First the Holocaust and now Ghost Muppets. Germany Hurts My Heart.

  by I.  Alexander Nash


  Roland Emmerich you delightful little cocksucker.  You have brought us so many great films and so much joy.  You gave us The Day After Tomorrow...well that one kinda sucked; but how about 10,000 B.C.?  Scratch that one too.  But who doesn't love Independence Day or the Patriot?  Well actually I don't like either of those movies.  Hmm.  How about Universal Soldier?  Okay, pretty shitty.  Godzilla?  Okay, so you've made pretty much all terrible movies that have gnoshed on my soul for the last 30 years causing me great pain and suffering.  Moon 44 wasn't half bad but that's like saying John Wayne Gacy wasn't too bad because he only killed 27 people instead of 30.  You're like the anti-Spielberg.  Where as Spielberg makes large budget special effects garbage films, he at least tries to impart some sort of character and soul into the movie.  He may be batting 50% but he at least tries.  You've tried to make those type of films for years and have continued to crap it up.  Did Jim Carey give you a bunch of Ex lax for trying to steal his woman and now you're shitting out so many awful films.  Too bad the toilet is broken in this case as well.

  Before Emmerich started spending 300 million to destroy half the planet per film, he brought to America his German version of childhood whimsy.  His premier American film was a little slice of insanity called Making Contact (aka Joey).  Making Contact contains probably the creepiest squat ventriloquist dummy ever registered on film all wrapped into a less than tidy E.T. style package.  More about that film later as we are discussing his second foray into American films with supposed family film Hollywood Monster or Ghost Chase as it's know in America.

The cast of Fraggle Rock falls on hard times.

Even in German the movie sounds fucking stupid

  The film opens with it's Mannequin inspired credits sequence only to immediately tease your cock with a scene from Night of the Living Dead.  Terrible idea for a start.  As soon as I saw that I took it out of the player and cued up Night.  Killed it real early there Roland.  After procrastinating and watching Night three times I, against better judgement, went back into Ghost Chase.  It's so disgustingly 80's.  It takes you a good five minutes to focus on anything besides the sunglasses, jams and bomber jackets.  We meet our leads, Jason Lively who played Chris in Night of the Creeps and Rusty in European Vacation as well as Jill Whitlow who played Cynthia in Night of the Cree...hey!  You completely raided and stole both leads from Night of The Creeps.  Eject.  Okay, back to Ghost Chase after watching Night of the Creeps two times.  Our favorite homecoming couple and their buddy who looks like Zack Morris are a trio of would be small time film makers who apparently use sweatshop employed children as their film crew.  The Keystone kids are having money problems and can't finish their film.  I don't see how they are having money troubles (as apposed to Monkey Troubles which means your being stalked by a Gypsy Harvey Keitel.  frightening) as Bayside High's most bleached student is apparently a god damn mechanical genius decking their home out in the latest Pee Wee Herman technology.  Get an engineering job Zack, Kelly Kapowski needs an Esprit shopping spree.

Time out!

  It just so happens, as these things do, Clark's favorite son has inherited a clock and a bunch of left over photos from Ken Burn's Civil War.  Through much dribbled shat out dialog and a Making Contact inspired dream sequence, we discover his grandfather was a rich old bastard who had his odd looking butler wall him into his mansion basement with all of his money 60 years ago and after creating the final set from Legend of Hellhouse, the butler died next to the clock.  Oh, that's a great name for a Hardy Boys story, The Butler Who Died Next to the Clock.  Too bad I'm only 40 years too late for that one.  And since you are not all complete retards and had your 5 hour energy shots chased with Red Bull you should be able to figure out the ghost of the butler now lives inside the clock.  Mr. Belding's nemesis wakes from his dream to craft a script based on this idea.  Not a great idea kid as I am currently watching a film based on these concepts and I can already tell you it blows.  Alright time for an 80's montage!  The kids start prepping the new idea by first  avoiding John Madden's bloated ass and stealing a bunch of shit from ACE hardware.  Good move Roland, encourage shop lifting in your children's film.  I wish Randy Quaid encouraged you to reenact the ending from Independence Day. 

I think Roland Emmerich was warning us about a future franchise he was going to ruin.

   Simultaneously a plot develops as the head of a movie studio, played by Paul "Dick Vernon" Gleason, wants the clock for his own nefarious purposes. You see his father pulled a little bit of a Glenn Gary style swindle on old gramp's house and built a movie studio around the mansion.  How Chief Robinson figured out the spirit of the butler, and therefore the only person who knows where the money is, lives in the clock is beyond fucking me.  He just knows...and hopes to God that wasn't a hostage.  The kids apparently fucked with the bull so Gleason sends out his German goon to retrieve the clock.

Are we not men?

   Screech's hero (and yes these Saved by the Bell references will continue and get even thicker) decides to build an animatronic version of the butler for the film using his stolen goods.  I mean really just get a job in special effects kid.  Why the hell are you so poor when you can create Stan Winston magic from your very own V.R. rocket power chair?  It's really just poor planning on your part.  What I never understand is why the hell make the butler this very strange green Terrahawks reject.  Even his animated ghost looks like this puppet.  Doing research for this write up, it seems everyone believes that this butler is some kind of alien ghost or some such nonsense.  There is never a mention of aliens in this movie.  So doing the math:  2 + 2= you fucked up.  With the addition of this bizarre British accented Muppet they have confused the whole plot to the point where 30 years later audiences are still confused.  Whatever.  I guess I'm just splitting crepe hairs here.  The ghost, named Louis, possess the puppet and watches more Night of the Living Dead....(breaths heavily) this movie is destroying my copy of Night...good thing I have nine more copies in reserve.  Louis informs our characters of the full plot of the movie, good thing he came in to save the script writers from the dreaded exposition monster.  Now the ghost chase is on...whatever that means.

Tom Atkins is looking fucking rough.

  The kids get involved in many hi jinx culminating in a treasure hunt in the soon to be destroyed mansion were the money is buried (and let me tell you the explosion of this house is the least impressive effect since those claymation scenes in Night Train to Terror).  There's a ghost sword fight, some torture devices as well as another leftover scene from Making Contact towards the end of the film.   If it seems we've gotten to the end rather quickly, you're not alone.  This whole movie is so plot heavy at the beginning that when we get to the end it feels as abrupt as the ending to Saved by the Bell:  The College Years (I told you it was coming).  It takes forever for them to lay out the plot of this movie that when we finally get there it seems completely from left field and rushed.  It seems like such a huge task getting at this money but when we finally get there they just get the money without many problems.  It's like a ten minute scene.  With something like this where you have so much build up to this goal you're just expecting some grandiose finale and what you get are the final moments of Land of the Dead.  The only thing they really do is try to instill some sort of drama when they inevitably kill off Louis.  Jessie Spano's neighbor get's all fucking teary and I guess the audience is suppose to as well.  Hahaha.  Ah Roland, when are you ever going to learn that German's have no emotions?  Is that a racial slur?   Oh well then fuck it.   The kids get a shit ton of money and Gleason get's the boot.  They take over the studio conceivably to make Zach and Kelly's Vegas Wedding Special.  And oh shit, little mister green genes shows up driving the limo at the end.  He didn't die after all. Yay! I'm so happy I could shit.

Sodomy is very very much apart of me!

  This movie is fucking ridiculous.  It's a kids movie with no humor for kids and certainly nothing for adults, unless those certain adults have recently experienced horrible brain trauma.  It really is a movie without an audience which is why it has remained so obscure over the years.  It tanked when it came out, and it continues to tank as some lost piece of film treasure.  I'm just glad when it came time for me to dig it out from it's crypt I didn't have to ask the Hobgoblin's illegitimate father for directions.

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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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