GunStarHero

I have a large collection of low budget/indie/B-movies. Several hundred and counting, in fact. It can be a slog to find truly entertaining bad films, and more often than not you find boring bad films instead. So I wanted to just make a thread where I review these kinds of films. A lot of them do suck, and some may suck so hard I won't even mention their titles, but I will post about ones of note. Everyone is free to leave reviews of their own, as well, for the same films or totally different ones. I'm going to use a grading scale I'll call "(So-Bad-It's-Good) Reverse Verdict" which is grading a movie for how entertainingly bad it is. In other words, 0/10 is the most boring piece of unwatchable ever, and 10/10 is a masterpiece crafted in the wrong direction and worthy of being seen. Additionally, I'll mention that some movies I rate highly ascend their budgets and restraints and become truly amazing films, like Riki-Oh, which I consider to be an amazing movie and not an awesomely bad one. Here are the ones I've most recently seen. Some real gems here, but also some absolute stinkers, too. Arena (2011) - Samuel L. Jackson and Kellan Lutz (of Generation Kill and Twilight fame) star in an inexplicably penned bro-fantasy revolving around a 1v1 deathmatch game show called...Deathgames. Nothing matters in this movie. Every character is so wishy washy you legitimately won't guess what they do next. Our protagonist, David Lord is a rugby player that also works as a firefighter and paramedic, I fucking guess. His wife is pregnant, and the two conversations they have before she dies sound like two robots programmed to mimic people with zero chemistry. Anyways, she dies in a car wreck and practically rolls out of the car and into her coffin cause David's still bleeding when he buries her. Not sure why he buried her in the first place because he literally goes to Mexico (???) and falls asleep in a bar, attacks a bouncer, and then accepts an offer for sex from a French woman who confessed he would be robbed before propositioning her sexy time adventure. David agrees because he's a fucking idiot, and we get to see the woman totally naked. I cannot stress this enough: I was so bored with seeing her nude body right away because she spends more time naked and doing fuck all than clothed and being an actual character. David gets kidnapped by Sam Jackson's people and he is dubbed "Deathdealer" in this most inane "say my name!" moment that the movie insists on repeating ad nasuseam. Daniel Dae Kim is also in this movie. His character is the White Samurai and he is supposed to be a Japanese man whose Japanese wife was kidnapped and he was forced to fight to save her. He and David fight and the movie thinks it's clever and I won't even tell you how it tries to be clever because it's the most predictable thing ever. This movie is fucking stupid when it comes to Asian characters. Every Asian character is Japanese, but only one of the actors is Japanese. Fuck's sake, they even have an office filled with Japanese salarymen watching the Deathgames, all complete with Japanese names, and Japanese text around them, but they all speak in Mandarin. The lone Japanese actor in the film is one of Sam Jackson's weird, fetish pets that scroll across his computer table like they're perpetually on ecstasy. By the way, Sam Jackson's cartoony villain does actually call those women his pets and he regularly feasts on breakfast burritos while he watches them make-out on a giant swing. They also run his online show for him by cleaning the same table over and over with their hands. We see very few viewers and the ones we do see are fucking stupid. Our main audience is a group of three frat bros and two college girls that have some of the most confusing dialogue I've ever managed to comprehend in my life. Two of the guys think the show is fake, one knows it's real and they're all about as perceptive as the enema they use to squirt alcohol into their respective assholes. They inexplicably use the word "shit" openly, but refuse to use another other curse words, opting for "fricking" and "dang it" in lieu of "fuck" and "damn." Furthermore, the dude who knows it's all real has a weird shit fetish he casually mentions every time we see him and he gets off on seeing people die and no one around him seems to mind. The girls are disgusted and beg and plead for the show to be fake but once they find out it's real, they love it??? Then poopy bro is about to get a threesome but Deathgames comes on and he bids his pair of platinum pusses adieu. At this point, David is now head over heels in love with the free spirit of a nudist woman that kidnapped him because...movie. The actual plot is about as important to the film as it has been my review. That is to say, David agrees to fight and win 10 matches, and then face the Executioner in a fight for his freedom. The Executioner is not important. Ever. Of the 11 fights we see 2 in their entirety and the rest, including the final bout, in highlight clips. I personally thought this was a shame. As my girlfriend, who begrudgingly watched this with me, pointed out, this movie decides the training should be the focus of the film instead of the fights. So where you might see a training montage in another, competent film, and then see the full fights, this movie shows the all the training and barely any fights. And the clips were the best part, honestly! WWI America vs Germany. Construction workers with power tools. Chefs in a kitchen. DEA vs Gang members. Mad Max world. Creative stuff, shoved to the side so we could see that stupid woman's petite titties and Sam Jackson jerk off while munching on burritos again. Anyways, Sam Jackson tires to sabotage the final 2 matches but he fails and the Marines (???) bust his compound. But how did they find him? Oh, David Lord is a fake name. See he meant to get into a car wreck. He meant to start a family with a woman he planned to watch die. He's a secret agent Marine (???) who was sent to bust the Deathgames because their online security was "too stronk." So they sent David to kill everyone and stop the show. Which he doesn't really do in the end cause Sam Jackson escapes. David does confront Jackson and tells him it's over, to which Jackson brilliantly replies "I'll give you more money than you can ever spend! Here!" Then he throws David like $30,000. Beautiful. (So-Bad-It's-Good) Reverse Verdict - 6/10 It held my attention but the few entertaining parts were shafted by being highlights instead of the focus of the film. I want to see the fights, not him going to the hospital every 30 seconds after said fights. I couldn't look away from the bizarre character interactions and dialogue, but even if you love bad movies, skip this one. Unless you wanna see Sam Jackson giggle while eating a burrito on a silver platter while two Asian women tongue punch each other on a swing. In which case, skip to 00:47:29 and enjoy since you are obviously either Sam Jackson or Jonah Loop (the director). The Omega Code (1999) - A conspiracy that holy texts, such as The Bible and The Quran, contain secret codes that have shown to predict the entirety of humanity's timeline, from start to finish. Apparently so accurate, it predicted the death of Princess Diana down to the exact day and street. But how did they discover such a thing? Well some scientist in Jerusalem literally scanned in the Quran and made the text 3D. That's it. The he gets shot for his discovery by none other than Michael Ironside in a ridiculous Orthodox Jew disguise. Meanwhile, Johnny fuckin' Rico has dedicated his life to exposing the secret code while renouncing the holy texts themselves, all while leaping over every god damned couch he sees. Like it's fucking insane. Every time he's on screen with a sofa, he just vaults that bitch. He goes on TV to brag about how intelligent he is and how stupid The Bible, and by proxy, Christians are. Returning to our original plotline, Michael Orthoside brings the stolen 3D text (???) to his boss, Basil Exposition. I guess he's the king of the UN or some bizarre shit. Whatever. Johnny Rico begs him to become the next International Man of Mystery, to which Basil declines and slinks back to his lair. Immediately after this, Basil is seen praising Rico and asking Orthoside to invite him to the Roughnecks. Basil welcomes Rico into his homes and begins showing Rico the code he has henceforth managed to decipher. Rico is all And Basil is all we can discover what happens in the future with this code! To which Rico is like And, I'll be honest here, this movie is super fucking boring. Casper Van Dien isn't trying at all here, except when it comes to yeeting over furniture with his signature flip-six-three-hole. It's a stupid movie, with a lame plot, and is so predictable you can literally see the ending coming from the beginning. Turns out the shite script was a code to decipher the future of its dumpster fire film, too! Absolutely skip this one. There's a sequel, too, but evidently it is even worse than the original Great Tribulation, indeed. (So-Bad-It's-Good) Reverse Verdict - 1/10

Spider-Man: Far From Home - 7/10 Nice epilogue for Endgame. Enjoyed it more than Homecoming, but I'm not in love with the future of Marvel movies. To be quite honest, I wish they would just stop now. It's hard for me to imagine anything good coming post-Endgame. But hey, money. So it goes on. 1917 - 8/10 Loved the camera work/cinematography. A simple story executed in such a complex way, and so seamlessly, too. Incredible dedication to detail and bonkers camera rigs and set pieces. In fact, I was often marveling at the work behind the camera more than the film itself. Definitely worth a watch. Joker - 8/10 A bit at odds on this one. It's very clearly a love letter to other movies like Taxi Driver, and it's a well done film. However, I'm not entirely convinced this script was originally for a Joker movie. Removing the elements of Batman comics affect the narrative in such a trivial way I can't rightfully call it a comic book movie. That being said, even without the Batman bits it would be hard not to draw comparisons to Batman/The Joker. Was a fine movie, but left an odd taste in my mouth because it felt a bit forced to fill seats.

Part 2 @DBZ4ever @molarbear And the Melee select screen I recreated for the video:

That's all fair. I banged that thing out and didn't proof read it and sent it off all within an hour of seeing the thread.

Postured was an odd word choice but intentional. Could've explained it better but they were all putting on a show, acting like they would help. Hallowing and baited were wordplay/puns, as well. Hallowing referring to Hell, and its entrance, being a holy place. Baited referring to baiting whatever was in the darkness to come out. Eked was an error, though. And the prophecy thing was intended for an immediate setup and punchline. Hence the "who could have foreseen this?" line.

Which words did you think I misused?

Yea I got the other story to eventually stop clipping but nothing worked on mine. You can select and copy paste it into a blank word document, though. So the text is there, just not visible.

Oh I 100% sabotaged myself on the prompt. Very intentional. And I appreciate it. I actually got a sort of internship with [as] back when I was in college for writing something in a similar style. They kept me on online and eventually made me a Helper when that became a thing.

@PokeNirvash I think Sponges use of the threesome was including the shit-hand man, the main character, and the reader all coming together for a mind fuck. Which was also his "wow" moment.

While I didn't spend much time on mine I'll at least explain it a little. It's written in an absurdist, satirical style, paying homage to over the top 80s and 90s B movies. Especially ninja movies where heroes are invincible, unstoppable killing machines of presumed justice and villains come stocked with an army of idiots. I can see my decision to pick up the prompt and toss it to the side were not appreciated by any of the judges. That's fine. I wrote what I wanted to write and tried to acknowledge and immediately ignore the prompt for a cheap laugh. Most of it was cheap laughs, again, poking fun at B movies. And then I just killed every character because that's funny to me. Hope it was good for some laughs. And as for it being "lol random" that's not entirely accurate but it does allude to the style I decided to write this in. I channeled my inner, early 2000s internet ninja and tried to make it reflect the flavor of over the top, suburban ninja teenager fantasies you might read back then.

Ok, I just got done reading all of the submissions and I think Sponges' was the best one.

Tried zooming in and out but it didn't work. Selecting all the text and then copy/pasting it somewhere showed the text but it won't show on the site for me.

@That_One_Guy don't know if it's just on my end but two of the stories on the website cut off on the edge and I can't find a way to read what's been cut off.

Me securing last place so hard two people tied for second: That was 30 minutes well spent writing that.

I talk to myself a lot in my head so when I finally speak out loud I can confidently say the dumbest fucking thing possible.

I just feel bad for them because they are apparently passionate about literature and they have to read my swill.

I'm trying to earn my last place finish, gimme some space!

I dropped it off on the curb and kept rolling, baby.

I'm a professional chef so no, I have to be good with spices, sauces, dressings and everything else.