Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

2019 SMABFA Awards

The hottest awards for bad films in 2019 are here and the winners are all set. Listen to the 2019 SMABFA Podcast and check out all the nominees and winners below.
And the Nominees  & Winners are (winner in bold):
Best Bad Movie - The Most Enjoyable Bad Movie
Serenity
Hobbs and Shaw
Angel has Fallen
Rambo: Last Blood
Cats
Hellboy
Xmen: Dark Phoenix
Fan Poll Results - Hobbs and Shaw
Worst Bad Movie - The Least Enjoyable Bad Movie
Serenity
Cats
Pet Semetary
Hellboy
MiB: International
Ad Astra
Xmen: Dark Phoenix
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Fan Poll Result - Cats
Best Bad Actor - Most Enjoyable Performance by a Male Actor
Sylvester Stallone - Rambo: Last Blood
Nick Nolte - Angel has Fallen
Matthew McConaughey - Serenity
Sir Ian McKellan - Cats
Kevin Hart - Hobbs and Shaw
Gerard Butler - Angel has Fallen
Idris Elba - Cats
Jason Clarke - Serenity
Fan Poll Result - Kevin Hart - Hobbs and Shaw
Best Bad Actress - Most Enjoyable Performance by a Female Actor
Anne Hathaway - Serenity
Vanessa Kirby - Hobbs and Shaw
Francesca Hayward - Cats
Jete Laurence - Pet Sematary
Milla Jovovich - Hellboy
Taylor Swift - Cats
Rebel Wilson - Cats
Dame Judi Dench - Cats
Dame Helen Mirren - Hobbs and Shaw
Fan Poll Result - Jete Laurence - Pet Semetary
MST3K Most Riffable - The easiest and most fun to make fun of film while viewing
Cats
Xmen: Dark Phoenix
Rambo: Last Blood
Angel has Fallen
Hellboy
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Hobbs and Shaw
Serenity
Fan Poll Result - Cats
Worst Bad Actor - Least Enjoyable Performance by a Male Actor
Jason Clarke - Serenity
Jason Clarke - Pet Semetary
Liam Neesons - MiB: International
Idris Elba - Hobbs and Shaw
Tommy Lee Jones - Ad Astra
Donald Sutherland - Ad Astra
Nicolas Hoult - Xmen Dark Phoenix
Matthew McConaughey - Serenity
Idris Elba - Cats
Laurie Davidsons - Cats
James Corden - Cats
Fan Poll Result - Jason Clarke - Pet Semetary
Worst Bad Actress - Least Enjoyable Performance by a Female Actor
Sophie Turner - Xmen Dark Phoenix
Dame Judi Dence - Cats
Jennifer Hudson - Cats
Rebel Wilson - Cats
Vera Farmiga - Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Emma Thompson - MiB: International
Jada Pinkett Smith - Angel has Fallen
Anne Hathaway - Serenity
Fan Poll Result - Jennifer Hudson - Cats

From Justin to Kelly - Or How to Cause a Riot in Miami

Nothing says box office magic like a contractually-obligated lead with zero acting experience teams up for a teen sex-romp with no teens or sex with 50-something moms as the target market.
Surprisingly, 2 of 3 Stinker Madness hosts say this is a do. They say that its just so bad that it comes back around to being watchable and a must-see for bad movie fans. They say that there's enough bad dancing, terrible costumes, horrendous songs, and enough hovercraft deaths to keep one engaged. They say..well who cares what they say - they aren't writing this crap.
This movie is unviewable. If you happen to have a soul left, like this 1 of 3 Stinker Madness host still does, then while viewing this you may have some unintended health consequences, such as heads put through walls, eyeball clawing, execution of anvil-based booby traps, taking over Gotham after giving an interview to Robert Deniro and/or then giving a very strange speech that everyone seems to think they should be praising.
The characters are reprehensible. There's plenty of "boys will be boys". There's bitch friends and douche friends and friends that ruin people's lives due to their privilege. There's nerd-shaming and internet dating mocking. There's "I'll love him no matter how badly he treats me". There's assault that's instantly forgiven and on and on the list of abhorrent behavior that is forgiven because there's a song immediately afterward goes on and on and on.
The script is drivel. The songs are gadawful. And I think I'm over how silly hovercraft(s) are. Maybe I'm broken inside more than I thought. Either way, don't watch this unless you are a masochist or are touring the bottom 100. This belongs there for sure.

Navy Seals - Frat Boys with Guns

Chaz is back and with the help of Michael Biehn and Billy Paxton, sends seven guys in to blow up some moderately dangerous weapons, comes back with only four guys and commits ineptitude and crimes against humanity along the way. Recruitment has never been so good, right?
Wow, is Navy Seals a terrible representation of America's top elite fighting force. I mean, if this is how things really are, help us all because bad things are going to happen around the world. Nothing here makes the viewer say to themselves, "Hey, those guys are doing a good job. I should join up." Now, all our libtard "war is bad" attitude aside, these guys are completely inept. They take the hardest route to do the most mundane of tasks and end up getting most of them killed with each step.
Then there's Charlie Sheen's character. Sure, he's a loose cannon which we're all familiar with but where Martin Riggs is nuts, Lt. Dale Hawkins is nuts AND a complete joke and insult to our men in uniform. There's gotta be someone up the chain that says "Yeah sure he's got great hair, but he literally keeps shooting his teammates in the back, so....pass." I mean we have things called court martialing and discharges for a reason.
Next to that all, this movie likely has one of the worst soundtracks ever made. Even if you're into butt-rock, you'll likely be missing earplugs when such great songs like Bon Jovi's cover of The Boys are Back in Town and two (2!) songs by Mr. Big. Yikes.
While it's a pretty solid time with lots of ludacricity there's just too much dicking off for my tastes and Chaz thinking that he's still in Platoon. Good if you've never seen it but on revisit its just too draggy.

The Black Hole - Plot can't escape it

A couple trash-cans team-up to assist in the destruction of many soulless husks all on a mission that is never stated all so the villain can become Dante and rule all of hell from inside of a Cylon.
While that sounds absolutely nutty, we hope that you're able to get to any of those points because this movie's primary problem is...zzz...zzz. Oh I'm sorry, just thinking about this film put me to sleep like warm milk. It's painfully boring. Once you get past the excellent model work (that doesn't have enough shots), the spectacular theme by John Barry (which you're done with after the first 3 times you hear it) and Robert Forster just being Robert Forster (a damn pro), you're left with endless exposition, painful banter between the robots, a completely up-his-own-ass villain just for the sake of it and tedium. Endless tedium.
However, the last 15 minutes of the film are absolutely bonkers. We got very little clue here guys about what the actually hell happened once the (of course) everyone goes into the black hole. For some wild reason, Disney decided to cram some Dante's Inferno and conceptual imagery of heaven (we think) and have absolutely no idea why. If someone could help us out in the WHY, not the what, we'd be thankful.
Besides the bore factor, the film breaks its own rules constantly, the whole thing is the idiot-plot (whole plot could have been avoided had just one character not been an idiot), and the acting (aside from Forster and he's just doing what he can with what he's got to work with) is atrociously over-the-top. Which would all be fine and enjoyable if you'd managed to stay awake. Skip this one.

Beyond the Law - Beyond the Bananas

Charlie Sheen puts on his tough guy face and then realizes he still has that Charlie Sheen face, so he runs with it. Here Topper Harley gets a little too close to the edge, in much hilarious fashion.
So the film's plot (while LOOSELY based off the real life Dan Black) is a pretty conventional "cop goes undercover and almost goes over the point of no return" but the manner in which its delivered makes for a pretty solid LOL time while adding in a lot of room for riffing. There's this juxtaposition between going dark and goofball humor that completely conflict with each other, making a weird tone to the entire experience. 
This is all just backdrop for Chaz. Wow, what a terrible cast. Here's the thing. Everyone up until about 1995 saw Platoon and said, "I can do that. I just need to cast the weakest part of that movie." So this is just more of that, but it's hilarious. He's so bumbling in his lines and when he finally goes too close to edge and freaks out its about as good as you or I could do and we stink at acting, friend.
Next to his performance is the cast of characters surrounding Dan. Everyone's a little too nutty/inept to have made it to where they are in life. His love interest should be named Red Flag, his best friend tries to kill him for education, his nemesis is a kingpin of the drug industry and spends his free time robbing convenience stores for some Whatchamacallits and lives in a trailer and his government handler will let you spit in his face so meet the FBI Director. It's great!
Thus making it not stinker gold but 100% a good Sunday recommendation from us.

The Three Musketeers - Mwahahh, The French

Once upon a time in Hollywood, we made movies around soundtracks and the movie took a second place in effort. At the height of that craze, we were left with this malarkey and the legend of Chris O'Donnell was born.
Let's get this out of the way; we've come a long way since swashbuckling was big and there's good reason. It stinks. Think of watching Henry Cavill mess a bunch of guys up in an alley during the first season of The Witcher. It's badass. Swashbuckling is not. "Yes, but the kiddies can't exactly watch The Witcher split a man's head in half with a silver sword, now can they? Oh wise podcast critic! Haha!" Charlie Sheen might say. Ok, well then think of Viggo Mortensen fighting orcs at the Battle of Helm's Deep, you winning bastard! Swash-buckling is a complete waste of time.
Yet this movie is soooo full of it. There's very little else going on here that doesn't involve either poorly timed jokes and proper fencing footwork. And it's all lackluster. Sadly, on a revisit The Three Musketeers doesn't quite work. It's more of a tedious affair which tries to rely on the same jokes and sequences over and over. There's no movement - it's just a flat line that suddenly stops for the credits - which further enforces the film just being a vehicle to get to a terrible song to play during the credits.
This is a sad pass for me and a barely do from my other co-hosts. Enter at your own risk and only bring a group of quality riffers along with you.

Cats - Reverse Furie Conversion Therapy

It's bonkers-bad, sure. It's basically kitty version of Logan's Run, sure. It's got a cat-orgy scene, sure. It looks like crap, sure. But what the heck is the difference between this and the stage play? What did you people think was gonna happen here? Also Tay-Tay blows ass here.
Guys, it's just Cats. The stage play IS this bad. It's all crap. If you hate the movie and love the play, then put your head in a microwave if you can pull it out of your own ass. What did you want here? In fact, you should LOVE the movie because it's even MORE of the crap that you love from the play. Get the hell out of here.
Now for the rest of us, that weren't dropped as a baby. This is some real terrible film-making and likely an intentional tax loss. There's no way anyone that has ever worked a day before in the industry believed in this turd. That's not to say no one did a good job here. Francesa Hayward is absolutely brilliant but is strapped down (maybe in more ways than one) and surrounded by ineptitude so it's hard to notice what she's doing. You may also be distracted by her cat butt.
There I said it. I'll take the bullet here. Cats is intentionally hot sexy business. If it wasn't then why the hell are they marching a bunch of naked crotches out? Why is there a cat orgy? Why is Sir Ian Mckellan wearing clothes but Idris Elba is not? Same for Dame Judi and not Tay-Tay? This is hot furies business and I promise you someone is going to jail after being caught in the theater with a little too much alone time.
At the end of it all, should you check it out? Yes - but wait for streaming. It can be a great theater experience - it was for 2 of us but the last person had such a miserable time that it's just too risky for you. Save it and wait until it's free for you to access.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 - The Story of Ricky

MERRY GARBAGE DAY! Eric Freeman earns his mark in the Stinker hall of fame in his eyebrow-tastic take on the Santa-obsessed killer maniac. If you can get past seeing SNDN 1 as well, you're in for a wild, holly-jolly horror film.
Let's be frank, there's not enough good crap in Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 to make it a cult hit on its own. It's the combination of the masterful Eric Freeman and Ricky's insane rampage that makes the rest of the film not matter and send it into many, many fan favorite "Christmas" cult classics. Eric's performance stands among titans and belongs among the elites of Tommy and Connie Young. It's beautiful.
If the entire movie had just been Ricky and Doc Henry locked in a room slinging their bonkers egos around for an hour and a half would have worked for us as well. Instead the first 40 minutes is mostly just a recap of the first movie, but told in such a poorly thought-out manner that it carries you through to when the Story of Ricky begins. Once that happens the rails completely come off and expect a Miami Connectionesque shift in tempo of the film.
Without a doubt, if we'd been given just the Story of Ricky for the entire length of the film, this would be a Hall of Fame worthy masterpiece. While we didn't get that Christmas wish Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 is an absolute blast and a total do for us. Enjoy your Garbage Day!

Santa Claus: The Podcast

Boardroom Santa! Ever been really into the business of Santa? Have a passion for Operations Management? Got a degree in holly jolly marketing? Wear a tie with your pajamas? Well this movie is for you! Just not for anyone else.
For the rest of us Santa Claus: The Movie is about as interesting as a government made educational training video. Its just painfully boring. "Santa has a meeting with Jeff and Susie from accounting! Oh boy would I like to see that!" he said sarcastically. "The elves meet in the conference room for a call with the supply department! Wowee!!!!" he said while shoving his head in trash.
The antagonist (John Lithgow) seriously doesn't show up until the 60% completion mark which makes the first hour and fifteen minutes completely devoid of plot and then we he DOES show up it's a series of groan-inducing jokes and Santa being a mopey butthole because apparently he's the only one that can give toys to children for free.
Lastly, this film does an excellent job of showcasing what an awful person Santa (this version - not Santa in general you people about to accuse me of a war on Christmas) is. He is content to give starving children wooden toys instead of maybe food, or a home, or curing their diseases or stopping dictators from murdering their family or shoes even. Nope wooden toys is the only thing that children want - according to Santa. "Wait, they want things that aren't wooden toys?" Santa says at some point (paraphrasing). "But...but...then no one loves me! Boooo hooo hooo hoo" Ugh. You suck Santa.
Santa Claus: The Movie is only for people who care only for the pageantry of Christmas and not at all about the meaning of Christmas. It stinks!

Santa With Muscles - Vigisantaism

Good ol' Terry Hogan becomes Santa the Vigilante and fights a group of scientists who want to demolish an orphanage and then proceeds to do all the demolishing for them. Good job, Santa!
Santa with Muscles is bottom 100 material yet it's surprisingly fun. However, I can't really tell you why. At no point is anything so bad that its good. The action is all kind of meh, the set pieces are all underdeveloped, the villains never really enter the realm of over-the-top hammy. It's ALL super stupid but there's just something kind of nice about the whole viewing experience. It's just a weird little piece of garbage that's a "do" but can't really be explained.
The one thing we can say about it that doesn't fail is that's actually a Christmas movie. Most of them that we deal with end up having no Christmas message and just take place during Christmas for the sake of selling DVDs. Santa with Muscles is CHOCK full of Christmas. Arguably it's the most full of Christmas of any movie we've reviewed.
Perhaps that's why it works. You can't really define what the true meaning of Christmas is but you know it when you see it. Much is the same here and so when you see it, you know you kind of liked it but can't really say why.