CRAP MOVIES 7

NOMADS

There is probably a good movie here. I remember thinking that this would be good based on the poster alone.

This was one of those movies that I'd watch alone on Friday to see if it was a good movie for my Date Night on Saturday.*

I recall taking my date to miniature golf on Saturday instead where, surprisingly, we had more fun that I'd expected.

After the amatuer opening title sequence, remarkable for abruptly cutting to a much better opening title sequence (as if title houses were suddenly fired and hired midway a la Monty Python's The Holy Grail), the movie opens with a phone call waking a woman up in a hospital (if I had a dollar for every time I woke a woman up in a hos- ... anyway!).

The woman is Dr. Eileen Flax (Lesley-Anne Down: COUNTESS DRACULA, ASSAULT, FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, NIGHT TRAP, THE 13TH CHILD, DARK HOUSE, THE ROSEWOOD LANE, GATES OF DARKNESS) and whatever the emergency is, its not enough to hold her attention when she hears someone shouting in French.

Following a copious trail of blood leads her to a hysterical man being restrained. The man is Jean Charles Pommier (Pierce Brosnan: THE LAWNMOWER MAN, MARS ATTACKS!, DANTE'S PEAK, THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, SHATTERED, BAG OF BONES [TV], THE WORLD'S END, THE NOVEMBER MAN, URGE, FALSE POSITIVE), he blithers in French, whispers to Dr. Flax, and the rest of his movie is about what led him to the point where we first meet him.

And what an insufferable drag NOMADS is.

It's only a mystery because Dr. Flax is unnecessarily secretive about what Jean told her. She's also emotionally wrecked by Jean's words. And when we discover what he said, I can only shrug because at that moment its meaningless to Eileen and when its finally revealed to the audience, I have no idea why it was so stunning to her.

Jean being French and a globe trotting scientist has zero bearing on the movie. If he was a surfer or a plumber his story would have played out the same.

It's only Supernatural because the "Nomads" are supernatural. They could just as easily have been a non-supernatural gang who commit crimes for kicks.

Quite a pointless outing for first time Writer and Director John McTiernan, yet Pre-Production on the movie PREDATOR was already underway and Arnold Schwarzenegger was already contracted to do it.

So?

The producers of the fetal PREDATOR were turned down by a lot of Horror directors (Ridley Scott, John Carpenter, James Cameron, Brian De Palma) who wanted nothing to do with their jungle monster movie.

Arnold watched NOMADS and told the PREDATOR Producers that they should hire the guy who made it. In a Hail Mary pass the producers went for it and John got the job. The next year PREDATOR was released and became a hit. John was offered DIE HARD, which he made the following year. It became a huge hit!

John's next movie was THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER and it too, was a hit!

All because Arnold gave a couple of movie producers a swift kick in the ass to get the ball rolling.

John's rise to fame and fortune is far more interesting than his first movie, NOMADS, will ever be.

GALAXIS

- 1995
USA Release: July 27, 1995
Interlight, Morphosis Productions Inc., Prism EntertainmentCorporation
Rated: USA: R

First, this movie starts with plenty of voice over narration while we stare at... pretty much nothing. The narrator is a King or Lord or a Lord King and he has this all powerful crystal.

Then we see spaceship fighting action and let me pause here because the special effects are awful.

Just terrible amateur hour and the cinematography by the usually good Robert C. New (PROM NIGHT, NIGHT OF THE CREEPS, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE II, DEMON HUNTER) is the death stroke. In fact, GALAXIS seems to be the career downturn that he never recovered from.

This is unusual because GALAXIS is Produced and Directed by William Mesa who, as an SFX artist, has a decent portfolio and some of the titles are in our world: DARKMAN, ARMY OF DARKNESS, NEW NIGHTMARE, DEEP BLUE SEA, DARK WATER (2005), THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008), CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010). In fact, it's those two Sam Raimi movies that got him in tight enough with Sam that Raimi acts in this movie.

Yes, like he did in John Landis' INNOCENT BLOOD, Sam is here to act NOT WELL!

Another SFX artist, Nick Davis, wrote this and his Effects portfolio isn't bad either: NEW NIGHTMARE, BATMAN FOREVER, BATMAN AND ROBIN, HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE DARK KNIGHT, CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010), WRATH OF THE TITANS, EDGE OF TOMORROW.

This was William and Nick's 3rd movie together and by movie number three one thing becomes apparent: Bill isn't a Director and Nick isn't a writer.

Richard Moll plays bad guy Kyla and with a good director Richard can act. He's never won any awards but he was one of the best things about Night Court as well as HOUSE.

The hero of this movie is Brigitte Nielson (RED SONJA) as Ladera and, well, her career speaks for itself so no point in beating that dead horse.

Even so, Ladera's supposed to be the heroine, savior, and all that other kick-ass stuff in the movie. Yet every time she has the chance to go all Bobbie Bad Ass, she meekly surrenders to pretty much anyone telling her "Put your hands up!" "Sit your ass down!" "Gimmie the Crystal!"

EGAD!

Roger Aaron Brown (THE CRAZIES [1973], STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE, NEAR DARK, ALIEN NATION, ROBOCOP 2, MANIAC COP 2, DNA) is Detective Carter and he can act well regardless of the director or even the writer.

The aliens all go to earth for no apparent reason (Their War Will Be Here!) and this is where the rest of GALAXIS eventually shifts to the point where Roger Aaron Brown is practically carrying this whole farce on his shoulders. Yet the script gives him nowhere to go, leaving him to become an angered yelling nincompoop in the face of so much adversity and pathetic storyline.

Cindy Morgan (TRON) is Detective Kelly, the kind of actor who really needs a good writer and director.

Meanwhile every good guy alien character gets a melodramatic speech, usually as they die, about the Good Old Days and how the Future must be protected.

Meanwhile, Moll plays his sadistic character at a snickering Snidely Whiplash level about five IQ points beneath a salty slug. Seriously, how hard could it be to defeat this numbskull? Especially when yall had the all-important, all powerful Crystal?

Kyla disappears for large chunks of time, possibly Moll was busy on some other job. To keep his character going when he couldn't play it, is where low level mobster, Victor Menendez (Fred Asparagus) is grafted into the story to fill in.

You know, if these were ten and twelve year old kids, like something out of Bugsy Malone or Son Of Rambow, it would have been significantly more entertaining.

As it is, watching 30 and 50-something adults deliver their lines as if they were 10 and twelve year old kids is embarrassingly sappy beyond belief.

By the end of the movie I still couldn't figure out how the evilly cackling Kyra would even need the Crystal. He's already capable of destroying the inhabitants and military of entire solar systems (Solar Systems!) and all who stand in his way without the freaking Crystal.

Pass me that pillow, please, GALAXIS is Nyquil.

The Hook:
Sam Raimi is in it! And Richard Moll from Night Court!

I SAW THE TV GLOW - 2024
USA Release: May 17, 2024
Fruit Tree, Smudge Films, Hypnic Jerk Productions, Access Entertainment, A24
Rated: USA: R

The main protagonist, a highschool age teenager named Owen (Justice Smith: JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM, THE VOYEURS, JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION) is a shallow and extraordinarily selfish narcissist who likes nobody, wants everyone to give him everything, and is especially abusive to those, like his Mother, who love him.

Tha launchpad to this might be his asthma. It might be many things. What makes Owen so destructively wrapped up in himself and so toxic to everyone else is never explored.

What is explored is how he poisons everyone he touches.

Owen finds a bond but no friendship with, a gal from his school named Maddy (Bridgette Lundy-Paine: DOWNSIZING, AMELIA'S CHILDREN). She's self-destructive due to how shallow she is and her chosen inability to explore the world she harshly judges. Instead she commits herself to a sappy TV Show several IQ points beneath pre-school TV entertainment.

The movie slowly slithers through Owen's self-inflicted trials and tribulations of being able to watch the TV show with her due to it coming on at his bedtime (Sneaking out, sneaking back, Maddy recording episodes for Owen to watch later).

His Mother, heartbroken over Owen's cold indifference to her, cries, dies, and her death seems to momentarily lift Owen's spirits somewhat: She's one less person in the world diverting his attention away from himself.

Maddy, meanwhile, is intentionally losing her mind to the TV show and Owen has enough sense of self-preservation left that despite his promises to the contrary, chooses not to go off the deep end with her.

The SFX team for I SAW THE TV GLOW gave the movie what they could but director and writer, Jane Schoenbrun, had nothing to say and nowhere to go and that's I SAW THE TV GLOW from beginning to end of its 90+ minutes of time.

If after I'd left the theater, someone outside asked me what the movie was about, I'd sum it up as,
' Entitled creep treats everyone around him with dismissive indifference until he finds himself alone and frightened, trapped in a world where everyone treats him the same way.'

That's not a spoiler, mind you, but apparently my unique perspective, as Jane has voluminously spoke about what the movie really is: a vision that I saw nowhere in the movie at any point. Several trendy movie critics have actually altered their written review of the movie based on what Jane later said it is about, instead of what they saw.

Even boutique studio, A24, with a business model that excels in finding audiences who crave original perspectives, treated this movie as an error when it came to distribution.

THE HOOK:
Stars the dude from THE JURASSIC WORLD sequels.