the dumbest movies and likely in the top 3 of film in the dumbest period of film - the late 90s. When every Tom, Dick and Harry were trying to recreate Jurassic Park and Independence Day, you ended up with this turd, Deep Blue Sea and Event Horizon, with a cavalcade of less notable but equally stupids behind it. Yet Alien Resurrection manages to be as stupid as they come, but then an odd mix of tedium with flashes of moronic hilarity. Its a hard one to recommend but its just so incredibly idiotic that its hard NOT to recommend. Men have trekked to Nepal and sat in silence for decades for lesser doubts and confusion than the quandary of recommending Alien Resurrection or not. I guess you should watch it but realize the film doesn't start until 35 minutes into the movie and then there's about 20 minutes of actual good content throughout.

Home Sweet Home Alone - Barbara Streisand‘s House

2 down on their luckers attempt to right the course of their financially destiny, but a young Joe Manchin stands in their way and he's serving up deadly coal for breakfast.
What Home Sweet Home Alone manages to do is cause empathy for struggling Americans in a way that MSNBC could never home to imagine. This whole time we only needed Max Mercer to unite the country and feel bad for those less fortunate. Its as if we were Ebenezer Scrooge and Max Mercer is all 3 Ghosts of Christmas who just repeatedly puts poor people in comas with billiard balls. "Take it away, spirit. I can endure no more" said I as little Max stabs Jeff in the heart with a three foot long icicle.
Yes the whole thing is a giant misunderstanding that could have been all avoided if adults would just use their words (so wait, were Jeff and Pam Joe Manchin, then?) or if little Max wasn't such a heavy sleeper in luxury cars (no, he's definitely Joe Manchin), but what frightens me is Max' inability to hesitate to kill people. Sure, Kevin McCallister was likely a megalomaniac with delusions, but Max straight up is ok with killing people. No, the words "Please don't kidnap me" were never uttered from his toothy grin. Or even just "Stop". He wants Jeff and Pam to come at him, bro. If they don't then at no point can he enact his elaborate plan to slowly torture them and culminating with Jeff impaled on ice and Pam's chest caved in from 25lb weights shot at her from a treadmill. Nothing less will satisfy his as yet undiscovered blood lust. That's what frightens me about this film.
But yeah, it stinks and isn't worth viewing by anyone over the age of 10 and parents should have a long discussion with children afterwards about why Joe Manchin isn't a role model.

Die Hard 2 - Is dying soft an option?

A traitorous group of ex-military hatch a plan to hijack an airport so that they can move a pilot from one plane to another. They only thing they didn't account for was John McClane. Oh, and other airports, radios, emergency vehicles, electrical tape, power lines, and the media. But mostly, John McClane!
I mean...why is this so highly rated? Its sitting at a 7.1 on IMDB as of this writing. That's only 1 star lower than the first one. This movie is seriously only 1 star worse, super fans? Its like at least 3! Why?
Why Die Hard 2 is a 5 star movie
The Plot
The Effects
The Writing
Bruce Willis
So the plot is incredibly stupid as it purely doesn't need to exist. The terrorists (which they aren't really terrorists) have seized control of an airport (not the airport itself, just control) and are holding flying planes hostage unless an extradited criminal (that at some point they became besties with?) is permitted to hop a board a fully fueled 747 and they all fly to Bolivia or somewhere undeclared. Mid movie though, the criminal (Franco Nero) takes over control of the C130 he's flying on and flies it around. Why does he need these jokers at all? From Esperanza's view, the plan is to free himself and then stop at an airport to pick up some guys he has no business ever having met. Great, thrilling...
The effects have aged poorly. With the rear projection, matte working and green screens this looks about as Renny Harlin as Renny Harlin could do in 1990.
The writing is just a hodgepodge of "well this happened in Die Hard so we should do it here" including a ton of pointing out the obvious by John McClane such as, "Hey I'm in tunnels again" or "Hey this happens every Christmas to me". But also includes Holly punching out (or in this case tasing) Thornberg because he's a skeezy guy who doesn't really contribute to the plot in anyway. Its just so people can remember that this is a Die Hard movie, I guess, by seeing the same things again.
Lastly, Bruce Willis' contribution to the dialogue. He was giving free reign to ad-lib as much as he wanted to and he does so much of it that he had to come back after filming and add in more via ADR. But what we're giving is a 7-3 ratio of groan inducing one liners that leave you eye-rolling more than cheering John's everyman role.
Skip it. It ain't a Xmas movie and its barely a Renny Harlin movie. 

Deep Blue Sea - Sharks love to party

Beloved (by us) director Renny Harlin shares with us his vision of Frankenstein in which Man isn't just the monster, Man is a bunch of bumbling idiots that have a hard time avoiding killing themselves.
It isn't just that this is full blown idiot plot, its that these people are so stupid in ever maneuver they do, including the entire reason the film happens that its a surprise they are able to understand which appendage socks go on. We're talking bovine levels of intelligence. I mean, they leave the shark in the science lab while conducting "science" and its only secured by a ratcheting tie-down - the kind one buys at Home Depot when they need to move a mattress across town. Of course, you all are gonna get eaten! The ineptitude and holes in common sense just escalate from their and culminate with the protagonist (maybe? this is a topic for much debate) tries to be a hero but only manages to make the situation far worse and also results in getting chomped up pretty nicely.
The CGI is bad. Real bad. Bad by 1999's standards. Usually bad CGI is an instant no-go for us as it can be nausea inducing (I'm looking at you, The Asylum) but here, there is a little charm to its badness. It's not anything other than just goofy looking. Think of your children's drawings. They're really bad, right? But there are still cute and lovable. This may be one of a handful of examples where the awful effects are endearing. Name three more films that can say that? I'll wait.
Season with classic Renny Harlin "just keep rolling" maneuvers, the most memorable death scene in history and its obvious "This ain't your daddy's Jaws" tone and you've got a stinker that only suffers by being about 15 minutes too long. Its required viewing.

Mad Dog Time - Questionable Decision Time

An shining example of what an "anti-movie" looks like that stars everyone you've ever heard of with none of them ever having looked at the script. Its got gangsters, nostalgia, betrayal and fast ladies. Sounds cool right?
For the masses, no this is not cool. Far from it. There's an air of intended cleverness like other nostalgic gangster movies, like if peak Guy Ritchie had made a movie about gangsters and their deviousness (oh, he DID do that?) but comes nowhere near where it needs to be at for that. In fact, it doesn't get near anything. Its as if it lives in the parallel universe that is Vic's World. Its a Bizarro film. It must have been filmed on opposite day. It manages to do everything different than any other film does. It really achievement.
Its a "so bad its good" but not in the manner that Troll 2 is. You can explain Troll 2 and why its good. This isn't that. Again, everything is opposite in an anti-film. I feel like you'd need to have a master's degree in bad film to be able to explain why it is so bad its good. I don't have a degree in English but I fee like I've done a pretty good job reviewing terrible movies with very little substance, yet words won't find me here. Its not from lack of content, its that the content is so far from anything bearing a concept that I'm befuddled.
The one thing I will say about it, is that at no point does anyone get distracted, lose focus or ever have a doubt about what they were doing. Everyone is as professional and consistent as if there were in a Terrence Mallick movie. Which makes it even more befuddling. What did they see here that I can't? Is there some unspoken vision that I'm just too Neolithic to see? I shake my fist at the sky man and yell, "What were you all doing here?" (and let slip the dogs of war, I guess). 
Mad Dog Time is not for everyone but I highly approve of it and give this a beloved do recommendation. Good luck and Godspeed.

Fast Getaway - A lesson in a need for mothers

A father and son criminal duo trek across the US on the unbeknownst path to mommie's house. Will we ever find out who gets control of the radio?
Straight up this movie sucks and its all the fault of whomever thought ruining Corey Haim's life was a good idea because he had a baby face. Let me put this straight, Vanilla Ice is more likeable than Corey Haim's Nelson. I mean he's truly the least likeable person one could imagine. Nelson needs to be punched in the face. He's intolerable. His dad, Sam, Leo Rossi, isn't much better. I guess they somehow managed to make a "like father, like son" directing choice, but the choice was "Lets stick two people in a car that needs to be blown up but never does. Audiences will go wild with annoyance! It'll be great!"
Aside from the frequent annoyance that will leave you wanting to claw your ears off, there is only a smattering of things that one can be considered "fun" in the flick. Cynthia Rothrock beating the crap out of Sam for one. The final action sequence is pretty epic and is so good that in another film would be worth the price of admission but a 25 year old Sophia Loren could come out of your TV and serve you hot dogs and the rest of the movie would STILL not be worth it. They are that annoying. Think Coolio in Dracula 2000 annoying.
Its sad because this should be a classic. All the cards are there. But far too many terrible dialogue sequences, goober level comedy, and a misused Rothrock make this an absolute do not.

Aladdin - I wish I wasn‘t such a bad person, Daddy

The male version of Teen Witch steals a magic lamp from his work and goes on a series of misguided adventures with his new dad, The Jinn who is just as drunk and disorderly as his bio-dad who went out for smokes and never came back.
Our hero, Al Haddin, isn't a good guy. He's a thief, conceited, a GHB bro, and only cares about one thing - himself. One could argue that's because he's never had a positive father-figure in his life but I think its much deeper than that. Which, if I remember, I'll get into later. But either way, it's hard to root for little Al. Once he gets the lamp and subsequently the genie and his powers, things really go off the rails. He first wishes for a car "that rockstars drive", a Rolls Royce. Fine, I would probably do the same. Secondly, he wishes that the car doesn't have to obey the laws of physics and can fly. Sure, I get it. Traffic sucks, until you realize the military has scrambled F-18s to you as you are now a UFO. Ok, chalk it up to a simple misunderstanding. Then he wishes to give his secret crush a necklace to impress her. Ok, well now we're getting dicey, but I'd love to also give my wife a diamond necklace (and because its made with magic instead of slave labor its blood diamond free), however Al gives her a $10 seashell necklace that will likely give her ringworm. Al you live in Florida, my dude, you could have bought that at any street vendor in South Beach. THEN when she rejects his advances, he uses the power of the Jinn to force her to kiss him. Ok, I know this is 1986. Its still gross. It was gross in Teen Witch, it was gross in License to Drive and its gross here. Weinsteining is a crime at any age. I'm now way off of Team Al.
So after various and plentiful hijinks vignettes including the stunningly bad/great flying car sequence, various dealings with mob goons and a very dark child sex-trafficking plot (yeah, wow), we end up with Eugene (the Genie) getting outed as a supernatural being to the Mayor/Chief/James Bond Villain who wants to use the Jinn's powers to rid the world of war making except for one particular military base in Canada that he must have won in a card game or something so that he can be the ruler of Earth. Not sure how that all works but it results in a much deserved magic carpet ride/helicopter chase that looks worse than the flying car sequence and rivals the effects of Pumaman. Its fantastic. Oh and all wants to murder the people chasing them (oh yeah he wanted to murder the mob guys and the wait staff at their club, too). Only Eugene talks him out of it. Al's final wish is for the Jinn to become human and bang his mom. Woof.
Aladdin is about as cheesy as they get. With that, it is also baffling poorly thought out, looks terrible and has a musical score that will make Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny cringe. But its a laugh riot and prime riffing material. Three thumbs up and a total do from us.