TheRetroCritic

Mad genius Stephen Chow has a ball in this send-up of cooking contests and turns Iron Chef into a live-action Tex Avery cartoon complete with "pissing beef balls", Shaolin monks and random spontaneous violence. Yes the story is pretty predictable: a Simon Cowell-style harsh TV critic/chef loses everything and goes back to basics to try and get back to being the titular god of cookery. That said, the film is self-aware and pokes fun at every rags-to-riches movie cliché any chance it gets. The humour is pretty childish throughout and the whole thing is undeniably very silly but it's the kind of silliness that's so out-there (think Jackie Chan meets Bugs Bunny) it's just too much fun to dislike. Visually, Chow throws everything at us from ingredients to...clothes (yes, clothes can self-combust in this film) and brings us a vast array of, shall we say, colourful characters? You've got a chubby brown-noser ready to defecate outside elevators at the drop of a

Drive Angry probably boasts THE best storyline of the year so far: Nicolas Cage breaks out of Hell in a car. I'll repeat that: breaks out of HELL, in a CAR. This is gonna be sweeeeet! The trailers promised extreme Grindhouse-style silliness the likes of which Robert Rodriguez ( Planet Ter ror, Machete ) would be proud of with Nic Cage at his wackiest, exciting (read: ridiculous) action scenes and plenty of facepalm-inducing dialogs. Alas, you'll need to lower your expectations just a little if you are to truly enjoy Drive Angry. There was a great film in there somewhere (great as in so bad it's good, of course) but, unfortunately, something went wrong along the way. For one thing, Cage is at his most soporific here and goes for monotone swagger rather than Bad Lieutenant -type goofiness. Which is not to say he doesn't entertain: seeing the guy fully dressed having sex whilst blasting the bad guys with a giant gun, standing randomly staring at fire or saying the wo

And you thought John Waters had matured...shame on you. Not since Pink Flamingos has such absurd silliness been put to film in such an anarchic way. What is this 2004 effort like? Lets see, take the disturbing aspect of David Cronenberg's Crash : the idea of getting hurt and henceforth being sexually liberated in some way. Then add the colourful, over-romanticised look of Chocolat . Ok? Got that? Right, now ejaculate on it and you've got yourself A Dirty Shame: a film so filthy it's...filthy. Waters has a talent for getting OTT, ridiculous, disgusting characters to say the dumbest but funniest lines. One example would be: "Isn't it weird that all the men in this neighbourhood have penises?" or of course: "Lets go SEXING!". The film itself is directed in a way that's almost trippy and the whole thing builds up to some of the most entertaining and mind-blowing nonsense you're likely to see. Trees turning into orifices, Davi

It's Leprechaun time again as we get dangerously close to the much talked-about "space" one. Here though, the setting is most definitely Earth, Las Vegas to be precise, and our favourite evil green bastard is once again after his beloved shilling. You can probably guess the entire film from the first couple of scenes with the usual combination of bad puns, limericks, boobs, blood and OTT gore thrown in. Nothing is really added to the franchise with this third instalment except perhaps even more silliness. Yes. That's possible. Unfortunately, out of the 5 million jokes we're given about 5 work and there are quite a few tumbleweeds whenever one of them fails. That said, Leprechaun 3 still manages to be entertaining enough and the jokes that do work, although they don't make any rational sense anywhere in this solar system, are actually pretty brilliant. One sequence involves the leprechaun giving someone a dysfunctional sex robot which of course malfuncti

Based on the 1932 film, Boudu is also not unlike 80's Bette Midler/Richard Dreyfuss effort Down and Out in Beverly Hills which was also about a charming homeless man who is recued from certain death and given a room in a well-off couple's home. Interestingly Nolte played the Depardieu role in Three Fugitives (a US remake of Les Fugitifs ) and here Depardieu plays the Nolte role. I'm not sure what this all means but it FEELS significant somehow... (It's not) Boudu is directed by and stars French comedy veteran Gerard Jugnot and the film does feel like the kind of farce he would have done in the 80's, unfortunately the film was made in 2005 after about a million comedies were made with pretty much exactly the same story/structure/jokes. Better late than never? Not in this case. This is really the film's main flaw: it's about 20 years too late. And to be honest, even back then it would have been a bit naff. Acting-wise, everyone does their best but D

Not many films can boast having Jennifer Aniston hitting a killer leprechaun repeatedly with a stick, but I'm just glad at least one does! Back in the days when Freddy, Jason, Gremlins, Trolls, Critters and about a million other serial killing monsters were freely roaming the Earth, turning every holiday into death-traps, the idea of an evil leprechaun haunting St Patrick's Day, fighting for gold felt pretty inevitable. Warwick Davis has a ball as the titular Irish legend, unfortunately his Joker-style hammy shenanigans which include pogo-sticking someone to death, driving tiny vehicles, laughing and "punning" the entire time make the film kinda hard to take seriously-ish as a horror film. Of course, it's all meant to be some good, clean, silly fun but the film isn't quite funny or scary enough to qualify as either a good comedy or a good horror. Aniston does her best to deliver such quality lines as "That was no f***ing bear!" and, for the mo

Robert Pattinson sparkles in this inexplicably hugely popular first outing of the Mormon Sexless Teen Vamp Saga...sorry, I meant Twilight . The film starts promisingly in a little town where we meet Bella (a whiny Kristen Stewart), her dad and her new life as the new girl in high school. The one thing the film actually has going for it, to be fair, is the way it portrays small town ennui so enjoy this first twenty minutes as you will sorely miss them. And then the vampires come in (lol), strolling in like Purity Ring-wearing badasses into the school canteen looking not-at-all suspiciously pale and blinking with their not-at-all strange yellow eyes. Pattinson's hair defies gravity and he always looks like he's lost a small olive and he's trying to figure out where he might have dropped it. He has tantrums about the perils of biology class and takes 5 days off school because his new lab partner smells like putrid virginity. In a highly perplexing scene, both meet for

  Slightly disappointing, Hell Comes to Frogtown not only had THE best title (Hell is the main character's name) but also THE best premise. The result is definitely a fun ride but there's a lot of filler and the plot never becomes quite as glorious as the title suggested. This is one of those silly cult 80's movies which could actually benefit from a (CGI free, please) remake. Unfortunately Robert Rodriguez can't do everything. But as it stands, the froggy adventures of badass stud Sam Hell are only humorous, not quite genius. Shame. Roddy Piper, fresh from John Carpenter's excellent They Live , is a great sport here as he is sent to Frogtown to impregnate pretty much any human women he can find. The whole time he is forced to wear metal briefs with a small flap to allow...access. A lot of fun but the version in your head is probably way better.   

With a film called Invisible Dad, you know you're in for something special. Director Fred Olen Ray liked his "Invisible" formula so much he even made a carbon copy of this film called Invisible Mom . I sure hope he was paid for both, poor sod. Anyway, Invisible Dad sees some annoying kid finding a wishing machine and with it making idiotic wishes including making his dad disappear. HILARITY ensues as the Dad waits for his computer-savvy son to fix the machine which he destroyed SECONDS after his dad told him to do that. Ok, I think I need to address this specifically because it drove me mad. Mad I tells ya. So you've got a wishing machine. You can wish for ANYTHING. Your dad walks in, finds this out, doesn't bat an eye at your discovery (nothing wrong heeeere) and just tells you to destroy the machine before leaving to go take a shit. What do you do? Oh sure you could do what your dad says (fail), OR you could wish to go back in time to before

As if Invisible Dad wasn't punishment enough, here we have the considerably worse (it IS possible) alternative by Fred Olen Ray whom, I suppose, wanted to chill out on family fare after questionable efforts like Bad Girls From Mars or Scream Cream Hot Tub Party (porn). Olen Ray CLEARLY is the best choice of director for a kids movie :-S Anyway this time instead of a machine, it's a potion which turns the mum (the dog and a lizard) invisible. Whereas the special effects in Invisible Dad were pretty poor, they are nothing short of horrendous here. Of course you can see the strings in every shot and the green screening is a disaster. Plot holes are aplenty and actually too many to mention but the ending will have you tearing your hair off. So the dad gets fired from his lab and leaves the antidote back at work. Sure they could just get the invisible mum to walk in, pick up the antidote and leave but NOOOOOOO, instead the dad and the son try to break into the