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The Raven (2006)
If you're cRAVEN something terrible...
The Raven,
By Edgar Allan Poe, by way of Ulli Lommel
---------------------------------------
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
I, not thinking, brought back The Raven from the movie store.
While I watched, I wished for napping, to save me from this horrid crapping,
As Ulli Lommel's vicious trapping made me feel like his dirty whore.
'Tis god awful,' I muttered, 'this movie I abhor-
I wish I had rented something more.'
-----
Ah, distinctly I remember, this would have offended famous Edgar,
As he clawed the lid of his coffin, deep below the graveyard floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - nothing's brought me greater sorrow,
Had I just been somewhat stronger, I'd've thrown this out the door,
Perhaps shook it off and ascended to the store,
But I stayed for Ulli's hellish tour.
-----
What this movie was about, I can't be certain,
It filled me with boredom - a boredom I'd never felt before.
An hour's time, the cast sat eating--and only talking, ain't that cheating?
With nary a reference to Mr. Poe, what was this movie made for?
If not to honor a genius, why suffer through this chore?
That it is, and nothing more.
-----
'Damn this movie's scent of farting! Damn it all!' I shrieked upstarting-
'This movie doth much offend me, I wish to hear me snore!
Does Ulli think my brain is broken, perhaps a boob who is soft-spoken,
As to not see in this 1800's sequence a very modern bedroom door?'
I pressed fast forward; the movie soared, thought of watching; held it more.
Qouth the Raven 'I'm a bore.'
-----
And The Raven, so unfitting, please leave sitting, PLEASE leave sitting,
It can't bore you if it stays unseen, sitting in the movie store.
Late at night, it haunts my dreaming, I even sometimes wake up screaming,
And shake away haunts of Ulli's movie, filled with nothing but corny gore.
Nightly I pray o'er us all, my knees tucked 'neath me on the floor,
I pray to God that no luckless soul ever lift The Raven from the movie store.
Quoth the Raven 'I'm a stain and nothing more.'
Zombie Nation (2004)
How to whip up an Ulli Lommel Special...
In order to make an Ulli Lommel Special, you will need the following ingredients:
- 10-15 "actors" picked randomly from a variety of high school and community college drama programs (preferably ones dismissed for utter lack of talent)
- 1 part German wooden lead to stumble through English dialogue
- 1 abandoned warehouse to house all sets (police station with blatantly exposed sewage pipes clearly indicating it is shot in boiler room, apartment that looks like Ikea show room, furniture store whose door remains open all times of day despite lack of presence of staff or security team)
- 1/4 gallon of white paint (will not be enough to paint walls within camera range in said warehouse)
- 1 part crew man's accidental and blatant reflection in mirror
- 1 part stolen soundtrack song from THE EXORCIST (to be repeatedly used)
- Multiple parts flashback of fat bald man getting spanked
- 1 part clone of Parker Posey
- 1 part random FIGHT CLUB-ish scene where two men fist fight and fall into strategically placed cardboard boxes while friends and family shout encouragement, only never to be mentioned again
- 2 cameras; one digital that shoots in good quality, one amateur home video camera that is glaring opposite to other camera
- 1/4 teaspoon of black make-up (apply generously; black make-up under eyes will encompass ALL zombie make-up)
- 3 parts lighting equipment to be blatantly captured in shot in every police station scene
- 1 part terribly out of place, unnoticed, non-utilized gong, placed in very fake police station
- 0 parts script supervisor
- 1 part audacity to use MARATHON MAN homage (in nonsensical way)
- 1 part random businessman that waits out in middle of woods to make business deals via cell phone, only to become fodder for zombie girls (who then steal car)
- 1 part mechanic who takes out penis behind door as zombie girls approach
- 1 part fake bloody penis
- 1 part hope that you won't realize Uli didn't bother to write out the hero who disappears halfway through the movie due to real-life hospital visit
- 0 parts logic
- 6 parts zombie girls to wear said black make-up under eyes up with no other make-up effects to be seen (except for continuity-be-damned close ups in mirrors)
- Multiple parts suspension of disbelief (cop takes offending woman to warehouse, partner waits outside, cop comes back out sans woman but with giant body-sized duffel bag, partner is not suspicious)
- 1 part completely ludicrous ending
Take all said ingredients and throw haphazardly against wall. Hope it sticks. Take generous portion, swallow with grimace as Ulli Lommel rips money from your pockets, laughs maniacally.
Raging Sharks (2005)
"Find out what it is, OK? Find out what it is, OK?"
"I think the audience will respond to the story because we're not just giving them sharks and/or aliens, but we're actually bringing together what has previously been two different and distinct genres."
- DVD Behind the Scenes
Shark movies are the cat's pajamas. Whether they're the good ones (Jaws) or the bad ones (all the rest of 'em), there's just something so rockin' about seeing the same stock footage from Discovery Channel being utilized in every single direct-to-video shark movie. Now, this time, we have a real treat: stock footage of Corbin Bernsen, looking gnarled, and ending every scene he is in with holding onto submarine innards and looking pensive.
The movie's "plot" is as this: Corin Nemec, who is basically Eric Stoltz, but far less talented, works on an underwater observational laboratory, the Oshona (Get it? Ocean?!). He shaves everything on his face except his neck. He is married to Vanessa Angel, who has seen better days. Together, they deal with Alien goo that falls from space and lands in the ocean (crashing through a ship, of course, for some neat funky explosions). The sharks near the goo become RAGING and attack people near and far, because GOD, alien goo just DOES THAT TO SHARKS. Sometimes the sharks are plastic heads, sometimes it's stock footage, but it's always brilliant, even when the stock footage shows the shark swimming just below the water line, despite the fact the action is supposed to take place several hundred feet under water.
Then, a random smarmy lawyer man shows up, and is smarmy, and gives our Eric Stoltz look-alike lead grief. Eric Stoltz dopple-ganger and Vanessa Angel look at goo together. Vanessa Angel delivers a line twice, in the same exact way, one right after the other. ("Find out what it is, OK?" X2). Eric Stoltz's hairy-necked twin calls for Matt, the scientist, who is in an unseen upstairs room, and who is also already in the process of entering the scene as he very flatly says, "Coming Mike."
Smarmy man turns out to be evil smarmy man and is then killed (sort of) by a harpoon gun, which is apparently an essential tool in an underwater sea lab. The cast is filled out with bad American actors and some bad Russian (er, Bulgarian) actors. From time to time, sharks swim around, just to let you know they're there. Whether it's computer-multiplied shark footage or hilariously fake looking wobble fins covered in shoddy carve nicks, the sharks are there in all of their brilliant and artificial glory.
There are some profound lines delivered throughout the movie, such as:
"The Bermuda Triangle--don't they know how many ships have gone down here?"
"You idiots stumbled across it and triggered a beacon that shot into outer space."
and
--"Have you tried saturating it with deuterium?"
--"Deuterium? No... Deuteriummmm......Of course!!"
During the movie, there is a shark autopsy performed. Inside the mouth of the shark sits an obvious tongue, which sharks do not in any way possess. But, then again, these RAGING sharks rewrite the big book of sharks that these filmmakers obviously failed to read.
The film ends as brilliantly as it begins. ALERT explodes on the lab's computer screens with the same authenticity of a screen saver as explosions begin for no apparent reason. Said aliens from the movie's intro beam down to the wreckage containing the goo while the Oshona sits with no power or oxygen, due to said unexplained explosions that have crippled the lab. Aliens sit there, relishing in their beam of space light, and look around, all the while set to the soothing Operatic film score that totally does not belong anywhere near this movie.
As the trapped-inside-the-Oshona-lab scientist couple take their last breath, the aliens begin glowing so bright that orange light fills the screen.
CUT TO:
The couple, in full out scuba gear, SWIMMING AWAY FROM THE OSHONA. How did that happen? You'll be on the edge of your seat, waiting for the explanation that never comes. Also swimming away is the evil smarmy man who was clearly killed with a harpoon gun earlier in the film. Despite the giant harpoon in him, and the aliens who sit idly by, and being several hundred feet under water and DROWNING, he still deems it necessary to attempt to kill Eric Stoltz's wimpy little brother and Vanessa Angel. But don't worry; he's instantly shoved in the plastic mouth of a plastic shark, and screams.
Does this movie suck? Yes. It does. A lot.
Did I love it? Yes. I did. A lot.
I'd recommend watching the Behind the Scenes featurette, because you'll get to see everyone say with a straight face how good the movie is and why the audience will love it. You'll also see one of the actors boast about his background in karate and how he did all his own stunts.
'Sides, anyone who actually rents a movie called "Raging Sharks" deserves to be disappointed.