Wow. 200 entries. Seems like a lot, but I'm just three months short of four years at this blog. I'm surprised I kept it up. We watched two $4 dvd's today. Joe bought a copy of Cheerleader Ninjas somewhere for 4 bucks. It's a low budget comedy that seems to polarize people who see it, and make comments, on both IMDb and Amazon. It's almost always a one or a ten, with an aggregate of 1.9 on the IMDb. I side with the people who like it, which include Joe Bob Briggs and Film Threat. Not that I put much credence with what Film Threat says. I gave it a 4, one star for each dollar. It made me laugh and that's worth something more than the 4 bucks that Joe spent. It's not great by any stretch of the imagination, but it's got lots of stuff going on. Some church ladies are trying to put a stop to smut on the internet. Of course the Catholic Women With Too Much Time On Their Hands group are pretty repressed. Isn't that always the way. I really liked the lady who played their leader. She's got her hair pulled back so tightly her head looks like a skull. The reformers get the flamboyantly gay Stefan and some tough bitches from the Blessed Virgin Sacrifice Reform School for Girls to attack the popular cheerleaders, thinking they are perverts. One of the cheerleaders is an actual Miami Dolphins cheerleader. There's lots of jokes, some of which are much better than others, and they just keep on coming. There's a bunch of nudity, but it's mostly two or three gals. The Cheerleaders don't get naked but they flash their panties a lot. I liked the bunch of nerds in Star Trek shirts who eventually band with the cheerleaders to fight back against the repressed and repressive chuch ladies and their band of un-reformed sluts. The cheerleaders get some dubious ninja training and there are some goofy fights. It's a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and is proud of it. Why I like it might be better explained by Roger Ebert, who said in his review of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe:
How, you may ask, can I possibly prefer this Japanese monster film about a jet-powered turtle to a megabudget solemnity like Air Force One? It has laughable acting, a ludicrous plot, second-rate special effects and dialogue such as, "Someday, I'll show you around monster-free Tokyo!'' The answer, I think, is that Gamera is more fun. Gamera is not a good movie but it is a good movie going experience. I am reminded of Pauline Kael's wise observation: The movies are so seldom great art that we should not go unless we can appreciate great trash.
I recently watched Date Movie. It's awful, except for the cuteness of Allyson Hannigan, and not a good movie going experience. I was interested in what happened to the people in CN and in DM I was more interested in seeing the end of the movie come around. I'll keep an eye peeled for a copy of Cheerleader Ninjas, especially if I can find one for $4. I was thinking of throwing Date Movie into the Mississippi River for a bit of a lark. I lent it to Joe and he said the promo material was better than the movie. I didn't watch that stuff. DM has an anti-commentary by some film critics but I couldn't bare watching it again so soon. Even at 1 and a half speed.
Sperhauk paid 4 bucks for a copy of Oira Sukeban or Sukeban Boy as it is known here. It's by the director of Machine Girl...which was not that great a movie. This isn't much of a movie either. It's only 60 minutes and it's weird as hell. Go Nagi, not a guy I care much for, is the Japanese comic creator that the movie is taken from. He's one fucked up dude. Really the movie is a mostly a vehicle for tits and ass, but there's too much torture and sadistic behavior for me to enjoy the nudity. Some young guy is unhappy because he looks too much like a girl. He gets picked on. His father sends him to a new school dressed as a girl. I know, it makes no sense, but his father dresses like old fat Elvis, so you know his vision is suspect. The school is an all girl school with some weird stuff going on. Near the end it goes off into the Twilight Zone as one woman grows organic lasers out of her big fake breasts and another woman grows lots of organic lasers out of the stumps of her severed legs. The boy is given a drug and it turns him into a woman. He grows breasts, normal ones, and his weiner disappears. Don't worry it regrows. It was always a woman playing the part of the boy. His friend also gets an injection of something that makes a penis grown on her. At the end of the movie the pair find love with their breasts and huge members while a dozen men dance around them in little white underpants that show off a plethora of man ass. That part made me laugh, but I didn't find the movie that interesting to make me want to get a copy or see it again. Saves me 4 bucks I guess.