B-Movies

Popular entertainment, as many know and lament, has at times a strange obsession with youth. The problem, really, is the type of youth which is chooses to represent. We've seen the gilded young things of 90210 or Gossip Girl, the slackers and cool dudes of Ferris Bueller and Back to the Future and the young wizards and hobbits of recent fantasy films. Scott Pilgrim is not about these. Like 2010's other alt. comic book film, Kick Ass, it's about geeks and gamers, cynical, (sometimes) intelligent, underachieving youths.

An earthquake releases thousands of prehistoric piranha into a lakeside resort town's waters. Naturally, it happens during spring break -- and a whole lot of T&A is about to get schooled. Starring Elizabeth Shue as the town's sheriff, Ving Rhames as her stalwart deputy, Jerry O'Connell in a hilarious turn as a softcore pornographer shooting a 'Girls Gone Wild' -style video and hundreds of scantily clad babes.

If Piranha 3D were a person, it would be a naked, fat, sweating, hairy man sunning himself in a vinyl lawnchair eating a pepperoni Hot Pocket while making lewd jokes. And then when someone looks askance at him, he would reply, with glee, "What a delightful pig I am!" and laugh, punctuating his statement by taking a monstrous bite out of the Hot Pocket and then slathering on more tanning oil.

This film has T&A in almost every scene, and when the gore starts and the hotties start falling into the jaws of the prehistoric nasties, the gore ranges from laughable (people with their lower extremities skeletonized) to gut-wrenching (a woman with her hair trapped in a propeller blade).

CIA analyst Mika (Naomie Harris) discovers that ninjas still exist in the modern world, employed by various governments as trained assassins. Can she survive an onslaught of ninjas sent to silence her? Who is the apparently rogue ninja, Raiko? Is he friend or foe?

Director James McTeigue delivers crazy non-stop ninja mayhem with Ninja Assassin. Rogue ninja Raizo (played by the singularly named 'Rain') must protect Mika from the black pajama-wearing assassins he once called his family. Can Raizo stop them?

Put on your black pajamas and your black tabi socks, because Ninja Assassin rides the ninja theme about as hard as 'The Real World' rode the word 'real' -- really, really hard. This is the most Hollywood representation of ninja-ness that I've seen, with ninjas being presented more like supernatural killers, and less like highly-trained martial artists who specialize in deception. McTeigue dispenses almost entirely with the historical reality of ninjutsu, instead focusing on the ninja's violent coolness. Every single scene of the film grabs you by the collar and shouts "Ninja" into your face.

A series of medical doctors are being murdered by the ghoul-faced Dr. Phibes, who uses diabolical setups to murder his victims in ways that mimic biblical curses. Can the interminably stupid but well-meaning Detective Trout of Scotland Yard stop him?

Starring horror film legend Vincent Price in the title role, The Abominable Dr. Phibes plays out as a kind of ghoulish fever dream -- funny at most times, but strangely dreamy as well. There's an air of subtle creepiness that haunts the film, even while it is being humorous. Phibe's motivation is simple enough -- his wife was 'murdered' after being in a horrific car accident by ten doctors who operated on her after the crash. Phibes intends to exact revenge on those doctors and what makes the movie interesting is that although Phibes is motivated by revenge he is not a wild-eyed maniac. His revenge has fermented into a fine wine that he sips slowly, carefully, savoring every delicious droplet.

2008 had some great films such as The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, and Quantum of Solace. But for every silver screen 'Yin' there's a 'Yang' and thanks to Paris Hilton we now know if you can get a reel of film and a leper you to can make $27,696 in two days!

Some of you who know me well realize I have a fondness in my heart for crappy cinema. Give me a schlocky sword-and-sorcery flick with warrior women in overflowing chainmail brassieres, please. Can I get a generic giant irradiated beast movie? I don't know what it is (inner voice: "the bosoms, Krog, it's the bosoms!") about these films that makes me love them so, but after watching 'The Manitou' I believe I've just found the single goofiest piece of cinema ever made. And from me, that's saying a lot.

The full title of the film is "The Unnameable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter". Randolph Carter is a fictional character appearing in a number of stories written by H.P. Lovecraft. Carter is described as an 'antiquarian'; a seeker after ancient mysteries. The Unnameable II takes two of Lovecraft's better stories ("The Statement of Randolph Carter" and "The Unnameable") - both featuring Carter, and tries to merge them. Like most cinematic adaptations of Lovecraft's work the story is changed considerably. Compared against the various films that have tried to bring Lovecraft's stories to life, Unnameable II does fairly well. That's not saying much.

When a human spaceship tasked with exploring Halley's comet discovers a strange ship in the tail of the comet, three crystalline chambers are found. Within each is a perfect human specimen -- one female and two males, all nude. Nude women normally excite me, but in this case it would have been better for everyone had they just let the alien ship keep on cruisin' the spaceways.

Mariah Carey is herself (or a reasonable facsimile) in 'Glitter' -- the story of a girl who becomes a star through the sheer magnitude of her incredible singing talent. The film follows the main character 'Billie' as she starts as a backup singer for a sexy (though talentless) female singer. When a local DJ named 'Dice' (*groan*) realizes that Billie's producer has his talentless female star lip-synch to Billie's voice, he tries to become her new producer ... and also her boyfriend.

Filipino midget Weng-Weng returns as Agent 00, to rescue a nuclear scientist from the maniacal 'Mr. Giant' who demands that the scientist create an 'M'-Bomb for him! Armed to the teeth with various gadgets, Agent 00 battles his way through an army of bad guys. Guard your groins well, evil-doers.