This week our good friend DJ Intel (The Dirty Social) joins us for Get Get Down at Berlin on Wednesday the 16th. It of course will be another fine installment of our weekly jam and both myself and Zebo will be setting the stage for Intel's party business in the early going. There is NO COVER and the party goes from 11pm-4am.
The remainder of the month remains as follows:
Dec 23rd - Dj Eleven of The Rub (NYC)
Dec 30th - Tim Zawada (SoSo Disco)
In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...
Summary:
Maritime hijinks abound in this direct to DVD shitshow about pre-historic sharks going all kinds of apeshit near modern day beach resorts. Allegedly filmed in Bulgaria but actually taking place in Mexico (!!!), Shark Attack 3: Megalodon tells the story of a corporate communications business called APEX that finds trouble while constructing a network of worldwide, underwater fiber-optic cables. What kind of trouble, you ask? The kind sent direct from CGI hell, I counter.
Enter Ben, a resort lifeguard and all-around swell dude. While scuba diving for lobster one afternoon, Ben finds an unusually large tooth lodged in an underwater cable. Though he's told by both the higher-ups at APEX and his own employer to ignore the matter, he promptly peruses the internet and conveniently lands on 'Marine Tech', a web community for those concerned with all things shark-related. He snaps a photo of the tooth with a digital camera that somehow INSTANTLY zaps his pictures into cyberspace and posts the photo on the website's rudimentary message board. Within 24 hours he's visited by a San Diego marine biologist posing as a museum worker, who secretly recognizes the shark tooth for what it really is; that of an ancient species of pre-historic shark thought long extinct - the Megalodon.
He comes to learn about her ulterior, shark-studying motives and though he's initially displeased by her professional dishonesty, they eventually join forces both on the sea and in the bedroom, with the collective goal of bringing down both an oppressive, dangerous corporation and the Megalodon itself, a shark so lethal it makes the shark from 'Jaws' look like fishbowl fodder.
All this silly plot business is a mere formality though. Ultimately, what we're waiting for is that sweet, sweet shark action that we know lies on the horizon and most everything leading up it (more or less the first 2/3 of the movie) is simply the set up. It plods along a bit slowly at times but the all-encompassing shittiness of the production, script and acting is not only good fun in its own right but also leaves a distinct, lurking impression that once the action begins, it will likely be the kind of laughably awesome shitstorm of witless film-making that we've been expecting all along. When the action does begin, it's here to stay and remains unrelenting until the credits roll.
How 'Bad Meaning Good' was it?:
Being that it was released in 2002, I'd have to say that 'Shark Attack 3: Megalodon' is as good an unintentional comedy as any I've seen made in the wake of the new century. It's the kind of utterly messy combination of technical ineptness, porno-grade acting chops and z-grade production values that eventually coalesces into a flaming shit phoenix rising out of the cinematic toilet in triumph. It is so full of continuity problems and thoughtless, lackluster direction that it requires a near-constant state of forgetfulness on the behalf of the viewer in order to be considered something posing semi-competently as a reality-similar narrative.
Most of the shark scenes in the early portions of the movie are cut with documentary-style stock footage. The shark footage is often grainy and completely at odds with the film's prevailing aesthetics. Additionally, the sharks are dubbed over with these odd grunting and groaning noises while they're menacingly mucking about under water; I repeat: THE SHARKS ACTUALLY MAKE NOISE.
Virtually every extra or peripheral character in the movie receives an awful dub treatment and frankly, the main characters who actually speak english don't fare a whole lot better on their own. The two leads are utterly devoid of chemistry and the male lead (played by John Barrowman) is the only of the two to put up a performance with any semblance of charisma or dramatic flexibility. There is however, one particular scene of note between the two leads that has become something of a de facto landmark of face-melting, camp insanity and the individual line of dialog within this particular scene is one of those sort of sublimely perfect, impeccably delivered one-liners capable of prompting spit-takes and instant rewinds from even the most seasoned of shitty movie veterans. On the internet and youtube in particular, it's simply become known as "the line". Believe you me, it is laugh-out-loud hilarious each and every time and will lose not a fraction of it's luster, even on the 50th viewing.
The special fx are the real scenery-chewing device that this film has to offer though and let me tell you folks, they are BAD. I'm talking freshman year of high school AV club bad. The final act of this film is a veritable cornucopia of the most amateurish, budget-level, ridiculous-looking shark attack set pieces that film history has to offer... And it is completely, stupefyingly hilarious stuff. There is seemingly no limit to the amount of material that the Megalodon is capable of flushing down it's ever-expansive maw and watching it happen over and over again is a deliriously good time.
Gather a group of friends, make sure the booze is flowing aplenty, turn on 'Shark Attack 3: Megalodon' and let the stupidity ensue. You won't regret it.
Tomorrow night, the Get Get Down gang will be joined by none other than Matt Roan, Mr. Crossfader King himself for another go-round at the old disco. Needless to say, we're of course stoked to have one of the city's finest selectors in attendance and doing his thing on the decks.
Last week was another winner of course, so thank you again DJ Edwin Konsept for blessing us with the musical awesomeness. As for the rest of this month's programming, mark your calendars for the following:
Tonight is the night! Bad Meaning Good 8, the ninja edition featuring 'Enter The Ninja is nearly upon us...
I posted my Bad Meaning Good case study review of the movie last week and you can read it here if you want some info on the film itself. Trust me, it's a real doozy of 80's-styled ninja bad-assery.
The movie will start at 8pm, though we might delay it a few minutes to wait for some more folks to arrive. Per usual, myself and DJ Intel will be providing the tunes once the film is over. Apart from that, feel free to send me a message via the contact page if you have any remaining questions.
In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...
Summary:
The Israeli dream team of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus bought Cannon Films in 1979 and promptly embarked on an incredible run of brutally efficient, low-budget trash masterpieces in order to satiate the video market's nearly unquenchable thirst for action fodder and assorted silliness of a whole bunch of excessive and distinctly 80's varieties (these dudes produced everything from Death Wish movies to Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo to Stallone vehicles like Cobra and Over The Top... Quite the legacy to be admired for aficionados of 'Bad Meaning Good' cinema). Included among this masterful run was the 1981 sleeper 'Enter The Ninja', starring Franco Nero as Cole, an ex-American military man-turned-ninja-in-training, who has headed East to embark on something of a search for meaning in the wake of his traumatizing war experience (he wears the evidence of his combat background with a quiet, masculine dignity throughout).
The film opens with some seriously fucking sweet ninja action and we see our protagonist go through the final stages of his ninja schooling before receiving his official license as a master of ninjitsu. His quest for acceptance as a Westerner in the home of the ninja is not without its roadblocks though, as another of the school's master students, Hasegawa (Sho Kosugi), takes issue with the idea of new, American blood entering the centuries-old fraternal order of ninjahood and defiling that which is sacred and pure to the people of Japan.
Upon being inevitably accepted, Cole heads to the Philippines (presumably more so because it was a cheap place to film than it was an integral component to the story's plot) to help his ex-war buddy Frank (and Frank's wife Mary Ann) fight off the merciless hounding they're enduring at the hands of vicious landowners eager to get their greedy paws on Frank and Mary Ann's valuable and much-beloved land (a common theme in 80's martial arts and revenge-driven films in general). From there, Cole kicks a whole lot of ass, over and over again, until the landowning faction, operated by a sleezebag named Venarius, has to take more drastic action and unbeknownst to Cole, taps the very ninja school Cole graduated from for an equally skilled ninja to raise some hell and shut Cole down for good. And wouldn't you know it... His main detractor... His very nemesis Hasegawa is brought in to settle the score, giving Cole a renewed sense of purpose and an opportunity to fight the good fight and finish off his remaining enemies once and for all.
How 'Bad Meaning Good' is it?:
Where do I even begin? This movie fulfills the sweet-ass ninja action requirements necessary for an additional 10 ninja films. I'm talking about ninjas lurking in and jumping out of trees, ninjas blowing poison darts, ninjas throwing smoke bombs, ninjas catching arrows with their bare hands, ninjas throwing stars that lodge directly in peoples' faces, and a lot more. There are more karate chops to peoples' necks in this film than probably any film ever. There are ninjas punching people directly in the balls. Hell, this production makes use of every kind of weapon imaginable within the traditional ninja arsenal, often with the express intent of coming to direct blows with the groin-ular regions of those on the receiving end of Cole's fury.
What else is there, you ask? How about synchronized swimming? There's definitely some of that. Cockfights? At least two that I counted. Recycled bad guys that die more than one death? Absolutely. One-liners? Oh God, are there ever one-liners... One-liners so good you'll rewind to hear them again (I dare not spoil any of them here, lest I tarnish their maximal effect for first-time viewers).
There's Christopher George hamming up his villainous role to devastating effect. There's also one of the most amazing slo-mo death scenes of all time (one that's even good enough to rival the final death sequence in 'Street Trash'). There's hilarious dubbing of both dialog and ninja sound fx. Perhaps best of all, there's an actual hook-handed character named Siegfried 'The Hook' Schultz. It's pretty much the grandaddy of all ninja movies from our childhoods and could reasonably be considered one of the original films most responsible for cementing the ninja's "coolness" legacy within the pop cultural lexicon.
'Enter The Ninja' is pretty much tip-top. The movie is astoundingly entertaining and gloriously over-the-top from start to finish. It's also a great example of how a small collection of people with a good sense of humor, just a few dollars in their pockets, and a great amount of film-making gusto and enthusiasm can produce a film that is nothing if not purely satisfying, cathartic fun on every level.
So... If you were at last week's Get Get Down then you know the party has come a long way since its inception and that it's going stronger than ever! That was a fantastic party and thanks once again to Kid Color for coming out and rocking for us...
Tonight we'll be hosting DJ Konsept as our weekly guest and we're anticipating another burner! Additionally, we've scheduled the rest of the month's guest DJ programming and it is as follows:
This Wednesday night we'll be hosting a special, disco-infused Get Get Down celebration at Berlin. Come through and party with us as Zebo, Kid Color and I exorcise all the pre-Thanksgiving demons from 11-4am. There will be a $5 cover as well as $2 PBR's and a $1 shot special. And yes, the jams will indeed be kicked out.
In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...
Summary:
The mere prospect of attempting to provide an explanation for a film with a plot as convoluted and stupid as that of 'Future War' is enough to send a person's head into a tailspin of disappointment and personal regret over the wasted time required to do so. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't sitting here knee deep in existential despair concerning the anticipation of my attempts at filling the blank page that I am so regrettably staring down at this very instant. But alas, I have entered into a personal contract with the world to do so and it is my duty as someone who has indeed seen this... this THING, to see this review/warning through to completion and thusly, do my part as a world citizen and conscientious human being. To not do so would be savage. That's what I tell myself at least. It makes me feel better.
So... The movie: 'Future War' is about cyborgs from the future who have enslaved humans on a space vessel and are seemingly wandering about in space for no good reason other than to just sort of function as villains for the movie's sake alone (we're led to believe they enslave humans solely because they're lazy and don't want to do shit for themselves). One particular slave, a sort of Van Damme-lite played by Daniel Bernhardt, escapes from their clutches on a mini space pod and lands himself in current day L.A. His arrival on Earth is no get out of jail free card though, as he's being pursued by an evil cyborg with a dinosaur "tracker" in tow (an evil cyborg with a fuck-off, shit-storm rat's nest of a mullet, I might add). You see, the cyborgs have traveled BACK in time in order to capture dinosaurs and then train them to be trackers of humans in the future, mainly because that's OBVIOUSLY the efficient way to go about this sort of thing but also because, you know, Jurassic Park had just come out and it would be like, cool to have dinosaurs in the movie and shit.
From there, this space stranger on the run comes into contact with a reformed, ex-prostitute/former drug addict undertaking the novitiate (nun school, as it were) and undergoing something of a vague crisis of faith. The two are thrust into the dangerous immediacy of the situation and have to take up arms with the various halfway house denizens, crooks and gang folk from the woman's past in a not-so-compelling fight for survival. Amidst all this drama, we're subject to a lot of long, lingering conversational scenes that drag the movie along like a clunky, dead thing's corpse. Unfortunately, there just aren't enough one-liners to go around. To quote 'Fear Of A Black Hat', this movie "was like dookie on the street, it just sat there and stank."
How 'Bad Meaning Good' is it?:
The conversation pretty much starts and ends with the ridiculous amount of forced perspective photography used in this film. The fact that the production was making use of pint-sized, rubber dinosaur props required that a lot of not-so-tricky camera work be employed to frame the dinosaurs in such a way that made them look significantly larger than they actually were. There are often shots of, say, a dinosaur's head popping into the upper right corner of the frame and the actors throwing things at it from the bottom left corner, giving it the vaguely effective illusion that the dinosaur is actually large. I can't lie, the effect is not without its charms. It often looks absurd beyond belief and can be laughably ridiculous in some cases but ultimately becomes more than a little bit tiresome in due time.
... And so does the reliance on cardboard boxes. There are so many goddamn cardboard boxes in this movie that, no joke, there are two different people cited as 'Box Wranglers' in the film's credits. The opening chase sequence appears to send the main character and the cyborg pursuing him into some sort of pre-arranged labyrinth of neatly stacked cardboard boxes and ends with the two more or less throwing cardboard boxes at each other... To death.
Where the movie gets fun is when the sister and her friends begin to rally the local street gangs in an attempt to do battle with the cyborgs. In adopting a generic "street" tone, the dialog becomes somehow even more labored than it already was and the movie begins to look something like the kind of D.A.R.E. PSA-turned-unintentional comedy that we all found laughable in junior high. Believe me when I tell you that watching cartoonish, early 90's rap video-styled hoods high five each other after a therapeutic session of dino-blasting with high-powered assault rifles is every bit as awesome as it sounds. I also don't imagine it's much of a stretch to suggest that as a mere historical precedent, this is probably the only time you'll ever see such a bunch of mock gangstas search for plastic dinosaurs through drainage systems in LA but you know... Stranger things have happened.
The movie was also infamously spoofed on a popular episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and frankly, was made far more viewable in its comic skewering than it is as a stand alone feature. If you're gonna attempt to sit through it, you'd be far better off going that route because all things considered, this movie was mostly just an awful piece of straight-to-video, early 90's dreck. It's a truly bad piece of cinematic shit but an inoffensive one nonetheless and in the words of Crow T. Robot of MST3K: "It’s not the future, and there isn’t a war, but you know me; I don't like to complain.”
Tonight at GGD... Zebo is joined by Black Holes and Heather Doble for what will undoubtedly be another in a long line of rowdy guest spots in GGD lore. I won't be in the building tonight but if you're looking for a wicked good time and a place to party then look no further...
In April of 2009, myself and DJ Intel launched the 'Bad Meaning Good' monthly movie event at The Burlington in Chicago (which takes place on the first Monday of every month). The idea behind the night is to screen cult classics, exploit movies, unintentional comedies and every other kind of film we collectively decide is so bad that it's actually good. In the ongoing search for the perfect 'Bad Meaning Good' film I've decided to take on a weekly (or AT LEAST once-per-week) blog entry in which I'll review, summarize and rate bad movies of every variety imaginable. The goal is to reach somewhere in the range of 75-100 posts within a year, at which point I'll look for a place to publish a first volume of 'Bad Meaning Good' reviews in book form. Stay tuned...
Summary:
'Rock N Roll Nightmare' (aka 'The Edge Of Hell') is a 1987 would-be star-making vehicle for one Canadian national treasure Jon-Mikl Thor and by God, is it ever one HELL of a bad movie. Thor plays the frontman for The Tritonz, an aspiring hair-metal/glam outfit taking up temporary residence in a rural Ontario farm house with the mind to turn it into a recording/rehearsal space, thereby allowing Thor the freedom to traverse the bottomless depths of his internal songwriting reservoir free from the temptations of big city excess. Upon arrival the band is met by all manner of hell-spawn oddities and what ensues is the stuff of by-the-numbers slasher fare, albeit on what could generously be described a limited budget. Not all is as it seems though and a final act twist reveals that what is actually taking place could indeed be part of a far greater struggle between the forces of good and evil at large.
Conflicting online reports quote the film's budget within the range of $50-100,000 dollars and it would appear that production value be damned, a woefully significant portion of that budget was spent on hair product alone. The movie is a tacky 80's hairdresser's wet dream and no human head is spared a hideously unflattering fate over the film's duration. The wardrobe stylists were likely allotted the remainder of that budget and promptly spent it on polka dot blouses, shiny silver blazers, metal-studded leather underwear and whatever other ghastly clothing abominations Thor deemed necessary to strike that perfect visual balance between professional wrestler and latent homosexual hair-rocker.
The film positively REEKS of being Thor's personal vanity project and functions as much as a mock demo for his gloriously over the top butt-rock songbook as it does any sort of actual story or coherent narrative. Between extended bouts of rocking, the band mostly spends it's time fucking and dying in that very order. Little else takes place at all. (Rest assured though, the boobs per minute ratio remains ridiculously high throughout.)
As the movie approaches its climax, Thor is brought to an impasse with the devil himself and what follows is a fight scene so mind-fuckingly inept in execution that it makes Ed Wood look like Peckinpah or 'Hard Boiled'-era John Woo by comparison. To think that the balance of good and evil or the very fate of mankind itself could possibly be determined by a standoff between an inert, rubber-starfish-flinging artificial demon and a hairy, muscle-bound, greased-up, poor man's Dee Snider... Well, needless to say what happens here is the stuff of shitty movie legend and I'd better not go into further detail and risk spoiling the visual riches therein. This is something that truly needs to be seen to be believed.
How 'Bad Meaning Good' is it?:
It's staggering to think that a film as artless and incompetent as 'Rock N Roll Nightmare' could have POSSIBLY cost more than $10-20,000, much less upwards of $50-100,000. However, what it lacks in economic efficiency it more than makes up for in good, old fashioned, enthusiastic DIY spirit. I don't think the word "amateur" even begins to describe what's going on here. Truthfully though, who gives a shit? When cost-cutting measures require demonic spirits and other assorted monsters to be replaced by sock puppets and inanimate rubber creatures, the fun is really only beginning...
And how about those villains? The baddies in this film are mostly rubber hand puppets and slimy, phallic, one-eyed penis-beasts. It's totally fucking bizarre and gnarly-all-over. We get a lot of Evil Dead-styled POV shots, presumably from the perspective of these creatures and a lot of scenes where love-making sessions are interrupted by demonic possessions and laughably harebrained kill sequences.
... And we haven't even touched on the overwhelming creep-out factor that Jon-Mikl Thor brings to the table. This dude exorcised a lifetime's worth of sexual frustration during the production of this movie by ensuring that the bare breast quotient remained bountiful and near-consant. He wrote groupies for his band into the story, he wrote topless scenes for all the female characters... Hell, he even wrote he and his female counterpart a brutally lengthy sex scene in the shower that lingers on his bare ass for a painfully long time before mercifully moving on (one of the only scenes in the movie that is not in any way amusing).
What else do we have? We have a woman being turned into a skeleton by spending about 20 seconds in an oven... We have the worst Australian accent ever committed to celluloid (which comes and goes seemingly at random)... We have shots that often linger for up to 5 seconds past their comfortable conclusion... We have lost metal classics like "We Live To Rock" and "Energy" (What, you mean you don't remember those?)... We have a near constant stream of unforced continuity errors and production flaws... What we have is the makings of a bona fide 'Bad Meaning Good' classic, that's what we have.
