Friday B-Movie Pick: Chocolate
So-so story, slow start, and then really cool martial arts action. Yanin Vismitananda stars as Zen, the mildly retarted girl who learns kung fu by watching movies. She doesn’t have many lines, but oh, she kicks a lot of ass. The fights played tribute to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies. There is even a battle between her and another autistic kung fu fighter. Not very PC, but frag it, it was really well done.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Confessions Of An Action Star
Classic low budget B-Movie mockumentary film from 2005. It “documents” the career of major action star Frank Sledge. Starting from his humble beginnings as a dancer, don’t laugh, David Carradine knew absolutely zero martial arts when he landed the lead role in Kung Fu. He got the part based on his skill as a dancer and the fact that he wasn’t Chinese. There is also fun poked at Steven Seagal’s films, who, while an actually highly trained and experienced martial artist, had no acting background when he did his first feature film (Above the Law). This is complete with delightful cameos by actual actors talking about their work with Frank Sledge.
Friday B-Movie Pick: True Lies
From 1994 comes this action comedy with actual Middle Eastern Islamic terrorist bad guys! Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Tia Carrere and Tom Paxton lead the casting, and are clearly having fun with this James Cameron flick.
Avatar spoilers
This is a comment I left on a review of Avatar on Dark Worlds blog that raises issues with the lousy science in Avatar:
Then there is the subject of evolution on Pandora. All the animals have six limbs. Four up front and two in the back. All of them, including the Pterodactyl like creatures. Four wings and pair of legs. Four eyes as well. One pair above sightly farther out than the inner pair.
Everything except the Terminator Smurfs. Two eyes, and four limbs.
Radically different biology, yet they could mesh their nervous system with the local animals.
Did the Terminator Smurfs braid their hair to protect the nerve bundle or did it grow like that naturally.Oh, why did the Pterodactyl like creatures naturally develop stirrups for the Terminator Smurfs?
With all the “scientists” they had on that planet, why didn’t any notice that the Terminator Smurfs obviously didn’t evolve there?
Originally posted at e-Ramblings
Update: One of the comments points out that the story line is remarkably similar to a Poul Anderson short story, “Call Me Joe.” There are also comments about the movie drawing from Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The World for World is Forest.” I would add Alan Dean Foster’s Midworld as well.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Star Wars
The 1977 original! The one where Han shot first! B-Movie? You betcha! Check out sets, the plot, and delicious evilness oozing out of the bad guys. George Lucas is a big film buff and this is a tip of the hat to multiple genres, including some Japanese classics and WWII flying Ace movies.
Friday B-Movie Pick: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Merry Christmas! Let us revisit this classic 1989 film starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and Randy Quaid in one of his best known roles.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Sukiyaki Western Django
This flick isn’t just wacked, it’s wiggity wacked! It’s a spaghetti Western filmed in Japan, with Japanese actors speaking English, with a strong Samurai influence, with a dash of Shakespeare thrown in plus Quentin Tarantino as the only non-Japanese member of the cast.
Friday B-Movie Pick: Bandidas
This B-Movie has some delcious eye candy by way of stars Penélope Cruz and Salma Hayek. To make it even better, that is they way they like it! This Western female buddy film costars Dwight Yoakam, Sam Shepard and Steve Zahn. It didn’t get any Oscar nominations, but it was a hoot to watch. A fun action comedy that goes well with popcorn.
Friday B-Movie: The Spirit
Another comic adaptation movie. This time it’s Wil Eisner’s classic indie comic. The cast is top notch and clearly had a lot of fun making this. Samuel L. Jackson is the villian, and Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes, well it really doesn’t matter what role they play, they raise the eye candy factor a bunch of notches. The fact that they do a fine job of acting just adds to the fun factor of this movie. Eisner fan Frank Miller was behind this and it shows in his unique visual style.
Star Trek Crossover
There was a really cool, in an uber-nerd Trekker kind of way, cross over in the latest big budget Star Trek movie. In the middle of the bridge set, the one that looks like an Apple Computer threw up, not just once, but twice, you saw on of the biggest ST:TOS fans in existence, James Cawley.
Cawley is the man behind Star Trek: Phase II, some of the finest fan produced Star Trek episodes out there.