Thursday Movie Picks: So Bad It's Awesome!!!

Yyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!

Woooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Yyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!

I.

AM.

IN.

HEAVEN.

I have been waiting for this for months. These last few weeks have been the hardest as topic after topic came in that forced me to play it straight, more or less. Today? Today, I feel as though shackles have been removed from my ankles and wrists, my freedom papers have been signed and notorized, and I'm on the fastest damn train in the Union heading North.

Yes, I just made a slavery joke. I can make a slavery joke. You, I don't know. Use your better judgement. Screw it, just don't.

Back to the reason for my joy.

The topic for this week's round of Thursday Movie Picks is movies that are So Bad They're Awesome!!!! Well, really it's So-Bad-It's-Good, but I don't do good for these types of movies. I do awesome. Thank you to our host, as always, the wonderful Wanderer of Wandering Through the Shelves. A thanks must also go out to my homie Dan of Dancin' Dan on Film. Some of you, especially if you're name is Dan, might remember that a few weeks ago I said Dan sucks. Thing is he suggested a topic of which I really wasn't fond. He's learned from the error of his ways and picked this, the most perfect topic ever. Dan, you have fully redeemed yourself in my eyes, man. Now, on to some truly craptacular cinema.

For Your Height Only

(1981)

Over the last year or so, there's been lots of talk about who should take over the role of James Bond once Daniel Craig drives his Aston Martin off into the sunset. A ton of names have been bandied about except for the one that should probably get the most serious attention. I'm talking about the diminutive Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage. No? Hmph. This film might change your mind. It's the Filipino rip-off version of a Bond flick. It stars one Weng Weng as Weng Wang. Neither of those names is a typo, by the way. It's no matter because you should just call him Agent 00. I didn't forget a digit, either. He really is Agent Double-Zero. Here's the thing, our hero measures up at a statuesque two-feet-nine-inches. For my metrics using readers that's less than one meter, eighty-four centimeters to be more specific. If you need even more context, Dinklage comes in at four-feet-five-inches, or 1.34 meters. Doesn't sound so crazy, now does it? The thing that makes this a sight to behold is that this is not a movie filled with little people. He's beating up regular sized dudes, and getting it in with normal sized ladies. Don't worry, or be too turned on, or whatever. We don't actually see any of the lovin'. The fightin'? We'll get to that in a bit. Also rest assured that our hero's stature, or lack thereof, is not solely the reason this is hilariously and gloriously bad. There are plenty others. The plot is pretty standard. Agent 00 has to stop the diabolical Mr. Giant from taking over something or other. Yes, our hero is literally just tall enough to peer into a car's side view mirror and the bad guy is Mr. Giant. Of course, there's a twist with that. The bad-awesome parts? Let's start with Weng's acting. Whenever someone is talking to him, he usually just blankly stares at them to the point you're expecting him to nod off to sleep. He occasionally breaks that up with a verbal response, but isn't given a whole lot of dialogue. Speaking of dialogue, it's just bad all around. The expository stuff is wooden, trite, or both. There is a bright spot there, though. Whenever the bad guys get pissed off they refer to Agent 00 by name, sorta. They call him "that little wang." So yeah, the star of our show is the butt of a running dick joke. And speaking of dicks, and nuts while we're at it, let me fill you on the fight scenes of which there are many. Agent 00 takes out dozens of henchmen, a few upper level goons, and of course, Mr. Giant. I swear he punches or kicks just about every one of them square in the frank and beans at least once, if not multiple times. My favorite has to be the one where Agent 00 hides in a crevice in a dilapidated wall while two henchmen approach. He trips the first dude who falls ever-so-gently to the ground and just lies there face down while his partner is getting nut-stomped and bitch slappedby Mighty Mouse. The dude then gets up just to get his ass...and balls...kicked. Oh before I move on, I have to mention the meeting between Agent 00 and this movie's version of Q. Dude just keeps pulling crap out of his desk that will serve as 00's gadgets. He gives half-assed explanations one what they do and even less info on how to use them. One is a belt with a giant buckle. What does he tell our hero? "It's got all sorts of stuff in there." Really? I'm glad he cleared that up. Other gadgets are made from a watch, a ring, a pair of x-ray glasses, and a hat. 00 puts all this shit on and comes out of the office looking like a miniature pimp. Okay, okay, okay, I'm done. I failed miserably at keeping this entry...um...short.

I'm not wrong. I'm only 5'4". I don't get to make short jokes too often so I ran with it. Boo yourself! In fact, take this...

Moving on...

Takin' It All Off

(1987)

You've probably seen one of these movies before, like the awesomely bad Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. By these movies I mean the ones where everyone has to band together quick, fast, and in a hurry so they can put on a show that might just raise enough money to save something near and dear to everyone's hearts. In the case of Breakin' 2 it was a youth center. This film, if you can't tell by the title, takes a slightly less wholesome approach than a breakdancing extravaganza. What are our heroines trying to save, you ask? It's a school for striptease artistes. It's for striptease artistes because that sounds better than stripper school, I suppose. So yeah, it's pole dancing classes long before that became an actual thing. That makes this a film ahead of it's time. No? Let's see. The school is owned by Bettie Bigones. Yes, that breaks down into 'big ones.' Fittingly, she's played by the fabulously, and naturally, endowed b-movie vet Kitten Natividad. If you knew that name before showing up to read this post, you have at least as much pig in you as I do. It's cool. Keep your anonymity if you wish. Moving on. The place is in financial ruin, so Bettie must rally her girls to shake that ass for a whole lotta cash and put on the biggest strip show EVAH! to help them get through it, Bettie even enlists the help of her newest student Allison, played by 80s porn star Candie Evans. She's using her real name here, by the way, Jean Poremba, if you care. Another if-you-care item to note is that this is the sequel to 1984's Takin' It Off. I haven't seen that one, oddly enough. Anyhoo, Allison provides the big snag in the twat plot. She can't bring herself to get naked in front of people. Bettie has the bright idea to have the girl hypnotized. For some strange reason only known to this movie's writers, the hypnotits hypnotist sets it up so that she'll only strip when she hears one particular track, the film's extra corny theme song. Guess what song suddenly gets played every damn where Allison goes. No points for that. It was a gimme. You do get points and disrespect if you've already seen this. If you have, you know that it's filled with bad acting, bad writing, full-frontal nudity, cheesy 80s synth music, 80s fashions whenever the girls are wearing clothes, and best of all, 80s hair - top and bottom, if you know what I mean. If you haven't seen it, you might be wondering why the hell would anyone watch this. If so, you struggle mightily with reading comprehension, and there may be no help for you.

Frankenhooker

(1990)

Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, amazingly written at age seventeen, is widely considered a literary classic using horror to explore the dangers of man overstepping his boundaries and playing God. It has since been turned into a film that's become a classic in its own right. Not this one, silly. Could've been this one. Okay, not really. Still, that book also inspired this slice of absoluteful ridiculosity. Look at me, making up words AND coining terms. I'm the shit. Ahem...sorry...movie...right? Right. As proof of the novel's influence on it, our titular character is actually a young woman named Elizabeth Shelley. During a bizarre accident with a lawnmower, her body is pretty much shredded. Her distraught boyfriend wisely (???) saves her head. His name is Jeffrey Franken, of course. He misses her so much he devises a plan to bring her back to life. No digging up graves for this mad scientist, though. He decides he's going to get his spare parts from the local ladies of the evening. How? He throws a big party and gives a bunch of them a super duper potent of crack that he personally created. It's so strong, whoever uses it literally explodes. When the ladies go boom, voila, hooker parts everywhere. He gathers up what he needs, stitches it together with his girl's head, does the whole "it's alive" thing and gets his woman back. Sorta. You know these things never work out as planned, right? See the rest for yourself. I dare ya.


I know that's three, but dammit I ain't done. Just having too much fun. When I'm having fun, you get to have fun. That means, it's time for a...

BONUS SECTION!!!

All of these movies got their very own full length review from yours truly. I totally spoil them because you're not gonna watch them. And they are all some of my best work, if I do say so myself.

War Goddess

(1973)

This is bonkers from start to finish. Made during the grindhouse glory days of the 1970s, it has all the tenets of the exploitation genre: unintentional humor, bad dialogue, worse acting, laughable action and never more than a few minutes pass without the appearance of a naked body. Click here for the full review.

Malibu High

(1979)

Meet Kim (Jill Lansing). Her life is a total mess. Her boyfriend Kevin (Stuart Taylor) just became her ex-boyfriend, dumping her for the school’s resident rich girl Annette (Tammy Taylor). Kim is a high school senior, but she’s either flunking or barely passing all of her classes and might not graduate. She lives with only her mom because her dad committed suicide. The two of them argue constantly. Her only friend, if you can call her that, is Lucy (Johnson). Lucy is sincere in her friendship but we get the feeling Kim only keeps the girl around because she has a car and a father who apparently doesn’t pay attention to his liquor cabinet. Luckily for us, Kim’s life is about to get a whole lot messier. Click here for the full review.

Raw Force

(1982)

You're not gonna believe this. We have human trafficking, jade smuggling cannibal monks, zombie samurai, a Bruce Lee impersonator, karate school students on a cruise, a Bruce Lee impressionist as an instructor, a brothel, and ravenous piranhas all stuffed into one movie. Did I forget something? Oh yeah, buck nekkidness. Lots and lots of buck nekkidness. If you want to know why this, of all movies, will be forever linked in my mind with Raiders of the Lost Ark, click here for the full review.

This week, I won.

Addendum: Due to its popularity down in the comments section, I have embedded the full movie For Your Height Only from YouTube. Have at it! Let me know what you think!