icaredor
Joined Aug 2006
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Reviews13
icaredor's rating
Everyone knows that bio-terror is really a good subject for a wacky slapstick comedy, so it's astonishing that this one, while fairly campy, isn't much fun. People who are "differently-talented" have made films like Eegah! that are wonderfully entertaining because they're unintentionally funny. Trying to make an intentionally funny film with little talent produces only sadness. Witness Nasty Rabbit (aka Spies-A-Go-Go), a comic Cold War espionage caper. The set up is promising enough: the Soviets plan to destroy the U.S. by releasing a biological weapon somewhere along the Continental Divide, Wyoming, perhaps. Spies from many countries descend on a dude ranch where a Russian spy, disguised as a cowboy, has the 'fernacious'(!) bacteria in a vial tied around a rabbit's neck. Thinking this up clearly exhausted the creativity of the writers (and there are three of them!). Minimal thought goes into the rest of the plot and seemingly none into the dialogue. After the set up, the film starts playing for time and fills an hour with every spy hitting every other in the head. You'll get the picture if you imagine a Three Stooges short dragged out for ninety minutes, and with the Stooges replaced by Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi. No, they would probably be funnier than the lead actors here. The film does have Arch Hall, Jr., (the cabbage-patch Elvis), and Richard Kiel. But don't hope for something as wonderful as Eegah! They do perk up the movie. Kiel appears only briefly and Jr., the titular star, after getting a great build up as a rock-n-roll star-slash-super spy, is woefully underused. And any film that would benefit from more Arch Hall, Jr. really is in bad shape. Still, instead of Arch, the camera focuses on a bunch of unknown, inexperienced and talentless actors as they repeatedly hit each other in the head. I kept wishing the film would cut to the chase and when it did I regretted what I'd wished for. Long after the Soviet Union has gone, this fernacious flick continues to threaten America.
Not being overly familiar with mobster slang, I assumed Racket Girls would be a charming little romp about the Sapphic exploits of tennis stars. You can imagine my delight on discovering that wrestling substituted for tennis and illegal gambling substituted for tennis.
Noted Edwoodian player, Tim Farrell, renders the part of Umberto Scalli, a bookie who uses ladies wrestling as a cover. Unfortunately for Mr. Scalli, he is in big, for 35 big ones, to big time mob boss, Mr. Big, although that name may be an alias. Scalli's erring antics also earn attention from the other Mr. Big, Big Brother. Between fending off the Justice Department and the Mr. Big boys, Scalli nobbles a race horse, romances wrestling hopeful (the porcine Peaches Page), and tries to nobble a wrestling bout - he fails because those athletes evince too much integrity to rig fights. Female wrestling, it seems, was one of the few sports that remained "clean" and, fortunately, still does. And fortunately, Scalli works quickly leaving plenty of time for interminable footage of women grappling.
Racket Girls has a lot about it that is funny, yet not nearly enough to fill an entire movie. Amazingly, bouts between the likes of the Leopard Lady and the Panther Lady are far less thrilling than one would anticipate, and Mike and 'bots struggle to fill the hole with quips, though judging from the cheering on the soundtrack, the crowd at ring-side was going completely insane. Well, it was the fifties and they had no Lady Gaga. The whole affair leaves the impression that women's wrestling in the fifties achieved a glamor only rivaled by men's wrestling in the fifties.
While the main feature drags a bit, the episode as a whole surges on the fairly long short, "Are You Ready for Marriage?" It supplies a feast of cruddy material and the guys rip through it brilliantly. Possibly the funniest short of the entire series.
Skits take off from the film and short, and concern Crow marrying Servo and their wedding ending in a wrestling match. Nice.
Noted Edwoodian player, Tim Farrell, renders the part of Umberto Scalli, a bookie who uses ladies wrestling as a cover. Unfortunately for Mr. Scalli, he is in big, for 35 big ones, to big time mob boss, Mr. Big, although that name may be an alias. Scalli's erring antics also earn attention from the other Mr. Big, Big Brother. Between fending off the Justice Department and the Mr. Big boys, Scalli nobbles a race horse, romances wrestling hopeful (the porcine Peaches Page), and tries to nobble a wrestling bout - he fails because those athletes evince too much integrity to rig fights. Female wrestling, it seems, was one of the few sports that remained "clean" and, fortunately, still does. And fortunately, Scalli works quickly leaving plenty of time for interminable footage of women grappling.
Racket Girls has a lot about it that is funny, yet not nearly enough to fill an entire movie. Amazingly, bouts between the likes of the Leopard Lady and the Panther Lady are far less thrilling than one would anticipate, and Mike and 'bots struggle to fill the hole with quips, though judging from the cheering on the soundtrack, the crowd at ring-side was going completely insane. Well, it was the fifties and they had no Lady Gaga. The whole affair leaves the impression that women's wrestling in the fifties achieved a glamor only rivaled by men's wrestling in the fifties.
While the main feature drags a bit, the episode as a whole surges on the fairly long short, "Are You Ready for Marriage?" It supplies a feast of cruddy material and the guys rip through it brilliantly. Possibly the funniest short of the entire series.
Skits take off from the film and short, and concern Crow marrying Servo and their wedding ending in a wrestling match. Nice.
If you're like me, and I know I am, then you've often wondered how much footage you could watch of planes refueling before you finally cracked. Luckily, this installment of MST will answer that question for you. If refueling doesn't do the job, Starfighters provides plenty of gripping talking-on-the-telephone-and-radio action to hold you in a vice-like stupor, tightened by the easy-listening jazz sound track.
This is an astonishingly dull movie from a director whose love of close-up shots runs to fetish. These giant head-shots are so startling on the small screen that I can only imagine the trauma they caused people who witnessed them in a movie theater, if, that is, anyone ever did. Director Will Zens can only be said to succeed with this film if he intended it as a metaphor for the sky: vast and largely empty.
This is an astonishingly dull movie from a director whose love of close-up shots runs to fetish. These giant head-shots are so startling on the small screen that I can only imagine the trauma they caused people who witnessed them in a movie theater, if, that is, anyone ever did. Director Will Zens can only be said to succeed with this film if he intended it as a metaphor for the sky: vast and largely empty.