SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - "GOING GREEN"

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - EPISODE 3

There are many ways to go green!

http://youtu.be/g_-70wZJYKA

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP: "THE HAMMERER"

SHOOTING FROM THE HIP - EPISODE 2

A famous scene from the low-budget, cult hit "The Hammerer."

http://youtu.be/zkEji6UCheU

Check out our first episode, "Smackin' Cheese!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkEji6UCheU

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (21 OF 100)

"Super Mario Bros." (1993), Dir: Annabel Jankel
& Rocky Morton

 

$48 million in Budget vs. $20,915,465 in Gross

I'm sure you all remember the evolution of Nintendo. Oh, yes. From the dusty, old, 8-bit original Nintendo to the game-changing Super Nintendo  in all it's color and 16-bit glory. But the kids buying these technical marvels had no interest in the technology involved. Our understanding of Nintendo came through the ever-changing, ever-evolving spokes-character Super Mario and his brother Luigi. Then it was announced that a Super Mario Bros film was being made. Suddenly, every kid who saw The Wizard was ecstatic with anticipation. When it was finally released, millions of young video gamers went to the theaters, started watching, and quickly asked themselves, "What the f&$# is this?" The answer to that question is simple: the most expensive betrayal of our childhood prior to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace rearing its ugly head.

I watched this movie recently, trying to figure out what the thinking behind this big-budget disaster was. Now that I am much older and have more of an education than when I was ten, I have a couple theories. Picture yourself as the guy in charge of making The Super Mario Bros. movie. It's a tough gig. You're in charge of one of the biggest non-film franchises in history and are obligated to a planet of children to not disappoint them. That being said, what is your most rational course of thinking?

Well, firstly, when there is kids involved, so the safest bet is an animated movie (like we've seen with the recent Lego movie coming out.) Makes sense. Cartoons are cheaper. Cartoons are less risk. Cartoons need less explaining. Parents are likely to bring kids to a cartoon because they're generally harmless. (It should be noted that the most recent Super Smash Brothers game for the Nintendo Wii had an animated story involving the entire Nintendo universe and accomplished that without using any dialogue.) But no, the overlords at Nintendo just put down $2 million dollars to give the rights of the character (temporarily) to a film studio. Back then, $2 million clams would have been the entire budget for an animated film, so, needless to say, they expected something a little more substantial.

So the more logical cartoon idea is out. Okay. Next question: How do you bring Mario to the real world? How do you explain the warp whistle, the pipes, the mushrooms, the Goombas, the turtles with wings, any of that to an audience paying money to see this? What possible logical connection can one make for any of these elements to co-exist in the same world together?

Wait! I know! Dinosaurs! Yes, there is a running theme of prehistoric-like creatures in the Mario Games. Koopa is kind of a dinosaur, though most dinosaurs never breathed fire. Yoshi is definitely a dinosaur, so that idea works. The Goombas? Yeah, sure, whatever. Make them dinosaurs too. Rolling with this concept, writers Parker Bennett, Terry Runté, and Ed Solomon thought the most sensible thing to do would be to set the Mario Bro's world in another dimension where dinosaurs evolved to make technology and civilizations of their own... And it's not that bad of an idea, really. In fact, it's kinda cool. Question is, how does this reflect the video game and how will children understand this? Answer is simple: they didn't.
 

 
Next, who does one cast to play these characters? Well, Bob Hoskins is a rounded, portly fella. Kids already know him from Who Framed Roger Rabbit (or if you were a kid like me, The Long Good Friday), so he would make a great Mario. And for Luigi, well, who other than Fox's soon-to-be House of Buggin's host, John Leguizamo? Hmm. Well, he kinda looks Italian (but is actually Colombian) and comes across pretty dopey. Definitely not the worst casting choice in the world. But then there's the challenge: who do you cast for King Koopa, a giant, fire-breathing monster that lives in a flying castle? Oh, that's easy! Dennis Hopper of course! That's right! Star of Blue Velvet, and also one of the most notorious coke-heads in all of Hollywood. What kid wouldn't recognize "The Hop" and love seeing him King Koopa, even though the filmmakers made no effort to make the two look alike at all?

Finally, what kind of mood should the picture be? What would the Mario world be like if it were in our world? I know! A Blade Runner-esque wasteland with mutants and jet packs and crazed dictators. Oh yeah. Kids will love that... Well, no. No, they didn't. Not in the slightest. Of all its flaws, this is where the Super Mario Bros. movie fell flat on its face. Playing any of the Mario games, you'll clearly see that the colors are bright, the music is always jovial, the characters are dancing, even if they are your sworn enemies with them, and everyone is very happy and very contented in their little universe (minus Princess Daisy perhaps). So why when making a Super Mario Bros. movie does one stray so far from the merry little world that the two universes cannot even be compared, even slightly? And also, what's with all the f%$@ing slime everywhere? Is this Alien Resurrection or something?!

I will never forgive Hollywood or Nintendo for The Super Marios Bros. movie. I can understand the frustration in trying to find the logistics in making this movie work, but if doing so was that hard to begin with, then why make it all? Next time (and I'm sure we're due) think like Lego did and stick to cartoons.

And for your viewing pleasure, the live-action Mario TV show from the 1980s that also did not reflect the game, but at least had the jovial tone right...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (20 OF 100)

"North" (1994), Dir: Rob Reiner

 

$40 million in Budget vs. $7,182,747 in Gross

I had seen North when it first came out in theaters in 1994. I was young, but remember enjoying it. Not until doing research had I discovered North is pretty much universally hated as a film. Both Siskel and Ebert nominated it as the worst movie of 1994 and many consider it to be one of the worst movies of all time. Wow... But to be honest, I don't really get the general hatred towards this film. Maybe my standards have dropped with my increasing age, but this is the first movie on my list where I really don't understand why everyone hates it so much.

One of the few things I can think of that I dislike about North is its opening credits. The film opens with a series of soft-focus shots of North's toys on his desk. Personally, I felt it looked cheap and did not reflect the tone of the film at all. If this was Rob Reiner's way of letting us know that we're watching a kid's film, well, thanks. Apart from Bruce Willis' lackluster voice-over work, I can't really say much else that bothered me about this movie, besides the ending, which we'll get to that...

So what is it that bothered everyone else so much about this movie? Well, firstly, the plot centers around a boy-genius named North (Elijah Wood) who is the picture-perfect son and envy of every family, except his own. Unable to cope with his insensitive parents, North decides to become a free-agent, causing a major media stir as the world follows in anticipation of his journey to find more fitting parents...

So, from what I've read from most reviews, people found the plot unrealistic. Okay. But it's a movie, and a kid's movie at that, so it's not really supposed to be realistic, is it? Secondly, North comes across as a bit selfish in his desire to find better parents... but when you have a nagging Julia Louis-Dreyfus (in a terrible wig) as your mother and Jason Alexander as a mid-life crisis father saying that he "found blood in his stool," well, I don't entirely blame him for wanting to explore his options. Thirdly, a lot of critics claimed that the film showed no respect towards parents and didn't treat the family unit as having any value. Maybe so, but if you were a kid growing up in the 90s, it's likely your parents found a great replacement for your babysitter. That's right. Television. And if you're parents were plopped in front of the TV all night until they got back, Bart Simpson and Al Bundy were more likely you're real babysitters; so in terms of knocking down good old family values, North didn't really teach us kids of the 90s anything TV hadn't already...

One thing I will agree with most critics on is that the characters of North are vulgar, callous, and superficial... Can't imagine a movie starring the cast of Seventh Heaven having that many gut-busters. In fact, North's portrayal of children reminded me a lot of the very precocious youngsters of Wes Anderson's movies. Critics also claimed the humor didn't seem intended for children... Maybe it wasn't. The blood-in-the-stool joke made by Jason Alexander did actually throw me off during my most recent viewing, but the 1990 Nicholas Roeg film Witches (based on a book the Roald Dahl) had children being turned to mice and killed, and that holds a rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. No one seemed to think that was too much for kids. The only difference between Witches and North is that violence is okay, but toilet humor isn't.

Humor aside, a lot of critics also claimed to find the movie offensive, especially in its stereotyping of, well, Texans, Samoans, The Inuit (featuring Kathy Bates in red face), The Amish, Africans, Chinese, French, etc... but  compared to a modern episode of Family Guy or American Dad, the film's cultural insensitivity is pretty mild by today's standards. For me, the most offensive thing about North was the ending. Turns out that it's all just a dream. Yep. The whole movie, complete with voice-over narration, was just one big dream. North had fallen asleep in the mall and his loving parents have been worried sick about him.The family is reunited and all's well that ends well... Just as an aside, if you've ever take a screenwriting class, that is the first lesson in how not to piss off your audience... not to mention the blatant endorsement for Fedex.

But all in all, it's a bit shocking to me how violently opposed people are to this movie. I didn't think it deserved that much disdain. Am I alone in this?


 
And for your viewing displeasure, Siskel and Ebert's initial and hateful review of North...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (18 OF 100)

"Highlander 2: The Quickening" (1991), Dir: Russell Mulcahy

 

$34 million in Budget vs. $15,556,340 in Gross

 
Oh, the cunning Franchise Killer. Yes, the Richard Donner Superman franchise and Tim Burton's Batman franchise were among many of its victims (arguably surviving, just to run the same course again), but some victims of this murderer of artistic merit never even had a chance. The Highlander franchise is definitely one of those victims...

Having aged greatly on my part and seen the first Highlander movie several times now, the most credit I can give the original is that it still holds up as a neat idea. Immortals walking amongst us to do battle in the streets with swords is pretty cool. The rest of the original is a bad 80s special effects film (looking a lot like a Queen/Pink Floyd video) with a soundtrack by Queen (arguably the best part of the movie). But in the end, Connor MacLeod (Christoper Lambert) conquered the bad guys, was granted the ability to live a normal life, and retired to Scotland. How could they ever imagine bringing the character back after all that? Well, they couldn't really, but did anyway, resulting in this giant, unimaginative, steaming pile of stool.

One of the charms of the first Highlander film for me was its narrative simplicity. Early on in the film, we are introduced to MacLeod, learn that he is immortal, and that the Kurgan (the unforgettable Clancy Brown) wants MacLeod's powers for himself. Four hundred years earlier, Ramirez (played by Sean Connery) gives us a quick rundown of the rules of the immortals, so the cards are on the table and we're set to take part in this badass game of elimination. Simple. Effective. To the point. The subsequent sequel, however, had to get fancy and throw all that simplicity out the window for stray cats to nibble on.

Highlander II: The Quickening is set in a future where the ozone layer has evaporated and a force field is the only thing keeping earth alive (invented by Connor MacLeod, who was an antiques dealer in the first movie and never mentioned anything about having a scientific background). Now much older, he is hated by everyone and treated like garbage for saving human existence... Ungrateful jerks. No wonder he's looking forward to dying. But suddenly Connor has a whole whack of problems when the evil immortals from his home planet come to earth to f%$& sh$% up... 

Wait. Let's back up a second. The Highlander is an alien?! Really?! Since when did that happen? The first movie made no point or hint of that. Most audiences would've thought "Wait, isn't the Highlander from Scotland?", hence the name Highlander and most of the first film taking place in Scotland, but no, this Highlander's apparently from Planet Zeist... So yeah, this second movie just slips in some crappy alien origin storyline as if none of us with a working brain would have even noticed. Now, apparently back on Planet Zeist, MacLeod and Ramirez (not the most alien-sounding names) were captured as part of some treacherous rebel group and exiled to be reborn on earth. How they accomplish that God-like feat (not to mention the evil immortals would've had to do the exact same thing for all the other hundreds of immortals who were somehow magically reborn on earth for the first movie) is beyond me. But all that aside, this entire subplot is, well, a rip-off Superman's origins... Yeah, I know. Who cares?

Anyways, led by everyone's go-to-casting-choice-for-a-villain, Michael Ironside, General Katana and these evil immortals somehow manage to penetrate the shield protecting earth's atmosphere. From there, they fail at killing a very tired, very old man, and accidentally restore MacLeod's powers of immortality so he can be young and handsome again. But while MacLeod does the old Highlander electric-light-show song and dance, following the advice he got on Planet Zeist, MacLeod screams out Ramirez's name. Then (somehow) brings his old friend back from the dead... so they can kill people and make hammy jokes about it... and then Ramirez just dies again...

Yeah, this whole movie is just a mess. As well as being one of the elusive Franchise Killer's many victims, it's also early signs of Sean Connery's inability to recognize a bloody awful script from the 1990s (having three of his films from that era on this list). The latter Highlander films aren't much better. From this one, I enjoyed seeing MacLeod as an old man (for fifteen minutes), learning insults of the future ("Hey, cheese-di$%!"), and enjoyed the future battle between Old Man MacLeod and the two meth-head immortals with jet packs. What I didn't enjoy was the lack of coherence for one, the fact that there was no gratuitous Highlander sex scene (as in the first, third, and fourth), and a sore lack of Queen soundtrack.

Two sequels followed this,  a bad TV series and some animated films. The franchise clearly peaked after the first entry and has been in a state of decay ever since. Last year, there was rumors of a reboot with Taylor Lautner  in the works, but those have disappeared, thankfully. I'll stick with my VHS copy of the original, thanks...Wait a minute. This franchise has for the most part sucked ass. Maybe it's ripe for a fixin'... or maybe not and just come up with something original.

And for your viewing displeasure, the opening of the movie including the Planet Ziest storyline, bad voice-over narration, and crappy special effects...

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (15 OF 100)

"Batman & Robin" (1997), Dir: Joel Schmacher

 

$125,000,000 in Budget vs. $107,285,004 in Gross

It's time, my friends. Time to ask where Batman went so wrong? Why did such a beloved character deserve such a hateful artistic stoning? And even worse, why is Chris O'Donnell still alive? Why, why, why?

With the release of Batman & Robin came a number of career casualties: Joel Schumacher made an apology to Batman fans for killing the franchise. The public has sorta forgiven George Clooney for being the worst Batman since, well, Batmite. Chris O'Donnell should have been made a sacrifice to the vengeful theater-going Gods for such florid blasphemy. 90s hottie Alicia Silverstone got downgraded to D-Movie Hot Girl. Uma Thurman should just be ashamed of herself. The laughable Bane got a badass makeover in Chris Nolan's Dark Knight Rises, even though neither reflect the character from the comics. And no amount of Arnie's action movie puns could save this train wreck.

I remember going to see Batman & Robin with my entire family, which I shortly realized was exactly what Warner Brothers wanted out of this new franchise installment. Since infancy, I've lived and breathed Batman religiously. He is still my favorite fictional character, and it's doubtful that will change.

At the time, though, and under the false impression that Batman Forever had actually been a good movie, (mainly because of Jim Carrey's performance as The Riddler) the next film was to feature Mr. Freeze as the main villain and I was very excited. Bringing probably as much pathos and sympathy to the Batman Universe as the title character himself, Mr. Freeze is Batman's only reluctant villain. His goal has always been to save his dying wife Nora, a sympathetic one but alas one that also makes him very dangerous too. With a varied but fascinating history in comics and television, it seemed like a great choice... then they cast Arnold Schwarzenneger in the role.

A grave misstep, yes, but could Arnold really be blamed for the entire movie falling apart? With three feature films and an animated series all in one decade, I think Batman was getting a little played out in the public eye, (Did you guys hear that Ben Affleck's gonna be the next Batman?) and nobody wanted the same old song.

Prior to the movie's production, I picture the Warner Brothers' executive board having a catered lunch and trying to decide what needs to change with this fourth Batman installment to keep the franchise fresh (and probably used the same school of thinking as Lucasfilm did with Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull). "Guys, we need to make Batman something the whole family can enjoy. Husbands, wives, kids, grandmas, grandpas! So let's go ahead and lose the whole depressing witnessing-his-parents-being-murdered thing. I'm sure he'd be over that by now. Get rid of all the gritty urban futurism and replace that with neon lights and C.G.I. instead, and as far as the Tim Burton's movies go, f&%$ 'em and his little Frankenweenie too."

Now, I'm pretty 50/50 with the Burton films, (in fact, pretty 50/50 with all Batman films), but at least Burton knew to steer clear from the campy Adam West series and stick with the darker, moodier settings and villains the comic books had. But alas, we ended up revisiting the Adam West Days and added Schumacher's stamp of gay culture to the iconic characters' mythology as well (I refer you to the bat nipples). I have no problem with gay culture, but I think most gay men would probably agree with me that they'd rather see pretty boy Zachary Quinto from Heroes being a psychotic, badass Demi-God than another flash of Clooney's blatant plastic package...

Bat nipples and bat crotch aside, the film's also just plain stupid, from Mr. Freeze's singing hockey team to the f*&%ing Bat Credit Card, to Bane reduced from a super-genius to mindless idiot, to the climatic giant freeze gun (no one saw that coming), and finally appearance by Fitl On Film's blog favorite -- that's right -- Coolio himself! Do any of these ideas sound... good... to anyone? Maybe the studio stopped making Batman films for eight years for a very good reason.

At that point, I was pretty much done with these movies. I didn't like Batman Begins, but Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises swayed my return. But now that Mr. Affleck and Legend Killer Zack Snyder have taken over the franchise, I feel as if we are entering another West/Clooney Era. Eight years from now when they reboot the franchise again, this will be known as The Affleck Era, and then shortly renamed The West/Clooney/Affleck Syndrome. Hm... See you again in eight years.

 And for your viewing displeasure, Honest Trailers takes a biting stab at this mess.

SHOOTIN' FROM THE HIP - "THE EDITOR & THE UMBILICAL CORD"

Last Tuesday, a good friend came into my apartment and took my baby away from me...

Well, technically, it was his baby. He was the director-producer and I was just the editor. But after two years of editing while my friend was out shooting and producing content, I was the one probably closest to the material itself. It stayed in the same room I slept in, taking up more space than just two hard drives. It became my baby after a while, and that experience has led me to think of the editor's role as that of a surrogate parent or nanny, raising the child while daddy is out conducting business. And of course, once those ties are made, it becomes very hard in the end to simply let go.

Like a child's birth, the footage arrives to you a raw, bloody, screaming, confused mess. And like a good career-minded father, the director has no time for this; so he leaves it with you and simply says "Fix this." Hmm. Right... The first few months of this faux parenthood are rough, as I imagine real parenthood is. The unrealized film screams and spikes in your eardrums like a teething newborn in the middle of the night. And of course, there's definitely sh%$ to be cleaned up. Lots and lots of sh&^%.

But unlike the nurturing mother, the editing process isn't about nurturing. No, not at all. You gotta take this baby and cut that kid up. Oh yeah. Trim that flab, tone the muscles. In actuality, you're probably more like Geppetto shaping Pinocchio than say Sarah Connor raising her child to be a badass. It's a different kind of paternal relationship: sculpting as opposed to teaching.

And with time, once that little film starts realizing what it is (or developing "a spine" as the first editor I worked with called it). You teach it how to walk (through story motions at first), then run (so our bladders can keep up), but inevitably realize that there's only so much you can do. A film shouldn't just be edited well. An editor needs to identify the holes in his own work so that they might be smoothed over at a later date.... by someone else. That all takes time. And by time you're near picture-lock, even the slightest adjustment changes the course of your child's destiny, no matter how small. Your baby is barely recognizable by that point. Definitely not what showed on your doorstep in a basket.

 
And so comes that fateful day where there is literally nothing left for you to do; where whatever is left is beyond your abilities. That is the day you are done and, like some bad TV drama, father's coming to collect his child... And he's not even taking your baby back home! Oh no. He's taking him to some place where groups of men will poke and prod, and tinker, and toy with him until your baby is ready for the world to see. Oh yeah. All the clothes you bought him and the haircuts you gave him aren't good enough. This baby needs to be like a Baby Charlie Chaplan, or Annie, or Beauty Pageant Kid, prepped and ready for the spotlight for millions to see like a f*&%ing puppet show... That's exactly how it feels.

Either way, as soon as those drives and USB sticks leave the editing suite, that's that. Your role as editor/surrogate parent is over. Now what do you do? I suppose real parents ask themselves the same  when their kids go off to college. Working on another film might be easier than up and having another kid... I think I'll do that instead.

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (12 OF 100)

"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" (2003),
Dir: Stephen Norrington
 

$78,000,000 in Budget vs. $179,265,204 in Gross

 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is one of the best/worst blockbuster films ever made. Based on the comics by famed Watchmen-writer (and part-time magician) Alan Moore, the film attempts to be Jules Verne's answer to DC Comics' Justice League. And for all intensive purposes, this idea probably looked great on paper, combining all these fictional characters in a similar way to the movie Tall Tale, but already proved not to work back in good old 1995. But what makes this movie so great are all the ways it doesn't work and still remains entertaining.

Based on a comic and thus subject to fantasy, the movie claims to be set in the year 1899, so we presume that's our 1899... yet there's submarines, machine guns, automobiles, rockets, etc., so any divide between Fantasy 1899 and Reality 1899 is never made clear. Not like the opening credits to Watchmen, where the movie's different world setting is much more evident. Now, a lot of people blame the movie's poor reception on the C.G.I. and it's overuse, but they might be surprised to discover the movie has a lot less of that than some would think. For example, I always thought Mr. Hyde was a C.G. character. Turns out it's just a bad-looking latex suit as seen below. And the car chase scene through Venice (with the first automobile ever created apparently) is actually all miniatures... Hmm. Interesting. Still looks like sh&^%, though.

Special effects aside, the main problem with LXG is the poor decisions on the creative teams' part. Coming out of The Matrix craze of all early-2000s superhero movies (X-Men and Norrington's Blade included), they chose to follow this visual trend of dark costuming and bullet-time action sequences to sway audiences into believing these story-lines. But for a movie set in the Victorian era, lifting the style of a movie about cyberpunks seems like an odd choice.

Now, maybe I am just ignorant, but I had no idea who Allan Quatermain was before seeing this movie. My inability to read anything beyond the back of a shampoo bottle didn't help. But the bigger question is, what audience going to see a superhero action movie would be brushing up on their Victorian era writings first? I knew Tom Sawyer (hardly Victorian and not as some f*&%ing secret service agent), Dr. Jekyll (the original Hulk), The Invisible Man (who spends most of the movie naked apparently), Captain Nemo (but only Disney's version), and Professor James Moriarty (with no Sherlock Holmes in sight).

Allan Quatermain? No idea. Mina Harker (Dracula's wife and former protagonist of the comic books) I only knew from Wyona Ryder's soulless portrayal in Bram Stoker's Dracula, where she wasn't a vampire and had me confused. And Dorian Gray (from The Picture of Dorian Gray, an Oscar Wilde story) was definitely the most obscure. Also, the movie provides no background to these characters, so if you don't know the story of Dorian Gray, Stuart Townsend's action movie one-liner seen in this clip really makes no sense...

LXG's legacy was less so informing audiences about these classical characters and more so about killing a lot of careers. After its release, Sean Connery quit acting all together. Director Stephen Norrington has not directed a feature since this. And this mess was the last film to carry Alan Moore's name. For all its infamy, though, this movie is immensely entertaining, from its over-the-top action sequences and general lunacy. You will be laughing out loud and have a great time with it.

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (4 OF 100)

 

"Southland Tales" (2006), Dir: Richard Kelly

$17 Million in Budget vs. $374,743 in Gross

Some movies are so bad that they are fascinating, like The Crow 2 or Natural Born Killers. You watch it and wonder what exactly was going through the director's mind they made whatever this is. Apparently Richard Kelly's abomination Southland Tales was inspired by the events of September 11th. Now, what exactly the Highlander driving around in a van, Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star, Kevin Smith as a gun-totting Obi Wan Kenobi, and the Rock traveling through time have to do with the events of September 11th is beyond me, but that's what was on Kelly's. (The funniest thing is that besides the time travel part, I could see most of the insane notions of celebrity explored in this movie coming to fruition.) Starring pretty much every C-grade actor and misfit in Hollywood -- Sean William Scott, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Will Sasso, that midget-lady from Poltergeist -- Southland Tales is a senseless, pretentious mess. Abundantly attempting to be social commentary, the dares to go places its audience might not necessarily want to, ie. seeing Stifler try to seriously actor, Cheri Oteri threatening to kill herself unless she gets some Dwayne Johnson c%$#@, and some androgynous Chinese woman dancing in, like, every scene. Unraveling into moments of what looks like a  George Michael video and with a soundtrack entirely by Moby, this giant mess runs over two whole hours. The movie has its moments, but that's mainly the C.G.I. car commercial that turns into vehicular pornography with one truck ramming another. The rest, I just don't know...



For your viewing displeasure, what could arguably be the best scene in the film or the worst. I'm gonna be generous and call it the best because at least its creativity takes over the confusing aspects.

BAD MOVIES THAT SHOULD BE SEEN (2 OF 100)

 

"Star Trek: Generations" (1994), Dir: David Carson

$35 Million in Budget vs. $120 Million in Gross

If one were to trace back to where Star Trek really departed from being stories about the ethics of the future, it would probably be with Star Trek: Generations. For the first outting of The Next Generation crew, it feels less like a celebration and more like the franchise's garage sale. Up for grabs was William Shatner's integrity in the Captain Kirt role. Some would argue the Shat never had any to begin with, but Patrick Stewart certainly did in the enlightened, forward-thinking role of Jean-Luc Picard. Instead, this deflated cinematic adventure just marks Picard's gradual transformation into a geriatric Bruce Willis. And finally, there was a clear fire-sale of whatever uniforms were leftover from the previous films and Deep Space Nine. The outcome was the most disappointing writing for Star Trek since the original series (and that tar monster episode in TNG). The rest of the Next Gen movies would be rocky or forgettable, and now that the studio's have rebooted the original crew in action movie form, I have a feeling the characters of Next Gen will be forgotten in the world of cinema... for the better, probably... They were TV people, unlike the radiant Nichelle Nichols. Pff! Zoe Saldana, my ass.



For your viewing displeasure, my favourite critic since Roger Ebert, Mr. Plinkett, does an indepth analysis of this... thing.