michapringle Reviews

MacGyver: The Widowmaker (1987) Season 3, Episode 8

The opening of this episode features some rock climbing

[21 November 2013]

Do not attempt to use any of the techniques used in this episode for climbing.

The belay technique is unsafe (she should be running her the rope through her anchor), MacGyver is off belay and not safe after he completes his climb. His technique is depressingly awful, but it isn't a safety issue.

The climb featured in the shot can be found at the Smoke Bluffs, in Squamish BC.

I have not watched the rest of the episode, so I won't comment on the rest of it, which I am sure will be on par with the rest of the episodes in season 3.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

A new contender for worst movie ever

[1/10 · 8 June 2008]

This review is not concerned with the plot or details of this film, rather the aim is to explain why it is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. If you're looking for plot details, skip this review.

I am a fan of films; I've seen the AFI top 100, and the IMDb top 125 to name a few. I've watched numerous forgettable films. As a result of my film watching experience, I've determined some criteria for what makes a film truly awful. I am most displeased to announce this movie meets all criteria with resounding success, and may in fact have displaced Ironheart as the worst movie ever.

1. A terrible film should start off with some promise (to raise your expectations against your will), and then quickly and progressively get worse. This film does this wonderfully. As I recall, the first 2 minutes are the best scenes of the film, and look like the movie will score a solid 4 or 5 out of 10. Shortly thereafter, absolute drivel is introduced, and the plot and script spiral into ineptitude with absolute finesse.

2. All the actors are relatively talentless, and of the same caliber. This is necessary, to avoid an actors performance standing out, as good or bad. A good or bad performance can give the viewer a focus for the intense dislike of the film. I'm proud to say, I can't remember anything of the acting at all, except for the first 2 minutes, in which Santa Claus gives a reasonable mediocre performance from his workshop.

3. Most miserable movies tend to fail by accidentally including some scene that results in laughter. Those that do it too much can become enjoyable cult classics, such as Barbarella, or The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This film sadistically and unfailingly pounds the viewer with scene after scene of insipid drivel.

4. An awful film should have an inconsistent plot for the obvious reason that it makes it difficult to follow what's going on. I think the film had a relatively consistent plot, and stuck to it. However, it succeeded here on a new level beyond my wildest imagining. It's clear from the first moment this film starts that it's intended audience is children, or soon to be dysfunctional families. Typical with such films, there is a moral message, and this movie is no exception. I'm delighted to discover I've managed to burn it out of my brain, but I'm sure it was along the lines of be nice and get along, share stuff and don't kidnap people. The point is, as I'm watching this insipid driveling film, minute after minute, I am forced to think of these young kids watching this film, and unwittingly having their innocent minds twisted by this mess. By sticking to the plot, the makers of this film forced me to continue my nightmare visions of mental torture of children. In this film, sticking to the plot made it worse, and thus a more successfully bad movie.

5. The most important criteria from any film, good or bad, is to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. Boredom doesn't count. What I look for in a miserable film are feelings of anger, sadness, or revenge. As with Ironheart, it was a struggle to continue watching this movie. I was angry with the producers of this film, and everyone else involved in the project, including those responsible for it's digitization, so that it's evil could continue to spread. As with Ironheart, I wanted to destroy this film before it was complete. I was deeply saddened by the loss of 90 minutes of my life spent on this drivel. Finally, I wanted to get revenge on everyone involved in the project by subjecting them to repeated watchings of this movie. What surprised and impressed me most about this film, is that I wanted to destroy it much earlier into the film than I did with Ironheart. I think it was about 45 minutes for this one, and about 60 for Ironheart.

6. It should go without saying, but a terrible movie should have no redeeming features at all. Clearly this movie fails in that regard, since it eventually ends. However, the makers save the best for last; a horrible song, with words that appear on the screen so the kids can sing along. I'll never be able to forget "Hooray for Santy Claus." Yes, Santy Claus. Ugh...

This movie easily scores 0 out of 10, a tie with only one other film - Ironheart. I strongly recommend that no experienced, thinking individual watch it.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Not as bad as I hoped...

[1/10 · 7 November 2007]

'Manos' The Hands of Fate is highly regarded by many as one of the worst, if not the worst movie ever made. As a fan of terrible movies, I bought a DVD of the original version, however I was disappointed with the high quality of this movie.

Why isn't this the worst movie ever? It makes a few classic mistakes: Firstly, it's obvious from the start that this movie is utter tripe; an excellent terrible movie will start out with great promise, and dig a bottomless pit. Secondly, one actor in the film is reasonably good; an excellent terrible movie will be sure to select untalented individuals of the same caliber. Thirdly, some scenes are so terrible they are funny; an excellent terrible movie has no funny scenes, and should lead to feelings of resentment, and anger. Finally, the plot (stranded family spends the night with a cult group) is somewhat consistent; an excellent terrible movie will have no plot, forget it's plot, or jump incongruously from scene to scene. In all fairness, Manos has a number of irrelevant scenes, but the main plot is consistently maintained.

Some general shortcomings of this movie: It suffers from extremely poor editing, some of the worst I've seen; Most of the movie is boring; It is not scary, this is supposed to be a horror film; The acting is poor, with the exception of Tom Neyman, who was decent; The music is repetitious.

I'm afraid that I can do no better than lump this movie in the worst top 5 I've seen, which still earns it a solid 1 / 10.

Movies that I consider worse than this: Ironheart (the only movie that makes me furious for wasting time watching it; overall worst movie); Glen or Glenda (excruciatingly boring; worst plot); Delta Force Commando (by far the worst acting, worst special effects); Starship (excruciatingly boring)

Superman Returns (2006)

Mediocrity at its worst

[5/10 · 4 July 2006]

Having a few movies under my belt has caused me to review my opinion of films over time. Films that I once thought were great have become junk and vice versa. I have discovered at least one consistency in years of movie watching - some movies are so bad, they are laughably good, i.e. Battlefield Earth, and other movies are excellent, i.e. M. Unfortunately, this leaves a gap for the movies that are neither good nor bad, and Superman is mediocrity at its worst.

On a positive note, the special effects are excellent, and the dialog is a bit better than I expected.

On the downside, the script itself is weak and uncompeling. The superman character is extraordinarily boring - a reactive, goody two-shoes with hero maxims so predictable, he may as well have a wind-up string coming out of his back. Lois Lane is her feisty self, which makes a nice contrast to Snoozerman. Her partner is a yawn.

--SPOILER-- Lex Luther, is an engaging and entertaining character (relative to all the other characters) but for all his brains, comes up with the most extraordinarily stupid plan. One wonders exactly what kind of ridiculous qualification(s) Jor-El must have told him about the use of crystals to come up with such a dimwitted plan. Why, I wonder, would he destroy almost all of North America, killing billions of people (there must be some effect on the Asian continent as well) when the plan is to sell plots of land? Who is alive to buy the property? Who wants to buy property from this monster?

In the end, these sorts of questions aren't worth contemplation. What is worth contemplating is how so little can happen in such a long time frame. I left the theater asking myself, where are those 150 minutes of my life now?

Glen or Glenda (1953)

Ed Wood really is a crummy director

[21 September 2003]

Apparently Ed Wood was voted worst director of all time by movie critics. He's pretty awful. This movie was miserably bad, although I was able to laugh between long periods of boredom thanks to Ed Wood's ineptitude.

His use of stock footage is appalling! As I recall, there are about 10 minutes of film that are actually directed by Wood, the rest is stock footage. The only reason to watch this movie is to enjoy it's lousiness. If you like to watch bad movies, then this is one for you.

1/10

New Nightmare (1994)

The best since the first A Nightmare on Elm Street

[16 September 2003]

I decided to spend a week and watch the whole Nightmare series, minus the first movie which I have seen twice.

I agree with comments from others that Freddy becomes a comedian rather than an evil man to be feared as the sequels progress. There is a shift in Freddy's persona at the 4th movie.

This movie attempts to make Freddy scary again. For myself, I wouldn't say the movie succeeded, but compared to the sequels (2..6), this movie is brilliant. I quite enjoyed the movie until near the end, at which point I felt Freddy's behaviour was disappointingly clownish.

I would recommend this movie, especially if you are a fan of the Elm Street series.

Bottom line: 6/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989)

Garbage

[14 September 2003]

I watched the first Nightmare on Elm Street when it came out and it scared the crud out of me. 15 Years later it wasn't the same experience. Recently, I have been watching the sequels to A Nightmare on Elm street. The sequels are terrible. Out of all the sequels up to the 6th, only the 3rd is watchable.

This movie was particularily lousy. I agree with comments from others who have summarized this movie - Freddy has been turned into a wisecracking nitwit. These movies are a waste of time. I hear the 7th one is decent.

Bulletproof Monk (2003)

Mediocrity strikes again

[16 April 2003]

Chow Yun Fat sure has done some good movies, but this isn't one of them. Bulletproof Monk is a quintessential formula action flick with cardboard characters and a somewhat lousy script. The movie has some redeeming qualities; parts of it are funny and the action scenes do look pretty nifty too.

Problem is, it's just tiresome like a whole swath of mediocre action movies out there. If you've seen one tired action movie, you've seen enough. Save yourself the time on this one.

For those of you that need a bit of convincing by example, whatlevel of quality do you expect from a movie with main-ish character whose name is Mister Fucktastic?

My rating (3/10).

Ironheart (1992)

The worst movie I have ever seen.

[1/10 · 16 April 2002]

This really is the worst movie I have ever seen. For a while, I made a habit of watching lousy movies, including "Battlefield Earth", "Delta Force Commando" and "Starship". All of these movies are cinematic gems compared to Ironheart.

There isn't much point in summarizing this piece of junk; I think it's more beneficial to summarize my reaction to the movie, which is as follows: I become furiously angry and I want to rip the tape out of the VCR and burn it after (roughly) 80 minutes of play.

I rate this movie a 0, but IMDb does not let one rate a movie less than 1. I give it a 0 knowing full well that I am saying any movie that has any score above 0 is infinitely (undefinably) many times better than this one - That's really how bad it is.

Delta Force Commando (1987)

WHAT GARBAGE!!

[16 April 2002]

Save yourself. Don't watch this movie. A friend of mine wanted to rent it because he said it was laughably awful. He was right - it stinks.

This movie has the worst acting I have seen in my entire life. I still cannot figure out how some of these movies (like this one) manage to get a rating above 2.

It is in the top 5 worst movies I have ever seen, which is really saying something since I like to find and watch bad movies just for laughs.

1/10

Predator (1987)

Excellent, plain and simple

[12 April 2002]

I have seen this movie too many times to count - for one simple reason. It is the best action movie I have seen in my life (and that's a big list of action movies).

The story is pretty simple - an alien is hunting a group of commandos for pleasure and they have to fight back or die.

Everything works in this movie - the characters, the plot (although far fetched, it is believable the way it is presented), the special effects, the music, the predator, the suspense. As far as action movies go, it's brilliant.

For those of you who have not seen it and have weak stomachs, you might want to avoid it. Be prepared to see skinned-corpses, guts, bloody-fleshy skulls and detached arms.

This movie is a MUST see for action fans.

10/10 (action genre)

Commando (1985)

It was a great movie when I was 12

[12 April 2002]

When I first saw this movie on VHS years ago, it was brilliant. What else could a twelve year old ask for? A minimal plot, heaps of action and a muscle-head to take out the trash. I would have given this movie a 9 or a 10.

I last saw it about a year ago. Boy does a heap full of movies under the belt change your perspective. What a bunch of junk. Entertaining, but still junk.

This movie has huge holes, even for it's far-fetchedness. At one point Schwarzenegger robs a store in order to collect 300 pounds of weapons. Thank goodness he is able to procure a bulldozer from out of thin air to aid his quest. Later, as he is blasting away at a small army (literally), he is able to find cover from the enemy fire behind the stems of rose bushes.

Some people claim this movie doesn't take itself seriously... Well, maybe it doesn't, but as one develops a more discriminatory cinematic taste, some movies can't help but go down 4 or 5 notches the list.

Nevertheless, it's worth watching once in your lifetime.

5/10

Battlefield Earth (2000)

It's junk, but it's still classic cheese

[4/10 · 3 April 2002]

Occasionally, bad movies come out and they realize they are bad movies. To the credit of movies like this, they simply do not take themselves seriously. For example, it seemed pretty obvious that Travolta did not see his role as an alien overlord as academy award winning material. In fact, I'd say he probably couldn't stop laughing off camera. It's attitudes like this, that make potentially unbearably awful movies fun to watch once, and maybe even again 10 years down the road. This movie could become a cult classic years from now - great space cheese.