Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Commando - The pinnacle of stupid action movies

Our good movie friend Tucker stops by to discuss one of the greatest/stupidest action movies of all time. Be prepared for ridiculous (hilarious) Arnold impressions.
Commando is so iconic and such a staple in "men with guns" movies that it's hard to avoid and impossible to dislike. It's level of over-the-top is unequaled that for the next 15 years in film, every action attempts to be Commando but none have come close. It's the model, but at the same time it's SOOOOO stupid.
So the plot...John Matrix must confront a fat man in a yarn shirt who isn't the main villain to rescue his daughter who probably is just really bored. Along the way there is an incredible amount of ridiculousness but SOOO much awesomeness as well as Arnold tears through a ludicrous amount of bad guys. It's very easy to understand Matrix's motivations but every other character really doesn't have any. Why is Cindy so involved? What could Bennett possibly have to gain? How does Dan Hedaya's guy possible expect to take over a country while he's just hanging out at home off the coast of California? None of it makes any sense.
The violence...wow. It's at a 10 and none of it is anything but laughable. The end 15 minutes is the fastest death count until 2008's Rambo but does not bear the same brutality or gravity as Rambo. Its pretty much rolling on the floor laughing with tears streaming down your face levels of gravity. So none.
Then there's Bennett. Vernon Welles (no offense) is one of the worst casts ever. He's pudgy, he's not very action-packed, he's got this crappy accent that isn't quite clear or necessary and then there's the character. Bennett is madly in love with John Matrix and very horny for him. His lust is supposed to be being mad with revenge but its clear that Bennett wants to have some alone time with Matrix involving a bear skin rug and a fire. Hilarious.
Commando was written by a 12 year old, directed by one of the best stinker directors in history (Mark L. Lester), Schwaz is at his most Schwazy, so many one-liners and so many dead guys killed in horrific ways that it is an absolute must see/revisit/once once a year film forever. 

Prelude to Commando

To purge ourselves from the misery of last weeks movie we dowse ourselves in awesomeness and then light ourselves on fire (that was all figurative, in no way do we endorse lighting yourself on fire...unless you're a total tool, then go for it) and let Arnold take the show over it the quintessential action movie of the 1980s (maybe even ever) but still incredibly dumb, Commando.
Fall SMABFA Contenders
Ben-Hur - Uh, you know you screwed up here.
Nine Lives - Thanks for telling our kids they are stupid and will like anything. Their not and they hated this.
The Mechanic: Resurrection - Statham takes a shot at getting that Best Bad Movie title. Possible surprise one here.
Rings - So what? Sumara lives in Netflix now? Come on it worked (barely) with VHS but 20 years later is too much later....
The Wild Card - Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor
Joan Crawford - Mommie Dearest
The Waits Family - Troll 2
Mike Roark - Volcano
Harry Dalton - Dante's Peak

Dreamer: The Tears of Boredom

Here's a fun concept - take something as boring to watch as bowling and then make a movie that is just as boring about said boring thing. You've then got a very accurate representation of something super boring. Wow. Thanks a lot bowling movie.
Dreamer is arguably the most boring movie ever made. There's levels of bad that are definitely worse as far as film-making. See Manos, Monster-a-Go-Go, Sssssss, and so forth come to mind. The good thing about all those films is that there's at least something to either hate, scratch your head over, or just be angry about. This causes no emotions on any level. Its the least interesting film we've ever seen. Ever. No question.
I don't even know how to write an entire review. I guess I'll try to write the synopsis so here goes: Dreamer is about a guy who bowls.
So that's the synopsis. There's no plot to talk about. There's no events or character journeys. Oh a guy bowls himself to death, but even that is shot boringly. 
Don't watch Dreamer under any circumstances unless you are trying to clear out house guests but that might not work because they'll just fall asleep on your couch. 
However, our podcast is quite funny so be sure to check that out.

Prelude to Dreamer

In this week's podcast spectacular of majesty, we've dug into the vaults and pulled out a brown stain in sports film-making history from 1979. It's the tale of the super exciting world of bowling. What? You didn't know bowling could be exciting? Well put on your slippery shoes and grab your ball bag because we didn't either!
"Streaming" Do's and Don'ts
Deadly Blessing - Amazon Prime
Warrior of Justice - IMDB
Future-Kill - IMDB
The Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate
The ability to control 5 mosquitos - 3/10 stars
About Dreamer - Movie Information

Dante's Peak - Just leave Grandma, please.

Our second of back to back "stupid volcano movies from 1997" is the possibly the least disastery of any disaster movies ever created. Spoiler alert - body count is 5 and a tiny hick town gets cleared off the map. It's fine since they were just a bunch of smug buttholes anyways.
So if Volcano should have been named "Lava; Not Volcano Really", then Dante's Peak should have been called "Volcano; No Lava Really". It's a perfect mirror in opposite land. The volcano is HUGE but has very little lava. In fact the only thing that lava kills in this film is some truck tires. Very strange.
In the film Volcano, the disaster is at least disastrous, somewhat. In Dante's Peak its very not that way. A town of about 3000 people gets wiped out but only 4 people die due to the volcano; 3 of them didn't even live there and one was an insane old bitch that NO ONE liked. It's pretty not disastrous; quite unlike the structure of this sentence.
Some notable features - the stupidest robot in a movie, an old hag who wants to bang a mountain, bad character naming (Harry and Terry), a mayor/coffee barista/horrible mom/town bicycle/news anchor, a chopper pilot who doesn't understand how choppers work, a pyroclastic cloud, some awful Mayor Wando vision, human soup, a splitting headache, and multiple climaxes. 
It's really stupid, horribly cliche, looks terrible, poorly written, and fairly uneventful. But somehow it makes for a ton of fun, IF and ONLY IF you have a great group of riffers sitting next to you. The film is just to boring to do by yourself, but because so little happens when something should be happening it's possibly the easiest movie to mock while viewing we've seen in quite some time (possibly since Q: The Winged Serpent). Its so riffable that we are going to add a new ratings category just for Riffability - 5/5. 

Prelude to Dante's Peak

Hey remember that OTHER volcano movie from 1997? Well its here on Stinker Madness to finally help us answer that age old question: which 1997 volcano movie is the most stupid? Dante's Peak stars Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton.
Roman's Do's and Don'ts
Ninja Busters - 
Dangerous Men - $3.99 on 
The Barbarians - 
The Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate
Extreme resistance to extreme heat but only from above - 3/10 stars

Volcano - What's a movie?!

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 cliches (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 lense 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.

Prelude to Volcano

Surprise! Volcano! Tommy Lee Jones comes in to ask what magma is and see if his volcano movie of 1997 can be the dumber of the year. We all know its stupid, but how stupid can it be?
Roman's Do's and Don'ts
Lust for Freedom (1987) - YouTube
Furious (1984) - IMDB
The Zero Boys (1986) - IMDB
Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate
Electro-magnetic Telekinesis - 3.5 stars

License to Drive - Like a trip to the DMV

The Corey's team up to help Haim get his drivers license and bang a girl. Along the way, they go on a slew of crimes mostly involving reckless endangerment but also sexual assault and child pornography in a showcase of how horrible the 80s were. Not even Heather Graham and Carol Kane can save this.
This film is a pukefest of 80s trends, stupidity, and selfishness. It's a perfect capsule of something that is horrible. So yes, it captures the essence of the decade but the decade sucks and so does this film. Sorry lovers of Aquanet. 
Feldman is passable and the least annoying of the two but that's not saying much. Corey Haim's performance and character are awful and within 20 minutes you just want Les (Haim) to crash the car and explode or just get grounded and actually follow the punishment by staying in his room for the duration of the film. Heather Graham's Mercedes Lane is a testament of how bad this film stinks. They've made an 18 year old, arguably the hottest woman in Hollywood look like a circus clown in an insane asylum. Her character is supposed to be this dream girl, but she's a trainwreck and soon to be buying a bus ticket to former porn star town. She's not a nice girl.
The film is filled with groin-inducing hijinks and hamfisted sequences that fail to achieve either a level of excitement or humor. This is a film for creepo's that either like high school girls or want to go back and do their life over again because their current existence sucks ass. The three of us hated this film and wanted it to be over after the first 5 minutes. Stay clear and just watch The Lost Boys instead.

Prelude to License to Drive

The "Coreys" make their official first appearance on the show with the 80's cheesefest about teenagers getting driver's licenses. This sounds like a recipe for disaster as the 80's sucked, teenagers suck and drivers training sucks the worst! At least Heather Graham is easy on the eye-balls.
Streaming Roman Do's and Don'ts
Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990) - IMDB
Hired to Kill (1990) - IMDB
Steele Justice (1987) - IMDB
Wild Card - The Great Superpower Debate
Spit! The Acne Cure - 7 out of 10
Special Guest - Jackson Murphy
Jackson from the Lights Camera Jackson film review blog stops in and shares with us his picks for the first half of 2016 for the SMABFA awards. He's also doing an incredible charity promotion for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We urge all of you to contribute and follow Jackson through his fundraiser and his career. He's a great guy.