$3 DVD Special - Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

by Ryan

Doesn't this movie look and sound awesome? The description on IMDB is, and I quote, "A family gets lost on the road and stumbles upon a hidden, underground, devil-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master and his servant Torgo." Devil-worshipping cult, huh? What's not to like? Well, as it turns out, plenty. "Manos: The Hands of Fate" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Or at least in my entire life in recent memory. None of the things said on the poster happen in the movie. In fact, there isn't even any devil-worshipping. Master, as he is so aptly named, worships a different, unknown deity named Manos. It's never made clear who Manos is or what he represents, and therefore I don't give two shits about him. There is no real plot or reason for anything that happens in this movie. A couple goes on vacation and is forced to stay the night at this house. That's it. Meanwhile, there's another couple that the movie keeps cutting to that is continuously making out in places that they shouldn't be making out, forcing this super easy-going police officer to shoo them away. It's never explained who they are or why they love making out so much. The main couple, Margaret and Michael, soon discover that the house that they're staying in is owned by this weird guy and his servant, who is an even weirder guy. Also, in the basement there's like ten unconscious women just standing there for some reason. Apparently, they're the Master's wives but that's all that's ever really said about them. Eventually things start to happen and Margaret and Michael try to run away from those things but cannot. You know how the story goes. There is nothing enjoyable about this movie. It's horribly bad, but not even in a so-bad-it's-funny kind of way. There are no sacrifices, no boobs, no blood, and not one single murder. How do you make a fucking horror movie without any of those things?! The closest this movie comes to murdering someone is when the Master's wives begin to shake this one guy a lot. THEY SHAKE HIM. They don't even fucking strangle him! I'm angry just thinking about it. In conclusion, "Manos: The Hands of Fate" isn't worth the 69 minute runtime and certainly is not worth the $3 that I paid for it. If you're going to watch this movie, do yourself a favor and watch the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version instead.


Rating: 1 out of 5 Torgos

Tuesday Review: Shame (2011)

Brian's Two-Cents:
This was one of those "fuck it, lets just see any movie" weeks because Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was sold out and we couldn't just cancel movie night.  Shame was exactly as terrible as I thought it would be, of course achieving its NC-17 rating by just showing a lot of peepazools (dicks) wagging around.  Shame is a boring and awful movie devoid of any semblance of plot or purpose.  Shame is about a sex addict who spends his time jerking off on toilet seats and dreaming about banging his sister, which sounds cool, but isn't because it's just long shots of Micheal Fassbender's stupid face with crappy pussy music (that's the only way I can describe it) playing behind it.  I felt like I was watching the sequel to Drive, especially since it had frumpy actress Carey Mulligan as the female lead.  I would have walked out on this movie if it wasn't so cold outside.  Shame has almost no plot, and it hurts to watch, the only good thing about this movie is that it's only 99 minutes long, even though it felt like I was watching Fassbender make googly eyes at chicks on the train and crying for hours. Fuck this movie, 1 cum-stained toilet seat out of 5.

Ryan's Retort: 
I whole-heartedly agree with my movie crew counterpart, Brian. This movie was incredibly boring and way too artsy for its own good. Basically, it's just Magneto crying and jerking off for 99 minutes. Sometimes he even does both at the same time. Don't get me wrong. I totally understand what this movie is about and what the director, Steve McQueen, was going for. It's a character study. Cool. I can respect that. But I don't give one single shit about anyone in this film. I mean the main characters are a perverted freak, a slutty loser, and a douchebag boss. There was one scene towards the beginning of the film that I actually really liked though. In said scene, Magneto is making googly eyes with this one chick on the train and she seems pretty into it but then gradually becomes more and more sad for no apparent reason. Then there's this awesome reveal of her wedding ring that explains everything. The fact that this is such a powerful scene despite there being absolutely no dialogue is kind of awesome. Kind of. The acting in this movie is phenomenal, but its really not worth sitting through this snooze-fest of a film. If you like watching less than moderately attractive women sing entire Frank Sinatra songs as slow as humanly possible, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Overview
Rating: 1 out of 5 peepazools
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Almost!

Tuesday Review: The Descendants (2011)

Brian's 2-cents:
Movies like The Descendants are the reason that we started this blog in the first place. Even though the middle aged snobs at the newspaper company might have you believe this is a good movie, you would be smarter to trust the brutal metal dudes here at Movie Crew Review when they say that this movie was fucking boring.  Dramatic? yes.  Acting? good.  But does George Clooney punch anyone in the face? nope.  Call me unsophisticated, but if I want drama, I'll just listen to my girlfriend talk about her stupid friends; when I go to the movies, I want VIOLENCE and BLOODSHED.  I'm not going to talk about the plot of The Descendants because even thinking about watching that movie again makes me want to go sneak into the theater next door and watch the last 30 minutes of The Muppets.  The Descendants is through and through a mom movie, and they should have a rating of 35F because this movie is incredibly boring for any non-female under the age of 35.  Fucking sucked, not brutal, 1/5.

Ryan's Retort:
I can see why critics say that this was a good movie. It was an uplifting tale of rediscovery and coping with the loss of a loved one. However, I don't care nearly enough to watch George Clooney goofing off in Hawaii for two hours. The main plot of this movie revolves around George Clooney dealing with his angsty daughters, finding out that his wife was a huge bitch that was cheating on him and, on top of all that, she is also dead. Clooney proceeds to search the many islands of Hawaii for this mysterious man that his dead wife had been banging, presumably for some sort of revenge or something. Then when they finally meet, he doesn't do anything to the guy! The least he could have done was sleep with HIS wife. She totally wanted it too. But no, Clooney doesn't punch him or ruin his marriage or anything. And once that plot point is wrapped up, it leaves me absolutely nothing to care about. Also, the mysterious man turns out to be Matthew Lillard. Who the hell cheats on George motherfucking Clooney with Matthew Lillard? It just doesn't make any sense!

Jelani's Take:
Boooring! I regret my usual pre-movie coffee!

Overview
Rating: 1 out of 5 dead wives
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: No. Surprisingly.

VHS Review: House of the Dead (2003) by Brian

1.5 poop shirts out of 5

At first I though this was just a straight to tv movie, but apparently Mike G saw this one in theaters (poor guy).  This piece of shit is based on the arcade game "house of the dead", and is about a bunch of douche bags who try and go to a rave on the really creatively named "Isle de Muerte".  When they get there, they discover all the ravers have turned into super wimpy zombies.  Luckily, the seaman who brings them to the island is a gun smuggler, which leads to the only alright scene in the movie, a 20 minute or so zombie shooting montage cut with shots of the crappy graphics from the video game.  Its not clear whether these were science zombies or magic zombies, but they were lame as shit and not scary at all.  The best character in the movie is the dude who gets trapped in a porta-potty, but when rescued refuses to take off his poop stained shirt, until he eventually is killed in it.  I couldn't get over why this dude wouldn't just take off his poop shirt, he was clearly wearing another shirt under it, and there's no way zombies couldn't smell that a mile off.  The only exciting part of this tape was a preview for some Insane Clown Posse based movie called Serial Insane Clown Killer (S.I.C.K), I wished I watched that one instead.

Review of "Drive" by Brian

1 of Jelani's snores (out of 5)

The opening sequence of this movie was awesome! I mean hes going around, helping criminals, evading cops in cars AND helicopters, and driving like a fucking maniac.  Then the opening credits and the beginning of a soundtrack worse than the Justin Beiber Live movie.  The opening scene is pretty much the only good part of this movie, the rest was boring awkward looks between that douchey toothpick gnawing dude and that almost-hot-enough-to-bang-but-wait-shes-got-a-kid-nevermind chick.  There are a couple cool killing parts but you have to sit through so much awful electronic music and boring emotional garbage that its really not worth it.  Dont see this movie unless you feel like  groaning a lot, A LOT.

On That Note, Here's Jelani's Take
This movie is the reason that we started this blog! The newspapers, magazines, and internet all said that this movie was fucking awesome. REALLY fucking awesome. But come on. How did they manage to fuck up the classic - "OOPS! I stole money from the wrong guy and now I have to escape from and kill mobsters who want to do terrible things to me" archetype? Oh, that's right! With shitty house music and a random almost-love relationship that drives the entire shit wagon. As you're watching it, you are able to think only one thing; can they just fucking FUCK already!?! The entire driving force behind this movie is Gosling's bleeding heart for his homely neighbor, which gets him in trouble with mobsters. He's a great guy who also kills people. I guess they were trying to go for an avante-garde juxtaposition between the two sides of Gosling's character. But it's super pretentious and really just uninteresting. Halfway through the film, it seems as if things have taken a sharp turn towards awesomeness. Gosling gets mixed up in some shit that's way out of his league, and is forced to brutalize some guys. But wait! Nope, just kidding, it goes right back to stupid romance crap. This would have been a great movie had the female role been interesting whatsoever. She and her son take up so much screentime with mundane boringness that the crime and excitement is essentially overshadowed. This could have been great. Really really really great, if these guys had stuck to the mold. If you're making a crime film, make it. Don't throw in a shitload of other meaningless crap just to make it seem more deep. More than half of this movie was completely superfluous. I only fell asleep for like 10 minutes near the end, so I suppose the good parts were good enough to stay conscious for, but the in between lulls were brutal. This could have been on the same level as Snatch, or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but instead... It sucked. 2 out of 5 wormy apples for you, crime dromance!