Felt weird to leave my political thoughts atop the blog for the weekend—I know you come here for more off-the-beaten-path fare, since my smarter fellow travelers already have that beat covered. So I’m gonna outro from this crazy week with a quick lil’ Bad Movie Friday entry: the Pat Morita death scene from 1999’s beyond-dreadful […]
Entries Tagged as 'Bad Movie Friday'
The Devil Collects
March 4th, 2011 · Comments Off on The Devil Collects
Whenever I find myself running behind on a major project, my thoughts turn to a certain passage from Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that discusses Michael Cimino’s utter disdain for logistical constraints. When infamous director started shooting Heaven’s Gate in the spring of 1979, he did so with orders to stay within a $10 million budget […]
The Simple Logic of Slumming
February 25th, 2011 · 4 Comments
I have no plans to watch the Academy Awards this weekend; any enterprise that once saw fit to honor the abysmal Crash is simply not worthy of my time. But I do harbor some fond memories of ceremonies past, including the most hilarious no-show in the Oscars’ history: Michael Caine’s failure to accept his Hannah […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Jaws IV·Michael Caine·movies·The Swarm
Cindy’s Dreadful Second Act
January 7th, 2011 · Comments Off on Cindy’s Dreadful Second Act
For the year’s first installment of Microkhan’s much-beloved Bad Movie Friday feature, I was sorely tempted to call out Cindy Crawford’s disastrous attempt to evolve from model to mactress: 1995’s Fair Game, not to be confused with the recent Plame Affair dramatization of the same name. But I decided to shift course upon reading Crawford’s […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Cindy Crawford·Guardie del copo·Italy·movies·Silvio Berlusconi
From the Department of the Obvious
October 29th, 2010 · 3 Comments
This week’s Bad Movie Friday entrant bends the rules a bit: it’s actually a network mini-series, a once glorious TV genre that has sadly fallen out of favor in the modern era. Rage of Angels: The Story Continues was one of many Sidney Sheldon potboilers to appear on the small screen during the 1980s, and […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·movies·Rage of Angels·Sidney Sheldon·TV
The Failed Heartthrob
October 15th, 2010 · Comments Off on The Failed Heartthrob
There’s a great scene in Robert Altman’s The Player in which Tim Robbins’ slithery movie producer stops a writer who’s in the middle of pitching a script idea. The poor scribe, it seems, made the mistake of implying that his proposed film would feature a TV star in the main role. This notion makes Robbins […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Family Ties·movies·Robert Altman·Scott Valentine·The Player·TV
“We Got Robots, We Got Cavemen, We Got Kung Fu…”
October 8th, 2010 · Comments Off on “We Got Robots, We Got Cavemen, We Got Kung Fu…”
In order to round out a gestating Wired essay, I spent a good chunk of this past week drumming up examples of celluloid robots. One invaluable resource that I relied upon was this excellent Wikipedia entry, which mentions a number of B-movie ‘bots that vanished from my memory banks. Perhaps the most laughably cheesy of […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·cigarettes·Eliminators·Mandroid·movies·robots
After Vega$
October 1st, 2010 · 3 Comments
Scrambling to catch up with a pile of work after a rough trip back from Nevada—funny how an overly large and inconsiderate seatmate can really ruin an otherwise uneventful flight. So no polymathism today; in its stead, please check out The A.V. Club‘s recent take on Death Wish 3, the subject of last week’s Bad […]
“There’s Only One Law…His!”
September 17th, 2010 · 11 Comments
Nights on the road can get a little dull when you’re traveling solo for work—you end up spending a lot of time alone in your hotel room, eating bad food and watching bad TV. But occasionally the Fates show you a little mercy, by offering up some unexpected entertainment. Such was the case during my […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Charles Bronson·Death Wish 3·mathematics·movies
“A Smith & Wesson Beats Four Aces”
August 20th, 2010 · 7 Comments
It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce the long-awaited return of Bad Movie Friday, which has been on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I’m bringing it back after discovering a trove of utmost goodness on YouTube—namely, the collection of Andy Sidaris, previously lionized in this space as the writer-director behind the legendary Hard Ticket […]
Tags:Andy Sidaris·Bad Movie Friday·Erik Estrada·Hard Ticket to Hawaii·movies
“Some People Get Mad…The Revenger Gets Even”
July 30th, 2010 · 5 Comments
Sorry to end the week with a whole bunch of radio silence, but the work crush got the best of me on this sunny summer Friday. Didn’t want to leave y’all with Mac Batchelor atop the page—no offense, Mac—so let me outro with yet another installment of Bad Movie Friday. This week’s victim/honoree is the […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Frank Zagarino·movies·Oliver Reed·The Revenger
And So the Khan Returneth
July 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments
Thanks for putting up with the spotty posting last week, as I struggled to keep up with the hectic sked over at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ realm. Did my best to cross-post when I could, but I’ll admit to lazing out a bit—which is why you’re getting Bad Movie Friday on a Monday. (All the background on […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Cyberjack·housekeeping·Michael Dudikoff·movies
“When Getting Even Just Isn’t Enough”
July 16th, 2010 · 2 Comments
In the name of holding our blogging cards close to our chest, so that next week’s TNC guest stint is something special, we’re gonna be taking you straight into Bad Movie Friday on this lazy summer morn. Some of our closest friends would argue that Avenging Force doesn’t deserve a place in the schlock pantheon, […]
Tags:Avenging Force·Bad Movie Friday·Gary Busey·Michael Dudikoff·movies·Surviving the Game
The Language Barrier
May 21st, 2010 · 2 Comments
Bananas week ’round here, as we put the finishing touches on our addiction opus for Wired and prep for a much-needed vacation. (If anyone knows of must-see attraction on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, please advise.) So we’re gonna float into the weekend by reviving our Bad Movie Friday feature, which has been absent from these pages […]
“Call in the Welding Team…”
April 16th, 2010 · 4 Comments
We have very vivid memories of the disappointment we felt upon first seeing The Phantom Menace. One of our pals had scored tickets to a late-night showing at the mammoth Ziegfeld Theater, and we ducked out of a raging party just to get our Star Wars on. The lights dimmed and the movie opened not […]
Feel the Chemistry
April 9th, 2010 · Comments Off on Feel the Chemistry
An exceedingly quick Bad Movie Friday this week, as we need to duck away and deal with some weighty matters. So we’re going with a slam dunk: Cyborg Cop, directed by quasi-legendary Sam Firstenberg (aka the man who gave birth to that cinematic abomination known as American Ninja). While Firstenberg may have some action chops, […]
Tags:American Ninja·Bad Movie Friday·Cyborg Cop 2·movies·Sam Firstenberg
A Nightmare Even Orwell Couldn’t Conjure
March 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Thanks a million for your forbearance this week. All deadlines shall be met by sundown, and we’ll hopefully be back to full-on Microkhaning come Monday. Let us kiss off this dismal week, however, with a very special Bad Movie Friday entry: The Apple, a baffling stab at trying to combine a dystopian nightmare with a […]
“An Alligator Half That Size Would Starve in a Week”
March 12th, 2010 · 4 Comments
We’re a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we once wrote a magazine piece that seriously examined the physiological feasibility of Godzilla. We called various eggheads and asked them to assess whether a lizard-like creature as massive as Tokyo’s favorite monster could ever exist in the real world. The universal answer, of course, was nyet—Godzilla’s […]
Tags:Alligator·Bad Movie Friday·Godzilla·Japan·John Sayles·movies·reptiles
A Smirking Humanoid Named Sherman
March 5th, 2010 · 4 Comments
Ttaubotneanauayean for your patience this week, as we eased up on the posting in order to tackle our crushing Wired gig. All will resume to normal on Tuesday, after we’ve hit our deadline. To reward your steadfastness, we’d like to offer up a very special Bad Movie Friday entry: 1989’s Millennium, starring the truly mismatched […]
That’s What You Get for Not Hailing to the Chimp
February 26th, 2010 · Comments Off on That’s What You Get for Not Hailing to the Chimp
We have never attempted to conceal our fascination with movies starring non-human primates. That quirk of our character shines through yet again in this week’s Bad Movie Friday installment, featuring the 1951 Ronald Regan vehicle Bedtime for Bonzo. Suffice to say that the trailer above makes us weep for the scientific literacy of Eisenhower Era […]
Tags:animals·Bad Movie Friday·chimpanzees·movies·primates·Ronald Reagan·Tamba
“There’s a Female Up There Circling Mother Earth”
January 22nd, 2010 · Comments Off on “There’s a Female Up There Circling Mother Earth”
Not much time for Bad Movie Friday this week, as we’re scrambling on the Secret Major Project™. So this vintage anti-Soviet propaganda film about the travails of Laika will have to suffice. It gets really amazing around the 42-second mark, when one of Laika’s American peers dons granny glasses in order to peep the space-race […]
The Absolute Nadir of Animation
January 15th, 2010 · 11 Comments
One of the greatest movie-review slams we’ve come across in recent months is Nathan Rabin’s brutal takedown of I Hate Valentine’s Day, the latest project from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding mastermind Nia Vardalos. The whole pan is full of choice insults, but the apex comes in the kicker: “If the comic strip character Cathy […]
Dolph on a Mission
January 8th, 2010 · 2 Comments
We here at Microkhan headquarters have been been shy about expressing our love for modern pentathlon, by far the most underrated sport in the Summer Olympics. And so we were recently overjoyed to discover that none other than Dolph Lundgren, one of the finest actors of the past half century, shares our affinity for the […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Dolph Lundgren·Hard Ticket to Hawaii·Invasion U.S.A.·modern pentathlon·movies·Olympics·Pentathlon·sports
Stallone in Full McBain Mode
December 18th, 2009 · 7 Comments
We have a complicated relationship with Cobra, and thus hesitated for a beat before deciding to honor it with this week’s Bad Movie Friday showcase spot. To its credit, the movie does a fine job of conjuring up a psycho murder cult, the members of which gather in warehouses to bang together axes in rhythmic […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Cobra·movies·Sylvester Stallone·The New York Times·vigilantism
Watch for Falling Rocks
December 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments
We’re more than a little ashamed to admit we remember the brief Ewok craze of the mid-1980s, when two made-for-TV follow-ups to Return of the Jedi hit the tube. While we realize now that the Ewoks were a harbinger of the soul-crushing awfulness of Jar-Jar Binks, we were suckers for the furry critters back in […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Ewoks·movies·Star Wars·The Ewok Adventure
The Loss of Mike Figgis
December 4th, 2009 · 4 Comments
On one of our first-ever dates with the Grand Empress, we were smitten by the depth of her hostility toward The Loss of Sexual Innocence, arguably the most annoying, self-consciously bizarre film ever committed to celluloid—and thus prime fodder for the return of our semi-beloved Bad Movie Friday feature. Now, don’t get us wrong—we sorta […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Mike Figgis·movies·The Loss of Sexual Innocence
“Thrillingly Embarrassing”
November 13th, 2009 · 5 Comments
After a week’s hiatus, Bad Movie Friday returns with a vengeance, in the form of the made-for-TV Rosie O’Donnell vehicle Riding the Bus with My Sister. Perhaps Ms. O’Donnell reckoned that her star turn as a mentally handicapped woman would be critic proof, as no one wants to be accused of insensitivity. But she didn’t […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·movies·New York Times·Riding the Bus with My Sister·Rosie O'Donnell
“Kingdom of Heaven Number One”
November 6th, 2009 · Comments Off on “Kingdom of Heaven Number One”
No Bad Movie Friday this week, as The Tubes yielded up precious few usable clips from Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Instead, we’re gonna hit you with a special treat—rare archival footage from the heyday of Father Divine, taken during his prosperous Harlem phase. It’s best viewed in tandem with this 1953 Life spread, […]
Tags:Bad Movie Friday·Father Divine·Harlem·nuclear power·religion