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Reviews
Daniel der Zauberer (2004)
It's a Good Thing his Name is Daniel, Otherwise I Couldn't Guess his Gender
I am so, so sorry.
I am not sorry for this movie. I am sorry for myself. Vain? Certainly. But vanity, I'm afraid, is a virtue in this instance.
Daniel Der Zauberer (or Daniel the Wizard) is a movie about German...entertainer (...?)...Daniel Küblböck. It is apparently supposed to be an art movie about how his singing inspires thousands, but instead of just a bunch of dancing and singing (like the ego trip known as Moonwalker), it seems to have a plot. My German is negligible in this case, so I didn't understand *any* of the dialogue, but according to the handy Internet, a Goth band tries to kill him because his music is better than their's, or something like that.
There is a character who I guess is supposed to be "the Wizard" of the title, Johannes Küblböck. Based on the fact that they share the same last name, I assume he and Daniel are father and son, but we never really learn whose side the Wizard is on; I was perplexed. Sometimes he helps the Goths, then he apparently is playing Santa or something for young Daniel (?). And there's something about a girl and her father, who are No. 1 fans trying to help him, although I honestly don't know what happened. The girl looks a little young for him, is it his sister? The ambiguity, perhaps, is the balancing factor of this movie. In many instances, ambiguity can set up a nice atmosphere, provide a bit of mystery...but this isn't a horror or mystery movie. It's an art movie, and an art movie where I really don't have a clue what's going on. My main problem was that it was hideously boring and the acting was terrible.
Oh, and of course, I was especially creeped out by Daniel's...choice of dress. He's not gay, I'm sure, it's just...
Ah, well. Terrible. And my favorite movie is Manos: The Hands of Fate.
Gekijô-ban Dôbutsu no Mori (2006)
Animazing!
When my friends and I found this on Youtube, we thought it might be typical video game movie crap. A little in and we found ourselves very wrong.
Animal Crossing is a beautiful movie. It is full of lovable and unforgettable characters from the game (Wild World for the DS, to be exact) including Pascal, Gulliver, Brewster, and dozens of others. Their names may be different, but being a former longtime player of the game I knew them at heart.
This adorable piece of anime possesses a unique storyline, brilliant voice acting (and subtitles), and a genius job on animation. It is a classic story of the magic of love between friends, and maybe some real magic at the surprise ending.
I recommend this amazing bit of fluff that's fun for the whole family, especially for those who enjoyed the innocent action of movies such as Castle in the Sky, Howl's Moving Castle, and My Neighbor Totoro.
Cathy's Curse (1977)
One severely autistic child...
Ugh. I can't believe it's my duty to humanity to review this piece of crap. I suppose I should begin.
This...wasn't a thing to watch whilst staying home sick. I managed to crawl weakly over to my 50 Chilling Classics Collection and pick it up, stick in my DVD player, and stumble back to couch to watch what appeared to be a really poorly done b-movie.
I was way off.
This was the most horrible b-movie imaginable! The movie opens with the title "Cathy's Curse". I take a look at it and think, "Eh, crappy title, worse camera. Colors too bad. Must be made in 1960's." I look at the box...1979. I was thinking this was from '66 at the latest! Seriously, the camera is worse than that of Manos! I sit through the intro as a man walks into a house, proclaiming, "Your mother's a b*tch! She'll pay for what she's done!" I giggle a little, then immediately stop as the retarded dad, instead of *stopping* for a bunny, swerves off the road, killing them both in a fire.
Fast forward a couple decades, and look, there's the house again! The new retarded family moves in and paranormal things happen. Uh...let's see...the couple makes love...something about an old lady...most of the cast dies...some kind of exorcism by ripping off the stitches of a doll's eyes...really ugly African-American kid...Am I being too crude? Anyway, you have to see it to believe it. Why two stars instead of one, you ask? 'Cause the swearing made me laugh.
Ein Toter hing im Netz (1960)
Am I supposed to be capable of vomiting out of my eyes?
I've suffered through Manos, King of the Lost World, Santa Clause Conquers the Martians...And I laughed. I laughed at the hesitated "Why don't you leave us alone?" of Manos, the terrible acting of SCCtM, and overuse of the effinheimer in KotLW. But this...this was god-awful. I serious suffered an arm sprain after watching it. Weren't the Germans supposed to be good movie-makers, producing classics like Dr. Caligari and Metropolis? This was whorrible (you'll see the need for a double-you).
The movie opens with a bunch of prosti...girls...sitting around waiting to be given jobs as dancers. They enter one by one and get shot down or employed one by one (and even though they hire dancers, they hire a stripper, too). The man (Gary) explains that he signaled a hire or dismissal by crossing or uncrossing his legs, although in a few shots he messes up (I believe he opens his legs for the stripper).
They go to Singapore, but their plane suffers a gas leak, is totally incinerated, and exploded with a small mushroom cloud in the ocean. Guess what? They live! They even make it to shore in an unharmed boat! Eventually, it just changes from mystery and horror to scantily clad women shamelessly jumping around for a bounce, caressing each other, moaning, stripping, etc. whilst Gary (miraculously losing clothes as well) gets bitten ala Peter Parker by the worst interpretation of an evil spider I've ever seen and becomes your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
Spider-Man and the spider completely vanish as the girls attempt suicide, continue their lesbian activities, and fail to search for their missing piece of masculinity at all. Oh yeah, the stripper gets murdered too. But that's not important.
Two men wash up in a boat searching for the professor (who got killed earlier in the movie in a long-forgotten part; and its in B/W, so I don't know if the fat one has a blue shirt and the small one has a red one; the shirts get torn off anyway) and of course discover our colony of girls. They fall in love, get into a drunken brawl (my brother and I guessed their blood alcohol to be over 800%), and FINALLY GET KILLED BY SPIDER-MAN!!! This was the part where I was begging to God: "Please, God, if you are merciful, let Spider-Man kill someone! PLEASE!!!", because the whole movie was crap.
They don't even escape properly, it just shows a boat sailing and it ends. Gah, it hurts to even think about it! Spider-Man disappears
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
Ho Ho Homicide!
Yes, you read that title right. Ho Ho Homicide. Mainly because after seeing this crap, I felt like committing homicide.
I don't know when you're sleeping, I don't know when you're awake, but I know when a movie's been bad or good, so don't watch this for goodness sake. The plot is basically that the children of Mars are too serious and adult-like for their own good, so the ruler of Mars has to go kidnap Santa Claus from Earth to teach their children to laugh at the advice of an 800-year-old Martian on crack who explodes in and out of reality. They also pick up two Earthling children as well on their raid of doom named Billy and Betty (creative names, huh?). They take the threesome back to Mars and they begin to make toys. Along the way they inform Santa he can never return to Earth, although they feel sympathetic towards the children. The bad guy, who hates laughter and fun sabotages the toy factory by snipping wires (a master plan, no?) and a strange fight scene ensues between the plucky youngsters and the cruel and vindictive Martians.
I saw this after buying it for a dollar at my grocery store, thinking it strange and bizarre at best. After seeing it, I learned from my doctor I now only have one kidney, lung, and eyeball and my spleen has to be removed from my body due to the intense radiation poisoning I received from watching the movie. My brother suffered chest and brain hemorrhage.
Okay, I was exaggerating, but despite the creative plot and loony cast (including probably-mentally handicapped Martian Droppo, possibly the best worst character since Torgo and a family composed of Momar the mom, Bomar the boy, and Girmar the girl) things could have been better. I was truly shocked to learn this was produced in the 1960s. I was actually thinking it may have been from the 1940s. I will list below some of the best (and occasionally funniest) parts of the movie.
The best part is probably the fight scene. Betty, Billy, Bomar, and Girmar attack the evil fun-loving Martian with toys, some of which attack with furies of their own, such as a legion of toy soldiers and a tank. The horrible camera views and terrible music, backed up with Santa laughing like a severely deranged maniac in the background, made me both scream in terror at the thought that this was made by a human and laughing for the same reason. By the way, Santa makes horrible jokes and laughs at the most inappropriate moments throughout the film (such as walking into a room laughing like a goon for no reason and laughing for about 10 minutes), as well as smokes a bubble pipe, although I doubt that those are soap bubbles coming from the pipe. Another great scene is when Billy and Betty are at the North Pole and are attacked by a "polar bear" which is the crappiest suit since the "mutant" suit from Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (which was different as that was intentional). When one of them pointed saying "Look!" I have to admit I was expecting a wampa to attack. Also, there is a killer robot shown on the cover, which gets about five minutes of screen time, as it is "turned into a toy" by Santa's mystical superpowers and completely forgotten.
All in all, this is far from the "heartwarming children's tale" it set itself up to be. The actors are on drugs and there are too many parts were the plot makes no sense. When you watch, try not to shout, try not to cry, try not to scream, 'cause I've told you why.