Now, pretty much everyone here at L”M”N have heard me udder the words “this is the worst “movie” I have EVER seen.” This usually happens on a weekly basis. But, when I do, I am instantly reminded (with a stinging sensation in my eyes and in my heart) of that first “worst “movie” i’ve ever seen.” I am reminded of the multiple death by dialogue scenes, how we lost doug (one of our very own L”M”N audience members) to sheer boredom coupled with the shock of scuba diving midgets in toilet bowels, and the complete fear I felt when I heard and saw two main characters being welded together. I can’t help but think of the pure disappointment cast upon us all when the main character “Jose” goes walking lonely and broke in the streets while somewhat minor characters whiz by in their green-screened cars and pickle more minor characters hands in jars instead of buying one rotten orange from a poor immigrant. I think, what could be worse than watching this entire movie and the writers spit on you by encouraging the audience to through all of your earnings (except for the weight of a wet perverse dwarf in cash) into the river just so you can spend the rest of your life with some skanky teenage girlfriend with two cigarettes in her mouth and some little girl who thinks your her father; then, i just look up and see Dane Cook humping a couch only to be stopped by two monks swimming in pudding.

Hard Cash is one the best “worst-”movies”" we’ve watched to date. That is officially why we hand out a “Hard Cash” every season to that one “movie” that says “it’s ok be lousy.”

Go ahead and scoff. But how else is a giant teddy bear supposed to make a living after starring in The Avengers?

Death Wish is a Philly Cheese Steak, or better yet, a trompe-l’œil Play-doh sculpture of a Philly Cheese Steak. The rainbow-color sandwich is then pressed violently in a rusty Belgian waffle-maker.

Organizing principle may be needed for this synopsis, but this movie in it’s pure essence has evaded synopsis. We’re tired, we’re salty-mouthed, the old man postures stay rigid. I’m intrigued by the character of Telly, who was, I believe Jamaican-Me-Crazy guy with Akira Toriyama anatomy and a halvesy? How do you discern a criminal? Does he land flat-footed and run backwards, head-spindling like Michael J. Fox? Criminal. Does he snort Morton’s rock salt for a blinding and violent high? Criminal. Is Alex Winter the Brat Packs gall-bladder? Yes. St. Elmo’s fire next week.

Charles Bronson, the fighter of crime, with ‘Nam pitfall tactics a few notches higher than Ke Hu Quan from The Goonies.
Charles begins his rampage after being accosted in city prison by a young thug whose identity is found in an unfortunate encounter with red magic-marker and a Bic. I believe his name was actually Slick Shoes, or Director’s Son. Perhaps he is a fading sunset, or your dad’s old shoe polish. In a different world, I would have loved this man like a brother.

Wanted Horses? The legitimate question is: when were horses last exploited in such a horrific fashion? The Godfather.

Let me pare it down a bit.
Bad cinema evades the classification of parody. Death Wish 3 winks at the action-movie audience of the 80’s, skeptically. The movie in the end is the product of skepticism and ignorance, of not respecting the audience. It is not wrong to make an action movie for it’s own sake, but Death Wish relies not even on a tried formula: It is effective only in it’s disregard for all things good. The movie is as awkward and foolish as a child trying to mask the smell of pot when his parents come home early unannounced. The untrained viewer may believe the movie a product of a drug-addled creative forum, but I propose that the movie is the result of the frantic, uncouth lusts of mankind for immediate money, and the urgency of finishing a large endeavor that should never have been pursued in the beginning.

I give Death Wish 3 FIVE playdoh-fun-factories.

Point Break has something to do with an FBI agent going undercover in a gang of surfers who have been implicated in a string of bank robberies. The robberies are perpetrated by “the Ex-Presidents,” men in rubber masks resembling Reagan, Nixon, LBJ, and Billy Carter’s brother. The FBI agent in question is rookie (or just naive) agent Keanu “do you want to hang off my rock” Reeves, ably assisted by Gary Busey in the Obligatory Crass Grizzled Cop role. As if the obvious cliche is not enough, Busey constantly froths bad similes like, “[then] disappear like a virgin at prom night.” Just so you remember that he’s crass and grizzled.

At some point the surfing gang evolves into a skydiving gang, apparently pointing the way toward the next step of human evolution. The surfers apparently make their jump from a high enough altitude to freefall uninterrupted for some five to ten minutes, placing them somewhere in the neighborhood of the moon upon their initial jump. Of course, these sequences open the way for the climactic struggle, which was, shall we say, “inspired” by a similar sequence in Moonraker.

There is also a freakish naked meth-head knifefighting sequence, an androgynous love interest–androgynously named Tyler, no less–and very bad day-for-night photography. And Australia, it turns out, bears a striking resemblance to coastal Washington.

I’ll stop there. Like I said, it’s easy to beat up on a movie like this.

So, in order to end this on a positive note, I want to point out the one decent thing you can take away from Point Break–it offers an infinitely better version of Jimmy Carter than real life. The real Jimmy Carter is now a wrinkly peacenik, like Gandhi crossed with a sharpei. Point Break offers us a Jimmy with just as rubbery a face, but now in full shotgun-wielding, bank-jacking mode. And, after recovering from the initial experience of watching the movie, I also realized that this film works pretty well as a fantasy of what the Cold War might have been like had it not been, well, cold. And guess what–just like we always knew, Ronald Reagan kicks butt.

It’s a well known law of the universe that a movie will be at least three degrees of awesomeness below its book origins. Few movies escape this law.

A slightly less well known rule mandates that two awesome source materials when mated in the mind of the less than adept will give birth to an inbred retard. So, with these two rules firmly in our minds we can understand why Eragon is a Now Famous Lousy Movie Night gem. I won’t list why Eragon works so well as a NFLMN movie. That would take far too long and, like most genius flicks, it’s better experienced than explained. Suffice it to say about the only thing Eragon gets right is teen angst. But this isn’t a compliment nor very amazing since the author was, in fact, a 15 year old.

One would hope that a book of questionable worth would be redeemed in the hands of a competent, insightful director and that hope wouldn’t seem misplaced. But it appears no expense was spared to find a director as ‘qualified’ as the author. His skill can be summed up in this quote from the movie’s director commentary, “The sequence was very, um….sequential.” A critic, after watching Eragon observed, “The book was written by a 15 year old and the movie directed by a 12 year old.” If only the director had been 12 he might be viewed more kindly.

But not all was lost in the making of Eragon. No, in fact the movie is so perfectly bad that it stands atop the putrid heights of NFLMN season 1 cinema rottenness, having claimed the ‘lousiest picture award’, and has become a beacon of hope to all who would entertain the critics of NFLMN. On it’s blistered brow reek the pustules of ‘rapid-growth flight sequence’, ‘giant blue pill’, ‘misguided teen angst’, and ‘Jeremy Irons, why are you doing this to your career’. NFLMN exists for movies such as this and Eragon’s sequel cannot be made too quickly.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, ‘Eragon’ is ‘Dragon’ just fraked up.

I’ll be announcing the winners betwixt Hackers and the Octagon (Chuck Norris) this Friday as well. Don’t want to miss.

You can only ever ask yourself “Why?” in this film. Don’t expect answers. EVAH. For instance: Why did the aliens take over? Why do the aliens wear dreads? Why do they walk so slow and have terrible aim and still be able take over planets? WHY IS EVERY FREAKING SHOT IN THE MOVIE AT AN ANGLE!!! Why Barry Pepper for crying-out-loud? Why is the Declaration of Independence in Denver AND in perfect condition after 1000 years of decay? Why does the power still work in remote locations? Where is it coming from? Come on!!

The “Big Question” that this refuse of a film chooses to ignore is this: WHY DID THEY TEACH MAN-ANIMALS TO FLY? This is the legendary question that BF poses to us all. Let me set up the scene for the year 3000. Man is completely and utterly beaten. They live only in the hills and have the intelligence of… well, the creators of Battlefield Earth. Fitting huh? Man is captured and forced to work long hours moving rocks or something. Their captors have superior intelligence, far greater technology and weaponry (think of the US Military vs. the Midianites), and greater numbers. There is no hope for man. But they didn’t count on one thing: John Travolta. Why, why, why, did John Travolta give Barry Pepper an education? What was his freaking motivation? He gave him the ability to problem solve, use advanced logic, and gain “leverage” by having a big enough IQ to blackmail, …read…, and “Destruction of the Alien Race” Event Plan. Another retarded thing is that Pepper taught his friends the Pythagorean Theorem after a freaking week of receiving any sort of an education for the first time!!!! And after that Travolta took them on a weekend getaway and taught man animals to fly planes and gave them motivation for destroying the aliens by telling them the sad story of humanity’s history. Why did you do that, John Travolta? Why? Give them intelligence, motivation, and means to kick your butt. GRRR. Gosh, I’m clinching my teeth right now. Needless to say that the humans do prevail in the most retarded fight scene of all-time that included the dismantling of Glass Denver and the death of all the aliens everywhere for all time. And all in about five minutes.

There’s much more steam that I can let out, like “50 reasons not to use the word leverage,” John Travolta himself, the nose pins, the fact that you want to beat Forrest Whitaker’s character with a large rock, and the exploding necklaces, but I’m about to throw up as it is.

I think we are reaping the many sins this nation has committed whenever some descent human being unknowingly watches this movie for the first time. I feel like I need to sit outside in sackcloth in a pile of ash and beg for mercy for days on end. Battlefield Earth is like sackcloth in a way: it chafes your soul.

Battlefield Earth: 5/5