Of all the ways to die, death by a miniature dinsoaur puppet has got to be one of the worst.

Hot on the heels of 1993’s Jurassic Park came the Carnosaur trilogy, three movies that have gained somewhat of a cult status due to their cheezy plots and notoriously goofy special effects. The trilogy was churned out by the infamous producer Roger Corman (everything from Attack of the Crab Monsters and X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes to Dementia 13 and Death Race 2000) and director Jim Wynorski (Cheerleader Massacre, The Bare Wench Project series, and one of my favorite cheezy movies from the 80’s, Chopping Mall) in record time. In fact, Carnosaur 1 came out after the original Jurassic Park, and yet Carnosaur II and Carnosaur III were released before Jurassic Park II was! So what do these Carnosaur movies have to do with Raptor? A lot, it turns out.

In Raptor, a jeep full of joyriding kids is slaughtered out in the open desert. A search of the crime scene turns up not only slash marks but strange footprints in the sand. An investigation led by local sherrif Jim Tanner reveals some sinister doings in town — namely, a secret lab where Dr. Hyde and his staff are secretly cloning and raising dinosaurs. Unfortunately, one of them seems to have escaped …

As mentioned, the film begins with a scene in which several kids are attacked by a dinosaur. What I didn’t mention was, this footage was taken directly from the first Carnosaur movie. In fact, while watching this film I couldn’t help but notice that every single time a dinosaur appeared on screen, it was a scene from the Carnosaur trilogy — also produced by Roger Corman and directed by Jim Wynorski. Apparently the two of them simply selected their favorite scenes from the previous trilogy, mixed them around, and filmed new footage to try and link the clips together in some sort of logical sense.

That explains why the chicken truck is parked next to a rock, yet when the Sheriff happens upon the vehicle it has magically migrated to a forest. And how a bulldozer keeps changing into a Bobcat between shots. And how the Jeep, which was originally next to a cliff, is later found on the side of the road. Maybe the raptor drove it there. Of course, I’m not even sure there was a raptor — the dinosaur is constantly being referred to as a “baby T-Rex” by Dr. Hyde (and the guy who cloned them should know), and the dinosaurs don’t look anything like the raptors we’re familiar with from the Jurassic Park series. And, when we saw this same footage in Carnosaur, they weren’t raptors then, either. So really the only place the word “Raptor” ever appears in the film is during the opening title.

Acting is what you would expect from a bunch of people hired to act in a film filled with stock footage of rubber dinosaurs. Eric Roberts as Sheriff Jim Tanner walks around in a deadpan daze while being kidnapped by evil Doctors and after seeing his daughter who’s been “shocked into a coma” after seeing a “giant lizard”. Melissa Brasselle and Lorissa McComas are both gorgeous to look at and one can only assume the 81 minute running time of this film is the longest they’ve (mostly) kept their clothes on in a film.

To those who have seen the original series, Raptor comes off as a cheap “best of” (figuratively speaking) version of the Carnosaur trilogy. Those who haven’t may enjoy the new storyline, but may find the weird jumps in logic and clips hard to follow. If you’re looking for a silly little dinosaur flick and enjoy suffering through cheap (un)special effects, wooden acting and plot holes a brontosaurus could walk through, then Raptor is for you. I paid $2 for this on DVD and definitely got two bucks worth of laughter out of it.

Although scientists have yet to perfect time travel, the closest weve come to it are fad movies you know the ones, those movies that whisk you back to the exact moment in time a fad exploded into the mainstream. Movies like Breakin, Thrashin, and The Wizard not only captured fads (breakdancing, skateboarding and videogames, respectively) but the entire culture surrounding those activities; everything from the clothes and music to the language were permanently preserved in these moving slices of history. While these movies tend to quickly fade in popularity (or at least at the same rate as the fads they are based upon), they continue to stand as time capsules, preserving moments in time when things were significantly more awesome.

Rad (1986) is the story Cru Jones (Bill Allen), high school senior and BMX rider extraordinaire. Jones works both at the local deli and as a newspaper delivery boy, presumably socking away cash for college in the fall. Cru’s plans change when Helltrack, a cutting edge BMX racetrack, is erected in his backyard. Jones picks attending a qualifying race over taking his SATs, which seems like a poor choice until Jones scores enough points to win a shot at racing against the pros at Helltrack.

Winning Helltrack wont be easy, as Cru will be up against the best of the best. Duke Best, the man behind Helltrack, has brought his own racers including top-rated BMX racer Bart Taylor (Bart Conner) and his twin teammates Rod and Rex Reynolds (Chad and Carey Hayes). Cru will have to win both on the track and off, as Duke stacks the deck against the local hero, continually changing the rules in an effort to protect his investments. Fortunately, Jones has the town, his family, and his new love interest and fellow bike rider Christian Hollings (Lori Loughlin) rallying behind him but will that be enough?

Let’s be honest here. You could probably find deeper plots in your average television commercial, but then again this genre never really was plot-driven. Within ten minutes of the opening of the film it becomes obvious that Jones is headed for Helltrack — at that point the plots only purpose is to get us from here to there while throwing some minor obstacles into the mix along the way.

There must only a handful of plot ideas used in these types of movies, all of which get recycled here in Rad. For example, when Cru discovers he needs a professional sponsor, the whole town rallies behind him, raising $50,000 through t-shirt sales. In real life this would never work (I don’t even buy Girl Scout cookies anymore) but in movies like this one of course the entire town springs to action, from the cop who spends all his time chasing the kids to the crotchety old man (Ray Walston), who initially comments how great the world would be without kids.

Another recycled plot device is the special move that only the protagonist has mastered and will be able to use. Heres its a back flip, a move we see Cru Jones practicing earlier in the film. Youll never guess how he manages to pull ahead near the end of the big race!

Even goofier are things like the leader of the race (Taylor) stopping and letting Cru catch up so that he can challenge him man-to-man. Its the equivalent of every villain explaining his evil plans to the hero before his or her demise; it never works out. Of course this takes place at Helltrack, with the entire town in attendance. I love scenes like that, just like the scene from The Last Starfighter where the entire trailer park comes down to watch Alex beat the high score on a videogame. What a great world this would be if everyone from my neighborhood came over to watch me get the high score on a videogame or try a new trick on a bicycle.

One of the few realistic things about Rad is the product placement, which is so prominent and bountiful that it would not surprise me if, after seeing this movie, you went out and bought a Mongoose bicycle, pedaled down to your local 7-11 and bought yourself a delicious, ice-cold Coca Cola. The product placement in this movie is so blatant that even people not looking for it will notice it. I suppose another realistic aspect of the film the kids language not only are lots of awesome, gnarly, and radicals found within, but there are plenty of bullshits and assholes too. Not uncommon words to hear come out of the mouths of high school students, but uncommon to hear in otherwise family-friendly movies marketed toward them (especially back in 1986).

Any review of Rad would be remiss not to mention its infamous dance scene, during which Cru and Christian perform a “bicycle boogie,” crashing the party by “dancing” on their bicycles to Real Life’s “Send Me an Angel.” (YouTube Link) I can’t tell which is more ridiculous, the entire idea or Lori Loughlin’s stunt double (and cheezy tricks). It’s so bad, it’s good. It’s great.

Rad, like Breakin and Thrashin, will live on in the world of cult classics. Im sure some day Ill show the movie to my kids with a gleam in my eye as we talk about the good old days when we used to pedal bicycles and the neighbors used to come over to watch me practice wheelies.

I’m the type of guy who can have a good time by simply walking through an arcade, never spending a quarter. Just being close to the sights and sounds of those old games is enough to put a smile on my face. Don’t get me wrong — I like playing games as much as the next guy, but sometimes just seeing and hearing those old machines in action is all I need to make my day. And Earl Green’s DVD, Phosphor Dot Fossils: The Early History of Video Games, is just that: a virtual walk down videogame memory lane.

Green’s DVD spans fifteen years of videogame history, beginning in 1971 and going through 1986. Each year contains a series of video clips, consisting of videogame commercials, trivia, quizzes, and lots and lots of in-game footage. As game footage is shown in action on screen it is surrounded by trivia, publisher information, and in the case of arcade games, their marquees. Every year can be directly accessed from the DVD’s main menu, and each video clip can also be directly accessed through the same menu. This is a nice feature, considering the amount of clips contained within the program.

The game clips are fairly evenly dispersed between arcade games, console videogames, and home computer games. Although the menu spans from 1971-1986, the disc is heavily focused on the earlier years. For example, while the 1982 program is over 45 minutes in length, 1986 is less than three minutes long. Older viewers will find the DVD an informative trip down memory lane, while younger viewers may find the DVD more of a history lesson — neither of which is a bad thing, in my opinion.

Interspersed throughout the program are several television commercials for videogames and gaming-related cartoons such as Pac-Man, Q*Bert, and Dragon’s Lair. I haven’t seen some of these shows in years and the commercials were a nice touch. The videogame commercials are a hoot as well; anyone who remembers “It’s the Legend of Zelda and it’s really rad,” will get a kick out of the old blurbs.

It’s taken me probably half a dozen viewings to make it all the way through Phosphor Dot Fossils — not because it’s bad, but because it’s so long! With more than three hours of clips, I have found myself watching the video clips a few at a time over the past few weeks. It’s a great video to put on in the background while cleaning or just hanging out, and other than a fleeting shot of low-res nudity in the “Custer’s Revenge” sequence, the DVD also works great as an electronic babysitter for youngsters.

Green also runs GreenhouseFX.tv, an audio/visual production company, and his experience in digital media production is quite evident throughout the program. The graphics, logos and layout of the DVD are very professional in quality. As previously mentioned the menus are simply to navigate, and the literally hundreds of chapter stops making finding specific clips a breeze.

Whether you remember the early years of gaming or not, Phosphor Dot Fossils is a fun romp through the days of classic gaming. Highly recommended to all fans of the gaming days of yesteryear.

Order the Phosphor Dot Fossils DVD here.

I vaguely remember watching the trailer for Orange County in theaters and thinking, “this movie is going to be funny.” The trailer depicted a story revolving around a loser played by Jack Black and his straight laced brother trying to get into college. Along the way, they would run into Chevy Chase, Catherine O’Hara, Lily Tomlin, John Lithgow, Harold Ramis, Kevin Kline, Ben Stiller, and more.

Last night I actually watched Orange County, and was disappointed to discover that the film barely even a comedy, despite its heavy roster of classic comedic geniuses. In fact, the trailer seems to show an entirely different movie all together.

Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks) is a happy-go-lucky surfer kid. One day, he discovers a book buried in the sand at the beach that changes his life. The author of the book, Marcus Skinner (Kevin Kline), is also a professor at Stanford University, which inspires Brumber to apply there. Through an unlikely mix-up, Brumber’s transcript is mistakenly switched with a poor student’s, and he is rejected from Stanford.

This begins another boring chapter of, “kid in bad living situation heads out into the world to make his life better, only to realize that the crappy people he lives with weren’t so bad in the first place.” That seems like a stretch when you meet Shaun’s family. Catherine O’Hara is Cindy Beugler, Shaun’s mom, a middle-aged divorced mother and chronic alcoholic. Jack Black is Lance Brumder, Shaun’s brother, an unemployed drug user/dealer who likes to hang around the house in his underwear and borrows Shaun’s piss for “when his parole officer comes by.” Shaun also lives with his stepdad, Bob Beugler (George Murdock), an 80 year old man who sits in a wheelchair and gets abused for comic relief. Across town, Shaun’s dad Bud Brumder (John Lithgow) is more interested in making money than giving his family any attention.

The only people in his life that Shaun actually likes are his surfer buddies Arlo, Chad, and Lonny, and his girlfriend Ashley (Schuyler Fisk). His friends make fun of him for wanting to become a writer instead of a “professional surfer,” and his girlfriend “prays he won’t get accepted to Stanford” so they won’t split up. Remember, these are his friends.

Shaun’s urge to write under the guidance of Skinner is so strong that he applies to Stanford (and no other schools). Unfortunately for Shaun, bumbling councelor Charlotte Cobb (Lily Tomlin) sends Stanford the wrong transcript, which results in Shaun’s rejection. 45 minutes into this 82 minute adventure, the actual plot begins. Shaun, along with brother Lance and girlfriend Ashley, decide to drive to Stanford to try and convince whoever they can to let Shaun in.

As someone who loves to write, I really felt like I could relate to Russell Hammond in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. While Orange County I didn’t care about anyone. When Lance Brumder almost gets arrested for torching the dean’s office, I was thinking, “Good! He deserves it!” So many people in Shaun’s life are mean and nasty to him, it’s tough to pull for them in any situation.

Jack Black, one of my favorite comedians, is particularly unfunny here. Most of the other comedy giants appearing here seem to be for little more than a favor. Chevy Chase is in the film for one scene, and gets a minor chuckle. Catherine O’Hara and John Lithgow avoid jokes like the plague here. Even Shaun’s surfer buddies are painfully one-dimensional and thin. By the end of the film I didn’t care if the kid ended up in Stanford, Yale, a community college or dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Overall, the movie wasn’t bad — just unmemorable. Orange County is a pointless romp whose main idea was covered over 60 years ago when Dorothy said, “there’s no place like home.”

Even if it’s Orange County.

If there’s one thing that the majority of the staff of Website 9 have in common, it’s that we all love bad movies. And as I’ve stated before, when we say “bad movies” we usually mean movies with low budgets and high expectations, movies that usually fail miserably at the box office due to bad plots, bad acting, bad dialogue, bad special effects, or other insurmountable problems.

What we don’t mean, for the most part, are bad Hollywood blockbusters. Movies that cost millions of dollars to make and still manage to suck. We really, really hate those.

Old School is one of those.

Right off the bat, the trailer is misleading. The trailer makes Old School look like a film about three guys who form a middle-age fraternity to excape the boredom of middle age. Unfortunately, that’s not really what the film is about.
Mitch, Frank, and Beanie (Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Vince Vaughn, respectively) are three guys that know each other from … somewhere. High school, neighborhood pals, we don’t know. Mitch, a 30 year old attorney, comes home early from a business trip to find his girlfriend (Juliette Lewis) having an orgy. “Alright!” I thought to myself, this movie might actually be good! But alas, Mitch leaves his girlfriend over the incident and rents himself a new place to live.

This new rent house is located directly on a college campus. Why a 30 something lawyer would want to live there in the first place is beyond me. Newlywed Frank and local electronics store owner Beanie decide to throw a housewarming party for their pal, and invite, oh, 2,000 of their closest college friends. The huge party draws the attention of Dean Pritchard (Jeremy Piven), who of course turns out to be a wormy character who the three guys tormented during their high school days. Pritchard informs the three fellows that their house has been rezoned for fraternal use only.

Now in every movie, there is a special moment — that moment where conflict happens and our hero is inspired to act. If that moment is unbelievable, then the movie is unbelievable as well. In Old School, that moment occurs when Beanie and Frank, Mitch’s two buddies, decide to form a fraternity, so Mitch can stay in his house. The rent house. Of course, you or I or anyone else would just move out and get over it. Let’s put it this way — if you lived in an appartment, and they said they were going to bulldoze it down and turn it into an orphanage, chances are you wouldn’t adopt 50 kids to stay there, especially if you’ve only lived there for two days. You’d leave your boxes packed and move on. But oooooooh no, not Mitch Martin! Plus, the whole movie hinges on the fact that these three guys (two of which are married) would prefer to hang out on a college campus instead of being at home. Hey, I had fun in college too, but I’m almost 30. Those times were great memories, but they’re just that — memories.

Instead of joining reality, Mitch becomes “The Godfather”, a character not unlike Tyler Durden. In fact, Old School quickly becomes Fight Club meets Animal House meets Revenge of the Nerds, only in this incarnation they take the worst parts of each of those films and combines them into a movie that’s a whole lot about nothing.

The big subplot in the film are the guys’ relationships with women. Mitch, now single, runs into an “old high school flame” who has been dating a guy for a couple of years. Frank (again, Ferrell), the wacky one of the bunch, screws up his marraige shortly after it begins, and ends up moving to the frat house. Vaughn’s character Beanie constantly has his kid around. If my 30 year old friends form a frat house, I might stop by on the weekends to party a bit, but I’m not moving in, I’m not bringing my kid, and I’m not having sex with high school girls like Elisha Cuthbert (which they end up doing). Cuthbert is only in the film long enough to wonder why she’s in the film. And sure, she’s hot; it’s just tough for me to fantasize about a chick who hosted 1997’s “Popular Mechanics for Kids” and 1999’s “Are You Afraid in the Dark?” on Nickelodeon. Ok, not that tough, but still, her character is brought into the plot and then never used.

Just when the jokes start flying, one of the pledges dies and Frank meets up with his wife at the funeral only to have her ask for a divorce. A divorce?! At a funeral?! THAT’S COMEDY PEOPLE. Ok, no it’s not. The scene is played totally serious, as are some of the other scenes in the film, that just make this more of a shit roller coaster. The sub-plots take over the movie for what seems like hours at a time. While that was going on, I had plenty of time to wonder about things like, “Why isn’t Frank at home working on his marraige? Why isn’t Beanie at home with his family instead of hanging out on a college campus? And most importantly, why does Mitch put up with these two idiots? Everytime he comes home there’s a party or a gathering or some other event going on at his house that he doesn’t even know about.” Trust me, watch Old School and you’ll have SCADS of time to think about this crap too.

After a series of events unfold that make most SNL skits look plausable, the frat boys are given a series of tests. Pass those tests, they get to remain on campus. Fail them, and they have to return to reality, God forbid. What do you wanna bet the electronics guy uses some electronics to cheat, the moron suddenly becomes smart for a moment of clarity, and they make a fat kid do something demeaning?! Yup, you’ll see it all coming too from a mile away.

The trailer to Old School made this movie movie look like it had potential. I thought it was going to be about three guys bonding. Three guys going through their early 30s together. Three guys and their wacky, wacky adventures in a fraternity. Instead, Old School delivers a mish-mash of jokes, touchy-feely moments, and bizarre logic that just left my head spinning. Todd Phillips, who also directed Road Trip, should have just remade that movie again with these three actors. The thought of these three guys going on adventures and having fun would’ve been much more appealing than this. I saw this movie with two of my friends, and although none of use were ina frat, I’m sure our lives are just as entertaining and exciting as the guys in this film. Bottom line, Old School hands us a plot about a guy who, if he overcomes his adversaries, will win the right to party with kids half his age every day!

It’s my age showing again, I know, but that sounds like a nightmare to me.

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t is an incredibly powerful and brilliant short film from Hungarian writer/director Attila Szasz.

The film, which clocks in at thirty minutes, tells the story of a family going through some sort of crisis what, exactly, isnt made clear until the end of the film. Emotions and feelings between the three main characters mom, dad and their young son Alex are (purposefully) confusing. Is mom angry or afraid? Why is dad so mysterious? Alex seems to be at the center of the storys plot, but again, were not sure why until later in the film, when the heart of the movie begins to unravel.

The direction of Now You See Me, Now You Dont is full of intelligence mixed with brilliance, with almost more tension than the viewer can stand. After several viewings I could not find a single wasted frame of film; every moment of every shot is important. There are no multimillion dollar special effects or famous actors to be found here, and none are needed. Writer/director Szasz shows incredible talent in his lighting and camera work, through which he is able to convey to the audience raw emotion. Combined with a calm, steady pace, Szasz delivers more chills and power than a thousand guys in rubber masks or a bazillion dollars worth of CGI could ever do.

It has taken me longer than usual to write this review, as theres not much I can say about the plot without giving away too much (which would be a crime). Like The Sixth Sense and other chillers, Now You See Me, Now You Dont is best experienced with an open mind and no preconceived notions. The dark silhouettes that grace the cover set the films tone, but as in real life, things arent always as they seem. Now You See, Me Now You Dont takes all the pressure and intensity from a psychological thriller and crams it into a 30 second drama. This is one intense film. As a parent, it haunted my dreams.

If you can get your hands on this Hungarian short film, do so by all means. Highly professional, highly recommended.

Link: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t on MySpace.com

Sixth grade was a transitional year for me. At the beginning of the school year, I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up – a professional breakdancer. What a life that would be! Pop-rocking and hip-hopping across the countryside, moonwalking and doing the centipede for money! As reality eventually sunk in, I realized that breakdancing was probably not going to pay my bills, and I set my sights on a new, more realistic profession.

Becomming a professional Ninja.

Sure! There was always work for Ninjas around town. Throats needed slit here, important documents needed stealing there … this was going to be the life for me! I quickly traded most of my breakdancing gear for some serious Ninja paraphernalia. Unfortunately for me, like most other sixth graders I had pretty limited income, and so my Ninja uniform was a black karate suit with some strategically placed shoe strings. Dad’s black socks over my tennis shoes became ninja “tabi”, and a black ski mask with the mouth sewn shut and the eye holes cut out to become one big round oval became my mask of death. Sure, to anyone else I probably looked like a cross between a well-fed tick and a fat, out of work terrorist, but to me, I was … a Ninja.

What brought about this change of vocational dreams? Three little movies. A trilogy of sorts, although the movies share little more in common than the name “Ninja” in the title and one amazing actor. One man, who single-handedly brought the true spirit and legend of the ninja to the American movie screen. That man is Shô Kosugi.

Sho’s biography could easily be a movie plot of it’s own. Born with a hole in his lungs, Sho began studying Karate to build up his strength. At the age of 7, Sho met Mr. Yamamoto, a 70 year old hermit who trained Sho in the ways of the Ninja for the next 5 years of his life. One day, Mr. Yamamoto mysteriously vanished, leaving Sho on his own.

Even though by the age of 18 Sho was All-Japan Karate Champion, he failed his college entrance exams. By the age of 20 Sho had over 600 karate trophies, and yet he was still not doing well in life. Sho made the decision to relocate to the United States and to attend college in California. In true Hollywood fashion, he was mugged his first day in the states. The muggers soon realized they had picked the wrong victim when Sho proceeded to give one of the muggers a free karate lesson.

Sho taught martial arts to make ends meet, worked as an extra and stunt man in various films before he got his big break in the first of three movies that would change his life (and mine) forever – Enter the Ninja.

Enter The Ninja (1981) is credited for starting the ninja craze of the 1980’s. I don’t think mainstream America was quite ready for an Asian ninja master hero yet, so Sho assumes the role of one of the baddies (as the legend goes, Sho was hired on as an extra, but as the director and other cast members took notice of his skills, his part kept getting bigger and bigger until finally he was co-star of the flick). Our hero, Cole (Franco Nero), is a military vet who has spent the last few years of his life in Ninja training. As he leaves for the Phillippines, he runs into some bad dudes. Guys wanting to take his land, guys wanting to kill him, etc. Now, let me tell you, a six-foot tall large-framed white guy makes for a pretty stupid looking Ninja. Fortunately, Sho doubled for Nero in many of the film’s action sequences.

Red ninjas. White ninjas. Green ninjas. Never before have I seen so many different colors of ninjas! And when I first got a glimpse inside that ninja training school … aw yeah, I was in heaven! It only took a week or so before my friends and I had developed our own training regiment; if you couldn’t do 10 pushups, you were out of our ninja club, by golly.

You don’t need a blow by blow review of this movie. What you need to know are the following things: Enter the Ninja (A) was Sho’s first major film, (B) started the Great Ninja craze, (C) contained lots of fighting and action, (D) was the worst of the ninja trilogy, and (E) paved the way for the two best ninja films of our times, Revenge of the Ninja and Ninja III – The Domination.

Two years later in 1983, the ninja craze had hit with full force. Revenge of the Ninja was a giant leap from Enter the Ninja. Among other new additions, it had a plot. Sho plays a guy named Cho Osaki, a businessman just TRYING to make an honest living. A theme emerges here, which is “if you know ninjitsu and are just trying to make an honest living, expect a lot of trouble from other ninjas.” This movie is no exception, and Sho, er, Cho, soon finds out that his American (damn those Americans!) business partner has been smuggling cocaine inside of the dolls Sho, er, Cho, has been buying for his gallery. Cho has denounced the way of the ninja and scolds his son for fighting (even when attacked by a group of schoolyard bullies), but when the baddies kidnap his son, Cho “has all he can stands, and he can’t stands no more.” Instead of eating spinach, Sho, er, Cho, straps on his old ninja gear and heads out for a 45 minute long ass kicking fest.

Filmed in the highly ninja populated town of Salt Lake City, Revenge of the Ninja has everything from schoolyard attacks to high rise combat. In Revenge of the Ninja, the roles have switched, and the American ninja is now the bad guy, with Sho (er, Cho) as the hero. How they got Utah to agree to shooting a movie about a bad white guy getting his ass kicked all over the place is beyond me.

Revenge of the Ninja solidified Sho’s name in the Ninja Hall of Fame. After seeing this movie, I just HAD to have a ninja star belt buckle (yes, this is the first place I ever saw one). I used to spend hours in the back yard trying to get that thing to stick in the doghouse. I soon found out that while ninja throwing stars usually had only 4 points, “Chinese” throwing stars had about a dozen and would stick into anything – doghouse, fence, wood siding, garage doors, etc.

Revenge of the Ninja also began to introduce that “supernatural” feeling to ninja movies. Before, yeah, they could probably dodge an arrow – Sho, however, with three arrows zipping towards him, catches one in each hand, and the third in his mouth. THAT, my friends, is a bad ass. Due to safety reasons, my mom forbid me to practice the “arrow catching” stunt like a true ninja, but she did buy me some foam rubber nunchucks.

By this time, we were hooked. My friends and I no longer wanted to be in a gang, we wanted to be in a CLAN. Midnight summer missions were planned – usually espionage or infiltration into a neighboring kid’s clubhouse. While nunchucks, swords, and bows and arrows looked cool in the movies, we found that those things tend to hinder the amateur ninja’s ability to run quietly or quickly. We also made our own version of caltops (those sharp things ninjas threw on the ground for their enemies to step on). We took pencil erasers off of pencils, and stuck 10-12 straight pins through them in random directions! These were SURE to cause some pain! And, of course they did, dad stepped on one while mowing and that was the end of our homemade weapons for a while. Those things stick great in curtains, but are a bitch to carry, and hurt like hell if you forget and leave on in your pocket.

Ninitsu had hit the mainstream. There were ninja books, ninja magazines, and my favorite, ninja video games. When not in training, my clan and I used to head to the local arcade for a little Shinobi action. In 1984, the third and final Ninja movie in the Cannon films Ninja Trilogy appeared in local theaters. We were only 12, but our parents decided it would be OK for us to see Ninja III – The Domination in theaters. Second only to Star Wars, it was one of the greatest cinematic moments of my life. Somehow, my parents talked us out of dressing up as ninjas to attend the movie’s opening. Thanks a lot, mom.

Ninja III – The Domination stars Lucinda Dickey as a telephone repair woman. Lucinda Dickey has had two main starring roles, btw – this one, and as Kelly (AKA Special K) in Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2. Boy can she end a fad in a hurry. Anyway, the movie opens with an assassination of a “famous” doctor who’s playing golf. Unfortunately I think the whole “ninja being larger than life” thing had gone to Sho’s head at this point, because right up front we are treated to an unbelievable 20 minute ninja fest. First, our ninja is blocks a golf club to the head, only to have the club wrap around his arm. Some cops show up to kill him, but our boy has other plans. A few guns shots to a ninja? Please.

Within the first 10-15 minutes of this movie, our ninja has been shot over a dozen times, has managed to board a moving helicopter and kill the pilots, hide in a lake, outrun guys on motorcycles, and kill at least 50 cops. The cops eventually surround the ninja, and in what would seem to be a pretty poor tactical plan, stand around in a circle shooting at the ninja. Finally, he falls over. He is dead.

BUT NO HE’S NOT HERE HE COMES AGAIN HE WAS JUST PLAYING POSSUM! HiYA! He stabs four more cops, and they keep shooting. I hope they don’t miss because about three feet on the other side of the ninja is another cop, shooting back at him! How all the cops don’t end up shooting each other is a miracle. Finally, the ninja is dead, after being shot about 50 times, now several times by a shotgun.

Like a firework that didn’t go off, it’s someone’s job to go touch him and make sure he’s dead. OH NO HE’S NOT REALLY DEAD HE WAS JUST PLAYING POSSUM AGAIN HARHAR! The ninja throws a smoke bomb, and when the smoke clears, he is gone. All the cops quickly leave the scene to go find the ninja. Throughout this movie, it appears that the directors consulted small retarded children for their police procedures. Had the fuzz stuck around for 30 seconds, they would have seen this.

Aha! The ninja quickly DUG A HOLE DEEP ENOUGH FOR HIM TO GET IN. This movie’s cheese factor is pretty high, be prepared.

The wounded ninja stumbles upon Christie (Dickey) and uses ninja magic to transplant his soul into hers. Christie isn’t fully aware of what happened, until she begins feeling the urge to seek out the policemen that shot our ninja, lure them with sex, and then kill them.

As you should have learned by now, there is only man who can stop this madness – a one Mr. Sho Kosugi, who in this movie plays Yamada, a one eyed ninja who must now right what is wrong. “Only a ninja, can stop a ninja,” he says with a straight face – except for the fact that when he says it it’s like “neenJAH” which cracks me up.

Some of the special effects in Ninja III are way over the top. For example, when a cop is about to shoot our ninja with a 45, he quickly whips out his blowgun and shoots a dart up the barrel of the gun, causing it to misfire into the cop’s face. Wishful thinking, I’m guessing here. Also, when the ninja is riding on top of the cop car and punches down through the roof to attack the cops, you have to suspend belief a bit. Of course, this is a ninja, and only a neenJAH (and not a police car’s roof) can stop a neenJAH.

Sho eventually exorcises the evil spirit out of Christie, but you won’t care – you’ll be saying, “hey, I’ll bet there’ll be some more ass kicking here!” And YOU’LL BE RIGHT! Dickey is about as believable as a ninja as she was a breakdancer in Breakin’. Still, the action is great, the plot is crazy, and the movie is a a great example of the climax of an era.

And soon, it would all be gone. The market became flooded with hundreds of knock-off ninja movies (many of which I own). Ninja Terminator, Ninja the Protector, Ninja Clan, 9 Deaths of the Ninja … the list goes on and on. The whole American Ninja series came along and ruined everything, along with Bloodsport, and Karate Kid. Karate Kid? Screw that kid, Sho could cut off Ralph Macchio’s head and shove it up Miyagi’s ass before either of those two twits knew what hit em. And Bloodsport, yeah, I’m sure Sho’s real afraid of Ogre from those Revenge of the Nerd movies, and Jean Claude-Van Puss. Please. And as far as American ninjas are concerned, didn’t we already learn that the white man is the DEVIL? Besides, go rent any of these three movies and tell me that Sho couldn’t kill them in a second. The worst part about the fighting in the Ninja trilogy is that they have to make Sho do all these stupid things, because otherwise he would just kill people instantly.

All kidding aside, the “Great Ninja Trilogy,” as they’ve been labeled around my house, are a concise guide to that which was the great ninja invasion of the 80’s. Enter the Ninja is the one that started the craze, and while it’s the weakest of the three movies, it really gives you some history to the whole scene. Revenge of the Ninja is probably the best when it comes to a balance between action and plot (still WAY heavy on the action), and you’ll certainly walk away knowing that Sho could whoop Jackie Chan in any alley in Chinatown. Ninja III – The Domination is a combination of everything that was popular in 1984 – MTV, the supernatural, and of course, ninjas. Ninja III is probably my favorite just because it’s SO far over the top. The first 15 minutes alone justify a rental.

None of these movies are particularly hard to find – any decent sized rental shop will probably have all three. And, since the movies aren’t related at all, you can watch them in any order and still enjoy them.

The next time on of your friends starts going on about how crazy Jackie Chan is, and how he hung from a helicopter with no safety net, let ’em know that Sho Kosugi did it almost 20 years ago. When they say that part of Jackie Chan’s popularity is because of his smile, let them know that Sho’s smile looks good too, after he had all his teeth knocked out from a spear-throwing stunt gone awry.

And if that ain’t enough to convince them to rent one of these classic flicks, give em a little message from ol’ Sho Kosugi himself. HI-YA!

One of the eight million reasons my wife hates to watch movies with me is because I have a tendency to pick them apart. When people inexplicably make dumb decisions in films, I often cock my head and sport the same confused look my old dog Buddy often made. I have a hard time enjoying movies completely devoid of logic. I inherited this nit-picking trait from my father, and have passed it on to my son. Even at five-years-old, Mason questioned the multitude of logical gaps throughout Night at the Museum from beginning to end, just like his old man.

Ben Stiller is Larry Daley, a likable fellow who dreams big but produces little. Daleys inability to grow up and hold down a job has already cost him his marriage, custody of his son, and is about to cost him his apartment. When his ex-wife threatens to pull all visitation rights until his life settles down, Daley succumbs to her wishes and settles down with a job as the local history museums night watchman. Due to a steady decline in visitors, the museum is downsizing by replacing their three current night watchmen (Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs) with one Daley. Daley soon notices, as Theodore Logan once noted, Strange things are afoot inside the museum. At night, because of a magical Egyptian tablet delivered over 50 years earlier, everything inside the museum comes to life. And presumably over the past 50 years, the security guards have told no one of this amazing feat, no member of the museums cleaning crew has ever stayed late, and most importantly, none of the exhibits have ever escaped the museum.

Night at the Museums draw is not its pencil-thin plot but rather its Jumanji-like special effects. Throughout the film youll see miniature cowboys fighting miniature Romans, a talking Easter Island head (who wants gum gum from dumb dumb) and a 30-foot-tall T. Rex who runs rampant throughout the museum all of which who destroy the museum on a nightly basis. No real explanation is given as to how things are restored to order before morning perhaps the former night watchmen were very talented (and perpetually busy) handymen.

By the end of the film, Daley has to patch things up with his estranged kid, take control of the museum, and deal with a few bad guys (who, if you cant figure out who they are, you didnt watch enough Scooby Doo as a child). Daleys nights inside the museum are exciting and filled with wonder and action, while his days are filled with a plodding story line used to try and tie those wonderful action-packed night scenes together.

Besides being dull, there are major portions of the film, however, that simply didnt make sense. Like Sacagawea, for example she appears in a museum exhibit with Lewis and Clark, behind soundproof glass. For 50 years, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) has longed to talk to her, but alas, she cannot escape her display. The problem is, everybody else has no problem escaping theirs. Once the sun goes down, cavemen run amuck trying to start fires as Civil War soldiers fight one another and Attila the Hun and his posse chase, well, everybody. And yet, Sacagawea, one of the greatest adventurers of all time, cant figure out how to open a sliding glass case? Its like those army videogames, where your hero cant seem to step over a small rock or something. Its ridiculous. And as other characters continued to talk throughout the scene I began studying the display surely theres a way for her to get out of there! Cmon Lewis and Clark, figure something out!

Unfortunately thats just the tip of the iceberg. As the museum gets destroyed on a nightly basis its hard to continue watching the film without wondering who in the world is rebuilding the entire museum every day. And throughout 50 years of melees, no exhibit has ever been damaged? Its not that I enjoy picking apart movies, but when so many inconsistencies are hurled at you at once, its hard to enjoy anything else going on within the film. And when the five-year-old youre with starts asking questions you cant answer (like, why are the fake lions hungry?), you know the filmmakers have left too many stones unanswered.

From Jared Hess (the director of Napoleon Dynamite) and comedic actor Jack Black comes Nacho Libre, a movie which, unsurprisingly, comes off as a mixture of Napoleon Dynamite and any other Jack Black comedy. What is surprising is that instead of working together, these two styles of comedy seem to cancel each other out rather flatly.

Jack Black stars as Brother Ignacio, a monk who also serves as the cook for a poor Mexican monestary. Ignacio serves his fellow Brothers as well as the orphans living at the monestary the same meal every day — bowls of bad beans decorated with tortilla chips on top. Ignaco is pushed to his limit when a wild ruffion steals the children’s bag of chips, and decides to pursue a side career as a Mexican wrestler in order to supplement his income (and ultimately, his monestary’s kitchen supplies).

Ignacio teams with Esquelto (Hector Himenez, the afore mentioned “chip bandit”) as his in ring partner. Together the two of them moonlight their way through the amateur wrestling ranks, aspiring to become pro and break into the big bucks. Along the way, Ignacio must keep his nocturnal activities a secret from his fellow Brothers, the orphans he oversees, and the beautiful Sister Encarnacion, a nun a bit to naive for her own good.

Unfortunately, Hess’ and Jack Black’s style seem to conflict more than compliment one another. Black’s physical pratfalls, most of which appear in the movie’s trailer, are few and far between. Most of the in-film wrestling matches don’t seem any more over-the-top than the ones that appear on television every week. Black’s physical comedy contrasts with the Dynamite-esque humor. Where Dynamite had three-dozen non-sequitor jokes, Nacho has a dozen or so — only half of which that work. When Ignacio invites Encarnacion to his room “to have some toast”, I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or just scratch my head. Vaguely humorous one-liners are only compounded by tons of plot directions and jokes that don’t go anywhere and never deliver.

More confusing is the complete lack of appeal to young kids. For a movie that is being heavily advertised all day long between episodes of Spongebob Squarepants and Jimmy Neutron on Nickelodeon (who also backed the film), there was basically nothing in this film to hold my preschooler’s attention. He enjoyed the ten minutes of wrestling action and the two minute “training scene”, but the long connectors filled with Black’s thick accent and dryly-delivered jokes put him in the sleeper hold.

The film isn’t a complete failure. A few of the jokes made me chuckle and as an underdog story you can’t help but cheer a little for Nacho Libre as he fights for money to feed his orphans. A lot of the jokes came off as simply trying to recapture the “Napoleon Dynamite” spirit and ended up feeling forced. Don’t expect to see “Vote for Nacho” shirts anytime soon.

Dating a superhero is a fantastic gig with outstanding perks: you never have to pay to fly again, you have a bodyguard on standby 24 hours a day, and the sex (at least as depicted in this film) is outstanding. When things are good, they’re great! Unfortunately, when things start to go bad, they can really go bad in a big way.

Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) is an average, everyday guy who ends up meeting and dating Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman). But what Saunders doesn’t know is, Johnson is in reality G-Girl, a superhero who spends her nights flying around town fighting crime and saving people in general. When their relationship becomes too much for Saunders to handle he tries to let Johnson down easily, but unfortunately for him, G-Girl doesn’t take too kindly to being dumped. Things become more complicated for Saunders when he ends up in the middle of a plot to destroy G-Girl, launched by Professor Bedlam (Eddie Izzard).

My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a bigger-than-life comical representation of what every dumped person (both male and female) has felt at one time or another. Using her superhero powers, G-Girl is able to get the revenge many scorned women have dreamed about having. Many men will also be sympathetic to Saunders in his dealings with an obviously unstable ex.

Vaughn Haige (Rainn Wilson, of The Office) and Hannah Lewis (Anna Faris, of Scary Movie) along with office manager Carla Dunkirk (Wanda Sykes) round out the office staff (Sykes role is only slightly longer than a cameo; she’s definitely under-utilized here). Eddie Izzard does a great job as Professor Bedlam; those familiar with his stand up delivery style of comedy will enjoy seeing it here as well.

For as little press as this movie got, I found My Super Ex-Girlfriend to be acceptable movie fluff. It’s a silly and light-hearted action-comedy that I think may have been marketed incorrectly as a romantic-comedy. If nothing else, after watching the film that psycho ex-girlfriend from your past won’t seem so bad.

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