It's Wednesday, May 6th at the Alamo Ritz in downtown Austin. I would encourage you to find any means to get there. If you haven't seen Tommy Wiseau's The Room, well you should. Words cannot describe how terrible and awesome it is. Here are some clips. You'll want to expand the post and watch all of them.
When something in the public lexicon becomes reasonably popular, this will inevitably lead to knock-offs. The Asylum, a micro-budget production company, has turned this inevitability into a business model. A quick scan of their filmography reveals a treasure trove of generic titles vaguely inspired by big studio releases and a quick glance at a thesaurus. Some of these include, but are not limited to, Snakes on a Train, The Da Vinci Treasure, Transmorphers, and AVH: Alien vs. Hunter.
Asylum's I Am Omega was released a full month before I Am Legend, so it cannot be considered a true knock-off. However, with The Omega Man in 1977, The Last Man on Earth in 1964, and Richard Matheson's 1954 novel, it could hardly be considered anything close to original.
The film stars martial artist and Iron Chef America chairman Mark Dacascos as Renchard (not Richard), the last man on earth after a global pandemic turns everyone into rabid cannibal zombie vampire monsters infected with Rage. He holes himself up in a flimsy shack outside of the city, surrounded by an even flimsier chain link fence, and installs an alarm system with lights that look suspiciously similar to those in a DP's light kit. The first 35 minutes are devoted primarily to the doldrums of Renchard's day-to-day life. While I Am Legend took this concept and made it relatively engaging, I Am Omega uses it as a means of padding a 50 minute concept into a feature film. Renchard eats food, gets drunk, plants bombs around the city, fiddles with his MacBook, and reminisces about his dead wife and son in 8mm filmstrips. Despite the complete destruction of humanity, the 3G Network continues to hum along, as Renchard is contacted by Brianna (Jennifer Lee Wiggins), a survivor who looks startlingly like his dead wife (if only because Wiggins plays both roles). Naturally, Renchard ignores the distress call for entirely unknown reasons, and the film continues to discard the "last man on earth" angle even further when he is visited by two mercenaries from Antioch (a city full of thousands of other survivors). Vincent (Geoff Meed, also the screenwriter) is the tattooed leader who uses the word "compadre" more than is socially acceptable, and Mike (Ryan Lloyd) is his mousy bro lover. When Renchard refuses to help them save Brianna, whose blood may contain the anti-virus, they blow up his house. He agrees to guide them through the "underground network of sewers" (also known as "sewers") on one condition: no live fire, due to gas leaks. The two agree, and Renchard leads the way, automatic weapon in hand. Renchard finds Brianna, only to learn that the two mercenaries are not from Antioch, and have no interest in developing the anti-virus. In fact, the rescue mission was designed to assure Brianna is killed, so the world remains in chaos and pestilence. Of course, they could have just waited for her to starve to death, zombie vampires to kill her, or Renchard's bombs to blow up the city. In fact, the plan they concocted is the absolute worst way to assure her demise, but considering he wants to live in a world devoid of electricity, running water, women, medicine, infrastructure and Nachos Bell Grande, thinking rationally is not his strong suit.
Though the first act sticks reasonably well to the source material, it is eye-crustingly boring and detracts from the film's true desire to be a mindless C-level zombie flick. Like in a survival horror game, creatures pop out with no consideration of time or space. Renchard moves into a new area, there is a brief loading screen, and the A.I. resets.
Once I Am Omega gets into the meat of the plot, it's actually quite entertaining. Sure it's ludicrously cheesy, full of cliches, shot on the fly, and made solely to confuse people browsing at Blockbuster, but they at least attempt to make it fun. I would rather watch Mark Dacascos nunchuck stuntmen in a parking garage than some film student's 16mm magnum opus about white people in their 20s sitting on a futon and talking.
What to drink:
A Billy Bass (shot of everclear dropped into an expired can of tuna)
Hey, remember when Jason Bateman talked about Dario Argento before turning into a total scheezoid lamewad in Juno? He was talking about this guy! It's 1975's own Deep Red (aka Deep Red Hatchet Murders)!
Though dwarfed by the success of "Gangsta's Paradise," 1995's Dangerous Minds actually did make money. In its wake, numerous films came out in which a hard-nosed white teacher enters the jungle of the inner city to teach the noble savages how to tie their shoes and not murder each other. These movies actually gained legitimacy as a genre, even garnering their own parody with High School High. But the comedy stylings of David Zucker could not compare to the absurdity of The Substitute 2: School's Out.
When his brother is murdered on the streets of Brooklyn, Karl Thomasson (Treat Williams) takes over his high school classroom in order to find the killer. The school is overrun by a gang called "The Brotherhood," whose members wear their hoodies backwards with eye holes cut out of the back.
Karl: After threatening me, the perpetrators drove 30 feet ahead, put their hoods on, drove backwards, and shot at me. Police Officer: Did you see their faces while they were shooting? Karl: I didn't have to. I saw them put the hoods on. Officer: But you didn't actually see their faces as they shot at you? Karl: No. Officer: Then there's nothing I can do.
Despite the attempted murder in broad daylight, Thomasson isn't intimidated. He seduces fellow teacher and resident slut Kara Lavelle (Michael Michele) by bribing her with pizza rolls, and uses her help to infiltrate the school's "Special Students Wing," posing as a substitute teacher. The wing is on the second story of the school and in complete lockdown, so the students are unable to escape between the hours of 8 AM to 3 PM.
Thomasson uses a Yo-Yo to smash up a kid's orange drank, throws another student's stereo out the window, and pummels three gangbangers in the bathroom. He attempts to sway student Mase (Eugene Byrd) away from The Brotherhood, offering the more righteous path of murder for hire and physically assaulting teenagers.
Karl discovers that The Brotherhood is run by the school's shop teacher, Warren Drummond (B.D. Wong), a tiny ball of white hot raptor-cloning Asian fury.
Even though Thomasson has extensive combat training, Drummond holds his own in the fight. The film sound editor decides to offer his own commentary on the scene.
The unexplained disembodied spectral voice is not an isolated incident. Sound design throughout the film is generally terrible. Sound effects are noticeably repeated in short periods of time. Gunshots are taken straight out of DOOM (I distinctly heard the pistol and the chain gun). The music (aside from the Alice Cooper opening) consists of generic white noise urban beats.
But the sound effects are nothing compared to the performance of Treat Williams, the smuggiest smuggy smug who ever smugged. Making George Clooney look like Thomas Aquinas, he struts around inner-city Brooklyn with a smirk on his face and a skip in his step. Never once is he ever in danger, and the audience never questions his ability to emerge the victor in any situation.
Despite Thomasson's unflinching blandness, The Substitute 2 is incredibly entertaining. Its racism is comical rather than mean-spirited; the black characters are no more ridiculous than any other. If anything, it shows the stupidity of teenagers of every color. These are two witty retorts thrown at Thomasson in the classroom, both resulting in snickers from the other students:
"Whatchoo gonna teach us to use four guys to screw in a lightbulb?"
"Can anybody tell me what an impasse is?" "Oh yeah yeah, isn't that something like a comp ass?"
As long as you're vitriolic enough toward The Man, insults do not have to actually make sense. Here are some I came up with off the top of my head:
What the fuck, Mr. Caterpillar Man? You gonna turn your coat inside out when it's cold?
Why you tryin' to teach us books for? Everyone knows they made from the tears of ghosts.
Yo teach! Mega me up jamboree, pasta liaison!
What to drink:
Orange drank Arbitrary ranking system:
An Eiffel Tower, 3 Around the Worlds, and a 32 second Sleeper.
There's something in The Mist. Ghost pirates? No, that's The Fog. An obsessed female fan? No, that's Play Misty for Me. Pyramid head? No, that's Silent Hill. Vengeful plants? No, that's The Happening. Randy Quaid? No, that's Hard Rain.
Frank Darabont's Stephen King's The Mist is something entirely different. It's like fog, but mistier. Like if you left the humidifier on all day. And that humidifier opened a portal into a SciFi Original Movie that somehow got a wide theatrical release.
In the small town of Bridgton, Maine, a freak thunderstorm cuts the power and uproots every single tree in the tri-county area (leaving mailboxes and lawn gnomes intact). Local levelhead David Drayton (Thomas Jane) goes into town with his young son to get supplies. Nearly everyone is at the grocery store frantically grabbing cans of corn nog and wadded beef in a desperate attempt to survive the brownout. The local paper reports the loss of power, using their antique Gutenberg printing press.
The first 12 minutes of The Mist are actually quite good. They're subtle, quiet, and properly set the mood. Mist comes down off the mountain, but Drayton assumes it's from the storm. Trucks filled with soldiers from the local army base zoom by in the opposite direction. The build of terror comes to a head at 11 minutes and 25 seconds, when the emergency siren goes off and everyone looks outside to see a bloodied man running toward them.
Thirty seconds later, everything turns to crap. The old man has come to declare "something in the mist," and also welcome the introduction of terrible, melodramatic, dinner theater acting. Maybe Snidely Whiplash is in the mist, eager to tie helpless maidens to railroad tracks. This gives local religious nut-job Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden, unaware there's a New Testament) perfect opportunity to spout obnoxious, longwinded sermons about repentance and Judgment Day.
Naturally, everyone starts freaking out and knocking things over. One woman left her two children at home, with the 8 year-old watching the younger. She is livid that no one will reward her for being a terrible parent, and storms off in a huff.
Drayton sees something in the loading dock, and tries to warn the others. They don't believe him, even though they too refuse to leave the store. Instead of investigating Drayton's claims, they stand around discussing it for an inordinate amount of time. Of course, Drayton is right, and a giant tentacle beast pulls the smartass stock boy into the mist.
Drayton must now explain to the others what he saw, and why no one heard the violent, bloodcurdling screams coming from the loading dock. His neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braughter), doesn't believe him, assuming the giant monster, buckets of blood, severed tentacle, and dead stock boy are all part of an elaborate practical joke. Ha ha ha. Classic!
Eventually, the creatures get into the store, and despite everyone's best preparation (work-lights, revolver, flaming mops), the entire scene is an exercise in Murphy's Law. One man knocks over a bucket of lighter fluid and sets himself on fire. After the siege, Drayton and about 70 other people must go across the street to the pharmacy to retrieve medicine for the burned man.
The pharmacy mission is also a debacle. After entering the store (which posts its hours backwards so the customers can know the approximate time they're inside), more bugs emerge, and instead of running away, most stand around screaming or stabbing them with pointy sticks.
Mrs. Carmody gathers a devout following of True Believers, who preach and practice some of the basic tenets of Christianity such as murder, long speeches, and child sacrifice. This gives Carmody even more opportunity to talk for extended periods of time. Are her shrill religious screechings about stem cells and abortions too subtle for you? Need someone to tell you exactly what to think and how to feel (sorry Darabont, Morgan Freeman wouldn't narrate this one)? Bring in Ollie (Toby Jones) the store's wise assistant manager. Here are some classic Ollie quotes:
"They've lost their sense of proportion. Out there in the market they were scared and confused. In here there's a problem they can solve. And they're God damn gonna solve it!"
"You can't convince some people there's a fire even when their hair is burning. Denial's a powerful thing."
"As a species we're fundamentally insane. Put more than two of us in a room, we pick sides and start dreaming up reasons to kill one another. Why do you think think we invented politics and religion?"
These lines are no longer on the nose. They are now in the nose and halfway to the brain.
One of the worst things an action film can do to its audience is not provide enough action. There is a perfectly good 70 minute monster flick in The Mist, but it's wrapped around 57 minutes of people standing around talking. There is a lot of acting and not enough reacting.
Secondly, every single character must do something completely moronic in order to progress the plot. Giving one character the Idiot Ball is lazy writing, but The Mist is Idiot Dodgeball. Everyone scrambles over each other to see who can make the stupidest decision first. It should be hilarious, but Darabont treats the material with such sincerity (without actually enjoying it) that it becomes a chore. His script extracts chunks of long dialogue directly from King's novella, never stopping to consider whether they'd be appropriate for a film.
The Mist, like Frank Darabont's career, had so much potential. It is beautifully lit and shot. Thomas Jane does a good job with his role. The twist ending is atrocious, but no less atrocious than anything leading up to it. It could have been a fun movie, but Darabont somehow makes a story about giant bugs from an alternate universe boring.
What to drink:
Lighter fluid, and lots of it.
Quotable (non-Ollie) quotes:
(after the grocery store shakes violently for about 45 seconds) "That was an earthquake!"
"Won't somebody here see a lady home?"
"This isn't an ordinary mist."
"What the hell were those tentacles even attached to?"
"How about if your ass prepares to meet my size 10 work boot?"
Years before Jane Fonda's career as a staunch political activist, rumor has it she used to be in movies. Proof of this former life is scant, limited primarily to hearsay, circumstantial evidence, dubious personal accounts, and bootlegged footage.
One that survived is Barbarella, the 1968 sci-fi passion project of her then-husband Roger Vadim. Based on a French comic, it tells the story of sexually enlightened space bimbo Barbarella, a "five star, double rated astronautical aviatrix" of the 40th century sent on a mission to find scientist Durand-Durand, who has created a Positronic Ray that could destroy all life in the Universe.
Last year, Frank Langella created Oscar buzz for his portrayal of the late Richard Nixon. For many, Langella brought to life the very personification of evil. I am of course talking about Skeletor.
In 1973, at the very cusp of his break into Hollywood, Bruce Lee died suddenly and tragically from an ailment still shrouded in mystery. Even after his demise, Lee's popularity soared, and by the late 70s his posthumous celebrity status was undeniable.
Such is the origin of Game of Death, released six years after Lee's passing. Director Robert Clouse decided that this footage should not go unwatched. Not only did he release it, but also included a bunch of superfluous plot to create a ten-to-one ratio of crap to awesome.
Clouse eases the audience into the tedium by introducing the film with footage from Way of the Dragon, in which the real Bruce Lee fights the real Chuck Norris (with a real hairy back).
I say the "real" Bruce Lee because, as mentioned earlier, Bruce Lee was DEAD when this film was made. To fill in the gaps, Clouse hires three Bruce Lee lookalikes (whose chief qualifications are "being Asian"), and has them stumble through poorly lit scenes in thick sunglasses, masquerading as a kind of costume party Lee. This filler is occasionally interspersed with 1-2 second clips of the actual Lee, marked conspicuously by a drop in film quality, and about 40 pounds of additional muscle mass. There's even a shot where they superimpose a picture of Bruce Lee's face over the double's.
Game of Death tells the story of Billy Lo, a martial arts superstar hounded by local mobsters to participate in their big karate showdown, which they hope will rake in millions in gambling profits. Lo is reluctant to participate, and the syndicate responds with the completely reasonable and repeated use of threats and beatings. The first 20 minutes basically cut back and forth between gangsters talking about Billy Lo, to gangsters pummeling Billy Lo. How a small contingent of hired goons is able to take down one of the most skilled martial artists in the world is beyond me.
Despite these inconvenient beatings, Billy still has time to take his singer girlfriend Ann out to fine spaghetti dinners. This may explain his erratic shifts in martial arts ability. The added fight scenes, choreographed by Sammo Hung, are capably executed but the doubles are of a markedly lower skill level than Lee, making Lo appear sluggish, like after a massive intake of carbohydrates and tomato sauce.
Eventually, the mob becomes frustrated with Lo's refusal to participate, and implements their final coercive tactic: shooting him in the face. On the set of his film, a mobster (in an eerie parallel to son Brandon Lee's death) switches out a blank for a real bullet. I'm not entirely sure why they needed to fire a gun off-screen. Apparently audiences won't believe a shooting without the faint hint of white smoke over the camera lens.
In a perfect opportunity to justify Lo's altered appearance, he is hit square in the face, but lives. Rather than take advantage of this plot point, the doctors tell him he will look exactly the same. Lo gives Bruce's headshot the Wooly Willy treatment, and proceeds to don a fake beard and signature thick sunglasses.
Meanwhile, girlfriend Ann thinks he's dead. She's so hysterical and stricken with grief that she is committed to a sort of Mental Institution for the Temporarily Sad. It wasn't until the late 80s that women were allowed to cope with trauma without being sedated, slapped or institutionalized.
Lo begins his vendetta against the syndicate. Many plots to Bruce Lee films are merely elaborate excuses to justify his inevitable barefisted killing spree. Ann eventually discovers he's alive, at which point she is immediately kidnapped. The syndicate gives Lo directions to the trap, where a half dozen motorcycle goons wait for him.
Unfortunately for the mob, the location they choose isn't exactly ideal for motorized combat. It is a darkened warehouse with tight, short corridors and numerous places for a skilled martial artist to hide. Lo knocks a yellow-jumpsuited thug unconscious and steals his famous outfit, and then handily picks off each goon one by one. He learns the boss's location: the Red Pepper Restaurant.
Lo sneaks into the restaurant in the dead of night and heads upstairs. It is at this point, 80 minutes and 31 seconds into the film, that we finally get to the notorious three-leveled Bruce Lee battle. As Lo makes the transition from doppelganger to Real Lee, the director even remembers to have him grab some items off the wall that Lee carries as he enters. What he doesn't remember, however, is that Lo enters at night, and the Lee footage is in the middle of the day.
I won't dwell too much on these fight scenes, as they are particularly awesome and well executed. The restaurant has five extra floors (where apparently they pushed the tables aside to make room). Each floor has an opponent, and as Lo ascends, the fights become more difficult. They are, in order:
Filipino martial artist Dan Inosanto
Hapkido master Ji Han Jae
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, using his massive height difference combined with Lee's own Jeet Kune Do
A White Guy with a Stick
Can you guess which was added later?
Without the Bruce Lee footage, Game of Death is a capable but pedestrian martial arts film. With the footage, it's a capable but pedestrian martial arts film with an awesome fight scene at the end.
What to drink:
A fine Italian wine (with spaghetti)
Quotable quotes:
"What ever happened to Billy Lo?" (recurring)
"Figure it's done, man."
"Hey Billy can we get spaghetti tonight?"
"I've got a hunch one of these days we're going to have to cram his typewriter up his ass."
"Rude bitch!"
"One rebel begets another. That's the Billy Lo Syndrome."
"You lose, Carl Miller!"
"Of course I looked in the casket. He didn't look exactly the same, but they never look exactly the same!"
I bought Paul Kyriazi's Omega Cop from Half Price Books for the grand total of $1. Considering I've watched it at least five times, including a showing at Trinity University's Bad Movie Club, it was a sound investment.
Ron Marchini stars as title character John Travis (known affectionately in some circles as TravisCop OmegaCop), a tough-as-nails member of the Special Police in a post apocalyptic world. Of course, this being a low-budget film, the apocalypse looks less like a vast wasteland and more slightly untidy. Holes in the ozone layer result in bright flashes of light called "sun spots." Depending on the director's mood, these sun spots will either kill you outright, slowly turn into into a sun zombie, or do nothing at all.
After a failed raid on a slave auction run by arch nemesis Wraith, TravisCop drives around in his RENEGADE Jeep rescuing women and verbally abusing them. He picks up three women total: the snippy blonde, annoying brunette, and unconscious almost-rape victim. I assume TravisCop cares for these women, despite his general distaste for women, men, and humanity in general. He never gets around to picking a love interest (though the blonde was a good candidate), choosing instead to remain a brooding platonic hunk of karate manhood throughout the entirely of the film.
TravisCop's mission is simple: kill Wraith. Despite this, he manages to get sidetracked chasing after small children, rescuing women, yelling, driving around, flashing back to earlier in the film, sleeping in a locker room, and killing people who stole his hat.
Adam West, TravisCop's superior, bosses TravisCop around from an underground bunker via two-way radio. It's clear that West needed the money, so he agreed to be in the movie so long as all his scenes were filmed in one day, and he never had to change locations or shirts.
But West is at best a tertiary character in Omega Cop. TravisCop is the secondary, if only because he is attached to the primary star: TravisCop's foot.
TravisCop kicks a lot of ass. And by "ass" I mean "groin." I counted no less than thirteen crotch shots in this film, the vast majority of them executed by TravisCop himself, the Ronaldinho of Testicle Soccer.
Despite its ultra low budget, wooden star, laughable plot, and poor lighting, Omega Cop is an incredibly enjoyable film. It knows it's mindless, so it devotes itself to mindlessness. The director clearly has some basic grasp of filmmaking, but when your camera is made from a discarded oatmeal box, there's only so much you can do.
The film stars martial artist and Iron Chef America chairman Mark Dacascos as Renchard (not Richard), the last man on earth after a global pandemic turns everyone into rabid cannibal zombie vampire monsters infected with Rage. He holes himself up in a flimsy shack outside of the city, surrounded by an even flimsier chain link fence, and installs an alarm system with lights that look suspiciously similar to those in a DP's light kit.
The first 35 minutes are devoted primarily to the doldrums of Renchard's day-to-day life. While I Am Legend took this concept and made it relatively engaging, I Am Omega uses it as a means of padding a 50 minute concept into a feature film. Renchard eats food, gets drunk, plants bombs around the city, fiddles with his MacBook, and reminisces about his dead wife and son in 8mm filmstrips.
Despite the complete destruction of humanity, the 3G Network continues to hum along, as Renchard is contacted by Brianna (Jennifer Lee Wiggins), a survivor who looks startlingly like his dead wife (if only because Wiggins plays both roles).
Naturally, Renchard ignores the distress call for entirely unknown reasons, and the film continues to discard the "last man on earth" angle even further when he is visited by two mercenaries from Antioch (a city full of thousands of other survivors). Vincent (Geoff Meed, also the screenwriter) is the tattooed leader who uses the word "compadre" more than is socially acceptable, and Mike (Ryan Lloyd) is his mousy bro lover. When Renchard refuses to help them save Brianna, whose blood may contain the anti-virus, they blow up his house.
He agrees to guide them through the "underground network of sewers" (also known as "sewers") on one condition: no live fire, due to gas leaks. The two agree, and Renchard leads the way, automatic weapon in hand.
Renchard finds Brianna, only to learn that the two mercenaries are not from Antioch, and have no interest in developing the anti-virus. In fact, the rescue mission was designed to assure Brianna is killed, so the world remains in chaos and pestilence. Of course, they could have just waited for her to starve to death, zombie vampires to kill her, or Renchard's bombs to blow up the city. In fact, the plan they concocted is the absolute worst way to assure her demise, but considering he wants to live in a world devoid of electricity, running water, women, medicine, infrastructure and Nachos Bell Grande, thinking rationally is not his strong suit.
