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[Mighty Midget]

Here I'll present/recommend (?) movies I have seen with my short comments on them. If you have seen any of these, feel free to give us your view of that movie (in fact, that actually is part of the idea here, the other part being trying to write this sort of texts).
Also, if you have seen a movie you want to tell us about, why not post your review for others to read.

FOUR rules:
NO XXX movies
NO spoilers
We are all entitled to our views, so NO "you must be a stupid git to like that one", please
If you include a pic, make sure it's clean, that is: No adult stuff or unnecessary gore. You know, the usual rules Keep it family friendly. Thanks

Ok, here goes my first movies

Bad Taste

(Splatter/Horror/Comedy/Cult, Peter Jackson, NZ, 1987, colour WARNING: Shows extreme graphic violence, and LOTS of it.)
Aliens have landed... in a quiet, backwater town named Kaihoro (if you're into the language of the Maori, see if you can spot the pun here). I said the town was quiet, right? Quiet, as in totally dead, actually and litteraly. The aliens' fiendish mission: To turn human flesh into the new intergalactic fast food taste sensation. Only "The Boys" from AIDS (Astro-Investigation and Defense Service) can stand a chance against them! Things are further complicated when a money collector comes to town and by the fact that our Boys are clearly out of their minds. The plot is, as you can see, not the major component here, but boy is this flick a rollercoaster of glorious, sick humour.

Personal opinion: One of the best party movies ever made, demented, sick, twisted and shedloads of insane, hilarious fun. Higly recommended if you can enjoy over-the-top gore for the sake of comedy!


Barbarella

(Sci-Fi/Cult, Roger Vadim, USA, 1968, colour)
Barbarella (Jane Fonda) travels through space and into our hearts in this flick, a highlight in the history of kitsh and camp. Soon she finds herself on a rescue mission, and she will have to apply all her female charm (quite innocent) to succeed. She will also find herself in a lot of situations where she has to dress gorgeously suggestive and silly.

Personal opinion: A great movie, if not for the plot and all that, then at least for the lava lamps and all the cheapo special effects of the late 60's, and let's face it, we just love Barbarella, don't we?


Battleship Potemkin

(Historical drama, Sergei M. Eisenstein, USSR, 1925, b/w)
Based on the historical events the movie tells the story of a riot at the battleship Potemkin. What started as a protest strike when the crew was given rotten meat for dinner ended in a riot. The sailors raised the red flag and tried to ignite the revolution in their home port Odessa. (excerpts from IMDB)
One of the most important films ever made. Eisenstein abandoned the idea of "one shot movies" made in the earlier decades, and used "modern" editing to enhance the storytelling. It also contains one of the most iconic scenes in movie history: The pram down the stairs (you have seen that before, but this is THE scene)

Personal opinion: Actually it has been years sinse I saw it, and I was tipsy at the time, but I do recommend it for the quantum leap Eisenstein made in editorial techniques.


Braindead aka Dead Alive

(Splatter/Comedy, Peter Jackson, NZ, 1992, colour. WARNING: Contains a huge amount blood and gore)
When Lionel's very dominating mom is bitten by the Sumatran Monkey Rat, she turns into a rather irrate zombie and soon her "illness" is transfered to a huge crowd. What will mommy's boy do now? Yep, that's pretty much it. Add a love story, absolutely mindshattering humour and tons and tons of blood and gore, and you're bang on. In this movie, P.J. takes the splatter concept from Bad Taste and pushes it deeper into the land of comedy, leaving the horror bit behind.

Personal opinion: Another must-see party movie, again IF you can stand the gore. Top shelf and all the medals to this one!


It Conquered The World

(Sci-fi/Cult, Roger Corman, USA, 1956, b/w)
Another cult movie from the 50's. Again the aliens are bent on dominating Earth. This movie follows in the tradtitions of many sci-fi monster movies of the 50's: Our fear of what horrors technology might bring down on us, and what will happen when we lose our emotions to rationalism. This movie also touch on the theme "fear of space exploration and what will happen if we make contact with extraterrestrial life. Will they be friendly, or...?" (Hey, this is the 50's, remember? We haven't even been to the moon yet). A satelite is launched, despite the intense warning of a scientist loner. He says that aliens are watching us, and that they do not want us out in space. Things go wrong, and pretty soon the alien (yep, only one) is here to subdue all humanity. Luckily, we have our hero to save the day! He must now battle, not only the alien, but also the ones under it's influence. It is a great battle with great losses, or sort of, if the characters allowed us to feel with them. But that would be a serious breach of traditions, so never mind. The pace and story is good (for its genre), the acting is semi-decent, just don't expect much depth here. In fact, if you have seen a few 50's monster movies, you know what the premisses are: Cartoonish, simple, two-dimensional story and characters, and this movie delivers that and ends up among the better ones.

My opinion: This movie is a rather well made one, except for the alien: It looks ridiculous (a fact that makes the movie even better IMHO), just like a cute, silly alien monster of the 50's should look like. It looks like a cactus with a stupid grin, huge fangs and latex crab claws. In fact, I think this is one of the most well known obscure monsters of that era. Add a pretty coherent storytelling, not very bad acting, and you have yourself a nice sci-fi movie of the 50's. Enjoy!

M

(Noir/Crime, Fritz Lang, GER, 1931, b/w)
A child killer haunts Berlin and the coppers are turning every stone to capture him. The underwold guilds are far from happy with all the attention from the police the killer gives them, so they decide to find him themselves.

Personal opinion: My all time favourite movie. An extremly well told story, chilling and with a great deal of suspension. And the ending is truely a climax. See this movie ASAP!


Night Of The Living Dead

(Horror, George A. Romero, USA, 1968, b/w)
Not much needs to be said about this famous "undead" movie. Two siblings visit a graveyard but are soon attacked by a man who just doesn't look right. They seek shelter in a house, but find they are not alone. Note that the "things" here are never actually called "zombies", but rather "ghouls". An interesting (?) bit of trivia. The connection to voodoo and zombies is never made. They are just "something".

Personal opinion: One of the greatest horror movies ever made. The feeling of gloom and doom is so strong you would probably want to seek out some sunshine after this one. Also, it has one of the best endings I have ever watched: It perfectly nails the feeling of doom established throughout the movie.


Plan 9 From Outer Space

(Sci-fi/Horror/Cult, Edward D. Wood Jr., USA, 1959, b/w)
An infamous blunder of a movie, and a runner up to the title for the worst movie ever. Invaders from space have come to Earth to destroy the humans (once again). There are reasons to believe their previous 8 attempts failed, and that they are now running low of bright ideas. Enter plan 9: "To paralyze the living and to resurrect the dead". The idea is never thorougly explained, but I guess superintelligent plans are not meant to be understood by mere humans. Anyway, here we can see it all: Day change into night and back again rather sudden and inexplainable, dead actors who's stock footage is being used mixed with footage of the same character played by a guy 2 heads taller than the deady, props being used again and again in different sceneries, and monologues and dialogues so defiiant of any rhyme or reason they leave you with the questions: Am I going insane? I think I understood that bit, should I worry?. The pace is good enough, and there are not many dull moments here, as long as you know how to appreciate bloopers and unintentional comedy.

Personal opinion: Although not as terrible as Robot Monster, it is light years away from anything commonly viewed upon as "well concieved and executed". In this lays it's glory and it is this cinematic mayhem that makes this flick the precious gem it is to many, myself included.


Robot Monster

(Sci-fi/Cult, Phil Tucker, USA, 1953, b/w)
This is the infamous Robot Monster, multiple winner of the Golden Turkey Award as the worst movie in history. And let's be brutally frank here: This movie fails on every level except for the hilariousness of its failure. Ro-Man, a monster (a divinghelmet, a TV aerial and a gorilla suit) from another planet is in charge of wiping out us Hu-Mans. He has done fairly well, and there are now only about 8 left on the entire planet.
Problem is, his soap-bubble-blowing machine is not as effective as he hopes against these resourceful 8-or-thereabouts. The worst monster ever concieved, atrocious acting, random clips of giant lizards and a pace matching that of a dead clam ensures this to be considered one of the absolute worst movies in the history of Hu-Mans for a looong time to come.

Personal opinion: This one is a bit odd (to say the least). The lack of pace is killing me, but the monster, the braindead and soulless acting and the soap-bubble-blowing machine are so out of this world it actually becomes enjoyable to watch.


Snow Creature, The

(Drama/Suspense, W. Lee Wilder, USA, 1954, b/w)
An American botanist comes across the fabled Yeti in the Himalayas, and brings it home to the good ol' US. Soon it escapes and goes on a rampage in the big city.

Personal opinion: I have a hard time labeling this movie. My first choise of genre would be "walking". Afterall, that's pretty much all that happens in this movie. Beside, the yeti is just terrible. Not frightening or silly, just terrible. If Robot Monster's pace is none, then the Snow Creature's pace is backwards in time. Only watch if you must see every 50's monster put on film.


Terror Of Tiny Town

(Western, Sam Newfield, USA, 1938, b/w)
An all midget western! How about that! Ok, so it's not very politically correct, but why not an all midget western? Two herd owning families are at non-speaking terms because ot the Villain. The Hero is the son in one family, the heroine the niece in the other family. Sounds familiar? There is a lot of comedy here, intentional or not, and if you like "The Singing Cowboy" movies, there should be sometjhing for you here. Also: It is fairly simple to spot the heroes and villains here: The Hero has the hair neatly combed and is constantly smiling, wears an all white amusement park cowboy outfit and rides a white pony, while the Villain looks like one, vile, face twisted with tiny evilness, he's all dressed in black and rides a black pony. No math here, really.

Personal opinion: A rather good movie I must say, despite the premisses. Problem is, I can't tell whether this movie is just wrong, a good western, a good, silly comedy, awfully cute or all at once. Probably all at once.


Trollenberg Terror aka The Crawling Eye

(Sci-fi/Horror, Quentin Lawrence, UK 1958, b/w)
3 mountain climbers climbing the Trollenberg mountain, somewhere in Germany, are suddenly reduced to 2 mountain climbers, as the 3rd one encounters "something" in a sudden appearing cloud. Turns out he wasn't the first one, and soon a mixed party of psychics, professors and newsreporters set out to investigate.

Personal opinion: This one is actually pretty good for its genre. A nice, ghostly, spooky feel and an "above average" storytelling and a nice dose of crap stop-motion and fun monsters make this one of my personal favourites.

[_r.u.s.s.]

i think this would be kiknda good "community review" of old movies

[Japo]

Yes this should be over there at the Community Reviews forum k:

[Mighty Midget]

Sounds good to me I'll move it over there then, shall I?

*DONE*

[Eva02Soul]

Ah, dead alive.


"I Kick behind for the lord!"

[chumloofah]

Good grief... Barbarella?
That's got to be worth two X's anyway, right?
The bad guy does try to kill her with a XXX machine, but she's too sexy for it.

[Mighty Midget]

LOL true, he does, but the movie is harmless enough, no skin or anything. It is true though, that the movie does play on Fonda as being feminine

EDIT: Included Plan 9 From Outer Space.

2nd EDIT: It Conquered The World

[Blood-Pigggy]

These movies are all terrible, even the good ones.

[_r.u.s.s.]

lоl, ignorant. i wouldnt expect it from somebody who is on abandonware scene

[Sebatianos]

But if you put up Plan 9 From Outer Space I think you should really comment on Ed Wood (hopefully you've seen it, if not ).