No.337 : Wheels of Fortune (2020)

 

Wheels of Fortune at the IMDb

Badger out of ‘Breaking Bad’ stars in this redneck inheritance comedy which registered a single smile with this viewer. We open with Jeff Fahey, who we liked in ‘Machete’, out for a sky dive. His chute and backup fail but he is saved by a friend who  grabs him and eases him back towards Earth. Sadly the rescuer’s parachute is cut by a drone, but at least he softens Jeff’s landing. It’s not Jeff’s day however as he is then hit by a truck and seemingly fatally injured.

He runs a large company and his grasping children arrive at his bedside to hear who will inherit the business. Instead they are told of his long lost son Bo (Badger) who was the product of him slumming it some years ago. Bo is a mechanic for a tractor pull champion and he still laments the day when the lack of a clutch cable meant he couldn’t win the big race as a child, sending him on a losing spiral that has persisted ever since.

His fortunes look up however when Jeff, who has died off-screen, sends his lawyer to Bo to offer a challenge, the like that is only ever heard of in movies. The challenge is that if Bo can get a podium finish in four races over the next month he will inherit something that isn’t really specified. He isn’t keen at first, but the offer of $100 a day expenses for him, his idiot friend Noodle, and the love interest Mandy seals the deal.

The film then takes many predictable turns with the conniving relatives trying to stop Bo’s progress, him becoming an ‘internet sensation’ and of course him losing sight of what’s really important. With three podium finishes in the bag it all comes down to the monster truck racing - can Bo win the challenge? And what inevitable surprises lies in wait?

This was an awful Netflix find that has very little to recommend it. It was like a mash up between ‘Brewster’s Millions’ and ‘Run Ronnie Run’ but not nearly as enjoyable as either. It was a comedy, so the ridiculous premise can be excused to some degree, but how does a guy who dies unexpectedly manage to have an elaborate plan all set up, including a message dispensing suitcase and a schedule set up that begins the day of his untimely demise? That’s your clue actually; I just wonder if in real life the lawyers would tell him to piss off with the relatives getting him declared mental from the off.

Badger is kinda likable in the lead but his shtick runs thin early on and he doesn’t have what it takes to hold the whole thing together. The conniving relatives weren’t menacing at all and their characters were underwritten. I did like love interest Mandy, but she could have done without the inflated lips.

The only chuckle raised with me was the wise ticket collector who got the sack for dispensing sage advice. Other than that it was a dull ride though various motor sports with real footage inter-cut with our hero doing the ‘driving’.

The redneck humour offered no laughs with exchanges like ‘It’s a retinal scan’ / ‘You’re not sticking that up my butt’ being the standard on offer. If you are on your third bottle of wine you may snigger at the man being trapped in a porta-potty, but this was low brow fare that won’t last ten minutes in the memory.

Best Bit : ‘You're fired’  ‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.297 : Wingman Inc. (2015)

Wingman Inc. at the IMDb

The battle of the sexes is explored, or at least brushed over in this lacklustre, alleged comedy.

For some reason the titles have photos of the cast as children which then morph into their current, non-recognisable personas. Our hero Bobby is a dog psychiatrist which involves him talking to a dog on his sofa. He gets a call from his landlord seeking his rent and he announces to no one that he has loads of debts. He does have prospects however, in the shape of a night out with his friends and his plan to propose to his long term girlfriend.

The night out with the friends finishes early as he finds them both hook-ups, foreshadowing the rest of the film. Bobby is so nice and non-threatening he can convince women to cop off with his sleazy friends. His world falls apart however when his girlfriend rejects his proposal and leaves the restaurant with another man.

Sunk into depression we meet up with Bobby 3 months later on the sofa with his stoner flat mate. He has a comedy beard and his pals think he needs to get back out there - especially as they haven’t gotten laid in like three months. Meanwhile in reaction to sleazy men chatting up women in bars a lady has started a service designed to send men away, mainly by suggesting they have small dicks.

Bobby’s friends are happy to pay his rent if he finds them women and they convince him that setting up a Wingman business would be a better use of is time than being a doggie shrink. With two opposing businesses in view, Bobby and the lady inevitably meet when she brings her anxious dog for therapy. What will happen when they find out that they are at opposite ends of the dating spectrum and will the spark that is developing between them become something special?

This was a terrible cheap and nasty film that was well dated in its attitudes and set dressing. Clearly here was no budget at all with the ‘bar’ being a curtain, a poster and a couple of chairs. It looked like a student film in places and wasn’t helped by cack handed direction and editing.

There were no laughs at all with some of it downright offensive - women called lesbians for not falling at our mens’ feet for example. The men were all ass holes but the women were all nasty bitches too, so there was no one to root for.

The whole ‘Wingman’ premise was dubious with our hero basically being a whoremaster and pimp. The lead was as wet as an otter’s pocket and like a poor man’s Jim Halpert. I didn’t manage to spot one good performance, apart from the dog that managed to yawn on cue.

Overall this ‘comedy’ didn’t raise a smile and, as social commentary, you’d get a more balanced view from re runs of ‘The Benny Hill Show’. The ‘will they - won’t they?’ romance was plain tiresome and the ‘growth’ around emotional maturity and respecting others was just irritating.

At least the film closed with 'funny' outtakes running over the credits - Good of them to let us know that there was at least some footage not worthy of the final cut,

Best Bit - Taking the Library Books Back Late ‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.262 : Willow Creek (2013)

Willow Creek at the IMDb

A cheap film doesn’t have to be a bad film, but a lack of budget certainly doesn’t help. If you had forty bucks and an old DVD of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ you could make a serviceable remake of ‘Willow Creek’ and still have enough for pizza on the way home.

The film was made in 2013 by when ‘found footage’ films were already old hat. I was drawn to this one however as it had the shouty comedian BobCat Goldthwait as the writer/director and it was based on a hunt for the legendary Bigfoot. So far so good.

Alas it doesn’t pan out well and it’s a dull, annoying and frankly forgettable waste of your time.

Our two heroes Jim and Kelly are on a mission to make a documentary about their quest to track the Bigfoot. The first half hour is taken up with scene setting - or padding the 80 minute run time - you decide. The two poor actors, whom I haven’t seen in anything else, look awkward as they try to improvise around real Bigfoot attractions in Trinity Forest area. We chuckle as they make a story around a Bigfoot mural, titter as they eat a big foot burger and lose interest as they make rude gestures at a Bigfoot statute.

Some unfortunate locals are dragged in to be ‘interviewed’ on camera and it seems an age before things even get near the action. We get a couple of hints about what lies ahead as Jim casually notes bullet holes in the park sign and a hillbilly local warns them off visiting their goal - the site of the famous Bigfoot cine film from 1967. A ‘Lost person’ poster is also noted but that’s bound to be irrelevant…

Obviously, they pay no heed to the dire warnings and drive deep into the forest only to be greeted by another redneck who invites them to have a coffee at ‘The Fuck Off Café’. As delightful as it sounds they decline and wander into the woods with their packs, but with no obvious means of navigation. After a needless scene of male nudity they bed down for the night - but it’s going to be a long night - for all of us!

A 20 minute scene follows with the two of them in a tent reacting to sounds outside. Bigfoot is known for banging bits of wood together (apparently) so there is lots of that and of rocks hitting their tent. This could be seen as a master class in tension building and bravura minimalist film making. Not by me however, it was totally tiresome!

Next day they wander about for a day, still lost, but finding hairs and large footprints along the way. Will they escape (er, found footage film, genius!) and will we at least get the monster money shot?!

It beggars belief that this film got a release. IMDb says it was shot in 5 days so they must have had at least four and a half off by my count.

It follows the found footage template to the letter with the only surprise being we get no pay off apart from a fat lass in the nip and a camera dragged through some grass. ‘Harry and the Hendersons’ this was not  - you’d get more monster in my underpants!

The improvisation and amateur interviews were terrible and the leads had no chemistry at all. At one point the bloke proposed marriage - I half expected the woman to say ‘sorry, who are you again?’.

There was almost no tension and that which there was, was falsely earned as it went nowhere. It didn’t make a lick of sense and had no laughs or horror to speak of. In one scene Jim finds a big pile of steaming shit and gets all exited about it - unfortunately I was unable to replicate this emotion with the film, despite their similarities.

Best Bit : Have a coffee in the Fuck Off Café.
‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.256 : Words and Pictures (2013)

Words and Pictures at the IMDb

Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche star as rival teachers trying to prove which of words (language) or pictures (art) is best. If that sounds a bit of a pointless endeavour you’ll not be surprised to learn that the film is too.

Owen plays Jack, that tired old cliché of a character of the great writer who hasn’t written anything worthwhile in years who takes a teaching job to finance his creeping alcoholism. Binoche plays a totally different character, a great painter who hasn’t painted anything worthwhile for years due to her creeping arthritis who takes on a teaching job.

The pair teach at a school for precocious teenagers who can’t act. Clive’s lessons are like something out of ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ with the kids all admiring and fancying him in equal measure despite his contempt for the job and his fat and unshaven appearance. Binoche limps when she remembers to do so and has a stick, but a steely determination to help her pupils - they’re the original odd couple!

Owen takes a shine to Juliette and soon engages her in his tiresome ‘how many syllables’ game to which she rightly tells him to piss off. Owen isn’t discouraged however and tries to woo the stuffy artist while juggling with a career crisis and a distant son who is embarrassed about pissed old Dad.

During one of Owen’s unstructured classes a debate arises over the phrase ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ to which he argues that words can supply the details and emotion that a picture cannot. When Binoche’s art class hear of this they are outraged; surely a good picture can convey a lot more than pages of a book? This not very interesting argument captivates the school and a big showdown is planned for the end of the term/film.

Meanwhile Owen is up for dismissal for being pissed all the time and for not offering the school any published works to raise their profile. He wisely chooses to steal his son’s best poem for himself and sets off to get drunk to celebrate. Elsewhere Binoche is trying out new ways to make a mess by dropping paint onto canvas using different methods.

For reasons not clear Owen manages to get Binoche into bed before spoiling it all by getting drunk and wrecking her new ‘masterpiece’ a big red and blue splodge that frankly looked better once Clive had his way with it.

With his career and relationships all pissed against a wall Clive decides to try Alcoholics Anonymous and start afresh with Binoche and his son. But will it be too little too late and with the ‘Words and Pictures’ showdown coming up can he win the day for words? C’mon words!

The premise of this film was a bit like the Hugh Grant vehicle ‘Music and Lyrics’ and when I say Grant’s film was more enjoyable you’ll understand what a clunker ‘Words and Pictures’ is.

The main issue is the central relationship which has no spark whatsoever. Binoche, lovely as she is, cannot act while speaking English and Clive Owen didn’t seem to believe in either his wooing or his madcap fervour for words over pictures. You are probably thinking ‘can’t we have both?’ - well don’t as that will spoil the ending!

Some of the arguments were quite interesting but they were articulated by some of the worst teen actors you will ever see and they look like winners of an essay writing contest reading their work on screen. There is a lamentable subplot about an Asian girl with self worth issues but that was ghastly and predictably resolved. Don’t even ask about Owen’s woes with his prissy son - awful!

So what we have is a no rom, rom-com with no com either. You’d think in a high school there would be some chemistry - I blame the cuts.

Words and pictures? If they are presented like this I’ll have neither please!

Best Bit _ Owen does some redecorating.
‘W’ Rating 7/23

No.239 : What Now (2015)

What Now at the IMDb

The other night I watched ‘Deep Impact’ and it was funny to see how the fledgling internet was shown with the marvels of search engines a wonder to all. That film was from 1997 and has dated poorly, but not as poorly as ‘What Now’ will have in the next 20 minutes - and it was made in 2015!

I suppose the producers would say that it captures the zeitgeist of the moment but when a film is hung entirely on online dating apps you can tells it’s not going to get a place in the National Archives. To be honest, it has dated already with Ashley Madison talked about as a going concern. Someone also references Miley Cyrus’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ so there’s another zinger for the folks in 2525!

The film concerns five LA single blokes who are trying for love online. They mostly work in a strip joint so you think there would be the odd woman there but they are ore interested in the ‘swipe right’ kind of ladies. They are presented as a mixed bag of personalities and types but they come across as assholes to a man.

The lead is DJ who works as the strip joint DJ - imaginative naming there. He’s in his 30s and keen for love but for some reason for a guy in the music and stripping businesses he’s a bit shy. He confides in his friends who are all similarly unattached and unsuccessful with the women. After a night of swiping hundreds of ladies they get no matches and decide something has to change.

Sadly the film has no ambition to rehabilitate its characters so one shaves his head and they take new profile pics before broadening their search beyond Hollywood and hey presto - dates! They all take the first girl available with predictably mixed results. One gets an S&M loving MILF while another gets one who is clearly mental as she’s a vegan and spots him as a jock.

Meanwhile a group of girls are also on the dating hunt and rating our men. Can love be found and will our men’s’ shallow approach pay dividends or will they need to see woman beyond a 2-D image to find true love and happiness?

This was a gawd awful mess of a film but I have to confess its terribleness was strangely compelling and I stayed through to the end to see what facile fates our heroes were granted. The old standard of the macho man inadvertently dating a transsexual was rolled out along with many other dating nightmares no doubt designed to get the hen nights cackling at the men’s inadequacy.

To be fair there are plenty of nightmare woman too from the socially responsible nightmare to the moody goth ; but they are all caricatures except for the lovely girl who balks at our hero’s strip show job but we hope to see back to give us all a hope of dating redemption!

The acting is terrible and you get the impression the whole affair was done with favours and cameos from the director’s softball team. One chap ‘Richard’ has the worst English accent you’ll ever hear and the rest have all the charming small talk and chemistry of an SS guard. For some reason Ice-T  shows up as himself and you can only imagine he walked onto the wrong set and earned a credit as a result.

It’s certainly not a film to track down, or even one to watch if you have put off the ironing for a couple of days, but if you are semi conscious and it shows up late night I wouldn’t say you have to turn it off. Fainter praise than that I don’t have.

Best Bit : The worst (at acting) English rock group ever.
‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No.227 : When Time Ran Out… (1980)

When Time Ran Out at the IMDb

If you thought spoof disaster movies started with ‘Airplane’ you should check out this turkey that predated it by a few weeks in 1980. It is laughably bad and all the more so for having some Hollywood heavyweights playing it straight. It’s from disaster maker and cookie cutter extraordinaire Irwin Allen and you could play bingo with it, checking off clichés as the film plods along.

Paul Newman stars as an oil driller. For some reasons he’s doing this on a volcanic island next to a luxury hotel. Not even that, he’s actually drilling for oil in the volcano’s ‘dormant’ crater. Can you guess what goes wrong kids?

Before be get to the lamentable action we are first introduced to the cavalcade of stars who are wheeled in with their improbable back stories. The best is Burgess Meredith who is a renowned, but retired, tight rope walker. What a waste of time telling us that, there's no way will that be relevant! We also meet a slightly haggard Jacqueline Bisset and a bored Barbara Carrera, both of whom are after Paul Newman’s affections. You also get William Holden as the gruff hotel owner and some guy as his hot headed son - I can only assume Richard Chamberlain was engaged elsewhere. Other luminaries include Red Buttons, Mr Miyagi off ‘The Karate Kid’, who was unintelligible, and Ernest Borgnine who plays ‘Tom Conti’ he was rubbish ; didn’t mention ‘Rummikub’ once!

The action gets under way when the drillers hit oil two minutes after Paul Newman arrives. They are understandably happy but this soon dissipates when Paul tells them all to pack up. He’s worried the oil strike may reactivate the dormant volcano. Why he didn’t think of this before they set up all the drills wasn’t explored. Anyway, his greedy men, who have families to feed, insist on keeping the well open and Paul reluctantly agrees. Huge mistake!

With indecent haste the volcano goes nuclear and sets off special effects of literary pathetic proportions. There is a massive tsunami which involves some extras getting a bucket of water thrown over them and an earthquake that puts a medium sized gash in the road. Of course this is a disaster movie so that vital staple, panicky idiots, hove into view and storm the helicopter in a laugh a moment scene that eventually sees a poor model give up its life.

This volcano has attitude though and soon it is raining fireballs down on the hotel - not much of a neighbour but what a critic! It has good aim though and gets a direct hit on Tom Conti, sorry Borgnine. He spends the rest of the film swathed in bandages so he may have sneaked off set early, having bribed someone to take his place.

With chaos all around Newman takes charge. He tells the folk in the fancy hotel that they’ll need to move but gets shouted down due to his lack of success in keeping his oil workers safe - which is fair enough really. Newman manages to get a few of the principals to go with him on a perilous mission to cross the island to safety via a large and unconvincing studio set. Safety beckons just over a rickety bridge but who will survive? And when it is down to a single beam will all hope be lost or does anyone have a special talent that may come in handy? Especially if there is a finely crafted and balanced pole nearby…

This film was so relentlessly rubbish that I actually quite enjoyed it. It was so by the numbers the must have crossed out ‘boat’ and ‘building’ on their one script and stuck in ‘volcano’ instead. Why the hotel guests never went with the ‘A’ list star beggared belief. That said their final fate was worth the admission price alone!

Newman looked embarrassed throughout and did nothing to get us involved with his character. He was a reckless love cheat and a poor negotiator and to top it all was wearing large Cuban heels. The rest of the cast were as bad with pass marks being awarded to no one apart from the hotel guests who bravely tried to leave the film in the helicopter.

The special effects were dreadful with a science fair volcano occasionally spouting some smoke the height of the pyrotechnics. They did invest a lot in the bridge which served in the interminable finale. For some reason the thick planks kept snapping despite no sign of fire of singeing on them - must be those dramatic licence planks we’ve all heard about. It was however a highlight when the tight rope walker stepped up, but only after a few bit parts took a dive into the lava below.

I hadn’t heard of this film until it turned up in one of my ‘W’ trawls and rightfully so - it was poorly made, had terrible acting and was only a couple of gags short of beating ‘Airplane!’ to the punch.

Best Bit - If only I could find a pole - Oh here’s one!
7/23

No.206 : Wild Geese II (1985)

Wild Geese 2 at the IMDb

Few would deny that ‘The Wild Geese’ is the best film ever, but what about its less well known sequel? Can it match the spectacle of Richard Burton puffing in his combat fatigues or Roger Moore looking cool while chewing on a cheroot?

The film follows the same set up as the original, with an evil conglomerate, this time a media one, trying to secure a mercenary for their outlandish mission. They ask Edward Fox, who is the brother of the now late Richard Burton from the first film but he tells them to bugger off. He does however put them in touch with Scott Glenn whom we’ve already witnessed wrestling with men in a public toilet. No, not like that.

They take him without a look at his credentials and advise he can have all the cash he wants if he can deliver them the 90 year old Rudolph Hess who is languishing in Spandau prison in Berlin. They think the old man will have loads of secrets to spill that they can use in their media empire and possibly influence current political figures. They don’t seem to worry that he’s been in jail for 40 years and that most of his tales will involve prison soup and the price of snout.

Glenn heads off to Berlin and is soon joined by Barbara Carrera who, along with her brother, is the representative of the shady American backers. After touring the sights of Berlin and engaging with some of the local troublemakers the plan begins to take shape. As you’d no doubt guess it involves wearing stolen uniforms and engineering a kidnap after a faked medical emergency. As they’ve already got him in the cast they call in the previously reluctant Fox who for unexplained reason now thinks the plan is a goer.

Alas the two hour run time demands some padding so we get Stratford John’s laughable Arab fix it man and Patrick Stewart’s career worst Russian general. The also employ that bloke off casualty and some other hired guns to form their motley crew which they then train up in an old garage for five minutes.

Eventually the plan gets underway and using the cover of drunken football fans the snatch is on. Will they get away and get paid? Will Hess or rather Laurence Olivier survive the whole shoot and will we be able to understand why all these people keep getting shot in the head?

Although it shares a producer and one character name with the original this film is nothing more than a brazen attempt to secure some reflected glory. They also steal some musical cues and the ‘telescope’ end credits but apart from that this is a bog standard thriller with nothing to recommended it.

The plot is basic at best and although they try to mix it up with a few double crosses it just seems too contrived and confusing for its own good. There is a lot of waffle about the British wanting Hess out so they can shift the Russians but there is also a local gang boss who does his own kidnappings and bad line in acting to keep things the wrong side of convoluted.

Scott Glenn has no charisma whatsoever and doesn’t convince as the rock hard leader of men. He manages to bed Carerra in the tamest of love scenes but he is so wooden he should be sprayed for Dutch Elm disease.  Fox is a bit better doing his usual ‘top ho’ English gent bit and he is a bit tasty with his rifle but in truth his whole character is an import from the far superior ‘The Day of the Jackal’. Carerra adds a touch of glamour but her acting is terrible especially when her brother gets his ticket stamped and she yells the place down, in an unconvincing matter.

The big action set piece was really botched with the Red Caps bumbling about and taking orders from Glenn’s obvious doppelganger. It was hard to work out what was happening and why the army hung around for five minutes to allow the switcheroo to take place - maybe the production was confused as to who was the real dead body - the stiff or poor old Larry Olivier who looked on his last legs.

The last scenes made a mockery of all that had gone before, with seismic character changes allowing a totally mystifying ending. All in all this was a shocker that rightfully remains in the shadow of its illustrious predecessor.

Best Bit : hmmm… ‘We’re drunk football supporters, hic!’
W Score 7/23

No.202 : What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)

What to Expect When You're Expecting at the IMDb

The title and premise should give you some clues but for the slow witted, like me, this is a total chick flick that will drain your will to live as it meanders through two hour’s of  feelings and sentimentality.

We meet a variety of couple in various situations who are either pregnant or trying for a baby. If you have turned off already you’re a smarter man than me! We open with a celebrity dance contest with reality show host Cameron Diaz winning the day with her partner, Mr Schu off ‘Glee’. The audience suspect they are sleeping together, speculation that is confirmed when Diaz pukes in the winner’s trophy - she’s up the duff!

Elsewhere photographer Jennifer Lopez is trying in vain to have a baby and instead plans to adopt from Ethiopia. In a familiar scene they try to clean up their act to impress the woman from the adoption agency, but don’t worry; she’s lovely.

We also get Elizabeth Banks as a baby guru having her first child with the dad being the son of Dennis Quaid who is a competitive race car driver who is also expecting twins with his young trophy wife. Down the cast list the young girl off ‘Up in the Air’ is pregnant after a one night stand and Chris Rock is running a dads’ baby walking group in the park.

So far, so dreadful, but don’t worry; we have minor traumas and growth coming our way too!

Of course I’m not the target audience for this kind of stuff but it was mawkish rubbish with nothing to say apart from a lot of twaddle about babies and bonding. There was a miscarriage that was glossed over quickly and a near death on the table giving birth, but for the most part it was high fiving, life affirming stuff that seemed an exercise in exploiting the mumsy set.

Of the couples I’d probably go with Quaid’s as best mainly because he was boorish and not tuned into the paternal vibe. OK he did have some growth with his son who faded in the shadow of his famous father, but Quaid came across as likeable whereas the son was just a wimp.

Most shameful was the once edgy comic Chris Rock who must have cringed with every schmaltzy line he excreted out. His plot strand was very thin with the union of new dads idea poorly formed and terribly executed.

Diaz and Banks were OK with Banks probably taking the laurels, as they were, after her rant about how crappy pregnancy was becoming that old movie staple; the internet sensation.

There was some overlap with Lopez’s photographer photographing Quaid’s wife and Quaid’s son being on Diaz’s weight loss show but these were perfunctory at best and added nothing to the mix which was as weak as school dance orange drink.

Overall this was probably a success in what it intended itself to be. There was never going to be a shoot out or a car chase but they might have offered something for the dedicated ‘W’ movie reviewer. OK Cameron Diaz in a red sequined bikini but that was it.

Best Bit : Diaz shakes it   7/23

No.197 : Wholly Moses (1980)

Wholly Moses at the IMDb

Dudley Moore stars in this alleged religious comedy that boasts a few star cameos but lacks any laughs whatsoever.

We open with a bus tour of the Holy Land with Moore recovering from recent heartbreak. He talks to a girl and helps find her hat when it blows off. Needless to say it blows into a cave and they find a lost gospel - ‘The Book of Herschel’. As luck would have it Moore is an expert in ancient languages and as he reads the script we dissolve into the past where his words are acted out. All that in the first five minutes - we’re not talking a bout a slow burning labyrinth plot here!

The first bible tale to be lampooned is a lift from ‘Life of Brian’ with Hershel almost having the life that Moses had. As baby Moses is set adrift on his boat made from reeds another child is similarly dispatched. While Moses is found by a princess Hershel is brought up by a family nearby with his own father acting a a slave so he can keep watch. Not surprisingly the baby grows up to be Dudley Moore - the man has range! - and he haplessly finds his way up the social order. In one massively familiar scene a group of conspirators say ‘we need a real idiot to do the job’ just as Moore sticks his head through the curtains. We all saw that one coming! I think it was even old in biblical times!

What follows are risible scenes where Moore, as the Royal Astronomer, talks at length with a jive talking pharaoh who for some reason is a black teenager. He also acts as food tester but sadly the poison is not present. He later survives a massive battle with literally several troops on either side. The disconnected scenes are interlinked by Moore’s tiresome narration and the whole enterprise seems solely geared to shoehorning in as many B list celebrities as possible - oh look there’s Dom Deluise.

Wee Dud is then cast out into the desert and soon gets a job as a shepherd. He meets a beautiful girl - it’s her from the bus! - and is annoyed at having to keep up with the Moseses. His big chance comes when he stumbles across Moses getting his instructions from the burning bush and thinks the mission is for him. He sets off to Egypt to free the slaves and starts to believe he can perform miracles due to other unrelated events such as thinking he can part waters due to a dam being built upstream. If it started bad it gets worse as the curing of the unwilling beggar from ‘Life of Brian’ is performed in full.

As Dud nears the end of the ancient script you have to wonder why his agent didn’t throw the movie version straight in the bin. It’s not just that it totally unoriginal and devoid of any wit or merit it’s just so lazy and obvious that it’d be an insult to an ‘The Only Way is Essex’ viewer. Dudley has never laid claim to being a great actor but he’s basically just himself in both timelines. This can be funny if it’s a big and engaging personality but he’s not funny and can’t carry a small bucket never mind the whole film.

The script is appalling with loads of bible references piled up alongside jokes on the ass = bottom scale of funniness. The production values are also poor with California ‘doubling’ for the Holy Land. This is done with a couple of matte paintings and some costumes that look like they’ll be due back at the fancy dress shop by 5pm.

As you may have gathered ‘Wholly Moses’ was a god-awful mess and perhaps God should have rested on the day this was excreted out too. © Spinal tap.

Best Bit : The orgy of soddom was remarkably tame but we’ll take what we can get. 7/21

No.192 : Witness to the Mob (1998)

Witness to the Mob at the IMDb

 More TV movie true crime now as the merit free life story of  mob underling Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano gets the ‘Goodfellas-lite’ treatment.

We open in the present day as the orange jump-suited Sammy considers his life having spent the last decade behind bars. In a familiar narrative style we dissolve back to his youth and chart his progress through the ranks of the New York mafia. We occasionally revisit Sammy in the present day and we are treated to his voice-over throughout as he makes obvious observations and ridiculous statements to justify his worthless existence.

The flashback opens with Sammy’s hair a few shades darker, but he’s still as fat. He’s hanging about with Christopher out of ‘The Sopranos’ and trying to make an impression on the local boss. He gets some tips from the Library Detective off ‘Seinfeld’ and carries out a blood free hit on a man sitting in the front of his car. The film’s TV movie credentials are clear from the off when the hit is devoid of blood and no one says ‘motherfucker’.

Soon Sammy has a girlfriend whom he impresses by re-enacting several scenes from ‘Goodfellas’ - Bobby Vincent that ain’t! In fact the whole film from its ‘rise and fall’ story-line to the narrative device of the flashback and voice-over is lifted wholesale from that much better film and although we are dealing with gangsters here, you’d have thought they’d have shown some decency and mix stuff up just a little bit, but they don’t.

The excuse would no doubt be that this is a true story and sure enough Tom Sizemore shows up as John Gotti. Our man soon ingratiates himself with the Teflon Don and they knock off the ageing boss, possibly because he’s the worst actor you’ve ever seen. Our man is number three in the mob now, wait number two; Frank off ‘The Sopranos’ has just been blown up. Soon our mans ascent to grace reaches its pinnacle and things start heading south - what mistake will land him in prison and will his life expectancy on release be equal to that of a chocolate éclair at a Weight Watchers meeting?

This was a really awful offering that has nothing to recommend it. It deals with gangsters but has no swearing, sex or real violence - why didn’t they do a Teletubbies film if they were so scared of offending people? In truth there was one splash of blood but that was a bucket full thrown over a jukebox when someone got shot in the head - very convincing.

The main trouble was the characters and the acting. There wasn’t a sympathetic person on show and although despicable people can be entertaining they won’t be with acting this bad. The cast was all the usual Italian American suspects with the role call looking like a try out for ‘The Sopranos’ which started the next year.

The lead played by Nicholas Turturro  was a strange casting choice as he’s a small fat man devoid of acting talent. Maybe this was a good match with the real life Sammy but some dramatic licence should clearly have been granted. Even familiar turns like Paulie walnuts and Frank from ‘The Sopranos’ were on poor form with Paulie especially poor on witnessing a hit - ‘Mamma Mia!’.

The production values were poor with one car explosion the extent of the budget. As the film ended I had no interest in the lives portrayed and it’s not because these were evil men; just flat and faceless ones.

Best Bit : Oh good the ‘made man’ scene he’s getting it …what?!
W Score 7/23

No.173 : War of the Dead (2011)

War of the Dead at the IMDb

When the two most recognisable faces in a production are refugees from ‘The Bill’ you could be forgiven for assuming the result may not be at the high end of the quality scale. We at the ‘W’ blog would never make such an assumption, and will scrutinise each detail closely before declaring the film ‘shit‘.

Well it is. The IMDb summary suggests it was filmed in 2008 but hung about like a rotting zombie for two years before being excreted by the studio. Should they have bothered? Let’s see…

The film is set in the Second World War. We get the unsettling camera and industrial lighting that screams either disorientation or ‘we can’t afford a tripod’. A group of Russian soldiers are being led down a corridor in an underground base. There is a confusing bit of gunplay but eventually one Russian makes it to the door where he is met by some men in lab coats. Maybe they had arrived to cart the producer off in a small white van - it isn’t clear.

Anyway, they hook the Russian up to some apparatus and after a while his eyes go black, which signifies they found the contact lenses in time. We then cut to a caption - everything on a caption must be true - which states the Germans are doing experiments on Russians to stop death or something and Finnish and American soldiers are charged with having a look. It’s not clear why the Americans are involved but I’m guessing they had the uniforms and the guy from ‘The Bill’ couldn’t do a Finnish accent.

The unit makes its way towards the not so secret bunker and encounters some heavy resistance. This cuts the bill for extras drastically and we are left with half a dozen or so soldiers against the Nazi/Commie zombie army. The guys make some headway and capture a young Russian in a World war One trench set that they forgot to clear away after another, probably better, film was shot.

The Russian tells them some exposition stuff and they get to a small cottage that has a convenient big car - right in the woods too - fancy that. Anyway lots of zombified troops appear. I say lots, but it’s about 5. Luckily they don’t stay dead so they keep popping up which saves on extras and on continuity as they don’t have to worry about where the bodies should be. After a few skirmishes the guys make good use of the props budget and drive about in the big car for a while as some zombies jump on and off it. It literally travels at 5mph and one guys says ‘my granny could walk faster than this’ - quite.

Things progress slowly but after a fallen comrade reappears as a zombie and they discover the old ‘headshot’ rule the guys finally arrive at the bunker. Can they stop the source and waste the stockpile of the Nazi zombies? Will there be enough time for some noble sacrifice and heartbreaking loss? Can those same five extras get up once more before the CGI planes begin their bombing run? Of course they can!

I can safely say that you’d be hard pushed to find a worse film than ‘War of the Dead’ even in the cluttered zombie genre. Of course every cliché is carefully mined and exploited, you expect that, but this effort goes the extra mile in terms of hammy acting and stilted dialogue.

These failures can be forgiven if you get some kick ass action, but alas no - these must be the bluntest toothed zombies ever - but at least they are persistent, those uniforms must have looked like sieves by the time they were returned to the costumers.

The dreadful acting was cringeworthy stuff with the ‘American’ the worst of a terrible pile. Every face was a grimace and every line spat out like he had piles. The villains, as they were, were poor with some proto-Nemesises ripped straight off from ‘Resident Evil’ the only splash of colour. They were rubbish too - who ever heard of a super powered zombie losing a fist fight?

Even the basics like the uniforms and gun drills were shoddy- I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure you don’t fire a sub-machine gun holding the magazine, side on, gangsta style.

Anyway to split hairs is to suggest that the film may have treaded a line between piss-poor and passable but it didn’t, it was crap.

THE Tag Line - This Film is Rubbish, This Much is True  7/23

No. 126 : Wrongfully Accused (1998)

Wrongfully Accused at the IMDb

This film's uninspiring moniker kept it off my radar somewhat and it was only after half an hour that I managed to convince myself I hadn’t seen it before. Familiarity can be a problem with films like this as you can get confused between the parody and the films that it lampoons - especially if the laughs are so thin that you have to check that you are indeed watching the comedy version.

What you have is a slapstick parody of adventure films in the vein of ‘Spy Hard’ and ‘Airplane’. Unfortunately the chosen genre is somewhat vague to you get films like ‘Field of Dreams’ getting a nod along side ‘Braveheart’. Being a movie fan I think I got most of them but some were so obscure and fleeting you have to wonder if they were intentional or if someone in a baseball uniform walking into some corn counts as a parody, homage or free usage of the costume box.

The film roughly follows the plot of ‘The Fugitive’ with ancient white haired gag man Leslie Neilson taking on the Harrison Ford role. He is a successful violinist and is framed for the murder of Michael York who seems to be doing his Basil Exposition routine again. Neilson, who is having an affair with the victim’s wife, is caught at the murder scene after being knocked out by a one armed, legged and eyed assassin.

After a speedy trial he manages to escape when the train transporting him crashes. He gets away and there is a funny sequence where the train keeps chasing him through the woods. Alas this is one of the few giggles and the remainder of the film concerns Neilson’s attempts to clear his name while trying to cram in as many movie references as possible, whether they are relevant and funny or not.

Films like this were well by their sell by date even in 1998 when this was made. Of course they are still churned out with crap like ‘Superhero Movie’ still doing the business. I tittered perhaps twice throughout a number easily surpassed by the cringe worthy moments where a ‘clever’ movie parody was effortlessly slotted in - crop duster plane from ‘North By North West’ anyone? Thought not.

As mentioned the references were all over the place with ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ seemingly fitting the title’s broad remit as well as ‘Clear and Present Danger’. The laughs expected here are ones of familiarity, because nothing is added to liven things up. It’s basically - 'look what we did, that’s from another film you know’.

Most of the comedy from the film was of the low brow variety with people kicked in the nuts and banged on the head on a regular basis. We also get numerous prop gags and familiar sexual situations gone wrong such as Neilson writhing with pleasure as a lady goes down on him only for her to tie his shoe laces. It’s clearly aimed at a juvenile audience and that kinda makes most of the movie references redundant. You could argue it’s for all the family but only if your family are a bunch of morons.

The cast are pretty dreadful with Neilson doing his now routine deadpan idiot shtick while those around him get bashed about Laurel and hardy style. It is a mercifully short 80 minutes or so and although you will see more offensive or poorly made stuff, you’d need to go a long way to see anything less funny or more pointless.

Best Bit : Stalker Train
‘W’ Score : 7/23

No. 125 : West Side Story (1961)

West Side Story at the IMDb

Here’s possibly the most successful ‘W’ film of all, a winner of 10 Oscars including Best Picture as well as a healthy box office take. Doesn’t mean it’ll appeal to everyone though and I for one thought it was a dreadful way to spend two and a half hours. In truth I watched an hour and then skipped through to the end. When they drummed up for yet another round of ‘Tonight’ I decided that was enough for me.

The film tells the tale of Romeo and Juliet with the action transported to New York’s West Side. The white Jets and Puerto Rican Sharks fight an ongoing tough war that involves paint, rotten vegetables and lots of high kicking, ballet style. The film lasts an age despite it’s thin plot as every scene is dragged on forever with a full 10 minutes elapsing before anything of note is said.

The gangs seem to be forever destined to be at loggerheads after a get to know you dance hosted by Gomez Addams goes predictable wrong. There is hope however when a Jets boy falls for a Sharks girl, the oft sung about Maria. Obviously the brothers of the girl don’t like the romance and further dance heavy confrontations follow. As the film nears its weary climax we worry that it’ll take a tragedy to show the youths the error of their ways.

I’m not against musicals as such and regard films like ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and ‘The Blues Brothers’ as firm favourites. What these have that West Side Story lacks is a bit of edge and humour. What we have here is a bunch of dancers prancing around trying, and failing, to look tough. They burst into song at every moment with most of them sounding like random words from a script rather than a carefully crafted ditty. There are exceptions of course with ‘America’ and ‘I Feel Pretty’ at least memorable if hardly iPod material.

The cast certainly don’t convince with Natalie Wood the least believable Puerto Rican I could imagine. Her lover Tony , who has left the Jets, tries to shake off the legacy and re-educate his pals but alas his plans to meddle in the rumble signal the ending from a long way off.

Obviously I’m not the target audience and I’m sure John Barrowman and my Mum would love an afternoon in watching this, but I honestly fail to see the appeal. Men in tight pants jumping around and yelling a lot of rubbish is all well and good if you like that sort of thing but I don’t.

Best Bit : Na na na na na America
‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No. 118 : What’s New Pussycat? (1965)

What's New Pussycat? at the IMDb

Here’s a film that looks a cracker but turns out to be a lot of self indulgent twaddle. We open with Peter Sellers running about doing a funny German accent and acting all manic. Not promising. We learn that he’s a psychologist and his next patient is Peter O’Toole who has a messy love life.

Peter’s girlfriend wants to settle down and, although he loves her, he can’t resist the allure of all the ladies. He works with gaggles of beautiful woman as an editor on a Paris fashion magazine and can’t help himself from sampling the goods, so to speak. Sellers is in no state to offer advice due to his own domestic problems and resolves to follow his patient to get a low down on his techniques.

Elsewhere Woody Allen is in town, playing himself as usual, this time masquerading as a dresser at a strip show. “20 Francs a week isn’t much but it’s all I can afford to pay” he muses in one of the better lines. As we tour Peter’s hedonistic life we start to lose all empathy for him as he seems a right moaning git - if it’s so bad I’ll swap places right now!

The film is not so much about his journey of self discovery rather than a decadent trip through the lives of the rich and famous. This empty experience is punctured somewhat by the group therapy sessions, but as all the other patients are fat and ugly we are encouraged not to care about them and laugh at their unattractiveness.

Peppered throughout the film are various star turns such as Richard Burton and Ursula Andress, cashing in on her Bond fame once again, but these are pretty pointless and add only to the film’s air of fantasy and vapidness. It may be a sixties thing, and it may be great with pots of drugs on hand, but for me Sellers and O’Toole talking a lot of bollocks while pulling birds and wearing velvet suits isn’t an ideal viewing experience.

No real effort is made at redemption and no insights are offered into the human condition. Instead we get protracted scenes of fashionable lovelies fawning over O’Toole and telling him he’s beautiful. Nice work if you can get it, but it’s tiresome from the off and it just trails off from there.

Much of the dialogue is screamed out with even the lowest volume setting unbearable. Add to this a druggy hippy soundtrack and you get a downright unpleasant experience that I gave up on after an hour. I will never know if Peter and Peter found true love and happiness, but frankly I couldn’t care less

Best Bit : Sexy lady fantasy
‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No.100 : What Women Want (2000)

What Women Want at the IMDb

Mel Gibson stars in this high concept chick flick during which he learns about himself and becomes a better person. Sounds terrible? Well, that’s because it is.

Mel plays Nick (the prick) Marshall a self loving advertising executive who treats people, including his teenage daughter, shabbily. He thinks he’s the bee’s knees but in reality he’s a total ass and heading for a fall.

He specialises in T & A adverts and is confident of a promotion being offered by his slimy boss, Alan Alda. His dreams are shattered however when a supposedly bitchy copywriter played by Helen Hunt is hired instead to try and capture some of the female advertising money that Mel’s sexist campaigns have scared away. Hunt charges all the copywriters to come up with slogans for a load of lady products and gives them samples to take home. Reluctant to get involved at first Mel soon gets in the spirit of things after a few drinks and is soon wearing tights and polishing his nails. Things go further downhill however when he’s caught cross dressing by his daughter and her older boyfriend, and even more so when he falls into the bath with a hair-dryer.

As movie law dictates he isn't electrocuted but instead gifted with the power to hear women’s inner thoughts. Obviously he doesn't believe this is happening and various non-hilarious situations ensue as Mel picks up some feminine remarks. He soon heads for therapy with Bette Midler and once convinced she persuades him to use the gift for the benefit of mankind. Mel being a dick eventually realises the possibilities and utilises his skill to get foxy waitress Marisa Tomei into bed and to steal the best ideas from Hunt and other ad people.

As he works with Hunt he slowly grows to like her and begins to see her and a dowdy office clerk as real people with real feelings. With a large Nike account up for grabs and his daughter’s ill advised date to the prom looming, Mel has to judge the best way to use his skill and to what end.

This is a really ghastly film with the redemption of Gibson’s character both unwelcome and unbelievable. The opening scenes are obviously designed to show that he’s a shallow uncaring swine but he just comes across as a total prick in a cavalcade of endless, self indulgent scenes where he dances around his apartment to Frank Sinatra and generates piles of compliments about his blue eyes and ‘nice ass’ from the minds of the ladies he encounters. To be fair he gets a few negative ones too but there are nothing about Mel, only his character’s aftershave or jokes.

The concept of ‘Mel Gibson reads women’s minds’ is pretty thin to sustain a full 90 minute film so it beggars belief that this trundles on for a bum numbing 126. The padding is relentless with the daughter subplot totally unnecessary as was the treatment of Tomei’s obviously mental character who gets humped and dumped with no pay off coming her way except Mel claiming to be gay. Thanks that’ll help my low self esteem! Another subplot involved Judy Greer’s depressed file clerk who is talked out of suicide by Mel giving her a dream job. Yeah, that’ll address all those mental and psychological issues, thanks again!

The love story aspect is the worst of the bunch with there being not a scintilla of chemistry between the two leads. Hunt’s ballsy high flyer is a travesty to woman with her going all goo-goo eyed over Gibson almost immediately and professing her love for him after one kiss. Unbelievably Mel reveals all and after some terrible feigned outrage she takes him back to live happy ever after! Deceitful tools take note!

The central device is never really explained although we’re given a clue towards the end when an old lady gives him a funny look. We know she must have special powers seeing as she’s oriental and all! All in all this is a bloated, unfunny mess which, while appealing to a certain brand of needy women, will be seen as a shallow piece of patronising garbage by everyone else.

Best Bit : Marisa’s bed wear.

‘W’ Rating : 7/23

No.73 : Walk All Over Me (2007)

Walk All Over Me at the IMDb


Truck stop assistant Alberta is a bit ditzy and accident prone as well. When she loses her boyfriend’s cash and gets him beaten up she decides to make a run for it rather than face the consequences. She ends up in Vancouver and looks up her childhood baby sitter who seems to be doing well for herself. After explaining the house rules she lets Alberta stay, but the guest is somewhat surprised to see a naked man cleaning the floor.


Alberta’s friend, Celene, makes her living as a dominatrix and is so successful that men have to send audition videos to get on her list. Alberta quickly settles in and gets a job at the local supermarket. She is however still clumsy and her lack of confidence makes her a target of losers and weirdoes alike. Looking to cheer herself up she tries on some of Celene’s sexy costumes but manages to ruin a dapper Russian army outfit that cost $800.

Determined to pay her friend back she roots through the audition tapes and takes on her friend’s persona to make some money. Things don’t go well at first with her initial client who was a bit too keen on being a dog in public. She is persuaded to go home with him after being tempted by the piles of cash that he claims he’s won at poker but as you‘d guess there is more to him than meets the eye.

Unfortunately for all concerned the money belongs to some local gangsters and they are keen to recover their $500,000. Alberta manages to get away with $20,000 but the crooks soon come calling when they find Celene’s business card and are understandably disbelieving when she says she doesn’t know where the rest of the money is. The gangsters kidnap Celene and the doggy man and demand that Alberta recovers their cash in return for the hostages’ safety. Can she get the dough to save the day and will the naked cleaner be of some assistance?

I didn’t really like this film much. You get the idea that it’s meant to be daring and thrilling but for the most part it’s dull and predictable. The sight of men in bondage gear might have shocked 20 years ago but now it all seems a bit passé. For a sexy film there is no nudity, apart from a couple of saggy arses, but to be fair the lead actress Leelee Sobieski has a planet engulfing cleavage - which is nice.

She is a funny looking girl, a bit like a tubbier Helen Hunt, to be holding the film together and I didn’t really buy her change from down trodden woman to kick ass dominatrix. All the men as you’d expect are pathetic from the clients to the bad guys, the leader of which was shown to be a loser as he was wearing a wig.

I found towards the end that I didn’t really care who lived or died or who got the money despite investing 100 minutes of my life in the journey. The title is a kind of pun with the downtrodden woman turning the tables but as far as I can see the only thing crushed underfoot was any wit or originality in the script.

Best Bit : Some pretty decent costume work there

‘W’ rating 7/23

No.47 : Wild Roomies (2004)

Wild Roomies at the IMDb

Reno is having a hard time of it - he has a crappy job and comes home to find his roommate getting friendly with his girlfriend. He resolves never to have roommates again, but is soon on the hunt for more when he inherits a house and its mortgage in L.A. After screening out the obvious undesirables, Reno and his new girl choose a guy and a girl who seem great but are also really hot.

Suspicions soon fester, along with leftover food in the fridge, as the new set up begins to drive a wedge between the couple. When Reno’s business idea is stolen he heads back to Texas for a few days leaving his three roommates home alone - can they all behave, and what will be learned from the experience?



This was a pretty forgettable film with nothing really happening for the large part. It was like an episode of ‘Melrose Place’ with lots of beautiful people arguing and making up for the full running time of the film.

It starts badly with Reno losing his crummy job only to beat up his manager to the cheers of his co-workers. But no, it’s that tired old cliché of the revenge fantasy, from which he is awoken to his surprise, but certainly not ours. Things don’t improve when he gets left a large house and car in an Uncle’s video will. You only really get video wills in the movies, and this device to put our man back in the housing market was both lazy and clumsy.

The sequence of potential roommates being interviewed was stolen in its entirety from ‘Shallow Grave’, except they left out the laughs, decent acting and the ginger one from ‘Taggart’.

The sub plot about Reno designing a bag that look like a corn dog was undeveloped and uninteresting and the sexual tension between the leads was non-existent. The big surprise towards the end was very poor and nothing that had gone before it gave it any credibility whatsoever. I’ve no idea what we were supposed to learn from this film but ‘all women are sluts’ seemed to be the only message.

As you can probably guess I wasn’t a fan of ‘Wild Roomies’, a film originally called ‘Roomies’. No doubt the addition of the ‘Wild’ and suggestive cover will make for a few more rentals, but it is essentially the polishing of a turd. The name change did however allow it on this list, so well done for that at least!

Best Bit : A few saucy ladies kept me off the FF button.

‘W’ Score 7/23