Stinker Madness - The Bad Movie Podcast

Banning comes back once again to save the President once again from an assassination attempt where not everything is not as it seems once again. It's the number one movie in America, but is it enough to keep the Banning franchise alive? Make no mistake, Banning 3's plot statement above is the same as the other two but this film is a departure from the other two. Where the other two are a thin plot stuff around ludicrous action scenes and Banning eating the flesh of his enemies, this one mostly has Banning on the defensive and reacting to the violence around him instead of reveling in it. And while the villain is a complete moron (we'll get to that later) there's nothing really stupid that takes place in Banning's world. Let's put it this way - if there were no Banning 1 and 2, Banning 3 wouldn't be on the podcast. It's just a solid (if forgettable) action movie. Now the villain, played by Danny Huston, keeps this inside the realm of the idiot plot from the bad guys standpoint. Banning of course, doesn't apply to the idiot plot because all he does is kill bad guys so it's not FULL idiot plot. However, wow. This company that Danny Huston's character runs has no chance of ever avoiding subpoena's and Congressional investigations. Like the day their file their incorporation, the company is all sent to Gitmo - because evil and COMPLETELY bad at being a bad guy is a dangerous combo. It is clear that Gerald Butler has lost a step (he broke his neck in the last one and then got in a motorcycle crash right before this one) and some people might be a little disappointed in that (see Sam) but he's still charming, fun and kick-ass Banning - just a different, less psychopathic version of himself. Yet the real star of the show is Nick Nolte who plays Old Man Banning and is an absolute treat. Usually 2x of your fave action guy sucks, but 2x Banning is wonderful. Nolte completely steals the show and gives arguably the best performance that's ever been in a Banning movie. For you? Maybe. If you don't love Banning by now, this one isn't going to bring you in to the warm, loving, fun and just darn good people community you sick, soulless bastard. But if you're like the rest of us, it just depends on if you like a "better" Banning movie, but less fun that the others. I for one, loved it and hope that this isn't the last time we see Mike Banning.

The bald bros are back minus the biggest bald bro, so the bald bro stock is down! The 2/3 of the bald bros are forced to team-up to stop Thanos from killing everyone while learning about super-powered villains, love and friendship and forget about family, Vin Diesel and cars. While there is a myriad of problems with Universal's fingers in their big franchise (of which there is many fingers) the team behind the action do a great job. This film is shot well, very well choreographed, has some genuinely funny cameos (that normally would have sucked ass), and some great film-making contrasting the two leads. That's where the good stops. The rest is a hot mess. The plot is absolutely stupid. The villains clearly have no clue on what there doing and just making one different movie negates the entire movie and gives them everything they want. The Idiot Plot has appeared again. The movie looses focus on what its trying to achieve a third of the way through. It tries to shift away from the Torreto side of the F&F for about 30 minutes and then just clones it again (poorly). There's something that we can't put our finger on why it works in the "Family" side of the franchise but it doesn't work here, other than clearly lazy writing and really stupid villains. At the end of the day, the biggest problem is a scary prospect for the future of franchises - the MCUing of Hollywood. Make no mistake - this isn't a Fast & Furious film, it's a Marvel movie with the F&F guys. Runtime, superpowers that aren't explained or needed, and even post-credit sequences make this an obvious attempt by the men in ties at Universal to cash in on those Disney zillions instead of doing what they do best - just make their own damn films. We are petrified that for the next 10 years every studio turns their blockbusters into just an crummy MCU film. Eek! We're sad because Hollywood shouldn't be afraid of spin-offs but they can't just regurgitate the thing their spinning off and do it so poorly. It's not that its a crappy-bad movie, its just an ok-bad movie. You'll still have a good time but don't think this is going to give you any surprises. You'll likely forget about it the next day.

All of the truckers team up to drive down the road hauling goods and.... freedom? Let's try that again. A bunch of cops chase a bunch of truckers down the highway because of their flagrant....trucking? Ok, ok, ok. Got it - Truckers Truck! Seriously the plot of Convoy is one of the most dubious we've ever reviewed. One might argue that about 20 minutes of the movie actually has a plot of outrunning the law who wants to kill a fellow trucker because of abuse of power and racism, but that plot lasts for only a brief period. Within minutes of that plot being put together, the film shifts into Forrest Gump running across the US with people joining him because they think he's got all the answers. At no point, does anyone have a clue why they've joined a mega-convoy of truckers and why anyone cares about them. Sadly, while the plot is absolutely bonkers the fun stops there. In such a film that had the budget and comes hot off the heels of Smokey & The Bandit, there's pretty tame stunts and not enough of those to begin with. The "bandit" (Kris Kristopherson) isn't charming (he's just gross), action packed (he gets his butt kicked in the only fight) and lacks motivation throughout the film. He's just a guy who is driving down the road to a completely unestablished destination. It's just kind of boring and lacking in anything that we love about trucking films. This is a don't from us.

Well hello, Mary Lou. So good of you to drop in and see me. Wait what are you doing??? Why do you have the powers of all the X-Men combined? Are you like an evil ghost Rogue? How do you work and what is your reason for existence???? Argghghgghghg.....gurgle, gurgle. The above is a perfect summation of what each character should be asking the spooky-ghost or spooky-demon or spooky-ghost-demon that is Mary Lou, a 1950s prom queen who got burnt up like Freddy and lives in a suitcase for 30 years only to return and enact dubious revenge upon various 80s teenagers whom had nothing to do with her death. Why Mary Lou chooses to do anything she does is beyond us and where she got her spooky-powers is another problem. Lastly, we really can't even begin to decipher the ending in which Mary Lou gets (what the movie tries to tell us) everything she wants, only to pull a Jason and not be dead so that she can take a road-trip with the kiddies. This movie fits in perfectly with any of the other nonsensical movies we've reviewed over the years (Dreamcatcher, The Wicker Man, 88 Minutes, Lady in the Water) in that the script is so disjointed from its various moving parts that what you end up with in the end is a series of events that conflict with other events and character actions, with a dollop of heavy weirdness here and there that makes for a not-remember-able horror movie but a fantastic riffing voyage that will leave all audience members scratching their heads for days. Add in some bad acting, some odd casting choices, some super cheesy horror effects and then mash it all up into Carrie 3: The Shining on Elm Street and you've got a recipe for bad movie theater. Streaming Do's and Don'ts Serenity - Amazon Prime

Dolph disguises a buddy-cop movie as an terminator movie. Inside you'll learn that the most deadliest weapon in space are compact discs and all aliens have male-pattern-baldness. Dark Angel AKA I Come in Peace is absolutely bananas. It's so full of action sequences, explosions, aliens chasing each other, one-liners, and a crazy plot where people's brains are drugs in space. It's riddled with buddy-cop cliches, the new partner that does this by the book, an ex-girlfriend that also works in the same circles, the chief that wants his badge, etc... all while giant alien guys are exploding everything in the city with mega-weapons. It's fantastic. There's only so much early 90's nostalgia that you can cram into a movie and somehow this movie manages to blast through that barrier. It's not just the world's deadliest weapon (the compact disc), it's the music, the obligatory cops-at-a-strip-club-scene, it's the hair, the clothes, the cars, and the one-liners. While some people would have made this a dark and grisly film, Craig R. Baxley makes this an absolute blast and falls into an instant classic for anyone who missed it when it came out. Watch this movie now!

Chuck Norris launches his career by kicking lots of people in the chest and calling in his truckin' buddies to run a town over - yes the entire town. It's about as weird movie as you can get and hilarious throughout. Come on back, big rigger! Now you can probably guess how much trucking vs. karate there is in the film and how silly the the combo of the two working together looks on screen. So let's go past that and talk solely about the villainy. The plot revolves around this town that has gone off the deep-end and has essentially declared independence from the state of California. Fine. What their deepest flaw is that they have no idea how to be bad guys. Their evil plot is to hijack truckers, steal their tv dinners, eat the tv dinners, crush the $80,000 truck in a crusher, sell the metal for $200, make moonshine, dump the moonshine on the ground, drink Wild Turkey instead and operate their legal system in the same manner as The Spanish Inquisition. There's no way that a band of truckers are going to run your town over - nope, this plan is perfect!....they said as the FBI is swarming them and filling each citizen full of hot lead. The action is nuts, the karate is hilarious, the van is BOSS, the truckin' lingo is coming at you constantly, the villain is the God-King version of Rosco P. Coltrane, there's tons of weird crap happening outside of the focus, and the ending is absolutely insane with a blend of Spaghetti-Western, truckin', and karate kicks.  We absolutely love this movie and it's got about everything you want in a crummy action truckin' movie. Do not skip it!

The 80's eats far too much pixi-dust and barfs out the worst of it right into our faces. It's Pia Zedora showing off why a millionaire had to pay for her to act and Craig Scheffer giving poopy face for 90 minutes. If you want to make sure you've seen the worst musical, you can't miss this pile of no talent. The deal with Voyage of the Rock Aliens is that it's a failed project before it even gets started. Originally it was supposed to be more like UHF instead it's more like Grease 2. You've got Pia Zedora attempting to launch her career by dancing like she's in a blender. On the opposite side of the obligatory love relationship is Craig Scheffer (yes Craig Scheffer from Nightbreed and A River Runs Through It) whose entire thing is to lip-sync over Jermaine Jackson and making poopy-face over and over and over and over again. Believe it or not, the movie has a myriad of other terrible set pieces and acting. Each and every musical number (with the exception of the the Jermaine Jackson "When the Rain Begins to Fall" which wasn't supposed to be in the film) is absolutely atrocious as if you went to the mall and had the "Be in the Music Video" store produce your movie. The Rock Aliens are actually the band Rhema (mostly, the bass player wasn't screen-worthy apparently) who ALL have no business being on screen give us the majority of the musical numbers so I hope you like Devo knockoffs. Add in a couple psychopath slashers, a tentacle monster, West Side Story knockoffs, bad costumes, future makeup, terrible robots, C.H.O.M.P.S. level comedy, Love Potion No. 8 devices and Ruth Gordon and you've got a recipe for disaster that boils over onto your stove, making a permanent stain on your psyche. Be warned, this one's not for everyone and can be a little tough to get through. You may end up squirming in your chair in discomfort. But it's an absolute must if you want to know what the worst musical is, love crappy 80's videos, or love touring IMDB Bottom 100 worthy films. Check out Eric's Double Loop podcast at https://soundcloud.com/double-loop-podcast

Dolph grabs onto a couple of nukes and uses them to turn his shirt into a sleeveless job. It's The Rock all over again with better acting, better stunts and better action sequences - and it still stinks.  We won't dig too much into the plot here because it's legit just The Rock within a missile silo. What we want to talk about is the incredible amount of stinker staples delivered. There's no sploding chopper but there's pretty much everything else. Dolph's 1-liners and overflowing from his cup and they are all A+ cheesy goodness. The amount of stunts and the level of production put into these stunts while wrapped around a really close example of the idiot plot is astounding. The production design is a blend of surprising and terrible. The script is bonkers bad. There's a little here for everyone. While it slows down for about 5 minutes in the middle, this is pretty hot from start to finish. It never makes sense and gives you plenty to riff on. This isn't just a great sunday movie, this could become a special groups favorite riff experience ever. We highly recommend it. While not ever going to be in anyone's hall of fame, its just a solid POS that is loved by all.

The toughest of the tough guys teams up with a 15-28 year old kid to take down the entire Black Tiger gang using only every gun from the 80's and sweet guitar riffs. No one can touch this guy - mostly because he's covered in sweat and their hands just slip off. When it comes to butt movies, Steele Justice is possibly the most butt. Imagine every 80's tough guy staple and you've got it here. Epic guitar riff score, training montages, sweaty chest hair, perms, headbands, pastel sweaters, cut-off sleeves, big guns, atrocious dialogue and just being generally butt to everyone around you. Martin Kove has got "it" if "it" is super-butt. There is plenty of stuff for bad movie fans here. There's nary a scene that isn't perfect for riffing and when you're not making jokes Martin Kove's attire will pickup the rest of the comedy for you. There's nothing you haven't seen before here but the totality of it's stinker staples will give you plenty of enjoyment if you like super cheesy 80's action movies. It's not Commando, but it wants to be. Perfect movie for a Sunday with a couple fellow riffers. Streaming Do's and Don'ts Honor and Glory Sworn to Justice Shanghai Joe

Once again, the 80s/90s rom-com genre falls into that horrible disgusting trap of "if you think about this very much you'll want to wash your eyes out with soap" because very unforgivable things happen to the people around the main characters. Both of the people on the cover belong in jail. There is a serious warning content-wise here but this needs to be said - Love Potion No. 9 is about 1 thing - rape. It steers very clear of the song where it turns the drinker into a raging boner, this love potion causes anyone of the opposite sex to become a mindless zombie and you can make them do whatever you want. So what do the leads do? Well Paul (Tate Donovan) rapes an entire sorority and Diane (Sandra Bullock) makes the Prince of England propose to her forever changing the landscape of the British Monarchy. Wow, what charming, awesome, quirky people? No! Both belong in prison.  There's only one thing you should do with Love Potion No 8 (#9 isn't good but its not quite as villainous #8) - destroy it. That's the only thing a good person would do with it. It's the most dangerous single chemical that has ever existed in mankind's history and if you do ANYTHING with it but destroy it, you are taking a risk that someone else gets their hands on it. Imagine if the KGB had Love Potion No 8 or if Kim Jong Un (he's not our friend, MAGA) had this. The world would have literally days left before the whole thing is kaboom. Aside from the nastiness of the mains, there's little else to come for here unless you're out for some nostalgia. There is one sequence involving a horny little chimpanzee that it is absolutely hilarious. But that's it. Anything else is a bit of a waste of time and likely will just want you to rethink every decision that has brought you to this moment in life.

Diggstown delivers the ultimate sleight-of-hand hustle to the viewer, by tricking everyone into thinking this is a great "con-job" movie. Look over here, guys and don't pay attention to the paper-thin plot and how the big con is just betting on unsanctioned boxing. Let's just get this out of the way - this isn't a TERRIBLE movie, but it's pretty crummy stacked next to how good its telling us it is. The whole thing is a giant ruse. Maybe someone can take that as a sign of how well edited it is, but we can't. Our job is to breakdown stories and judge them and this story is ludicrously empty - it's borderline "idiot plot" except one of the requirements is that just ONE person has to show a sign of intelligence to prevent the whole movie - but even if there was one person who could show such intelligence wouldn't prevent anything BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENS! The plot is so thin it can be put to this: A retired professional boxer gets put into a bet to fight 10 men, one after the other. Actually that sounds alright. Well what actually happens is that he only fights one boxer and 9 townies in an underground boxing ring where the rules sometimes matter and other times don't, fights 5 men in a row on separate days, to the backdrop of two guys betting on how much they can cheat each other. So the only plot is a guy beats up townies and his old boxing nemesis. There's no great con, guys. James Woods' Caine is NOT Danny Ocean or even Bret Maverick. He just cheats at boxing - the least noble thing one can do. He cheats at underground boxing, the most scummy and rookie crap a scumbag can do.  Then the resolution - Diggstown is now owned by an foreign (Florida IS a different country) convict now, instead of a local. What a deal! Why does anyone still live in Diggstown? Diggstown is for those that like to get tricked only. The people who think Last Boy Scout is a great movie. But for the rest of us, it's just too thin on plot and outside of that there's not enough popcorn-eating to work with.

The Breen goes down one of his strangest rabbit holes (which is saying a lot) yet when he plays an AI from the future who has to come to Earth and clean up mankind. Neil is starting to frighten us. Pass Thru is what happens with a director's typical 4th movie. Neil spends far too much of the film "honing his craft" and using up precious film space so that he can practice how to use camera's. So unfortunately, Pass Thru isn't crammed full of nonsense; where Fateful Findings is 100% bananas, this is about 50%. So the viewer spends a lot of time staring at Breen looking stoic from various angles, which makes for a very boring journey. The most frightening part of the film is where Neil is going mentally. I'm worried about his well-being. He might be going to a place that we can't follow. His anger is clearly boiling over and in this film endorses Thanos' "snap" but with less compassion. Yes, Neil Breen has less compassion than Thanos.  So in the end, Pass Thru is a tough one to get through. There's quite a bit of traditional Breen banana business but for each fun moment there's two atrociously boring or bland sequences. It's a don't from us but for everyone that is a Breen fan.

When you cut in some psychedelia in the editing booth, your film isn't psychedelic, you just have a movie pile. Gas-s-s-s! misses the mark by about a mile, unless your goal was to one day have proof that the Baby Boomers were completely up their own asses and should never talk about other generations again. The setup of the film is an interesting idea with the apocalypse coming and the meek inheriting the Earth - with one major problem, the meek are anyone under 25 and goosed on pot, free love and ego. From there you follow a group of bohemians travelling across Texas to a final destination of Barter Town. Either Corman wanted to make statements about how awful the young Baby Boomers were or was clueless on how awful his antagonists were. This group of hippies we are stuck with rival the St. Elmo's kids as for being terrible people. They're racists, rapists, and only care about themselves, yet are presented as the ones that are going to change the world for the better, ie "break the wheel" ala Khalessi. Yet at no point are their terrible attributes addressed in anyway other than comedically. So prepared to be angry. Sadly, the movie is pretty horrible - but still must be viewed. It's like having to watch a snuff film so that you can have evidence in a murder trial. Yes it is soul-crushing to view, but it must be done. This is an important film that changed the landscape of budget movies that still is in place today. But try not to throw your remote through the TV.

While Jackie is away the boys come out to say stupid things. Sam and Justin give a deep slap across Endgame's face, a thorough look at the current state of the Star Wars universe, some mild Game of Thrones talk and reviews of Bumblebee, The Concorde Affaire '79 and Sorceress. We discuss the problems with time travel, the snap undo, Cap made out with his daughter, Capt. Chrome serves no purpose, the benefits of George Lucas, how light speed sucks, how to close the too many doors you've opened in Westeros and Jack B gives us a full review on Pet Semetary 2019.

Sometimes a studio puts too much talent behind a terribly stupid movie. Sometimes there's some subtle social commentary that sneaks into the script and then has the competency behind the camera to accurately capture those topics. Then you have action guys who just like to blow everything up. Welcome to Men of War. I absolutely adore this movie. It suffers from the Idiot Plot, yet has some level of emotion behind everything it tries to achieve. It's like a mashup of Forrest Gump/Platoon and Deadly Prey. Everything is shot well, the location is fantastic, the dialogue is sharp.... until Dolph gets to deliver some one-liners. Without spoiling much, I have to say that the plot revolves around a couple of corporate dorks hire ex-mercenary Nick Gunar to invade an island, get the natives to sign a legal document or else kill all of them and then.... profit? After learning what their business model is (they aren't selling widgets) Gunar decides they are idiots and isn't going to murder a bunch of women and children for their soon to be bankrupt business partnership. Then insanity ensues. It's an up and down ride from start to finish with Dolph splitting his time with kicking ass, falling in love with the island and it's people, dealing with the Idiot Corporation, his rival mercenary Keefer (played by the always at an 11 Trevor Goddard) getting some Charlotte Lewis naked playtime and shooting people in the face with a rocket launcher. All of it is a blast (get it?) and is constantly throwing you new curveballs of questionable story-telling.  This is a must do.