Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Hannibal Rising has 15% on rotten tomatoes. With the subject matter and score, would it count?

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Yeah, 20% was the cutoff, with some wiggle room.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Best are musicians that only made a couple movies. Like I would not count Will Smith, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg, Justin Timberlake, etc. Those guys transitioned into being movie stars. This would be more singers you would be surprised to see in a movie.

Some easy ones are
Prince in Purple Rain or Under the Cherry Moon.
Michael Jackson in The Wiz
Eminem in 8 Mile
50 Cent in Get Rich or Die Trying
Mariah Carey in Glitter
Ringo Starr in Caveman
Roger Daltrey in Lisztomania
Johnny Cash in Five Minutes to Live
Roy Orbison in Fastest Guitar in the West
Bob Geldof in Pink Floyd the Wall
Mick Jagger in Performance

Those are off the top of my head.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Can I count Speed Racer (2008) or should I wildcard it? While it is a lavish production, Wikipedia counts it as a financial failure?

I showed the film to my movie night group, and it was not as well-recieved as most of the films I show; no one hated it, but the most a couple could say was that it was "fun" and "oddly enjoyable." One of my friends did say that it felt like a mashup of anime and Baz Luhrmann. I saw the film when it came to the theaters and instantly loved it. Afterward, I felt like a kid on a sugar-high - jittery, excited, and unable to focus on much. While the film hit both my sense of nostalgia (watched the anime series when it aired on MTV) and wonder (the colors! the suspenseful, ludicrous races!), I could definitely see why this didn't find an audience and failed to break even at the box office. The pacing and story is all over the place, and the tone doesn't fit a traditionally marketable film: some parts are too silly for adults while others are too violent or political for kids. I haven't come across many who share my love of it.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

I first saw that one as a kid on late night TV ("Creature Features" with Sivad) in the mid 60s and was *very* dissapointed there were no nekkid women... :D

That set has *several* of the better Corman films.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Wow! What a great double header last night! I had saved a couple flicks off TCM back in January for this month, just on a whim, and finally watched them... Spider Baby (1968) featuring Lon Chaney, Jr., and The Baby (1973).

SB was slow paced, but had some incredibly creepy scenes. It's about a family with a rare disease that makes them all "demented" as imdb says. A bunch of people stop in for various reasons and get to meet them. I don't think I need to say much more there except one girl's favorite game is called Spider, where the name of the movie comes from. "Bruno's going to HATE you now!"

TB was also slow paced, but despite having the titular character a fully grown man who is still a literal big baby, was not a comedy at all! Great creepy characters again and a great surprise ending. My wife and son came in half way through to "enjoy" the end of this one. Now they really think I'm crazy, I think!

So great! I love B-movie month! :) Glad to get so much stuff off my DVR too! I've got to get to my stack of discs eventually though. I still have Butterfly Effect 2 on there and AMC had to show Killer Bees last night, so I had to record that too. Sheesh, it's like they know what month this is for us or something!

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Thanks for the suggestions! For some reason, I hadn't even thought of 50 Cent who I have seen all of his movies except a couple which includes the one you mentioned that I have had sitting in my Netflix queue for a long time. I'll bang that one out today.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Started today with a first time view from my Sci Fi Classics set, Crash of Moons. I'd never seen any Rocky Jones before. I think there are one or two more in this set though. It said teleplay in the credits when it signed on, so I wonder if it was a tv movie?

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

That's a tough one. Might be enough of a bomb.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

They combined multi-part episodes and released them to TV as TV movies that popped up in movie slots long after the "Rocky Jones" series itself stopped running in syndication. MST3K has run most or all of the Rocky Jones compilations. I'm a big fan of them. If you can get past the low budget and simple effects they offered some interesting plots and characters, including Sally Mansfield's '50s hottie Vena Ray and Cleolanta, the female ruler of the enemy planet that Rocky has to deal with. Plus, the character actors they employed were all very good and had long careers.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

If it counts for anything, I think I watched it for this challenge last year - it's a fairly bad (and poorly reviewed) film, it's a fairly rubbish adaptation of pseudo-challenge source material, and it didn't make much money (Box Office Mojo says 1/3 of its budget domestically, and not even all of it's 120M worldwide..). Plus it's basically carsploitation...

I try to watch some films with people who either won't or shouldn't watch the kind of 'pure' exploitation fare, so I often fall back on these "borderline" titles: financial flops, poorly reviewed or poorly adapted films and rubbish/DTV sequels. So that lets me sneak in Lone Ranger, John Carter and Disney sequels, with an option on suffering through Catwoman (also on Rotten Tomatoes' Worst 100 list).

I justify it because a) otherwise I'd be unable to watch ANYthing for the challenge with company, b) because they squeeze in under a close reading of the rules, even if their a little dubious on 'intent' and c) if "GOOD" Westerns and better-than-'B'-movies count automatically because they're westerns and B-movies, it seems fair enough to count a handful of big budget things, too.


The question of Logan's Run from earlier in the thread got me thinking, too. I wonder if it falls into the same sort of grey area - there's almost-blanket rule approval for the nebulously-defined "Cult" films (point 1), it's easily-mockable with silly costumes, and retro-futuristic setting (half a point), it's 70s Sci-fi (half a point), and for all of those reasons clearly the sort of thing that would have shown at Drive-In theaters even if it's not necessarily 'exploitation' or low budget.

I know there are wild cards available, but I tend to think that a handful of borderlines balanced by more obviously-applicable titles are fair enough in addition to the optional wildcards. But that's just my opinion - it's not up to me! :)

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

I wasn't really looking forward to watching an X-rated movie. I don't have Netflix, and I don't think Amazon Prime had any Xers in its lineup. So after a bit of research, I ended up watching Batman XXX from YouTube from a user called "Porn without the Porn". It ended up being the full movie with all the sex scenes cut out. It was a porn parody of the "Batman" TV show, and as a fan, I have to admit they did a pretty nice job. The costumes were spot on, and I could tell that these people were very familiar with the show. The guy playing Bruce Wayne/Batman, Dale DaBone (probably not his real name) was especially good, although I would have liked it better if the Joker (Randy Spears) (probably also not his real name) had sounded more like Cesar Romero and less like Harvey Fierstein. They even included other characters (Molly from the first episode with the Riddler and Lisa Carson (Bruce Wayne's girlfriend in another episode)), as well as some lines taken directly from the show. I liked this so much, in fact, I'm kind of curious to see the full version, or at least enough of it to see if they stayed in character during the porn stuff.

I followed that with Hell's Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films. It was a bit rough in spots when they showed real accident footage, but it was an interesting documentary about how these were filmed.

I'm happy I decided to join in on this!

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Blog entry for days 2-3 is up. It's a short one - http://celluloidterror.blogspot.com/...enge-days.html

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Ringo Starr in BLINDMAN, an Italian western, would be perfect for this challenge.

Other possibles:

Rosemary Clooney in RED GARTERS (1954)

Tony Bennett in THE OSCAR (1966), a classic "bad film" which writer Harlan Ellison disowns to this day

Peggy Lee in Jack Webb's PETE KELLY'S BLUES (1955)

Julie London in Anthony Mann's MAN OF THE WEST (1958)

Nat "King" Cole in Sam Fuller's CHINA GATE (1957)

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

After I watched the pilot of the new From Dusk Till Dawn series, I admitted to my coworked that I'd never seen the original movie so he lent it to me. The pilot pretty much replicates the opening scene of the movie, and at that point in the movie I'm saying to myself, "Hmm, I always thought this was a vampire flick." After that, of course, it goes completely over-the-top nutso.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Would The Outrage from 1964 be suitable for the Challenge? It's a western remake of Rashomon starring Paul Newman as a Mexican bandit.

There's more info about it on IMDB, but I haven't posted enough to give the direct link to it. Thanks!

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Watch "X" again with the Corman audio commentary. It's very good. Corman does really interesting commentary, although he tends to focus more on technical aspects. For his commentary on THE TRIP (in the same set), I wish he'd been joined by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper or Jack Nicholson, so we could have heard from the actors involved.

I first saw X:The Man With X-Ray Eyes as a ten-year-old. I remember liking it a lot back then. Good solid medium-range sci-fi with just the right level of effects. It was on a double bill with Coppola's first, DEMENTIA 13. The latter had been filmed in Ireland right after Corman had finished up THE YOUNG RACERS, on which Coppola worked, so the two films, DEMENTIA and RACERS had some of the same cast, a point that hit home with me because I saw DEMENTIA a week or so after seeing YOUNG RACERS on a double bill with BEACH PARTY. Four AIP releases in approx. two weeks. Moviegoing was fun back then.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

I was in the mood to watch some Star Trek this morning, so thought, 'Why not combine it with the challenge?' As I remember two movies being given the ok in the past, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, in the Original series movies, and Nemesis being ok'ed as the worst of the TNG movies. Figured I'd work in order and just finished Star Trek V.

Also, I have a question. Apparently Three Stooges movies are eligible, as while perusing the lists I saw one listed, but what about the shorts? They are short subjects, but still were made for the theater, and not tv, and as for running time, I saw mentioned earlier, someone counted a 2 minute youtube short. Just wondering if my Three Stooges DVDs would be worth digging out for this challenge.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

I'd be hesitant to count it, but it's a western and William Shatner's in it, so you're probably safe.

It's been a while since I watched that one, but I remember liking it.
I think you can combine shorts into one entry (or has that changed?), and the YouTube short was probably just counted for a checkmark on the checklist, not as an entry on a watch list.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

So going by the original rules (as I understand them), should each entry run at least an hour or so?

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Last year there were 54 replies to the List thread and this year only 48. We are still a little shy of a user count to match last year I guess.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Last night, I needed something undemanding, on VHS, and English-dubbed, so I put in KING OF THE MONGOLS (1960), a Something Weird release transferred from a pan-and-scan film print (probably 16mm). This is a Japanese historical epic about the Mongol invasion of Japan and the efforts of a brave samurai to stop them. This was dubbed for AIP by the voice crew that did most of the sword 'n' sandal movies and, in fact, the movie plays like a Japanese sword 'n' sandal movie. There's even a scene with a dancing girl doing a semi-striptease act that looks like it could have been lifted from an Italian movie of the period. There are Italian sword 'n' sandal movies with Asian themes, like SAMSON AND THE SEVEN MIRACLES OF THE WORLD and HERCULES AGAINST THE MONGOLS, and this one fits with them. It was picked up by AIP in 1964, but never released theatrically and seems to have gone straight to TV, like AIP did with a number of Japanese films (e.g. the Gamera sequels). I never heard of KING OF THE MONGOLS growing up. I wish it had played theaters; I would love to have seen it on a double bill with a Hercules movie. I never even saw it listed in TV Guide. I'm curious to see the original Japanese version in widescreen. I'd even want to see it in Japanese with no subs. I expect it to be much longer, since there are abrupt cuts throughout the film that indicate something was cut out.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Very good points. I'm convinced. Basically I just need a good argument for something that's not an outright rationalization and those were good ones. I'll allow them.

I watched Cab Calloway in Hi-De-Ho (1946). His GF in the film is Minnie the Moocher! I had it on the DVR for nearly a year. Then I found it on the Internet Archive in perhaps better quality than TCM had it. If not the same source.

Technically, this allows Art Garfunkel in Carnal Knowledge.

Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant.

David Bowie in any number of things. I think he almost became a real actor, but he's really such a music icon that he still stands out in any films as *David Bowie*.

Glen Campbell in True Grit.

Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

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Re: Fifth Annual Drive-in/Exploitation/B-Movie Challenge April 1-30 2014
 

Ringo Star in Caveman should also qualify, plus you get Barbara Bach as a bonus... :)

I watched a truly horrible double-feature last night:

Oh... my... gosh...

Hillbillys in a Haunted House (IMDB 1.9)

1.9 for HHH is about right for this mess! HHH is *almost* saved by the presence of John Carradine, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Basil Rathbone. All three must have been needing a quick cash infusion to agree to this film. Even so, they are pretty much the only reason to spend time with this one. At least it doesn't have the almost non-stop music of the next and that's a *good* thing IMHO.

Las Vegas Hillbillys (IMDB 5.0)
I don't know how LVH got a 5.0. It's more of a 1.0 or lower... It's *bad*... *really* bad... unless you *really* like bad rural "humor" and *love* 60s country music. It's more "music video" (actually more like TV style performances on a very small stage) than movie as every minute or two someone performs a song. On occasion the songs come so fast there's only a 4 second "dream sequence" between them. Most remind me of those 60s Country Western TV programs my dad used to subject us to on Saturday nights. I'd kind of zone out during the music so I kept backing up to see if I missed a plot point but never really found much of one. If you remove the music you'll have a very short segment that would need augmenting to fit a 30 minute TV time slot. I worked for the local AM daytime radio station in HS and this was the type of music I had to play. I detested every minute but it was a pay check...

Ferlin Husky "stars" in both but musical numbers come from many other performers - most of those in LVH were at least minor C/W stars in the 60s.

For the record: I got these in a 4 film set that also includes Private Snuffy Smith (1942) and Li'l Abner (1940), the films I purchased the set to get. I'm pretty sure I'll never watch those two Hillbilly films again and hope the other two will be worth the price of admission.