todesnudel Reviews

The Gringo Papi (2022 TV Special)

Just bad

[1/10 · 11 April 2024]

Just saw a throwaway joke about this comedy special on another YouTube channel. Never heard of this guy before. Not interested in MMA, not from the US. So I think I have some kind of outsider perspective on this.

First part, going on about vaccines and masks and lockdowns. "LA is like North Korea, just with beaches". Okay? Maybe he's trying to appeal to the crowd in a predominantly red state. It wasn't really offensive, but not funny either.

He starts talking about Mexicans. For a really long time. I really didn't get the part about Mexicans "being spicy"? Why is he calling his wife (who totally was NOT born and raised in Mexico but in the US, so she isn't an illegal immigrant) "an a-hole"? After that he still goes on about mexican food. Maybe that's funny in Texas, I don't know.

The next joke: My family (all 15 of them) doesn't fit in the small car, they don't fit, it's ridiculous they don't fit. Guess what? They fit. Really. That's the punchline. I am not even going to mark this as a spoiler, because it's impossible to spoiler something that isn't there.

That line about "I thought put* meant dude", that was kind of funny. Too bad it's 14 minutes into the set. At around the 17 minute mark there is a guy laughing so forced, it sounds like he has a gun to his head.

Mountain lions. I never owned a gun, you know never owned a gun, never owned a gun you guys, bought a gun and night vision goggles. Why do I have two fingers in front of my eyes? I don't know, never bought a gun. The punchline? The mountain lion was huge. As is my d*. Still don't know why we had this setup about being woken up at exactly 3am, though.

1/10, and that's just because it was only 25 minutes long. There are two parts that might have potential in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. The part about him not learning spanish and thus not understanding the word "put*", and the part about the mountain lion. I mean, the setup is there. The buildup is there (could be a bit shorter, and without mentioning the size of his junk), but the punchline is completely missing.

Ready Player One (2018)

Not as bad as the book

[4/10 · 7 December 2022]

I've read the book, and it was one of the worst books I've ever read. Utterly annoying characters, world building that made no sense at all, and just list after list of 80's references.

The movie gets rid of all of what is problematic with the book. Wade isn't as annoying as he is in the book, and the side characters even get more depth than they have in the book.

It's still not a great movie, but one you can easily watch if you have two hours to kill on a slow evening. The effects are quite something, the special effects team should receive extra praise for their hard work.

However, what didn't make sense was: How exactly is the OASIS controlled? We see people doing the moves their characters are supposed to do in the OASIS, but that would mean that, to run 3 meters in the OASIS, you would need to run 3 meters in real life, or what? Doesn't make sense.

And when i-r0k held Sho hostage... why was Wade concerned? He held his AVATAR hostage, not the 11 year old kid himself. Let him be "zeroed out", why should anyone care? Sure, he'd lose all his stuff, but apparently it's not that hard to get cool stuff back with the help of a few friends?

Anyway, as I've said: If you have two hours to kill, you could give this one a go. If not, don't. You won't miss out on much.

Mercenaries (2014)

It's amazing how The Asylum can make very movie bad

[2/10 · 12 December 2021]

Just look at the actor list. Brigitte Nielsen. Vivica A. Fox. Kristanna Loken. Zoë Bell. Cynthia Rothrock. Those are all actors with DECADES of experience under their belts. They starred in absolute blockbusters. They have proven that they can offer something to a film role and make a movie worth watching. So what is the reason that this movie is so bad despite having those 5 cinema legends on screen? Well, it was directed by Christopher Ray, son of Fred Olen Ray. That's the reason. Badly written dialogue and uninspired camera work scotch any glimmer of hope that the story might be good enough for a halfway decent movie.

The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986)

It's a guilty pleasure

[7/10 · 12 December 2021]

I have to admit I have a soft spot for this movie, despite it's obvious cheesieness. Why? Well, because in the life of almost every boy comes the time where he realizes that girls/women are rather fascinating. Well, if that boy is interested in girls in the first place, of course.

I saw this movie here in Germany one Sunday morning where it was shown as a rerun from the previous evening. I think it was on RTL 2 (a really small TV station, so I guess they could get away with the mild nudity in the morning?)

I watched it with my brother and a few friends, and well... a few boys, just hitting puberty. Lots of girls in bikinis. No wonder we left this movie on. But it wasn't just the girls, we were invested in the story as well, we wanted Alan and Todd to succeed against all odds. We wanted Alan to realize that Ronnie is the right woman for him, not Jane. We even chuckled at some of the jokes. Or, to put it in another way: We were 100% the target audience of this flick.

In retrospect, the movie is bad, of course. Predictable and unfunny and very sexist. Only thing that's still the same is the good looking girls in bikinis. Plus Barbara Horan is still as cute looking as I remembered her.

Overall, this movie is a guilty pleasure for me. If you haven't seen it when you were around 14 years old, then I guess you shouldn't watch it at all, because it really doesn't have much to offer. There are far better movies out there.

Get Mean (1975)

What is this?

[1/10 · 11 September 2021]

No, seriously. What the hell is this? Usually I mark my reviews as spoilers, but this is unnecessary here, as it simply isn't possible for me to spoil this movie to anyone, because I haven't got the slightest idea what the hell happened.

Some stranger gets the mission to bring a Princess back to Spain, so they can fend off the barbarians roaming the country. He is offered $10,000 for it but he demands a much higher sum. It's never really agreed upon on screen but apparently they settle for $50,000. During the travel to Spain a narrator voice explains to us that the stranger "travels back in time with every mile traveled" (or something to that extend). Why? It isn't explained. The whole premise doesn't make sense. Okay, this is set in some alternative reality, but this alternative reality isn't explored in the slightest. Strange things happen and the viewer is left to figure out what this is about.

Back in Spain the Barbarians battle against the English, the stranger and the Princess are caught. The stranger says "you can have her for $50,000 because she is crazy and she isn't even a real princess". What the...? Some kind of businessman he is. Of course the baddies just kidnap the princess and leave the stranger to die. But he is saved by some unknown woman, brought back to the castle where the King of Spain(?) is on his death bed, but out stranger just demands getting paid because he brought the Princess back. Wow, what an a-hole.

Then it gets some more weird scenes, everyone tries to betray everyone else and in the end the viewer is none the wiser because this movie is boring, awful to watch, and utterly pointless.

Undefeatable (1993)

Stupid plot, but it stars Cynthia Rothrock

[7/10 · 22 December 2019]

The plot revovles around Cynthia Rothrock's character Kristi Jones who pays her sister's tuition fees by fighting in illegal street fights.

Meanwhile, another underground fighter by the name of Stingray (Don Niam) is left by his wife after he raped her. This drives him insane and he mistakes every woman with dark hair for his wife Anna, kills their boyfriends and then takes the women to some undisclosed place (I guess it's a warehouse... but it's never explained why Stingray lives in a warehouse all of a sudden).

Kristi Jones teams up with cop Nick DiMarco (John Miller) to put an end to Stingray's killing spree.

Overall, this is a very stupid movie. The plot is thin and the characters act in the most stupid way imaginable. Best scene is where cop Nick empties a whole magazine into a jacket that Stingray throws as distraction. Why he doesn't stop shooting once he realizes it was a decoy is beyond me.

The kung-fu scenes are pretty good most of the time. Sometimes one can see that the hits and kicks never really connect, and the overuse of slow motion sequences doesn't help either. But that's not the fault of the actors but of the editor. Overall, the fight scenes are well coreographed and this is where the movie shines, and the reason why we watch those movies in the first place, right? It's easy to see why Cynthia Rothrock became world champion 5 times (albeit in "forms and weapons", which is not combat oriented) and her list of black belts is very impressive.

The Refrigerator (1991)

Ice Cold - Murderous - Hungry

[7/10 · 25 November 2016]

This is by far one of the most bizarre movies ever to see the light of day. Who on earth came up with this idea?

Steve and Eileen Bateman, originally from Ohio, move to New York. Eileen dreams of becoming an actress, Steve wants to climb the social ladder and he figures he can do it best in a big city like New York. They rent a very shabby apartment in a not so friendly neighborhood (maybe Hell's Kitchen? Never been to New York, so... EDIT: I actually looked it up, the apartement is in Alphabet City; EDIT END) for about $200 per month. Ridiculous amount of money for such a run down flat.

But the apartment comes included with a nice refrigerator, it even still has a piece of Camembert inside. Steve's most favorite cheese! That alone is enough to turn a deaf ear to the warnings of an old gypsy woman.

Once they moved in Steve begins to change, Steve and Eileen grow away from each other. Since Eileen is home alone most of the time she makes friends with plumber Juan. Steve doesn't like it one bit, but he's more focused on brown-nosing at his new job.

The old gypsy woman appears again, she tells Eileen that the fridge is "a door to hell" and she once again tells her, they should move elsewhere.

Of course Steve will have none of this and so the fridge overtakes Steve's mind even more. So much that Steve wants to sacrifice Eileen to the refrigerator. What follows next is a hilarious scene in which the fridge, a fan, a blender and a garbage can(!) attack the protagonists. Wow.

Conclusion: The story is utterly garbage, of course. Even more garbage than in flicks like "The Lift". But considering the low budget and that this is an independently made movie, the production has a pretty good quality. Camera works are well done, acting (even though sometimes very cheesy) isn't half bad and the special effects during some scenes (Eileen's nightmare) are well worth seeing. Compare this movie to the likes of "Sharktopus" or "2-headed shark attack" and you'll realize that back then, even silly horror movies had a much better quality than what we get to see today.

I rate this 7 out of 10, I have seen the movie numerous times and it's still very entertaining. The movie doesn't take itself seriously and neither should the viewer. As far as I know there's no official DVD release, so you have to rely on your VHS to still function properly.

EDIT: There was a DVD release in 2016, "limited to 1,000 copies". If you are lucky you can pick it up and enjoy the movie with crisp clear image and sound.

End of the World (2013 TV Movie)

Surprisingly good apocalypse comedy

[7/10 · 7 August 2016]

I got this movie in a "Action Box" complete with two other "Action" movies. I didn't expect much as the box was pretty cheap and the description is so cheesy (they name some of the greatest action movies on the box. I almost expected them to write "but those movies have nothing to do with THIS movie box" afterwards...), I just expected some "so bad, it's good" movies.

But actually, "End of the World" does have it's moments and it is a very enjoyable movie.

A few apocalypse movie freaks are there when "it" happens: The world is about to end. This time, it's because the heliosphere is somehow colliding inwards and "bubbles" of electrostatic fields (or something like that) are raining down on earth, causing confusion and chaos. So what can they do? Use their knowledge of all those movies and save the earth. They even have a storage room full of prepacked survival kits for about every occasion (conviniently labeled) and a shelf full of SPAM.

They set off to find a Doctor Walter Brown (his friends call him "Doc"), an expert on the field of apocalyptic catastrophes. Only problem is, he's been held in a mental asylum, so they have to get him out of there.

Doc Brown (yes, the movie nerds find this name amazing, too) directs them to his bunker, where he can do something about the catastrophe, but sadly he's killed before he can tell them what they have to do.

But the nerds decide to fight on, motivating themselves with various movie quotes. The solution they come up with is simple: Nuking a remote (VERY remote) mining shaft, so the debris will fly high up into the air, creating some kind of shield to fend off the heliospheric disaster.

The actors do a good job of making their characters believable and likable. The special effects could have been better, though. We see the heliosphere-thingies raining down on the earth and they explode on contact, but they don't do any damage at all? Surely the explosion must have some kind of impact?

But overall, this is a very enjoyable movie. If you see it cheap anywhere, give it a shot.

Btw: The German title "The new prophecy of the Maya" doesn't have ANYTHING to do with the movie at all. The word "Maya" isn't even mentioned once in the entire film, so don't let yourself get put off by that stupid title. Oh, and the statue of liberty on the cover? Yeah, isn't in the movie as well.

Bear (I) (2010)

Not a good movie

[1/10 · 31 July 2015]

There are movies that are so bad that they are hilarious to watch. And then there's movies like Bear. They are simply bad, without any hilarity. To quote Roger Ebert here, I think the crew tried to make a wonderful movie, but they failed in doing so. Why did they fail? Because there's not much that fits together. 4 people in a car, two brothers and their girlfriends. From the very first scene we see those 4 they try everything to come across as the most unlikeable characters in the world. They are constantly picking at each other and are acting in the most stupid way possible. It's not even that the actors are particularly bad (they are not good either, they are just average actors), but it's the script that makes this movie almost unwatchable.

But let's start at the very beginning. As already stated, there are 2 brothers and their respective girlfriends/wives in a car. They are traveling to the brother's father's birthday dinner, which for some reason is held in the most remote countryside ever ("Cell phone doesn't work" trope, YAY). Of course they decide "to take a shortcut" and of course they have an accident. One of the tires goes flat, so they have to stop. The changing does take some time (starts at bright daylight and ends during the night... however, during the night there seems to be a pretty awesome light source, since we can see everything just fine) and during their forced stop, they are attacked by a bear. Luckily one of the brothers carries a gun, and he fires every bullet he has to kill off the bear. OK, up until this point it could've been an okay movie, but it already starts to go downhill from here. A second bear appears and he mourns the loss of his partner(?) and even has a flashback(!) of how bear #1 was shot. He then goes on to attack the group. They hide inside the car and even get it going (trope of "my car hates me" avoided!), but somehow end up running it into the next tree. The car is flipped over by the bear. After some minutes the bear leaves again. So, what does the script now holds in place for the unfortunate 4? Of course, they are whining over the birthday cake that got all messed up during the attack. I mean, who wouldn't think of the cake (which apparently isn't a lie) in a situation like this? Anyway, they manage to flip the car into a normal position again, but it won't start this time. After some more boring dialogue the bear appears again and somehow (at this point I wasn't paying too much attention anymore) one of the 4 is caught outside and gets killed. Nick (boyfriend of the girl that got killed) is sad at first, but his sadness somehow vanishes after some time. The other two don't care too much about the death either. And now the movie just starts to repeat itself. Nick tells some stories about some native American legends and how the bear takes revenge, the others keep arguing, bear attacks, leaves, Nick tells some stories, they are arguing... it goes on for some time. This is where I think the script writers just weren't sure in what direction the movie should go. Either follow the plot line of Nick's stories about that legend and create some "supernatural bear" movie or leave it out. Cut down on the arguing and let the characters actually DO something productive. After some time Sam (brother of Nick) decides to just run to the steakhouse where the party should've taken place. Why he didn't do so after the first attack isn't really clear. I mean, the car is broken down, the cell phones have no signal and the road is deserted (apart for one car that passes by but obviously doesn't see the flipped over car right in his headlights... oh well). So... what was their plan? Just sitting there and hope the bear would starve to death? But Sams plan doesn't work out. He is dragged back by the bear, but somehow manages to appear on screen without a single scratch on his face. After that the story repeats itself a few times again until both brothers are dead and only the pregnant Liz survives. Hooray!

As I've said at the beginning of this review: The script doesn't make much sense. It's as if the script writers didn't knew what to do with the idea of a "killer bear", so they tried to fill it up with unnecessary dialogue that no one cares about anyway. I mean what's the point of all the arguing if at the end, all characters are dead anyway. They sure as hell haven't learned anything from this experience... because they die. Liz hasn't learned anything from this experience, because her husband and the father of her unborn child (yes, Nick had an affair with Liz and got her pregnant). How is she supposed to get on with her life now?

So, apart from the average actors, does this movie has something else that isn't completely bad? Yes! The bear is REAL (for most of the time). There's an extra on the BluRay that shows how the bear was trained, which is quite interesting. Oh, and they let the bear tear apart a real car it seems.

I rate this 1 out of 10. The script doesn't make sense and the characters are awful (not so much the actors, mind you). You just don't care for them. You just wish the bear would get them sooner, so the movie would end more quickly.

Clementine (2004)

Advertised as a fighting movie, which it simply isn't

[2/10 · 24 February 2013]

I was looking for an action movie. I saw this title, with Seagals face on the cover, with his name on it, with screen shots from the fighting scenes on the back cover, the description read as if this was some good action movie. But none of this holds true. Instead what we get is some kind of a melodrama about a single father and his little daughter.

The dubbing of this movie is awful. Seems like they got the worst of the worst voice actors for this movie, so I really advise you to watch this in original language with subtitles. It can only make the movie better! The story is very confusing as there are big plot holes. The father (Lee Dong-Jun) is fighting for the world champion title in Taekwondo, but after a wrong decision from the ref, he loses the fight. At the same time his wife is giving birth to their child. The mother dies.

Years later, the daughter runs into a woman in a supermarket, they both get to know each other. And it turns out that this woman is the thought-to-be-dead mother of the little girl. Oh wow, what a plot twist. How on earth can such a "mistake" happen? She was in a hospital. They declared her dead even though she really wasn't? And why didn't the mother try to contact her daughter or her husband? Or maybe it even was explained during the movie, but it was so boring (remember, I expected an action movie!) that I simply must have missed this "plot twist". But even if there's a "plot twist" there: What where the reasons for the mother to leave the family? And if she wasn't dead and did have her reasons to leave them... why doesn't she just move along after she discovers who the father of this little girl is? And what exactly where the reasons to kidnap the little girl, only for this show match to take place? Oh yeah, and who thought it would be funny to advertise this movie with Seagal if he only appears for like 6 minutes in it? Conclusion: If you are into Korean movies, you might want to take a look at this. Camera work is OK most of the time, some of the fight scenes that happen at the beginning of the movie are OK as well (the "5 against 5 cage match" and the final battle are poorly cut and there's no real flow to the fights). All the others, just stay the hell away from this.