Edward R. Turdswurth and the Mystery of the Ghost Stones (makes as much sense as Metalstorm, trust me)

by I. Alexander Nash

 

Let me preface this by telling you this is not easy for me.  This isn't like hard boiling an egg, nor making toast, or even french toast.  You know that really good kind of french toast with all the cream cheese and berries stuffed into it...boy I think I really just wanna go to Denny's.

(An hour and half and 2 Moons Over Maihami later)

  So I think I as on about something...right I was explaining the horrible details I must tell you.  This is also like informing Anne Frank that there's a group of people who hate you and in fact would prefer you were a bar of soap and a pair of hair shoes.  Like letting someone whose shot way too much heroin into their flacid little veins, when you in fact know it's way too much.  You know it's too much, but honestly you are tired of saving them from choking on their own vomit for the 19th time.  So you still kinda have to watch it all unfold in front of you.  I am of course referring to the 1980's sci-fi extravaganza that is Metal Storm:  The Destruction of Jared Syn in 3-D.

  First off the title is one huge lie as Jared Syn isn't even destroyed at the end...(spoiler alert).   And since it's spelled Syn, you can just assume it's a "futuristic" film as no one in any of these centuries would be dumb enough to be an evil prick with the last name Syn.  And Jared Syn at that.  Who came up with the Jared part?  Why not Zenon, Zosoi, or even Bill.  But Jared?  He sounds like the little wisenheimer you used to kicked the piss out of in grade school for his 8 is Enough lunch box.

  Moving along after that brief descent in Syn madness.  A bit of history:  Director, writer, doll maker, and low rent Roger Corman (and that's some cheap fucking rent) Charles Band wanted to make some money so he made a movie.  He wanted to try to make more money so he did it in 3-D.  Pretty much the be all and end of all of that story.  As most of you know about Band, his father Albert Band was a filmmaker/producer with a fistful of genre credits to his name over the years.  Band had a son who worked his way into the business, first by doing indie genre films like Mansion of the Doomed with Michael Patki.  He also did a few adult films having his hands in movies like Fairy Tales...and no I don't mean his literal "hands" in anything.  I would'nt want to get sued here.  Although I am a shitty fact checker, so I might be screwed on that anyway.  Band continued to work his way through grindhouse and exploitation films until he started to work his way up in the world, some say down and those people...well they're mostly correct about that.  Band went on to create his own production companies like Empire pictures made famous by hand puppet monster oddities.  He also went on to own Full Moon pictures which is mainly known for it's...well it's puppets.  But they're not hand puppets.  That's a positive thing right?  Right?  Metal Storm I believe falls right into that pre-Empire  days cannon, but I am, again, shit with looking up, you know, actual facts.  Regardless it still pretty much blows nine kinds of monkey ass.

   Let me also preface (I know I prefaced myself before here, but I'm telling this story, and if you don't like my prefacing, than we can take it right the fuck outside.  Symantec fight!) I have seen this movie at least four separate times.  I've seen original prints, 3-d prints, DVD prints and good grief Lucy you bitch, I still cannot tell you a damn thing that's going on.  Magic power crystals, cyborgs spraying sulfuric LSD on people, cyclopes in rubber armor, Walls-mart masks of infinite wisdom , a Mick Jagger clone who refused to give the Humongous gasoline, Tim Thomerson?  The list can go on and on and on.  I added that one more "on" so you'd know I'm crazy serious about that.  Don't test me.

  Your main character is a man named Dogen.  Wait, fucking Dogen?  Dogen?  Whatever Mr. Band.  So, Doucher is an intergalactic Space Ranger, whatever the fuck that is.  The only kind of ranger I know of is a Walker type...and maybe his side kick Affirmative Action.  By the way, not much of this is actually stated in the film.  For the most part, this is all info I'm pulling off Wakkipedia.  So Doucher is in his literal box with wheels being shot at by some kind of George Lucas inspired speeder bike.  That's early Lucas too.  Lucas wishes he could still come up with something this cool.  Hell, now a days it would be some kind of flying monster with body parts that don't support any type of physics known to man!   After this we are introduced Travolta's hot wife and her father, who may or may not be Rory Calhoun (okay it's not, but I sure wish it was dammit), who are some kind of cubic zirconia miners.  At this point the evil doers show up.  How do you know they're evil?  They have a one armed cyborg with them duh.  Much like a virgin shooting his first porn film, Baal, the cyborg, blasts kinda Rory with hallucinogenic Alien blood all over daddy's Osh Kosh B'gosh.  Farmer Vincent goes into some crazy Duran Duran video where Papa Gallo touches him with a zirconia sucking his soul up like so much Frankenberry milk.  Lost yet?  Shit I got lost after the Denny's trip.

   Dojo shows up and tries to explain the entire plot of the movie to Tim Bailey's splooge rag in the span of 10 seconds actively losing the audience.  His name is Cujo and he's a tracker looking for Jared Syn a criminal blah blah.  We never really know what makes him such a criminal other than generally trying to start a cyclopen resistance against all miners and obviously the next 30 years of bad Rolling Stones albums.  There, we have set some kind of plot, but that's about it.  That's the plot.  We are thrown concept after concept that is ripe for introspection, only to be thrown pointless action scene after pointless action scene.  And not even good ones either.  Action scenes filmed for 3-D.  So many Mad Max rip off vehicles crashing into sand in slow motion.  Many a laser gun fight.  Blue for the men and pink for the ladies.  I never understood that.  Even in shit like Star Wars, why are opposing forces laser gun blast different colors?  Isn't it all the same technology?  Why are villians color coded red and heros blue?  Must be that gay conspiracy again.  We do pick up a Tim Thomerson (in a town called Zhor no less.  Z's make everything more scientific) to throw in the mix to spice things up a bit.  He's a constant in these movies.  You can at least rely on the fact that Thomerson is going to give it his all no matter how shitty the script.  Thomerson plays a burned out tracker who helps Dozens track down the mystical mask of cyclopes, but not before those Duke boys get themselves into one mess of a pickle with some puppety graboids.  They really do throw the kitchen sink into this one including a  Ninja Turtle/wrestling strap match with Bull from Night Court.  Nothing ever seems to get figured out in this thing.  It's like a never ending journey to find a dude name Jared.  Shit, think I just wrote the next Harold and Kumar movie.

  The film does end on a high note with one of the goofiest chase scenes ever.  The blue screen in this rivals only that of Megaforce.  It would help if the actors didn't look so fucking bored with the entire chase scene.  At least there's some kitsch in there to keep you from jerking off for two minutes anyway.  This movie suffers with what many sci-fi movies from that era suffer from.  Lack of explanation and a reliance on the audience to just fill in the blanks and be happy with getting to see some crazy action.  Yeah lets make a cyborg!  Why?  Who cares, but that fuckers in it.  That's the real shame.  For instance a character like Baal.  Good strong character, concept and make-up.  Has all the room in the world for expansion.  Do we expand the story?  Nope, throw him in there and say, "It has cyborgs too!"

  Hell, even the 3-D is awful.  I've seen it in 3-D and guess what....doesn't fucking work!  It has your typical 3-D gags of shit flying at your face, but never capitalizes on the scope and space you get with a 3-D film.  This is the kind of movie that ruined 3-D and it's 80's comeback...well this and Parasite..and then there was Amityville...fuck forgot about Space Hunter...hhmmm skanky Molly Ringwald in 3-D.  Daddy needs a new pair of pants sweets.

  I understand that Metalstorm is a bit of a cult classic.  It's understandable.  It's goofy and can be a lot of fun after a bit of purple drank.  You can totally space on it's visuals and lack of any sort of earthly sense.  Hell, I love a lot of stupid shit from when I was a kid.  In fact they call me King Turd of Shit Movie Mountain.  But, I can also stand back and see this movie for what it is.  Cheap fuck sci-fi garbage from the 80's cashing in on the 3-D craze.  In short, a masterpiece.

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Lethal Weapon in a Nutshell (and by nutshell I don't mean Gary Busey)

by I. Alexander Nash

I've just recently watched a very interesting movie that I'd thought I'd share with you through a little review.  Please enjoy, and if you see this film you should check it out.  You might have to find a copy on eBay as it is very rare and hard to find.  The title, after I consulted an actor search on imdb.com, is apparently Lethal Weapon.  Since I assume most of you have not seen it before, I'd thought I'd give you a brief overview of the plot as it is.   

The amazing charismatic actor and Brute spokesman Tom Atkins stars as a character named Hunsaker.  Hunsaker has recently gotten himself into a bit of a pickle so to speak.  He has been laundering money, through his bank of which he's the president of (I assume he got the job through the only way possible...mustache powers!).  The money laundering scheme involves his old Vietnam Special Forces buddies that have set up a heroin business in the states (much like a lemonade stand but with more o.d.'s unless of course you mean Country Time Lemonade).  Atkins, being of much moral character and shear swankiness, tries to contact his old buddy who is now a cop (played by some unknown actor who I will from now on refer to as Black Cop) to possibly save his daughter who has become a junkie.  Obviously this girl didn't realize what an immense gift it was to be spawned from the loins of Atkins,  After all he was the man who killed Hitler. (I need to fact check that last bit as some very obvious dates do not match up).  Before Black Cop can contact the girl, she throws herself from a building and right into a role on Cheers playing Woody's girlfriend.  This is where the movie starts to lose me a bit.  Instead of getting to the meat and potatoes of the matter so to speak, the movie side tracks itself into Black Cop getting a new "wacky partner." (Again I don't remember too many of the actor's names so the new partner will from here on be referred to as "Antisemtic Actor").  I don't understand why these characters seem so important.  I guess it's important because they are trying to solve the murder of Atkins' daughter but the movie strangles itself with too many scenes of Black Cop and Antisemitic Actor.  They apparently find out some important details blah blah blah, the old Special Forces are in on it, blah blah blah, some little kid saw Gary Busey and lived to talk about it, blah blah blah, Black Actor figures out something's not right in Denmark (besides the fact that it's Denmark), and wants to get to the bottom of the whole situation and needs to talk to Hunsaker.  Alright, you've got my attention again movie.  About 45 minutes in, we are FINALLY given the most important scene in the movie.  Atkins explains to Black Cop (over scotch and cigarettes, if Black Actor were Jamie Lee Curtis his panties would be in a wad on the floor at this point) about the heroin smugglers and how to survive a night at Studio 54 with Busey.  At this point in the flick the director obviously lost control over what's important in the script.  You can tell he isn't very talented because his only other successful movie was Radio Flyer.  After a beautiful performance from Atkins (and might I add dapper) the director has the nerve, the shear gall to gun down Atkins.  I do have to say though that the scene is realistic as in reality it would take a hail of 1000 bullets to bring down the mustache that saved Chicago from the great fire (again gotta check those facts).  At this point we are meant to finish this movie Atkinsless with Black Cop and Antisemtic Actor taking down the baddies.  Bbbboooorrrrriiiinnnnggggg!  This is the point where I tuned out of the movie and got on the internet to look up shirtless pictures of Atki....I mean Jamie Lee Curtis.  I never did completely finish the movie though.  I did see a few fight scenes and Al Leong showing up in there somewhere.  I just assume the ending involves Atkins resurrecting himself and calling all the local tv stations so they yank the Silver Shamrock commercials.  What went wrong here?  You had an awesome cast of which they did nothing with.  You have Black Cop lolly gagging around with Antisemitic Actor when the real interest of the project is obviously the character of Hunsaker.  I mean he's the one with the dead daughter, the REAL world problems we all have and of course the sweetest 'stache this side of Wilfred Brimly.  Why are we stuck watching these no name actors?  The struggle and strife of his character would have more than held the audience's attention.  This could have been a terrific  character study and would have more than likely won Atkins his much deserved Academy Award.  Honestly this would make an awesome one man show on Broadway.  Tom Atkins on stage lit only with a spotlight; an ashtray on a stool next to a particularly flavorful Brandy with a Scotch chaser.  Christ I can even smell the Tony Award (hey if Hugh Jackman can win one don't count out Atkins).  As far as the direction of the movie goes, we've already discussed his lack of recognition of his key actor, but this guy Donner does know how to set up a camera and properly light The 'Stache.  The glimmer and glow revivals that of the light of God itself.  The writing is all top notch, especially in the Hunsaker scenes, but tends to lack when it comes to Black Cop and Antisemitic actor.  They're just so boring and suspiciously lacking in mustache fortitude.  If the idea they were going for was a "buddy cop" movie, I'll stick with Freebie and the Bean if it's all the same to you.  

 I'd say give this movie a try if in your into brilliant scenes of acting in the middle of doddling cop melodrama.  Just be prepared to have your fast forward button ready. Wait...you mean Atkins originally tried out for the part played by Black Cop?  Oh you're dead Donner you're so dead.

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