Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Hawkeye - When in Vegas, don't - just don't

Steer clear of the police in Las Vegas in 1988 is the absolute message of this super-budget gem of a tough cop movie. Penalties for being alive are getting kicked in the face while walking down a hallway and being beat to death while sitting in a chair.
Hawkeye (1988) is a film that does not showcase the talents of a guy with a bow and arrow. It instead showcases the talents of a guy who is not Eddie Murphy and a guy who likes his Guess Jeans butt a bit too much. The matchup of Chuck Jeffreys and George Chung is bad-movie comedy gold. They are ridiculous, horribly corrupt, and clueless in all aspects of life. 
Yet despite being inept, corrupt, racist, torture approving, innocent person shooting/punching/kicking, "shit-packing", girlfriend neglecting, sons-of-bitches the pair of Wilson and Hawkamoto are an absolute blast to follow around in their awful policing. This is a must do.

Eragon - Use the Force, Caleb!

To the disheartening of many fans of the book series, men in ties decide to make a dragon movie without any dragons in it and decide the story is too confusing so they just remade Star Wars. Beware the powers of the dark side of jelly beans!
If you're like us and have never read the Eragon book series, then you'll arguably have less problems with the divergence (that wasn't an accident) of the source material from the pre-teen books to this flaming pile of nonsense. It's a necessary position to look at the 2006 film objectively. We don't know the back story and the subtle elements of the world that this takes place in (if there are any) so don't come at us, bro! And in any situation, none of that should matter - because Eragon the movie, at least, doesn't suffer from it's abandonment from the source material - it suffers from the direct theft of OTHER source material.
It's just Star Wars gang. Which may seem like an oversimplification of the standard "epic" format of storytelling, ie. Star Wars, Gilgamesh, LOTR,  The Iliad and The Odyssey, et. al. we can show you that it is a direct case of intellectual property theft or the great scene heist of 2006. Perhaps the writing team called in Danny Ocean...
A trusted member of a high-order of wizards murders and betrays his fellows to gain ultimate and dark power
An orphaned boy is sent to live with his uncle on a farm because of a past as yet untold to him
The boy comes into possession of a valuable item the evil wizard wants to reclaim
The boy finds information out about the item by speaking to a good wizard whose neighbors see him to a be a weirdo
The good wizards also has a secret past that he doesn't want to reveal to the neighbors
The evil wizard sends out his troops to capture the item and murder the boy and anyone helping him
The boy returns home to find that his uncle has been murdered by the troops
The boy is left with no option but to follow a friendly wizard on a quest to save the universe
The wizard explains to boy that in order to save the universe they must get the item of value to a group of rebels
Along the way the boy must learn the ways of a mysterious energy that gives him powers
The evil wizard captures the boy's friend in order to trap the boy and prevent him from finishing his training
The boy is told by his mentor wizard that its a trap and the boy ignores him and knowingly falls into the trap
The boy escapes the trap after a serious loss of a friend with the help of a stranger who must redeem himself from his ties to the evil empire
The friend who is lost during the trap episode is encased in an unbreakable material formed by temperature extremes
The boy and his team find the rebel base, but also lead the evil wizard to their location as well
The boy suits up and climbs aboard his flying machine to fight off the incoming attackers
In order to defeat the attackers, the boy must stop relying on his enhanced vision and trust his senses
There is also a secret past to the boy's father and his relationship to the female character (who is a princess) and how their sexual tension might be icky later
There you go. 18 points of direct copying of Star Wars. Try to argue that against us kids.
In the end, Eragon isn't a great bad movie, but it's uncanny rip-off of that space wizards movie makes it a great time for riffing. So it's a do.

Year 4 in Review Part 2

It's been four wonderful years of bringing you the greatest bad and cult films, all while having some pretty important discussions on craft and farts with plenty of laughs along the way.
This episode we recap our favorite movies we watched in the previous year of podcasting. Each host catalogs their top ten and hope that you can find some extra time to watch each and every one of these movies. This episode we recap our top 4-1 choices, along with our favorite 3 movies of 2017.

Year 4 in Review Part 1

It's been four wonderful years of bringing you the greatest bad and cult films, all while having some pretty important discussions on craft and farts with plenty of laughs along the way.
This episode we recap our favorite movies we watched in the previous year of podcasting. Each host catalogs their top ten and hope that you can find some extra time to watch each and every one of these movies. This episode we recap our top 10-5 choices.

Savage Streets - A top heavy, genre bender

Somehow we've managed to stay clear of Linda Blair, which is strange because she's very easy to bump into. Here she's showcasing the gals, while running a gang of gals, and find revenge (eventually) after taking an hour and fifteen minutes to be pushed over the edge.
Somehow Savage Streets manages to be a mashup of about every 80's budget genre. It's a slasher, a sex-romp, a revenge jobber, and a roller-skating boogie in the vein of Grease. Yet it manages to miss being a Romeo & Juliet, a vigilante justice story and Dangerous Minds. It's pretty bizarre in how much territory it covers while failing to get to the plot for one hour.
Boobs. Wow. Lots and lots. This high school that Linda Blair's Brenda attends must have some rigorous testing for enrollment. You must be:
Over 20 years old
Have double-ds
Huge hair
Enjoy fighting naked
Have little regard for the rules (that arguably don't exist)
It takes quite a while to get going and once it does, boy howdy, but the front hour is a pretty solid riffer. We'd say that it's good for any midnight movie and especially good for a group of lampooners. So not spectacular but still a solid "do" from us. 
There is a disclaimer - there is a scene of rape that is especially difficult to get through, but fairly necessary to get to the plot.
Streaming Do's and Don'ts
Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation - Crackle
Grab a copy of Justin's novel - The Golden Right - free this week for Kindle Readers

Space Jam - Jamming in Space is MIA

The film that finally puts two things together that no one asked for, no previous commonality, no established universe, no real similarities, and no capability of accomplishing something someone might label "good". Cartoons and basketball just don't go together.
Hot off the success of Roger Rabbit, well ok, not hot off. More like many years later....someone decided to mashup our reality with the physics defying world of Bugs Bunny. Now that possibly could have worked, if they had chosen to focus on that. But Space Jam focuses on the life and times of Michael Jordan, which has nothing to do with cartoons. Nothing. So the Looney Tunes take a back seat to MJ. Sure he's the greatest (LeBron?) but he's not what is putting butts in seats here. Otherwise you'd just have a film starring Michael Jordan. Come on...
Beyond the idiocy that is the concept, the film is garbage. The most fatal flaw that Warner Bros. committed here is that they thought people came for Looney Tunes because of Bugs, Daffy, and Yosemite. Little did they understand, those characters were just the delivery vehicle for the shear brilliance that was Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc. THOSE guys are why we came. Proof required? Try watching a Merry Melodies after a Looney Tunes. Without Chuck Jones and Mel Blanc the WB crew is just another bland unmemorable troop of talking critters.
The voice acting sucks, the animation sucks, the jokes suck, everything sucks.
Pick up a copy of Justin's novel!
The Golden Right on Amazon Prime

No Holds Barred - The FCC might have some problems here

People that make TV shows, write a script in 72 hours while blasting through piles of cocaine, that showcases their complete lack of knowledge about making TV shows. It's Rip v Zeus in The Battle of the Tough Guys that can only end in one way.... murder!
Nothing can describe the (at that time) WWF in the late 80s like No Holds Barred. Hulk is the #1 guy in the phony man-fighting and his entire schtick is on display here. There's no difference between the character of Rip and Hulk Hogan. Imagine a film called "Morgue Work" starring The Undertaker who's character name is Mortician Jim. Rip loves the kids, he loves his family and he loves making snorting sounds....just like Hulk Hogan. Which leads me to believe that Terry Hogan had more to do with writing this POS then Vince McMahon. I like to envision Terry writing in crayon in a furor while McMahon murders prostitutes in the corner.
Vince (covered in blood): Terry, you need any help over there? I've run out of prostitutes to murder. I could help out for a bit.
Terry makes inaudible, guttural snarling and smashes crayons into his hand.
There's plenty of bad plot elements, snarling and snarfing, a complete lack of lines for Zeus Lister, some heavy sexual harassment in the workplace, Neil Breen levels of sexiness, murder!, and general insanity. 
It's a pretty landmark bad movie and should be watched at the earliest opportunity by people not getting choke-slammed.

The Running Man - The Scott Norwood of Sci-Fi Movies

Despite its satirical nature and heavy social commentary, The Running Man drops the ball (or the hockey puck) before the goal and trips into the net, bashes into the goalpost, gets the ball stuck in its facemask, and suffers multiple self-inflicted concussions. Well...at least it didn't murder it's ex-wife and her lover. WHOA!! TOO SOON!
1987's The Running Man is one of those "oh, so close" to being good films, but as we see time and time again, men in ties get in the way and say "We gotta ham this up! We got Arnold so its has to be stupid, right?" There is just enough left of Stephen King's novella in here that you feel like you should be able to see past the caricature of entertainment and find meaning in its messages. Time for some deep reflection, right? Well no. Time to slap your forehead in missed opportunity grief.
Its still a fun stinker, and it's unintended wackiness leaves the viewer with more joy than grief. Do NOT misunderstand though, this is NOT Commando. There is a level of tedium within and for its ridiculous nature is a little empty in content here and there. There is lots of sequences of...well...running. Running, running, running, explosion, new stalker, running, running, running, the resistance, running, running, explosion, repeat.
All and all a good time, but missed opportunities (both in quality and stinkiness) keep this one out of the pantheon of crummy action/sci-fi movies. 

Speed Racer - See underrated in the dictionary

38 Metacritic, 39% Rotten Tomatoes, 35% domestic returns, universally panned by all, a terrible idea that could never make money and its one of the best films we've reviewed. If you haven't seen Speed Racer, you are blowing it.
DISCLAIMER: Speed Racer is in NO possible way a stinker (other than it's reputation). It's absolutely crack for your eyeballs. It's pulse-pounding racing action and over-the-top fun, all while being genuinely funny, well told, competently acted and a great tale. At the very least, it should have won Oscar gold for special effects, editing, sound design, production design, and cinematography. So don't expect much lampooning here.
So here we shall discuss why it makes it on the podcast. Its because its Speed Racer. No one cares. No one wants to care. It falls into the same bad idea category of (the deplorable) Jem and the Holigrams and (the BRILLIANT) Blade Runner 2049. You cannot make your money back, no matter how well you make the film. There just isn't a big enough fan base to capture the attention of the movie masses and have success. It's impossible!
Then you've got the Wachowskis. They've got The Matrix in their stable of quality films, but they've just come out of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revalations which BOTH are horrible, awful, crap. So they are not real popular with the critics and general film audience at the time. Ie. See backlash of George Lucas by his own fanbase for "Greedo Shoots First" and "Are you an angel?". It doesn't matter what you made before, you now stink. So they went in expecting crap and then seeing it as crap and then piled on the negative reviews on an exquisite film because they wouldn't take the time to "get it". 
They just didn't get it and if you've avoided Speed Racer because you didn't get it (we are guilty too) you are making a massive mistake and missing out on one of the most underrated movies in history. It's spectacular.

Radical Jack - Jack is not Radical, but the film is!

When you need the toughest of tough guys to play your super agent and lone wolf defender of justice, get that Achy Breaky Heart guy. No man has ever been tougher! But make sure his girlfriend is the one that is the most "radical".
Here's the end result of Radical Jack; Jack is NOT radical, in fact. His most penultimate "action" move to hide under a bed. Not kidding. The film spends the first 3/4 telling us how tough Jack is, what with his smoldering gazes, his Ray-Ban shades, his supreme mullet, his "Renegade" Jeep, his barb-wire tattoo and such. Then we learn he's just not tough at all as he fails to be the catalyst and executor of the climax. It's DeeDee Pfeiffer who is indeed the radical one. "Radical Kate" should be the title of the film.
We just can't understate how poorly put together Radical Jack is. Nothing makes sense, timelines don't add up, Jack builds a shed with no doors, Asahi Guy...on and on and indescribable stupidity abound. This is complemented by it's perfect pacing for lampooning. Get the group together and prepare to have pants filled with pee from laughter. It's like surgery - best that you evacuate before starting.
Despite how awful you think this may look, what with the Billy Ray and all, Radical Jack is an absolute must-do. It's that type of stinker that truly is for everyone. Imagine life without "The Room" and having to try to get your classy friends to start enjoying the perks of crappy movies. Radical Jack is your gateway stinker.  One hit of the Jack and you'll be back! (Copyright!)