60/60 Review #1: Plan 9 From Outer Space.

It was a movie so bad it took me two times to watch it! It's the first movie of my 60/60 Project, and I'm already screwing up. I fell asleep about 30 minutes into this bad boy the first time I tried to watch it... though not for the reason you think. It wasn't so bad or boring that it put me to sleep. Actually, the time had just changed, and it felt like it was an hour later than it was. That being said, I did sludge through it the next day (yesterday), so that I can now write about it.

This is probably Ed Wood's most famous failure. It's about some dimwitted cops, a couple airplane pilots, and a couple others who fight zombies, a vampire, and aliens. The aliens have tries to reason with Earthlings in the past, but everybody ignores them. All their plans have failed. So now, they're left with Plan 9, which is to bring the dead back to life and destroy all humans. Why? Because they're going to create, eventually, a bomb so powerful that it could destroy the entire universe. Among the ghoulies roaming the local cemetery are Bela Lugosi (sorta), Vampira, and Tor Johnson.

I actually really like the idea behind the story. At it's core, it's about aliens who summon zombies to destroy the Earth in order to ultimately save the universe. That's a pretty epic idea, if I do say so myself (and actually, there already is an alien-originated zombie movie entitled Undead, which is also pretty good). But where the movie fails, of course, is... everything else.

There are really only no more than maybe 5 sets in the whole movie, and they're all terrible and obviously fake. The dialogue is laughable, the characters are boring, and the acting is atrocious. Even worse acting than those having to speak lines are those that don't--primarily Vampira and Tor Johnson. Vampira is just in this really awkward stance through the majority of the film. This was also Bela Lugosi's (famous for Dracula) last film, and he died during production. He filmed all the stuff for when his character was alive, but they got a different actor for his scenes after he had died. As such, his ghoulish character had a cape held up over his face the whole time so you couldn't tell it wasn't him.

It's really pointless for me to go into how bad the movie is. I mean, it's Ed Wood. He's considered the worst director who has ever lived. He, Uwe Boll, and Tommy Wiseau practically make the Unholy Trinity. When your UFOs consist of toys hung from strings... and you can still see the string... not to mention have people wonder if you just glued two plates together... you know it's bad.

Overall, I'd actually say I was disappointed with the movie. I was actually expecting it to be like OMG THIS IS RIDICULOUS LOLZ. And it was, at times. This would be a fun one to watch with friends. But watching it alone, it's just kinda boring. I really need to check out the Rifftrax with it. And I know they actually sell the DVD with the Rifftrax, which is awesome. So I'll check that out some time. But as for now... Plan 9 remains a good idea with a really bad execution. On the bright side? It really put me in the mood to re-watch Tim Burton's Ed Wood.

The Zed Word

(P.S. This rating is based more on entertainment than quality. As I was expecting more and was bored, it got a low rating. If I had been rating this based on quality, it would have got a "Suck to Blow," obviously.)

Uwe Boll... Root Of All Evil?

So I was thinking about this yesterday, and it suddenly all made sense.

To catch those up who have been living under a cinematic rock for the last 5 years or so, Uwe Boll is a writer/director/producer of some of the worst movies in recent years. He has been compared to the likes of Ed Wood, though some say he's even worse (considering that at least Ed Wood's movies are so bad they're good while Uwe Boll's are, well, not). He typically focuses on video game movies (giving a bad name to the already bad name of video game movies). Uwe Boll is responsible for such travesties as House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, In the Name of the King, and the upcoming Postal. Every one of his movies has bombed horribly, yet not only does he still receive funding, he continues to get well-known actors.

And not only is he a crappy filmmaker, but his attitude is smug, arrogant, highly annoying. He constantly states that he believes he is the best filmmaker in the world. And when critics hate on him, what does he do? He beats them up. Talk about immature. Again, for those who don't know, he challenged critics to face off against him in a boxing match (only his top 5 worst critics). What he didn't tell them is that he, in fact, is and/or used to be a boxer. So he ended up cleaning the floor with them. To pour salt on the wounds, it is believed that he is going to use footage from the fights in his upcoming film, Postal. However, when filmmakers challenged Boll to a film-related challenge, he decided to ignore them.

So anyway, back to the topic at hand. I believe it is people like Uwe Boll that ruin this world. It is not movies or video games that cause violence, but people such as Mr. Boll that show kids it's okay to beat up people that don't share your opinion... and that it's okay to walk away from the battles that actually matter.

And the cinema-going audience has been complaining for years now that only crap is coming out. Well, if people decided to invest their money (and decent actors) in quality material instead of Uwe Boll, then they might just get that. Cinema-goers would be happy. Or, instead, they could use all the money they would have used to produce a Uwe Boll film to solve world hunger or something. And if people put together all the money that would have been used to pay for tickets to see a Uwe Boll film... well, then, you could go to the dollar menu at McDonalds and have a simple lunch.

So, Uwe Boll, you need to stop making movies. You're causing school violence and world hunger.

Jerk.