CLASS OF 1999

Bradley Gregg in CLASS OF 1999 Year: 1990 Rates: ***

Bradley Gregg was a pretty good young character-actor, and really stood out as a bad kid in STAND BY ME while in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS he played the sleeplessly troubled hospital patient into puppets with enough melodramatic rebellion for his inevitable doom to really matter...

But in Mark L. Lester's sequel to CLASS OF 1984 titled CLASS OF 1999... where instead of teachers fighting against lethal gang-member students the gangs are fighting against three human/android teachers... Gregg is trying so hard to be stiffly cool (in a kind of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western style) he has almost no personality at all...

Patrick Kilpatrick, John P. Ryan and Pam Grier in CLASS OF 1999

Instead of being a cutup who learns about how strong those bionic teachers (led by mad scientist Stacy Keach and played by John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick KilPatrick) really are, he's already done with drugs and fighting by the opening credits, making his transition not matter since it never actually happens at all..

Instead he just frowns and grimaces, even while dating principal Malcolm McDowell's sexy yet scholastic daughter Traci Lind and, more liken to the ironical police-state-future of ROBOCOP than Lester's gritty teen-angst original, CLASS OF 1999 plays like a straight-to-video title that's surprisingly decent for a day off work, school, or whatever you happen to be breaking from.

Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999

The teacher's house in CLASS OF 1999

Malcolm McDowell with Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind in CLASS OF 1999

Malcolm McDowell with Stacy Keach in CLASS OF 1999

 

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987)

Most blame the low-budget (yet still effective) production studio Cannon Films for SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE being such an awful movie, but it's instead the fault of Christopher Reeve for the very reason he did the movie in the first, second and third place...

Set in the mid-1980's during the Reagan Administration: when Russia had nukes aimed at America and vice versa... only here the superhero plot demands the kind of urgency where The Cold War's turned into an impending/existential threat... which it NEVER was... an idealistic and childish plot with schoolchildren calling for Superman to get rid of all the nuclear missiles, and Gene Hackman has returned as Lex Luthor, burdened with godawful teenager Jon Cryer as a geek-punk nephew, so it doesn't even feel like Hackman's involved: His goal to sell nukes to opposing countries while having somehow gained the scientific knowledge to create his very own superhero, Nuclear Man, something so corny even a TV-movie would avoid it...

Meanwhile, Margot Kidder has returned, and even flies around with Superman, but she's wedged in during a romance with b-villain Sam Wanamaker's rich girl daughter Muriel Hemingway, who tries her best only she's stuck in the wrong picture... So don't blame Cannon for a lead actor attempting to manipulate audiences into thinking The Cold War was actually red hot... and by 1987 that anti-nukes concept was tired and dated anyhow. Grade: F

MINORITY REPORT

year: 2002
rating: *1/2

Looking as if filmed with a lens splattered with icky green goo, MINORITY REPORT takes us into yet another Philip K. Dick future where the government does what seems the best for society (preventing murder) but is actually... no good at all...

The entire set-up is preposterous: Like MACBETH had three witches igniting the plot, there's a trio of half-naked bald people (one a hot chick) in a large tub of liquid within a formidable police station, projecting images of murders that haven't yet happened while Tom Cruise arrests the semi-guiltys and is soon enough... like the Film Noir/Wrong Man movies that inspired Steven Spielberg to try replicating (pun intended) the Neo Noir magic of BLADE RUNNER... framed for almost-murder and chased down like the criminals he used to... chase down: But the over abundance of now dated CGI, and the fact no characters have any chemistry with each other or the altered-reality world in which they reluctantly and awkwardly exist, makes MINORITY REPORT a tedious, tiresome waste of noisy bedlam.

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979)

Having dismissed this famously maligned movie aka the spectacular late-seventies STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE so long for the more action-packed, mainstream, fan-adored sequels, it's become a personal favorite, experiencing the majestic visuals along with the crew, who all kind of sit around stunned, mesmerized as the gorgeous, multi-layered, formidable foe unfolds outside and well... how can you blame them?

RETURN OF THE JEDI

alt title: STAR WARS VI  
year of release: 1983

cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher
rating: ****1/2

Realizing that Lucas, although not the director, was fully in charge of EMPIRE and this: the last of the original trilogy, the more I can see hired director Richard Marquand's input. Being a director of "Eye of the Needle" and other spy thrillers, he adds an particular British element of meticulous, pinpointed, philosophical intrigue and suspense, mostly centered on the lead-up and climax involving Luke Skywalker and Darth Vadar meeting the Emperor in the almost-completed bigger/better Death Star. One shot in particular, now iconic, of an elevator door quickly slides open, revealing Vadar and Skywalker, is a personal favorite moment (image) of the trilogy.

Mark Hamill, better than ever, along with Darth Vadar and IanMcDiarmid as the Emperor owns this one while Harrison "Han Solo" Ford and Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher provide the working-class action of the B story...

Having landed on the Forest planet of Endor (where lives too-adorably-contrived creatures called Ewoks who, along with overlong expository scenes, slow down the pace until they prove their underdog defense tactics), they have to shut down the Death Star's shields so that Lando, with the aid of Wedge and other pilots, blow up the Death Star... in a dogfight like no other. And the first act, back on Tattoine, in and out of Jabba's Palace, proves that Jim Henson's puppetry does wonder over CGI, a blend of noir and pirate lore kicking things off with a pulpy roar.

AVATAR

title: AVATAR

year: 2009

cast: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver

writer/director: James Cameron

rating: *1/2

The first twenty minutes, although we're quickly force-fed the plot of a crippled marine going to a planet called Pandora where his counterpart "Avatar", clone to the indigenous natives, will seek trust in these tall blue Na'vi (all this happening while he, in human form, lays a tanning booth and guides the creature) in order to abduct a mineral to take back to earth (symbolizing oil, of course)... isn't bad, seeming as if a young James Cameron, who directed "Aliens", "The Terminator" and "The Terminator 2" with flowing precision, is at the helm. We're on a terrific adventure and it looks pretty neat: like a Roger Dean "Yes" album cover with motion. But then something happens: Once within the forest, separated from his fellow troops, the Avatar discovers he digs the peace-loving natives more than stupid humans, falls in love with the hottest of the tall blue elf-folk, and after taming a flying dragon and bedding down the babe, he's "one of the gang" way too quickly. Most of the action of the film's first half, pitting our hero against forest-dwelling predators, is (in a visual and directorial sense) straight out of JURASSIC PARK; the thrills eventually taking a backseat to drawn-out new-age ceremonies and cheesy dialog too horrible to repeat. And when the big battle ensues... The Honest Natives Vs The Greedy Americans... the vague, undeveloped characters get lost within the expensive flash. AVATAR, filmed in 3D but with 1D everything else, in trying to blend science-fiction, fantasy, romance, and a big bright moral message, ends up mirroring Cameron's view of the American Military: overwrought, overpriced and completely brain-dead.

THE RETURN

title: THE RETURN

year: 1980

cast: Jan-Michael Vincent, Cybill Shepard

director: Greydon Clark

rating: **

Two children, a boy and girl, and a farmer witness a UFO in a small rural town (where else?) and then... years later... one of the kids, now a grown up played by Cybill Shepard, returns to the hick town (she was only passing through originally) where she hooks up with Jan Michael-Vincent, a local handsome cop who turns out was the other kid who saw the spaceship. This is a bad movie but it's quite a treat seeing Vincent Shavelli, as the farmer who, unlike the other two witnesses, became a psychotic killer with an atomic double-edged flashlight that mutilates cattle and people... who Jan and Cybill have to kill before he kills anyone else. And the special effects make Sid & Marty Krofft seem like George Lucas in comparison, but overall, it's somewhat entertaining.

STAR TREK

title: STAR TREK

year: 2009

cast: Chris Pine

rating: **

While this was better than the NEW Star Wars prequels (episode 1, 2, and 3), I had the same problem in the continuity factor. In other words, when watching the original Star Wars: A New Hope, seeing Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guiness) and imagining him doing all the things Ewan McGregor did in the first three films... was impossible. And when I go back and watch the original Star Trek TV show, or the movies starring the original cast, I will now have to wrap my brain around the fact that Captain Kirk, as a preteen, listened to The Beastie Boys. And that Spock dealt with bullies on his home planet - which weren't very different from the ones cookie-cutter teen flicks (I realize, this is mentioned on the original show, but the way they carried it out was so... after-school-special). Or that Uhura had a green martian roomate who Captain Kirk, before he was Captain, was trying to bang in an apartment that looked straight outta Melrose Place. I realize the William Shatner "Kirk" is known to be quite a ladies man - but seeing Jim in a trendy nightclub with rave music thumping in the backdrop just doesn't fit in the Star Trek canon... at least not mine. The first ten minutes, involving Kirk's father saving the lives of 800 people, including his wife who was pregnant with you-know-who... right before intrepidly dying on a monitor viewed by his weeping wife... was pure melodrama straight out bad made-for-cable sci-fi. The villain looked and acted like a WWF wrestler. And I'm not sure what the plot is other than "blow the big bad thing up that destroys planets" (kinda like The Death Star, huh?). Chris Pine looked perfect for the role of a young Kirk but seemed too much like a jocky lughead than anything else. And the special effects... going back to my problem with the new Star Wars... was just too much. I always dug the cerebral-led aspect of the original series (and movies)... mind over action... kind of like a chess match... And, so, having these youthful, energetic characters being part of a high-octane thriller... And the Enterprise darting through space like a Tie Fighter... just didn't fit with me. I'll take corny acting, dated special effects and a slow moving plot to exploding eye-candy any day.

FREEJACK

year: 1991

cast: Emilio Estevez, Mick Jagger, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Jonathan Banks

rating: ***

Mick Jagger's aware-of-the-camera acting leaves something to be desired in a pretty undesirable but guilty-pleasurable sci-fi future film centering on a city where big corporations rule over ragged bums (no middle class, as is usual with Hollywood sci-fi). Emilio Estevez, as a race car driver brought into the future (as a "freejack") to be used in a body-changing experiment, is in his usual cruise control mode. Mick's character is more fun, and for an antagonist, pretty cool. But as far as great actors go, Anthony Hopkins collects a paycheck as the dying millionaire who wants Estevez's body (don't get the wrong idea) and Rene Russo struts with her big chin in the air, as usual. There's plenty of stupid action and dated nineties almost-CGI special effects for ninety minutes. And Jonathan Banks is always good as a villain. On the other hand, Amanda Plummer, as a foul-mouthed nun, will make you want to punch your television screen. This is one of those theatrical films that seems like a made-for-cable movie, and for that, it's not too shabby. That is, if you dig that kinda thing.

MAC AND ME

title: MAC AND ME

year: 1988

cast: Christine Ebersole

rating: **

If product placement was a crime, MAC AND ME would be behind bars. If not for promoting McDonalds and Coca Cola to no end then for ripping off the storyline of E.T. - a space alien getting lost in the suburbs thus befriending a little boy and being pursued by government agents. But somehow, this movie isn't terrible. There is some corny magic that works like only corny magic can. And some classic horribleness that's become camp legacy: like a scene where people are break dancing in McDonalds. Even the Alien's name is a commercial. Mac. Big Mac. Get it? And when they aren't talking about McDonalds, or when they aren't INSIDE McDonalds, one of the characters is an employee and wears her McDonalds shirt with the golden arches ALWAYS VISIBLE. If you like bad movies like me, this is worth a viewing. One thing WILL surprise you: the acting ISN'T THAT horrible. 1930's-era throwback-blonde Christine Ebersole in particular.

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD

year: 1951
cast: James Arness
director: Christian Nyby
rating: *1/2

The John Carpenter version has a relatively small number of men trapped in an Arctic outpost, and you get to know them all by name, personality, share their claustrophobic frenzy and follow their fates accordingly. In this movie there's two main characters, a woman who is totally misplaced, and about a dozen nameless men who walk from room to room talking about a spaceship. John Carpenter told the story in a far better fashion... where you can at least follow each character through the nightmare as opposed to watching a dated stage play with too many characters parading before a stagnate camera. And the famous line, "Watch The Skies," is uttered by a lanky scientist. Which makes sense since there's nothing to see on the ground.

THE FURY

year: 1978

cast: Amy Irving, Kirk Douglas, Andrew Stevens, Daryl Hannah, Fiona Lewis, John Cassavetes

director: Brian DePalma

rating: **1/2

This is a bad movie, but oh how it delivers. Not quite sure what it wants to be, it aspires for action/adventure, a little horror, psychological drama, and of course tons of Hitchcockesque suspense. One story centers on Kirk Douglas who is supposedly killed by terrorists in front of his son, played by Andrew Stevens, a psychic boy-wonder under the care of evil John Cassavetes, wants to use his "powers" for the military, or something. And Douglas has to avoid the evil agents and try finding his son again. The initial action scenes involving Douglas are well-done. But the real star is Amy Irving as a young high school girl with even more psychic powers than Stevens, and she ends up at a home for "gifted children" (where she has visions of him). There are way too many cooks here, but not an entirely awful aftertaste. You will be entertained.

END OF THE WORLD

aka: Apocalypse Terre
large earth disruption year: 1977

cast: Sue Lyon, Kirk Scott, Kathe Cunha

seismograph reading: ***1/2

Christopher Lee as a cloned priest who's really a bug-eyed alien. He lives in a monastery with cloned nuns and are planning the end of the world. A scientist (Kirk Scott, the buried lead) discovers something is off in his read-outs, which says Large Earth Disruption, and takes his pretty dingbat blond wife Sue Lyon out to investigate the monastery where the mysterious data originates. This is a sci-fi road movie that's dull, and yet is not too bad; that is, it's fun to relax and enjoy the nothingness of it all. And it's a helluva step-up from Sue Lyon's other seventies sci-fi MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD. This film is a time-waster when you have nothing to waste but time, and the ending is very predictable, especially if you keep the title in mind.

MURDER IN A BLUE WORLD

alt title: CLOCKWORK TERROR
cast: Sue Lyon, Christopher Mitchum

year: 1973 rating: *1/2

Beware of this film that considers itself an Italian A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, ironically starring Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA, Sue Lyon, as a nurse set in the future where young people drink a blue liquid and go on killing sprees. The film itself mentions A CLOCKWORK ORANGE on a TV show, which is supposed to make it seem as if the violent society of the film itself is so into the controversial cult phenomenon that they're imitating it. A weak yet creative enough ploy to make it seem as if it's not a blatant ripoff. It's bad. Bad, bad, bad, and then some. Also known as TO LOVE, PERHAPS TO DIE, check out END OF THE WORLD for a decent if far more original Sue Lyon futuristic-exploitation flick. 

HAN SOLO AT STAR'S END (BOOK)

title: HAN SOLO AT STAR'S END

year: 1979

author: Brian Daley

rating: ***1/2

THIS REVIEW HAS MOVED TO THE NEW CULT FILM FREAK

MY SCIENCE PROJECT

year: 1985
rating: **

Hippie-burnout Dennis Hopper plays a hippie-burnout but as an ex-political science teacher who is about to flunk a slacker student played by John Stockwell, who'd rather fix cars in auto shop than to create a science project. Stockwell joins a nerdy girl and his confident Italian buddy Fisher Stevens and they find a contraption in a shut-down army barracks: that just happens to be created by aliens and dumped by the military in the fifties. With the devise they head back home and, because of it, Stockwell's car breaks down and so does the movie: becoming a cold-war science-fiction yawner that makes little to no sense, and involves time travel that, in most cases, is an intriguing concept... but not here. The only place I wanted to travel back too is the first twenty minutes as the film was being set up: that was at least entertaining.

THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI

title: THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI: ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION
year: 1984
cast: Peter Weller, John Lithgow
rating: ***

Some movies are so bad they're good. Others are so strange they're interesting. This is the latter. So much happens, and with such originality and outrageousness, that's it's tough not to at least enjoy Buckaroo. It centers on a doctor in the future who has found a way of travelling through a mountain, thus entering the 8th dimension. Aliens find out about this and want him to save their race; other aliens find out and want to kill him. Buckaroo's band (literally a music group) consisting of strangely dressed men playing really bad music, have to save the day... while escaping the bad guys. The music is so bad it's funny, but most of Banzai centers on action and it's done quite well. It won't bore you. But alas, at a certain point, villain John Lithgow chews so much scenery there's hardly anything left for the rest of the eclectic cast.

THE CLONES

year: 1972

cast: Michael Greene, Michael Greene, Otis Young, Gregory Sierra

rating: **1/2

Who knew there was a genre called "Psychedelic Action". There isn't, technically, but this 1972 science/fiction chase film can be described no other way. The camera angles and music alone give it the "psychedelic" tag; and there is plenty of action. The entire film, in fact, is one long chase involving a scientist who's been cloned... or is he a clone who thinks he's the scientist. Michael Greene stars and plays duo-roles. Greene is best known as Albert Brooks' boss in "Lost In America". He played Robert Downey's uncle in "Less Than Zero" and a biker who beats up Woody Allen in "Play It Again Sam". He's tall, kind of storky looking, a unique character actor... and this is his only starring role. Gregory Sierra (who played the Puerto Rican goat-owning next door neighbor in "Sanford and Son") and Otis Young (Nicholson's buddy in "The Last Detail") play F.B.I. agents on Greene's tail. And what more can I say... if you like trippy camera angles, weird music, and a two hour chase scene, this is your cup.

METEOR

title: METEOR
year: 1979
cast: Sean Connery, Brian Keith, Natalie Wood, Martin Landau
rating: *

This shows us how a meteor could destroy the earth... kind of. Almost every scene takes place in a stuffy underground technical room. While latter-films "Armagedden" and "Deep Impact" had astronauts blasting off to blow things up, all the actors here stand around and talk about it. A scene involving Russian and American missles flying side-by-side to attack the meteor is one of the unintenionally funniest scenes in history. Otherwise worthwhile actors like Connery, Brian Keith (as a humble Russian Czar... kind of a Soviet Teddy Rosevelt), Natalie Wood (as Connery's sorta love interest), and Karl Malden overact to the hilt... especially Martin Landau as an evil American General (aren't all American Generals evil in Hollywood films?). If you like horrendous big-budget disasters, this is just what the doctor ordered.

ZARDOZ

title: ZARDOZ

year: 1974

cast: Sean Connery

director: John Boorman

rating: *

If you want to see Sean Connery wearing nothing but red bikini underwear and long boots, and grunting his dialog, this is your cup. The movie is set in the future that resembles the middle ages. Centers on a gruff gladiator "outlander" who kills for his god, "Zardoz". He then hitches a ride on the giant statue head that flies around, which is worshipped by the "outlanders" and whose name is... you got it, Zardoz. During the flight he unintentionally kills the wizard who mans the flying-head, and then he lands in a place where beautiful women and sterile men (also beautiful) live in a big white castle. It's here Connery becomes an imprisoned banal stud in a world of ruling-class intellectual softies. This is a John Boorman film, and a bad one at that. Bill McKinney raping Ned Beatty in "Deliverance" - Boorman's only masterpiece - was less uncomfortable than watching this embarressing travesty. One wonders why it was even made, or why Connery agreed to it. It's supposed to have a deep message about religion and its followers, but the only message I got was that Connery would do anything for a buck.