It came from the bargain bin-Angry red planet-Ten things I learned from this movie

1959

Purchased at Ollies years ago for $4.99

1-White overalls are awesome attire for a space ship crew.

2-Spaceship computers have about a million lights, but only like five of them really matter.

3-It’s perfectly acceptable to smoke a pipe on the ship.

4-Stock footage of dull stuff is still dull the second or third time around.

5-Mars is red like red all over as if you are swimming in tomato soup.

6-Alien plants look like they are made fabric scraps.

7-The spider bat moves like a giant, cheap puppet (maybe because it is)

8-The heavy, goofy guy in your crew will always get killed first.

9-If you go to Mars you are liable to come back with your arm covered in an alien virus that looks like jello.

10-Even a jello like arm virus won’t keep a goofy crew member from saying cornball stuff to the one female crew member.

The negatives-It’s at times very slow. The acting ranges from okay to silly. There is more dorky dialog in this film then you can shake a stick at if you are in to that whole stick shaking scene.

The positives-It’s funny even though it doesn’t mean too. It’s worth a watch to laugh at. I like the spider bat creature, but not as much here I like it on the Misfits-Walk among us cover.

Was it worth $4.99? I have to say no because the laughability factor much of it is so hard to take that I wouldn’t watch that often. it may be worth more like $3.

 

It came from the bargin bin-Both Dr. Goldfoot films

 

 

1965/1966

Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine/Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs

Purchased at Walmart for $5 around Halloween in 2012 I think. This was a I believe the first time that the second film was released on DVD here in the states. It’s a two a two film one disc kind of set with no extra and several other Vincent Price films were done by the same company at the same time. Just an FYI I saw both these films on TV recently and the prints on this DVD are way better than the ones on TV. I had seen the first film a few times before but had never seen the second one.

These are both essentially spoofs on James Bond/spy films however with Price being the featured performer they focus a bit more on the villain then the heroes. The films were made by American International right around the same time this company was making teen-beach-surf movies so the first film has some people that appeared in those same flicks. In the Bikini Machine we see Goldfoot (Price) making female robots to seduce rich guys and get control of their assets and assume power that way. A wannabe junior detective (Frankie Avalon) falls for a robot (Susan Hart) meant for a rich dude. Avalon realizes something is up and works to uncover what it is and stop Goldfoot. There’s lots of slapstick, sight gags and foolishness going on amidst music, dancing and Price hamming it up. It looks like Goldfoot is stopped at end after a wild chase, but they leave it open for a second film.

The second film pretends to follow up on the first as per the opening, but it’s awkward from the start. Only Price is back and the rest of the cast is different. The film was moved to Europe and given to director Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath and numerous other brilliant films). However Bava was going through a messy divorce at the time and this film really seems to suffer from lack of attention. Fabian takes over the Frankie Avalon type part, but most of the rest of the supporting cast are Italian which is fine except they gave major time to a pair of horribly unfunny comedians. These guys are so bad I just wanted to smack them and  say “you aren’t funny, get out of the picture”. This time Goldfoot is blowing up Generals with girls who explode in an attempt to take over the world. That’s no worse than the plot of the first film and Price and his lackeys try to be kind of entertaining. However as obvious and silly as the first film was at least it seemed to have been done with some effort. This movie particularly after about 20-30 minutes just falls apart and looks like it was made up as they went along. I like silly nonsense as much as the next person, but wow this movie is just plain painful down the stretch. Even the music isn’t as good as the first film

The positives-For the first film it’s Price, Hart, the music and a decent sense of keeping a balance between mindless humor and some kind of plot. The second film pretty much lacks all of the above except Price who does what he can. Also a lot of the outside locations on both films have some moments.

The negatives-The first film’s major flaw is this kind of silliness isn’t for everyone and of course it’s dated. The second film has a rotten script, two of the worst comedians I’ve ever seen and some horrible antics that have unfortunately been burned into my brain. Fortunately Maria Bava recovered and did some better films and Vince Price still had some good ones left in him as well.

So the question is was this set worth five bucks? Obviously it falls almost entirely on the first film. For me I’d say yes it’s just worth that amount. I like the silliness and can watch the first one once or twice a year. The second film is really bad but as a huge Vincent Price fan I am glad to finally see it.

There you go a case of a decent film making a DVD worth the price tag despite being paired with a stink bomb.

It came from the bargain bin-Konga

1961

Purchased at the Dollar Tree so yeah for one buck probably at least four years ago.

I tried to watch it once back then and lost interest so I never finished. This feature gave me reason to push onward and attempt see the whole thing.  It features Michael Gough (Horror of Dracula, Hammer’s The Phantom of the opera, Alfred from Tim Burton’s Batman and tons of other stuff), it’s a British monster film from a time when a lot of good horror was coming out of that area and it has a giant ape. So it has to be good..right? Eh..well.. that is to say no, not really. It kind of has elements of Frankenstein and King Kong, but unfortunately not much of a budget, script, personality or much else to keep it going. This botanist (Gough) has these crazy serums and plants going. He also has eyes for a young student and goes after he. Hey, hold your horses there this dude already has a lady. What a snake, just for that she giving growth serum to the chimp which turns it into a giant guy in a moth eaten monkey suit. Ew take that. The good news this does mean that the end of the film  is near and eventually the film does clunk to a finish. Roll the credits.

Normally all a giant ape movie has to do for me is have some action and destruction. The problem with this film is just how dull it is. There just isn’t enough going on to keep my interest. Some time a bad movie can be interesting in  it’s badness, but even to do that there needs to enough to laugh at and there wasn’t even much of that. It’s just one big bad monkey, dragging on and on snoozefest.

I’d have to say it wasn’t worth my dollar because I won’t be watching it again.

 

 

It came from the bargain bin- 2001: A space travesty

2001 (on the case), but other sources have said it was released in fall of 2000.

The President (a not so great Bill Clinton impersonator) has been kidnapped and cloned. Security force, old dude and clumsy guy Dick Dix (Leslie Nielson) is sent to the planet vegan to put an end to this plot before other world leaders are cloned and controlled. This should lead to espionage hilarity…yeah shoulda woulda coulda. Unfortunately you need a good script or at least a sense of humor to get some laughs. Instead we get lame slapstick, lots of talking, limp gags, weak aliens and a cast who look ashamed to be in this film (and they should be). Dix thinks he got the right president in place when they get back to earth, but of course he didn’t. Nothing else about this film has got right so far so why should this point be any different? Other celebrity look a likes who look very little like their celebrity show up at an event where Dix hopes to get the correct president in place. There’s a struggle and not just me struggling to pay attention to this “movie”. Eventually all is set right or at the very least the film ends…shew…roll the credits…please.

I saw this film back when it first came out on VHS yes VHS. I hated it then, but spent a buck on it at the Dollar Tree the other day.

I liked Nielson in Airplane, Naked Gun, Dracula-dead and loving it and some of his other comedies. However I can safely say this is the worst film I have ever seen him. Not his fault though although he did agree to be in it. It’s like 90 minutes of being subjected to someone who thinks they are the funniest person in the world, but they clearly have no idea how to be funny. They try gags that are sort of like ideas from the Naked Gun films, but they all fall flat in this outing. This is just painful like horribly painful, I felt very bad for Nielson for having to be in this thing. You are a strong person if you make it through this movie, but it will drain the life from you. You have been warned.

Was it worth one dollar? No, it wasn’t.

It came from the bargain bin-Gentlemen Broncos

2009

This kid Benjamin who lives out in nowhere goes to a writing workshop. He is excited because one of his favorite sci-fi writers Chevalier  is leading a workshop. Turns out the guy is full of himself and not so helpful. Benjamin does submit his story in a contest where Chevalier is a judge. Chevalier is in danger of losing his book deal because he is out of ideas. While reading Benjamin’s story for the contest he decides to steal it as his own. Meanwhile Benjamin goes back home, but a ditzy girl who he let read his story talks him to letting her and her oddball friend make it as a film. What follows is Chevalier steals his story and becomes a hit book while the local film makers destroy his story in a total crap movie. Add to that some rough things that his mom has to go through. Eventually Benjamin pushes forward and an unexpected turn of events helps him to get back what is his. In between all of the above drama are scenes from Benjamin’s story  and Chevalier’s version acted out.

The negatives-This film seems to either be loved or hated. Jared Hess who made Napoleon Dynamite made this film  and while the film style is similar this film is far more strange and has much more of a mean streak. The oddness particularly in the book as film scenes with Sam Rockwell made turn some viewers off.

The positives-I thought that Benjamin  and Chevalier were both well played and that helped hold the film together. I enjoyed seeing one story acted out in three different ways-Benjamin’s view, Chevalier’s version and the awful local filmmaker version.

I paid one dollar for this at the Dollar Tree last week.

Was it worth it? Absolutely. The film has more strangeness than it needs to define it’s characters, but it does enough to make me enjoy the film. I liked that a somewhat basic idea grew into this crazy mess with all of the angles going at once. It’s a good, but not great film. Certainly worth a buck and I’ll watch it again more than once.

 

It came from the bargain bin-Edward Scissorhands

1990

Purchased at-Walmart (recently)

Cost-$3.50

I saw this on VHS once in the late 90’s and liked it, but have not seen it since.

So when they were coming up with a title for this did they have the following brainstorming sessions.

Edward Nailfile hands? No, not scary enough.

Edwars Icepick hands? Too scary.

Edward Hammerhands? You nailed it, well not really

Edward Spoonhands? I’m not digging it.

Eward Spatulahands? I’m not flipping over it.

Edward Sporkhands? Too weird.

Edward Tweezerhands? Too tiny.

Well let’s go with Edward Scissorhands

So there is this town that seems to blend 1967 with 1989. Anyways a struggling cosmetics saleslady stumbles upon a dude with scissors for hands up at the old castle on the hill. She does what everyone would do and runs like invites to come home with her. He does and ends up falling for the daughter  Kim. He begins to fit in a little, but the neighborhood skank talks bad about him after he runs from her nastiness. Kim’s boyfriend is a piece of work too or a piece of something because he is not so nice. Edward gets caught breaking into a house even though his intentions were alright. Pretty soon most of the town begins to distrust. He accidentally cuts Kim and her brother within minutes of each other. This leads to the cops and the narrow minded morons town folk chasing Ed off and he runs back to his old castle. Some where before this point there was a flashback showing the old professor that used to live in the castle. He made Edward, but died before putting the regular hands on him. Back to present day er 1990. Kim follows Edward to the castle and unfortunately so does her drunken boyfriend. He acts like a jerk, Ed kills him and no more Rusty Griswold. Before the unicorns and rainbows can come in the town comes and sees the dead body, but Kim tells them Edward was killed too. They say “aw” and go back to their bright colored houses. Kim goes back and grows old without ever seeing Edward again. Edward makes snow by making ice sculptures..wait is that right…uh, yeah that’s what it says. Roll the credits.

The negatives-The ending is definitely a bit of a downer.

The positives-The cast is solid all the way across. The film looks fantastic down to the tiniest detail. The story is like a (then) modern take on a fairy tale and it works very well in that with Ed playing the innocent seen as a monster by some but as a blessing by others. This was definitely one of Tim Burton’s films that felt magical.

Was it worth $3.50? Definitely, a real bargain bin find. It was actually far better than I remember it being.

 

 

It came from the bargain bin-Street Fighter

1994
Purchased at Big Lots recently.
Cost-$3
Why this could be good? I’m a big fan of the game and I liked a few JCVD films back in the day.
Why this could be bad? Everyone I knew who saw it said it was average or worse.

Guile is the main hero as a French accented, US flag tattoo wearing soldier (?!). Bison is the villain and some big old nasty plan hatched. Eventually all the other characters from the game appear and end up on different sides of this battle. There’s martial arts competition, military actions, gun battles, evil plots and all that kind of going on to some extent throughout the film. The main villains (Bison, Sagat, Vega) sneer, look evil and try to cause problems -ewwww take that good people. While the obvious heroes (Guile, Cammy, Chun Li) fight for what’s good, just and what the script tells them to fight for. Others like Ken and Ryu go from indifferent to maybe bad to good just in case you wondering or cared at all by this point. Somewhere along the line the director said “what have I done?”, no actually he said “we are running out of time and money so let’s set up a grand finale and blow stuff up”. So that’s what we get. There’s some fights with evil losing. The bad guy lair explodes. Zangief is forgiven his crimes because he holds a door open for the good guys while the other baddies remain bad. Ken and Ryu both become good for ummm good. At the end of the film the cast try their best to recreate poses of the game characters with not so impressive results. Game over.

The negatives-I think the first one that comes to mind is that for an action film based on a legendary fighting game this film lacks memorable fights. They take too long to get to real fights and when they do they are short and we see close ups of part of the action rather than a whole fight scene. Definitely real missed opportunities. With this many characters in one film it’s understandable that some get fleshed out more than others. However some of my biggest character complaints are…
1-That skinny soldier was T. Hawk? They didn’t even try on him.
2-Dhalsim loses his hair at the end and that’s like we all get on him being the Dhalsim we know. He was around before Cammy and Vega in the game yet they shoved him to the side in this film.
3-In this film Balrog is good and DeeJay is bad. Why? Did the writers of this movie ever see these characters in the game? I think not.
There are also the usual plot holes and perhaps worst of all I never really cared as much about the characters in this film as I did while playing the game.

The positives-The locations are nice, actually the storming the fortress scene at the end makes good use of the location. I liked that they tried to include all of the characters from the game even if they didn’t get most of them right. I liked when Sagat and Deejay thought they were getting something valuable only to find that they’d saved some Bison bucks.

Was it worth $3? The price is lower that the average bargain bin price of $5 so that means the film doesn’t have to be as good to be worth less money. I suppose that’s right. However for me in evaluating the value of a film for what I paid for it I go to two things-was it good and how many times would I watch it again? For the first one I have to say the film was below average. It had far more faults than I figured it would. The one thing I was hoping for was good fight scenes and it didn’t have enough of those. For the second question no I don’t have the desire to see this film again any time soon. So I’d say unfortunately it was not worth the $3.

I hope to this bargain bin segment twice a month starting in January. I already have some films lined up for the next few months. Some possibilities for 2015 include-
The Scorpion King action pack
Mortal Kombat double feature
Tales from the darkside the movie
Konga
Four sided triangle
Spaceways
Future Sport
Short Circuit double feature
Hancock
The wolfman (remake)
The Neverending story double feature
The monster maker
X the man with X ray eyes
Godzilla against Mechagodzilla
Casper meets Wendy
Werewolf the beast among us
Sherlock Holmes Double Feature (w/Basil Rathbone)
Idle Hands
Silver Bullet
Jason goes to hell
The land that time forgot/People that time forgot double feature
Alien Apocalypse
Crucible of Horror
Man of steel
Collateral Damage/Eraser double feature

It came from the bargain bin: Coming soon

Okay, so I am going to start up another new segment. However unlike most other new segments I start I thinknI can and will actually keep this going. The criteria for films for this segment are…

1-To qualify as bargain bin it had to have cost $5 or less new.

2-It needs to be a film I have never seen or it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I don’t remember it very well.

* I will allow a double disc set to be reviewed in one entry.

I will review them the way I normally review any other film however I will include…

1-background info such as where I got it, when I got it and how much it cost.

2-after the review I evaluate whether or not it was worth what I paid for it and why.

I’ll start this segment with the 1994 film Street Fighter likely tomorrow. Hope you’ll enjoy it.