Mindless Action: Gone Wrong

Mindless action isn't necessarily devoid of plot or proper character motivation, because when you leave too many elements of a movie neglected, seriously bad things can happen...

A Good Day to Die Hard: You shouldn't be shocked to learn the fifth installment in the Die Hard series is the worst, but we never recommended anyone watch this movie. Even when people say "oh we'll watch it anyway, just to see how bad it is" we say: don't bother. The worst parts of this film are the back and fourth between McClane and his son, and 50% of that is them relentlessly yelling each other's names. (Actually, the worst parts of this movie might be the needless, unaddressed, and seemingly endless slaughter of innocent civilians, but it's hard to focus on those parts with all the "JOHN!" and "JACK!"ing.)

The Glove: Look at that poster, read that tagline! What could possibly be bad about this movie? Oh only that it's one of the most BORING movies we've ever watched in mixed company. Our buddy picked this out of a stack a few years ago and he's still not lived it down entirely. The titular glove shows up like it was shot long after the main film, it never really fits into the larger story and takes up almost no screen time! Also the main detective (played by John Saxon) is a lousy drunk who's terrible at his job and refuses to pay his child support. A better tagline for this movie would be "an asshole detective tries to solve a humdrum crime while we wait for an amazing robo-glove to save the day that almost doesn't show up". 

Chappie: Oh how we wanted to like Chappie, but not only were the character motivations questionable throughout, this film location hopped more than The Stuff and for arguably flimsier reasons. One moment the hero is at Die Antwoord's hideout, the next he's run back to his office only to run right back to the hideout. It's a mess. And we were extra disappointed because this was a forgettable mess, rather than a fun mess.

Mitchell: I can't imagine watching this movie without the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew relentlessly mocking it. We've never tried, but thinking about it makes me uncomfortable. There's the world's longest, slowest and least action-packed car chase ever committed to film, the most skin crawling "sex" scenes, and it took me far too many viewings to actually understand the plot of the thing. And don't even get me started on the hero's theme song! But, as unbearable as it might be on it's own, it will always be one of our top five MST3Ks.

Prototype X29A: This movie was on our to-watch pile for months before someone finally picked it. Everyone was convinced the phrase "psychosexual dreams" on the box was going to make it a winner for better or worse. But when we actually tried to watch it, it was a SNOOZE fest. One of our friends fell asleep early on only to wake up at the end demanding to know why everything was blowing up, sadly we had no answers for her and we were paying attention!



Bonus movie:

Doctor Justice: To be fair, we did not finish this movie. Maybe someday we'll give it another shot, I mean look at that cover art, action happens at some point! But the 45 mins we made it through was another snooze fest. Seriously though, John Phillip Law, Paul Naschy, and Gert Frobe? How on earth did it end up so dull?!

Mindless Action Movies: Three the Hard Way

This movie would have fit nicely into last month's theme as it stars Jim Brown, Fred Williamson and Jim Kelly but it's also a wonderfully excessive action movie. Not as mindless as some of the others we'll list this month, but no less action packed or over the top.

A casual racist party. (The party is casual, the racism is overt.)

The plot unfolds something like this: White supremacists have developed a biological weapon they are preparing to dump into the water of three major cities. The effects of this weapon? It kills Black people while leaving white people unharmed. Lucky for the Black and anti-racist population at large, Mister Keyes (Jim Kelly), Jagger Daniels (Fred Williamson), and Jimmy Lait (Jim Brown) are on top of this.

The pacing: The set up for this is a bit slow as they introduce each hero individually, but in the end each man takes on his own group of bad guys, so the payoff is three fold!

The stunts: Hal Needham was the stunt coordinator, and it shows. This movie is FULL of amazing stunt work, and it's also got some of our favorite car stunts. They clearly set the bar that the Ozsplpitation movies of the 70s and 80s were trying to raise.

A lovely surprise: These ladies show up out of nowhere making us wish they had a spin off film all their own. (Unfortunate side note: one of them is in The Glove, and we feel really, really bad for her.)

The director: This is one of the 4 movies Gordon Park Jr. directed before his untimely death in a plane crash while filming over seas. He also directed Aaron Loves Angela, Thomasine & Bushrod, and Super Fly. Makes us sad to think what else could have come from this director.

Third Clue: September's Screening

Clue #3: September's movie is one of the 80s exploitation movies that features a cameo by Michele Soavi, the director of Cemetery Man.



Tape Freaks Presents: September's Mystery Movie! at the Trylon microcinema, Wednesday, September 7th@ 7:00pm, only $5!

****Purchase advance ticket here****

Mindless Action Movies: The Raid

Nothing washes a bad day away like watching this movie, it's so satisfyingly wall-to-wall action! We first saw The Raid as a bootleg a co-worker lent us and the dubbing was a little... off. Clearly it was a DIY job by the bootlegger, but they didn't have a full grasp on how to translate Indonesian to English. There were a few key points where the subtitles suddenly were in what I assume to be Indonesian and plot points that revolved around things like animal hospital drugs... Though it did make for an interesting watch, were happy when we could buy it on DVD with professional translators supplying the subtitles!


The plot unfolds something like this: A group of tactical police officers are on their way to raid an apartment complex run by a notorious drug lord. Halfway to the top floor, the drug lord finds out they're in the building and offers free housing for life to the person who brings him an officer's head. The games begin.

Sounds familiar: Anyone who's also seen Dredd might think that one of these films ripped off the other, but that's not true. They were filming simultaneously on completely different continents, completely unaware of the other's existence. And even though the physical landscape of each film is similar, each is very much so a different movie and both are in our top five favorite action movies.

The action: This movie is the definition of non-stop. There is little story here, but that's only because they didn't leave any time to give you any.

The sequel: The Raid 2: Berandal is also very good. Not nearly as mindless, but just as action packed and about 100x more stylish.

Mindless Action Movies: Death Race 2000

(Spolier!! If you've not seen this one yet, don't watch any trailers...)

Like a lot of people, I first heard of this movie when people who were older and cooler than me started pointing at pedestrians out a car window while assigning point values. And although it could be argued there is a social commentary in this film, it's pretty shallow. The main reasons to watch it is the total fucking carnage.

The plot unfolds something like this: In the year 2000 the streets are opened for an annual free for all, cross country, death race. Each contestant must score points by killing pedestrians while also winning the race... or something... But each contestant must also have a ridiculously themed driver and navigator team with an equally ridiculously coordinating car. (We assume that's in the rules, it's universally followed, so if it's not it's kinda weird...) With the entire country tuned in, the stakes are high and the competition is cut throat. Let the blood bath games begin!

Things to watch for: Asinine car designs, asinine costumes, asinine characters, asinine plot, asinine contest rules... But also, the worlds most annoying television host, a babyfaced Sylvester Stallone, a smoking hot Mary Woronov, loads of gory deaths and car stunts.

We would like to thank this scene for containing
as many mostly naked men as it does women. 

Some things that were possibly influenced by this movie: Hunger Games, The Purge, Mad Max, Running Man.

Spoiler Alert: The original trailers for this film give away a major spoiler from the film which leaves me wondering, why? I'm pretty sure the Corman knew he was going to have to reveal that David Carradine was in the film (as Kung Fu was in full swing and he would have some box office draw) in the trailer, so why make his character the one with a big reveal? 

He get's his, don't worry.

Bouns: Everything Wrong With was challenged by Roger Corman to EWW one of his movies, that challenge was pretty amazingly met.

Mindless Action Movies: The Expendables 2

If ever there was a movie franchise made for mindless consumption it's The Expendables. And although we haven't seen the third installment (for shame, we know) it's the second in the franchise that has our hearts. It's pretty much a slash/shoot/blow 'em up action fest with little to no memorable plot, and that's a-ok with us. Plus Jean Claude Van Damme is the villain, Jean Vilain. (No seriously, that's the name of his character! This movie has absolute zero shame.)

 The cast:

I mean seriously, how can you go wrong?

Our fave is problematic: Better to it's women than the first installment (which is not saying much), it still has it's problems. Like for instance, is there a woman in this movie? If so, where is she in the promo material? Oh there she is, on her very own super special separate poster. (I mean, I love Adkins, but does he need to be in the main promo material? Does anyone who's not seen a 2000s JCVD movie even know who he is?)

How many times did we see this movie in the theater: Only once. But we saw it at the drive in at lease three more times! And we're not even sorry.

Mindless Action Movies: Ozploitation List

These fit the tone of our movie this month as they are all exploitation action movies. However these are all specifically Ozploitation exploitation, and the Australians are really good at mindless action, especially when there are cars involved.

Chain Reaction: A nuclear waste storage facility suffers a breach after an earthquake and nuclear waste is headed straight for the ground water. One facility engineer sees the danger and tries to save the thousand of people in harms way, however his boss would rather just keep the whole thing hush-hush. This movie is at it's core a car chase movie, though it tries desperately to convince you otherwise. Bonus: it has a killer score!

Stunt Rock: A sort-of mockumentary about stunt man Grant Page and the theatrical hard-rock band Sorcery. You'll see a trailer for this gem at this month's screening, but allow me to explain it a bit without ruining a single second of that: This movie was literally made to highlight the unrivaled stunt man that is Grant Page, the band is a total after thought to tie the movie together. This is a movie made of pointless action, frosted with ridiculous band antics.

Man From Hong Kong: I have written about this movie before and I don't often say this but, you really should just check out that post. There's too much so much to say and I've already said so much of it!

Turkey Shoot: A human hunting movie mashed up with an exploitation prison movie, this one's got it all. (I also wrote about this one before, if you're interested.) Over the top characters, asinine plot points, and actors in actual danger while filming. It's not to be missed.




Bonus movie:

Mad Max: There are few Ozploitation movies that reach the action heights that Mad Max does, though this movie isn't so much mindless perse, but you can tune in and out and still enjoy it.