This post has one of my favorite films of all time (Akira), as well as one of my favorite bad movies of all time (Roller Boogie). Let's go!

191. Akira
192. Gone With the Pope
193. Roller Boogie
194. Pick Up
195. Exterminator II
196. Hustler Squad
197. Atomic Rulers of the World
198. Prisoners of the Lost Universe
199. Three Colors: White
200. The Scar

Akira (1988)

Akira is not only an incredible film, it is the beginning of a genre. Although there were crossover animations from Japan before Akira, it is really this film that allowed anime to expand into a global phenomenon. The animation in this film is gorgeous. The story is nuanced and engaging. This is one of the all-time sci-fi classics. 

Standout Moment: The ending climax is incredible. 

Gone With the Pope (2010)

Gone With the Pope is a film made by a lounge singer about a group of ex-cons who go on a crazy quest to kidnap the pope. It seems that they just kind of made up the film as they went along. It is one of the most entertaining bad movies I've ever seen, though. It is full of great and memorable moments. 

Standout Moment: The pope-heist is low budget in the best way.

Roller Boogie (1979)

Roller Boogie is an obvious attempt to cash in on the popularity of Saturday Night Fever. This film apparently exists in an alternate reality where roller disco is "cool" and "popular" and everyone is doing it everywhere no matter what. Layered on top of the nightmare hellscape of a roller-disco-saturated late 70's LA is a Dirty Dancing style "Rich girl falls in love with the guy on the wrong side of tracks" story, as well as a "let's save our roller-disco" story, AND a "gangsters are going to kill us" story, AND a "we have to win this roller disco competition" story. There is a lot of stuff happening in this film, and none of it is very exciting. In fact, most scenes feature extras that are much more interesting than any of the main characters. 

Standout Moment: The opening ten minutes set up the ridiculous premise with a relish rarely seen in ripoff teen films. 

Pick-Up (1975)

Pick-Up attempts to be a much more artistic endeavor than it actually is. It is an art film made by someone who thinks that art films just need to have random weirdness to consider themselves "deep." There is no real thought behind what happens in this film, and the moments that are thought-out are incredibly on the nose. There are beautiful shots, and the premise is interesting, but in the end it becomes little more than a particularly weird exploitation flick.

Standout Moment: The poor guy who calls in every once in a while is a strange shift in tone for a film full of strange shifts in tone. 

Exterminator II (1984)

This film hates its female lead. In any typical film of the genre, the bad guys would do something bad to the hero's girlfriend/wife/sister, which makes him go crazy and seek revenge. In this film, not only does it fall into the same cliche as every other film in the revenge genre, it goes above and beyond in the injustices served upon the female lead. She gets assaulted several times and eventually killed, each time supposedly ramping up the empathy and rage in a man who starts out the film setting random punks on fire. It becomes more and more ridiculous every time something new happens to her.

Standout Moment: The soundtrack is so ridiculous it adds a whole other level of insanity. 

Hustler Squad (1976)

The poster for Hustler Squad is about a ten times the extremity of the actual film, so if you are into a film that is about a tenth of the poster, than you would probably like Hustler Squad.

Standout Moment: The actresses are actually all pretty great. 

Atomic Rulers of the World (1964)

This is another film, like Evil Brain From Outer Space, that was a recut of several episodes from the Japanese TV show, Super Giant. Many of my thoughts on Evil Brain From Outer Space pertain to this film, as well. I will say, though, that this one is not nearly as entertaining as Evil Brain. 

Standout Moment: The beginning has that same great Robot Council. 

Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983)

Another attempt at ripping off Star Wars. This one went in a different direction than most, with the conceit being alternate dimensions rather than a trip into outer space, but it still follows the same basic storyline. The ending gets incredibly convoluted, and the last twenty minutes seem to be there for the sake of filling time.

Standout Moment: The ogre dude is my favorite. 

Three Colors: White (1994)

It is impossible to expect what this film is going to do next. It throws out typical story beats and maneuvers through a twisted story full of humor, pathos, and tragedy. The characters themselves seem too big for a normal film, as well. The interlocking pieces are all very bizarre, but they work well together. I am unsure as to how I feel about the ending, but the film is worth watching nonetheless.

Standout Moment: The opening twenty minutes are beautifully crafted. 

The Scar (1976)

From the first moment of this film I was hooked. It is a beautiful and empathetic exploration of the duality of progress. The characters are multi-faceted and the drama is both personal and grand. I watched it on a whim and I wasn't disappointed. 

Standout Moment: The conversations between the main character and the reporter.

This post is primarily entries from my pack of 200 terrible films. Bad movies are my great, not-very-secret, love. As terrible as many of these were, I still enjoyed watching them.

181. Evil Brain From Outer Space
182. Hunk
183. Weekend With the Babysitter
184. Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold
185. Superchick
186. Star Odyssey
187. Mothra
188. Kubo and the Two Strings
189. My Mom's a Werewolf
190. Black Cobra

Evil Brain From Outer Space (1964)

Evil Brain From Outer Space is actually just several episodes of the 50's Japanese TV show, Super Giant, cut into a feature length film. It is obviously Japan's answer to the Superman television show. As such, it is weird and very low-rent. It is extremely entertaining, though. I have actually watched this twice so far this year. Watching it with my boys was a special delight. The cavalcade of goofy monsters, mutants, and robots is nonstop and a lot of fun. 

Standout Moment: With the ridiculous robot council, right off the bat you know you're in for a good time. 

Hunk (1987)

Hunk is a deplorable film. While trying to make a faustian tale about the downfalls of materialism and vanity, the filmmakers forgot to make those qualities look bad and instead got caught up in how much fun they were having. While telling the audience that yuppie culture is bad, it simultaneously and inexplicably makes it look like a great way to live. There are so many thoughtless details and plot points in this film it feels like it wasn't even made from a first draft. Case in point: when the main character becomes the titular "hunk" his name is inexplicably changed to "Hunk Golden": a name that is so bad that is isn't even good as a joke. 

Standout Moment: Not only is he suddenly handsome and rich, but apparently he has super powers too somehow? This is revealed way late in the film, and almost as an afterthought. 

Weekend With the Babysitter (1970)

Weekend With the Babysitter is more than just an exploitation film. It's the personal sexual fantasy of the director. Considering that he made only three films, and two of them involve affairs with a babysitter (and also star the same actor as the married man swept up into a passionate bliss), it is very clear what the guy thinks about in his spare time. The plot of Weekend With the Babysitter only reinforces the theory. A film director gets a weekend to himself when his wife takes off secretly on a drug-filled weekend (thus removing any blame from him for his actions), and so he follows the babysitter around to learn about the hippie lifestyle so he can be ready for his new film. One thing leads to another and he ends up having a beautiful, wonderful, definitely not creepy at all, of course, why would you even think that, affair with the babysitter. They both learn more about themselves, and bonus, she doesn't even want his money or more than one weekend with him. She's a hippie, and so is very sexually mature, and doesn't need to own him to enjoy a romp in the sheets. The whole thing ends in a crazy drug bust involving a legion of hippies on motorcycles. 

Standout Moment: The needless murder of the Dustin-Hoffman-wannabe drug addict seems to be a last ditch effort to inject some tension into a fairly dull story. 

Yellow Hair and the Fortress of Gold (1984)

I barely even know what happened in this film, to be honest. It involves what has to be one of the weirdest bits of whitewashing in the history of casting, golden Native American mannequins, and tasteless homophobia. As far Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ripoffs, this is, by far, one of the strangest ways to go about it. 

Standout Moment: The only real takeaway moment from this is when the sidekick is embarrassed to see the main character naked. 

Superchick (1973)

This was one of the more legitimately enjoyable films that I have seen from the collection. There is a mostly non-existent plot about some criminals trying to so... something? I think? The main concern of the film (thankfully, for it it is the most entertaining part of the film) is essentially seeing Tara B. True, the titular superchick, do whatever she feels like doing as she travels from city to city. The actress, who actually made headlines a few years later for claiming to be personal astrologist to the Reagans, is legitimately charming. The movie is basically carried by her magnetism, because the story itself is not very deep of thoughtful. 

Standout Moment: The very end wraps up in a legitimately satisfying and surprising way. 

Star Odyssey (1979)

There are surely enough Italian Star Wars ripoffs in existence to create a genre by themselves. This film, the so-on-the-nose-it-could-be-satire named, Star Odyssey, should be considered essential viewing for any scholar of the shameless ripoffs genre. From a robot couple that get brought back from the dead after committing double suicide (because they want to, ugh, have sex with each other), to weird, blonde aliens, intergalactic auctioneering, and an ending that makes the rest of the movie pointless, it really is a treat of terrible filmmaking. 

Standout Moment: The realization that an early scene does not make any sense because the reels were switched and no one even cared to fix it before distribution. 

Mothra (1961)

When I was growing up, Godzilla vs. Mothra was one of my favorite movies. The scene where the new Mothra larva shoot silly string at Godzilla has to be one of my favorite scenes of all time. I had never seen the original Mothra, however, so this year allowed me to make up for that lack. It was a decent enough film. Just as goofy as any of the early Kaiju pictures.

Standout Moment: "Let's go, Dad." "Blegh."

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

This is my favorite new movie so far this year. The animation is gorgeous, the story is fresh, and the characters are extremely well done. If it does not win for best animated picture, I won't know what to do with myself. 

Standout Moment: The battle on the boat. 

My Mom's a Werewolf (1989)

Another film from my pack of 200 stinkers. This one, like many terrible films, is merely a ripoff of another, more successful, film. This time around, the film is ripping off Fright Night. The rules this movie sets up for itself becoming increasingly bizarre until the reach the point of no longer applying to themselves because all logic is completely discarded. There are a few "joke" characters that show up along the way, as well. Each one is more ridiculous than the last. When we get to the peeping neighbor who is vocal about his bondage fetish, all bets are off. 

Standout Moment: The pet store sequence is deliciously campy.

Black Cobra (1987)

Despite having the star power of Fred Williamson, Black Cobra never quite delivers the fun police procedural/vengeance flick that it promises. The bad guy is strange and hammy, Fred Williamson is great fun (although he seems to be phoning it in on this one), and the story is perfectly weird, but the movie never gets to the levels of excitement that many of the other films in the genre do. 

Standout Moment: We have a three-life bad guy in this one. 

Still catching up on viewing and writing. Most of these were watched in June and July. 

172. The Lobster
173. Permanent Vacation
174. MST3K: Reunion Show
175. Playgirls and the Vampire
176. Ghostbusters (2016)
177. Black Sun
178. Fantastic Planet
179. The Room
180. Alien Zone

The Lobster (2015)

Believe the hype about this film. It is incredibly funny, thoughtful, and poignant. It is a strange concept, but used in such a way to demonstrate the truth behind modern relationships. It is also a gorgeously shot film. It excites me to see where the director will go from here. 

Standout Moment: There is a wonderful demonstration by the hotel staff as to why everyone should be coupled. 

Permanent Vacation (1980)

I love Jim Jarmusch's work, but this one left a lot to be desired. While most of Jarmusch's films give off an air of being effortlessly cool, Permanent Vacation is a combination of his worst tendencies. I was barely able to finish.

Standout Moment: The concept is great, but it just wasn't effective in its execution.  

MST3K: Reunion Show (2016)

This was a great show. Funny for fans and non-fans alike. MST3K is a huge part of my childhood, and I have made it a big part of my children's lives. It was really fun to see everyone up there together again and having fun. I hope they release this on DVD. 

Standout Moment: Shake hands with danger. 

Playgirls and the Vampire (1960)

As far as Mexican exploitation films from the early 60's go, this one was head and shoulders above the pack. It had a few great moments, and remained relatively exciting through most of the runtime. It also has a pretty great twist. After watching several Mexican horror films from this era, I really think that it is a criminally overlooked period in film history. 

Standout Moment: The big climax, of course!

Ghostbusters (2016)

This movie was perfectly OK. There were even a few moments that made me laugh out loud, which is much more than I can say for most modern mainstream comedies. Kate McKinnon kills it (in a good way) throughout. The best thing about seeing this movie, though, had nothing to do with my viewing experience and everything to do with who was in the theatre. The majority of those watching this film were young women, and if their responses are any indication-- the majority of them loved it. The movie was really not for me, and that's ok. It inspired people who normally don't have something this big made for them. 

Standout Moment: This is one of the few films I have seen that actually uses CGI in a creative and beautiful way. 

Black Sun (1964)

The premise of Black Sun is very promising. A Black American soldier is on the run for killing another member of his unit and runs into a Japanese thief who wants to give him a place to hide. The first twenty minutes is actually really good, as well. It builds up the characters and sets up the situation in a really great way. Sadly, the film devolves into extremely racist stereotypes (without much of response to them, although it is ostensibly trying to point out racism), and also becomes one note and boring. The ending feels forced and most of the main moments after the thirty minute mark feel like someone is trying to extend a story for the sake of it. 

Standout Moment: Despite everything, this film really does have a great soundtrack. 

Fantastic Planet (1973)

There will never be another film like Fantastic Planet. I grabbed the new Criterion edition of this film as soon as it came out. Not only is it great animation and great sci-fi, it is a layered and thought-provoking story. As far as sci-fi goes, it is one of the best films the genre has to offer. 

Standout Moment: It is really hard to pick one moment from this film, the whole thing works so well. 

The Room (2003)

This truly is the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It is a rare feat to have everything go so wrong that it comes back around and becomes entertaining again. I can't even begin to explain how terrible, yet how entertaining this whole affair can be. You really should just see it yourself. 

Standout Moment: "What kind of drugs?"

Alien Zone (1978)

For my birthday, I bought myself a 200 film set. This was the very first I watched from it, and it did not disappoint. It was a bizarre horror anthology that has nothing to do with the title, and had all been shot in the same small town. A lot of it in the same exact house. The connecting story plays out like a dumb Illustrated Man ripoff. It definitely has some fun moments (in a laughing at how terrible it all is kind of way).

Standout Moment: The first segment is quite odd. 

163. The Duke of Burgundy
164. Time Chasers
165. 3 Women
166. The Tale of Zatoichi
167. Lacombe, Lucien
168. Blade Runner
169. Close Up
170. Total Recall
171. Futurama: Bender's Big Score

The Duke of Burgundy (2014)

The Duke of Burgundy is an undeniably beautiful film. It is visually inventive in a specific and intriguing way. The dynamic between the two leads is also very fresh, even for the genre. Sadly the film seems to keep hitting the same note over and over, so after the first twenty minutes it becomes a rehash of the same emotional beats over and over again. 

Standout Moment: The cinematography in this film is amazing.

Time Chasers (1994)

This is a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 classic episode. I got to see a brand new restored version riffed live in the theatre. It is a time travel film starring a bunch of mulleted early 90's guys and a Cessna that doubles as a time machine (all you have to do is hook up a commodore 64, apparently). 

Standout Moment: Stealing and crashing a car within 2 minutes of screen time is a delight. 

3 Women (1977)

So far this year I have been slightly underwhelmed by most of Altman's films that I've watched. I can see why others enjoy his work, but it just hasn't been for me. That is until I watched 3 Women. This film is really amazing. The performances and dream-like nature make it unforgettable. It has a strange quality that is hard to discern.

Standout Moment: A dinner party prepared that isn't actually attended. 

The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)

I am surprised at the hue franchise that this film spawned. Don't get me wrong, it is a great film, but no greater than many of the others made in the same genre at roughly the same time. I think there is something to say about luck in the popularity of this film (it spawned at least 37 sequels), as it follows a lot of the same beats as other wandering samurai stories and films. I find this question intruiging, "What makes a film a cultural touchstone?" Personally I think that the quality of the work is only part of the equation. It also has to hit at the exact right time for the exact right people, which Zatoichi did. 

Standout Moment: Zatoichi grifting the young men at the beginning is great. 

Lacombe, Lucien (1974)

Louis Malle is one of my favorite directors, I have made it a mission to see all of his work (a goal which I am near completing). I had been putting off watching this one because I wasn't sure how well anyone would be able to handle the subject matter. The film is about a young man joining the Nazi-implemented French gestapo during WWII. Malle handled the story beautifully. There is real nuance, as well as empathy, in this film. There is nothing simple about the subject matter, and this film is crafted well enough to match it. 

Standout Moment: The end sequence in the cabin.  

Blade Runner (1982)

This film holds multitudes. It is one of the most complete and fully realized sci-fi worlds ever put to film. The attention to detail in the lore and production design allow the broader themes to resonate and stick with the audience long after the film is over. Harrison Ford is amazing in this film, as well. There is a real vulnerability in his performance. 

Standout Moment: The vistas of the future city are still some of the best special effects I've ever seen. 

Close Up (1990)

I watched this film when its director, Abbas Kiarostami, died. It demonstrates the creative genius that he held. He was touched by a strange story; a young man pretends to be his favorite director and convinces a family to be in his next film. Within a few days, the jig is up and he is arrested for fraud. Kiarostami jumped in before the trial and used the actual people to reenact the scenes of what happened. The end is amazing, as the actual director that the young man pretended to be picks the man up from jail and takes him to the actual family to help him make amends. There will never be another film like Close Up, and there will never be another filmmaker like Kiarostami.

Standout Moment: The trial. 

Total Recall (1990)

Total Recall is the epitome of 80's action for me. It hits all the right notes and is incredibly absurd. This may not be surprising to you if you have been following this blog, as Schwarzenegger is one of my favorite on-screen personalities. Many of the most important actions make no sense, and there is more than a good chance that it's all in the main characters head. Also mutants! Just watch it.

Standout Moment: The ratio of Arnold screaming/ Arnold not screaming screen time is extremely acceptable. 

Futurama: Bender's Big Score (2007)

This is the first of the Futurama films. I really don't have much to say about this one that I haven't said about the other, but I think the time travel conceit is really well done and creates a great emotional arc for the film.

Standout Moment: The Bender as terminator storyline is great.