Stinker Madness - The Bad Movie Podcast

There’s a great movie hiding somewhere inside The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai—but you’ll need a map, a microscope, and probably a flux capacitor to find it. Despite its gloriously weird premise and a cast that includes Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, and Christopher Lloyd, the film feels like the cinematic equivalent of someone dumping every genre into a blender and forgetting to hit “mix.” What could have been a clever cult adventure ends up as a directionless mishmash that mistakes confusion for complexity. The biggest sin here isn’t that the film is weird—it’s that it’s aimlessly weird. One moment it’s a rock ’n’ roll adventure, the next it’s a dimension-hopping sci-fi, and then suddenly it’s a love story or a satire. The problem is it never commits to any of those identities long enough for the audience to care. Every cool idea is buried under three others that go nowhere, leaving the viewer dazed rather than dazzled. And while the cast is stacked with talent, even they can’t bring focus to the chaos. Weller plays Buckaroo like a man who just read the script five minutes before filming, while Lithgow chews scenery in a way that’s entertaining only because nothing else is. The movie keeps hinting at depth—a sprawling universe, quirky characters, offbeat humor—but it never follows through. It’s as if someone wrote ten beginnings and forgot to write an ending. At the end of the day, Buckaroo Banzai isn’t strange enough to be a great cult film and not coherent enough to be a good one. It’s a cinematic shrug—full of potential, short on payoff, and surprisingly dull for something that promises interdimensional adventure. A “so bad it’s good” movie at least makes you laugh; this one just makes you wish it would pick a lane and go somewhere—anywhere—interesting.

“Cabin Pressure” (2003) is the cinematic equivalent of being stuck on the tarmac forever with a dying paperback and a screaming air vent. It’s not just dull; it’s aggressively, proudly dull—an unviewable mess that mistakes droning cockpit chatter and recycled stock footage for suspense. If turbulence were interesting, this movie would still find a way to taxi around it. From the opening minutes, the film announces its priorities: beige sets, beige lighting, beige characters speaking in acronyms about systems we never see break in any satisfying way. Scenes repeat like safety demonstrations—pointless, bloodless, and performed by people who look like they’ve already mentally clocked out of the shift. The “action” is mostly cross-cutting between bored faces and a model plane that’s never given a convincing sense of scale, speed, or danger. You can practically hear the temp track begging to be replaced by something—anything—with a pulse. The script is a wasteland of clichés and filler, the kind of movie where every problem is solved by the next line of dialogue rather than an actual set piece. No character has an arc; they have altitudes. Every attempt at ratcheting tension stalls into holding patterns: more radio chatter, more hollow commands, more reaction shots that mistake blinking for acting. Even the inevitable “hero moment” feels perfunctory, like someone looked at their watch and said, “Guess we should land this thing.” For Stinker Madness seekers, there’s no campy payoff here—just the slow, oxygen-starved fade of a production that never gets off the ground. “So bad it’s good” requires swagger, accident, or at least a spectacular crash. “Cabin Pressure” offers none of that. It’s boredom at cruising altitude: a feature-length layover where the only emergency is keeping your eyes open.

If you ever needed a reminder that some remakes shouldn’t exist, 2025’s War of the Worlds delivers it in spades. This is not just a bad movie—it’s the kind of cinematic faceplant that makes you wonder how anyone signed off on it. The acting is flat-out terrible, with Ice Cube headlining in a role that feels less like a performance and more like someone wandered onto set after being told he was shooting a different movie. The whole thing reeks of miscasting, misdirection, and missed opportunities. The real insult, though, is how aggressively this film relies on the “Idiot Plot”, a story that only moves forward because every single character makes the dumbest possible choice at every possible moment. Characters stand around waiting to get vaporized, make suicidal detours for no reason, and never once act like actual human beings dealing with an alien apocalypse. It’s not suspenseful, it’s not dramatic—it’s just aggravating to sit through. Visually and tonally, the film is stuck in a post-COVID hangover haze. The world feels small, tired, and drained of life, not in a gritty, artistic way, but in a “we shot this at our desks because we couldn't go outside” kind of way. The whole thing becomes an unintentional time capsule of how much the pandemic gutted creativity and ambition. Watching it is like staring into the ghost of an industry still trying to find its footing—and tripping over itself at every step. Ultimately, 2025’s War of the Worlds isn’t just a bad remake, it’s a sad reminder of what happens when you try to drag a classic into the present without talent, vision, or even basic competence. It’s noisy without being exciting, dumb without being fun, and joyless to the core. If the aliens really wanted to wipe us out, the fastest method would have been just screening this movie to humanity on loop.

Rutger Hauer and Gene Simmons squaring off sounds like the recipe for a wild cult classic, but Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987) ends up being more lukewarm than explosive. On paper, it’s a hybrid of gritty crime thriller and high-octane action flick, but the way those genres are handled here creates a constant tug-of-war. The crime elements are played too straight, dragging the pacing down, while the action beats aren’t stylish or kinetic enough to pull the film into popcorn territory. The end result sits uncomfortably in the middle—not pulpy enough for “so bad it’s good” status, but not sharp enough to be genuinely gripping. The script is one of the biggest culprits. Dialogue is so flat and mundane that Hauer, who could carry almost anything with his screen presence, is forced to chew scenery just to keep viewers from nodding off. You can practically see him straining to inject some life into lines that might as well have been lifted from a TV procedural. Meanwhile, Simmons as the villain brings his usual menace, but the writing undercuts him—his terrorist mastermind never feels threatening so much as silly, especially when the movie leans on his boneheaded schemes. That said, there are flashes of entertainment value if you squint hard enough. The movie indulges in one of the purest forms of “Idiot Plot” with the villain’s bizarre tactic of stuffing henchmen into barrels and honking a horn to unleash them like evil jack-in-the-boxes. It’s laughable, but at least it breaks up the monotony with something memorable. A few of the action sequences manage to land simply because Hauer sells the physicality, even if the staging is clunky. In the end, though, Wanted: Dead or Alive is a middling watch. It doesn’t embarrass itself enough to be a riot, nor does it have the chops to rise above its B-movie roots. Instead, it drifts in no-man’s-land—a serviceable but unremarkable relic of the late ’80s action-crime craze. Hauer fans might find a few scraps of fun, but anyone else will likely forget it by the next morning.

Fasten your seatbelts and stow your disbelief, because “Crash Landing” (2005) is Wynorski at cruising altitude—never aiming for art, but always ready to drop the landing gear on your funny bone. This is the kind of movie where gravity is optional, logic is banned from the cabin, and an entire cargo hold of explosions—many borrowed from other, possibly better, movies—are always just a nervous copilot away from erupting. If you’re a Wynorski fan, you know exactly what kind of clearance you’re in for: low, turbulent, and unapologetically entertaining. Antonio Sabato Jr. takes the stick as the world’s most reluctant action hero, trying to land a plane full of rich snotty college kids who end up in a kidnapping plot - over the Pacific Ocean. The acting, if you can call it that, ranges from “midday soap” to “community theater hostage situation.” The villains are less “Die Hard” and more “Weekend at Bernie’s,” bumbling their way through a hijacking plot so dumb you almost wish they’d succeed, just for the novelty. Special mention must go to the action set pieces—chiefly the endless parade of stock explosions and crash footage Frankensteined from the vaults of late-90s action movies. The airplane’s physics seem to exist in a separate reality where turbulence is whatever the camera operator can shake into frame, and gunfights happen in slow motion, possibly to save money on blanks. Add in the kind of CGI that would embarrass a 2001 Weather Channel forecast and you’ve got a recipe for a beautiful, cheesy mess. “Crash Landing” isn’t trying to fool anyone. It knows it’s ridiculous, it revels in being ridiculous, and, best of all, it delivers the kind of brainless, late-night fun that Wynorski made his name on. If you’re here for believable drama, you’ve boarded the wrong flight. But if you want to laugh, riff, and marvel at how many ways one movie can break the rules of both Hollywood and aerodynamics, this is your ticket to so-bad-it’s-good bliss.

Final Destination 2 is a symphony of stupidity—and I mean that as a compliment. It’s the kind of gloriously dumb horror sequel that knows exactly what it is, knows exactly what you came for, and wastes not a single moment trying to be anything more. This is 90 minutes of elaborate, Rube Goldberg murder machines soaked in blood and irony, gleefully cooked up for maximum squirm, scream, and laugh-out-loud shock value. It’s dumb, it’s low-brow, and it’s absolutely perfect at being both. The movie wastes no time setting the tone: a now-iconic highway pile-up that feels like someone gave Michael Bay a box of Hot Wheels and told him to film a snuff film. From there, the film doesn’t bother with character development beyond “this one’s kind of a jerk” and “that one’s probably doomed” because it has better things to do—namely, assembling ludicrous, overly complex death scenes like it’s competing in a sadistic engineering contest. The real star isn’t any of the humans, it’s the absurd chain reactions involving ladders, air bags, barbed wire, and a spaghetti of fate that could only exist in this series. What sets Final Destination 2 apart from other gore-porn offerings is its laser focus. It has a mission—deliver karmic, over-the-top death scenes wrapped in a thick coating of schlock—and it executes (pun intended). There’s no meandering subplot, no slow-burn psychological twists. It’s pure horror junk food: bloody, crunchy, and instantly satisfying. The movie also dials up the black comedy with every scene, letting the audience lean into the absurdity. It knows you’re laughing at it, and it wants you to laugh harder. And let’s talk karma—because this sequel adds an extra little spice to the kills. Everyone who gets got sort of had it coming, and the movie leans into this with a smug wink, giving the audience permission to cackle through the carnage. There’s something almost therapeutic about watching these characters try to outmaneuver Death while it patiently flexes its Final Destination “gotcha” muscles. It’s a greasy, gory good time, and unlike many horror sequels, it actually delivers what it promises—nothing more, but certainly nothing less.

Clive Barker’s Nightbreed is the cinematic equivalent of an overstuffed trunk at a goth rave—wildly imaginative, beautifully adorned, and totally incapable of deciding what it wants to be. Packed with jaw-dropping creature designs, luscious makeup work, and a thrilling Danny Elfman score that pulses with dark fantasy energy, Nightbreed sets the table for a full-course horror feast. Unfortunately, the meal comes out half-cooked thanks to tonal confusion and a protagonist who drifts through the story like a half-deflated pool float. Adapted from Barker’s novella Cabal, the film tells the story of Boone, a tormented man drawn to the subterranean world of Midian—a hidden city of monsters, outcasts, and literal night-breed. It wants to be a dark fairytale, a slasher, and a misunderstood superhero origin story all at once. And it kind of is... but not in a good way. Serial killer subplots rub awkwardly against messianic chosen-one arcs, while police shootouts interrupt poetic monster mythology. It’s like watching Hellraiser crash into X-Men, then take a wrong turn through Copland. Still, if you’re a fan of practical effects and monster lore, Nightbreed is a visual banquet. The creature makeup is top-tier—each Nightbreed has their own unique look and feel, some terrifying, some oddly beautiful, all memorable. The world of Midian is fascinating in concept, with real potential to launch a whole franchise of supernatural antiheroes (which it almost did). But anchoring all of this is Boone—a man so passive and charisma-deprived it’s a wonder the monsters didn’t just vote for someone else. His transformation from haunted man to reluctant savior is so subdued it barely registers, making it hard to care when the bullets start flying and Midian burns. Nightbreed deserves credit for aiming high, but its soaring ambitions are clipped by structural chaos and a limp lead. Watch it for the monsters, the mood, and the Elfman score—but don’t expect a satisfying story to match the spectacle.

If you’re in the mood for a mid-altitude crisis that checks every air disaster box without ever pushing the emergency slide of insanity, Rough Air: Danger on Flight 534 is the in-flight entertainment you never asked for—but might not mind watching with a bag of stale pretzels. This 2001 made-for-TV thriller stars Eric Roberts, who delivers one of the most aggressively disinterested performances in a movie about a plummeting death tube ever recorded. And yet, somehow, the film still finds a way to stay airborne as an enjoyable slice of light turbulence TV cheese. The plot is your standard disaster blueprint: a disgraced pilot (Roberts) is pulled out of aviation exile to take over a flight after the captain suffers a sudden heart attack mid-flight. Cue the typical cabin drama: nervous passengers, a weepy stewardess, shaky controls, a storm system on the radar, and the always-welcome fuel crisis. But instead of going full barrel roll into each disaster trope, the film kind of… brushes up against them. It starts to nosedive into clichés and then levels off just before impact, leaving you wondering if it’s building to something bigger. (Spoiler: it’s not.) What really sells the surreal mediocrity of the movie is Eric Roberts, who is not so much phoning it in as texting it in from a burner phone. His emotional range here is somewhere between “waiting at the DMV” and “mildly annoyed a vending machine ate his dollar.” The stakes may be life or death, but Roberts plays it like he’s watching a curling match and doesn’t know the rules. He’s not wooden. He’s laminated indifference. Still, there’s something kind of comforting about the movie’s half-hearted commitment to disaster movie glory. It never crashes and burns, nor does it soar. It just floats in the airspace of “pretty okay.” If you’re a fan of “Fly Hard” flicks—where troubled pilots, stormy skies, and panicked passengers do their dance—this is a breezy 86-minute ride. Just don’t expect to remember anything about it once you’ve deplaned.

This special episode we go through our favorite bad and cult movies from our 10th year in podcasting. We'll also give our favorite 3 movies from the year 2024.

Death appears completely unqualified to do its job. It should apply for a cabinet position in the government. Hey yo! "Final Destination" starts with an intriguing premise for an X-Files episode – a group of high school students narrowly escape a plane explosion thanks to a premonition, only to find themselves stalked by Death itself in the aftermath. It’s a clever setup, but the movie drags its feet getting to the fun part. The initial plane disaster sequence is drawn out like it’s gunning for an Oscar in tension building, but instead, it feels like a slow crawl through a TSA line. The characters spend far too much time brooding about fate and existential dread before the real fireworks begin. Once the film finally lets loose and the Rube Goldberg death traps start rolling, it hits a much better stride. Each subsequent demise becomes more absurd than the last, delivering the kind of schlocky, over-the-top fun that horror fans crave. There’s a certain perverse joy in watching the universe bend itself backward to off these characters in increasingly elaborate ways, as if Death took a weekend workshop in improvisational murder. It's the kind of movie that practically demands a group viewing, where half the fun is shouting predictions at the screen like a demented game of Clue: "It was the faulty microwave cord in the kitchen with the poorly placed puddle!" The cast, led by a moody Devon Sawa and a wildly underused Tony Todd, struggles to make the clunky dialogue feel meaningful, but the real stars here are the death scenes themselves – more creative than the writing and far more memorable than any of the actual characters. By the time the movie throws subtlety to the wind in its final act, it's gone from "grim supernatural thriller" to something closer to a darkly comic carnival ride. In the end, "Final Destination" is a mixed bag – sluggish at the start but ultimately rewarding if you hang in there. It’s a popcorn horror flick that knows how to make an audience wince, cringe, and occasionally cackle at the sheer audacity of its kills. Would I watch it again? Sure, but only if I’m in the mood to laugh at Death's clumsiest attempts at efficiency.

If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if Charles Bronson had to hunt a werewolf and decided to play detective instead of hanging from Torino’s rooftops, “12 to Midnight” is here to answer that question with all the subtlety of a silver bullet to the jaw. Robert Bronzi leans so hard into his Charles Bronson impersonation you half expect him to growl “Don’t pull that stunt on me, pal” at every suspect. His trademark scowl is in full force, but the script seems to recognize that Bronzi can’t quite nail the dialogue—so he just stands there, arms crossed, delivering each line in unintelligible monosyllables until everyone else on screen tries and fails to fill in the blanks. It’s stoicism by requirement, and Bronzi owns it. Plot coherence? Forget it. “12 to Midnight” is a glorious fever dream of mismatched clues, midnight stakeouts that last five minutes, and villains who apparently transform more for the camera than for the storyline. Somehow, this budget brawler doubles as a werewolf vs. detective flick: one moment Bronzi’s trench-coated gumshoe is dusting for prints, the next he’s running down bad guys in a front-end loader. It’s utterly nonsensical—and that’s exactly the point.   But oh, the cheesy goodness from the effects department! Clunky prosthetics that wobble when the werewolf snarls, practical blood squibs that spray like party poppers, $1 store eyeballs and an epic moonlit finale complete with teleporting characters and poorly timed howls. If you’re in it for goofy action set pieces and unintentional laughs, “12 to Midnight” delivers a full-throated howl. This is cult cinema at its best—so bad it’s howling good fun.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you strap an entire B‑movie budget to a shaky cam and christen it with Ice‑T’s name—then promptly hand the lead role to someone who isn’t him—congratulations: you’ve discovered 2001’s airborne atrocity Air Rage (or, as I like to call it, “Fly‑Hard But Wrong”). It’s exactly the kind of gleefully clueless cheese you’d expect from a Fred Olen Ray slash Jim Wynorski double feature, and that’s precisely why you’ll fall in love with its every misguided moment. From the opening explosions in a different movie—where our villain dreams of explosions in HIS movie—to the big reveal that Ice‑T only pops up about 45 minutes into the movie (playing a black ops infiltrator with the emotional range of a traffic cone), the movie instantly subverts expectations. You think you’re signing up for a hardcore, Ice‑T‑led thriller? Nope. Our real hero is...someone else (no spoilers). Plot? It’s basically “terrorists on a plane” meets “hey, why not throw in a top secret CD-ROM just for kicks?” And of course the whole scheme unravels thanks to dialogue so cheesily literal (“You're one dumb SOB, Sykes.” Sykes: "Yeah I know.") that you’ll swear the screenwriters were scribbling in crayon. The action scenes bounce along with the grace of a kangaroo on Red Bull: fists connect both when they should and should not, explosions happen in the background just to remind you they owned the footage, and the stunts range from “did they even plan that?” to “wait, a plane tube?” But the pièce de résistance is the physics—or, more accurately, the complete absence thereof. Gravity politely excuses itself for the runtime. Bullets seem to curve around heads. Planes nosedive, bank, and somehow still manage to land on runway-sized targets with millimeter precision. It’s like someone chucked Newton’s laws out the emergency exit hatch and never looked back. All of this adds up to a riotous, unintentional joyride. If you’re a fan of Fred Olen Ray’s gleeful disregard for coherence or Jim Wynorski’s unapologetic embrace of “that’ll do” effects, Air Rage is your new cult classic. Bad? Oh, undeniably. But in the grand tradition of so‑bad‑it’s‑good cinema, it’s a glorious, gloriously dumb flight you won’t regret taking.

A film that manages to accomplish nothing, makes us dislike the mains, but still makes us like the movie.... "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" is one wild, misguided ride that desperately tries—and fails—to turn its two lead dirtballs into lovable scoundrels. Instead of evolving into charming antiheroes, they remain gloriously repulsive, wallowing in a sea of their own filth, which only adds to the film’s bizarre, unintentional humor. The movie seems to have tossed the rulebook out the window. Physics takes a permanent vacation when bulletproof trench-coats, which resemble oversized garbage bags, inexplicably defy every law of nature. And let’s not even get started on the leads pulling off the 15-story jump, landing in a pool as if gravity were a mere suggestion. The relationship between the two HD and MM is as shallow as it is unconvincing—they barely share a shred of genuine care, leaving audiences to wonder if they even notice the people who care about them. Their nonchalant attitude toward life and each other underlines the film’s overarching failure to deliver the kind of dynamic, heartfelt camaraderie that makes buddy-adventure movies worth watching. Then there’s the so-called "Great Bank" and its cadre of villains. These bad guys are a mess of drug-dealing side-hustles and a squad of armed assassins who, in a twist that’s almost as puzzling as it is amusing, seem like kind of folks who jam out to Kraftwerk. Their quirky, half-baked villainy adds yet another layer of absurdity to a movie already drowning in its own incompetence. In the end, "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man" is a complete failure as a buddy-adventure movie. Yet, in its relentless pursuit of over-the-top, ludicrous action and its blatant disregard for reality, it manages to stink it up just enough to be oddly enjoyable—a cult classic for fans of bad movies who appreciate a film that knows exactly how to be magnificently, laughably bad.

We really were losing a war to vending machines? Electric State might just be one of the most staggering wastes of resources and talent to hit the screen in years. Armed with a ludicrous budget and an all-star cast, this movie squanders every ounce of its potential in a messy, juvenile attempt at sci-fi storytelling that only children—or perhaps the most forgiving of viewers—could enjoy. Let’s start with the plot, or lack thereof. It's riddled with holes so large they could swallow entire scenes whole. Characters make inexplicable choices, key events seem to happen out of nowhere, and the emotional beats the film desperately tries to hit fall flat because nothing is earned. There’s no weight, no coherence, just a loose string of visuals pretending to be a story. But hey, why write a decent script when you can drown everything in licensed music? Electric State goes full “James Gunn cosplay,” stuffing every scene with pop tracks that feel completely out of place. Instead of enhancing the emotion or tension, these needle drops undercut every serious moment and reek of desperation—like the filmmakers thought if they just played enough familiar songs, we wouldn’t notice the soulless narrative underneath. Visually, yes, it’s slick—but when you spend what this film spent, that’s the bare minimum. The sad part is that behind the camera and in front of it are incredibly talented people. Directors, VFX artists, and A-list actors who should’ve known better are left adrift in a project that seems to have been greenlit purely based on aesthetics and IP potential rather than substance.   In the end, Electric State feels like the cinematic equivalent of handing a child the keys to a spaceship and hoping for the best. It's loud, shallow, and directionless, a bloated mess that burns money like rocket fuel and goes absolutely nowhere.

On this special episode the three of us sit down for a serious intervention - from bad movies! We discuss the Oscars winners that none of us saw. Wicked makes Jackie throw up. Sam praises Slow Horses and Gary Oldman's farting. We get an old staple of Pop Quiz, Hotshot. Sam complains about the supreme lack of Jello in our lives and Justin brings in a FilmStory about a dead director - WHO DUN IT!?   Enjoy and see you in a couple weeks!

Ah, Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal. A film so magnificently, obliviously ridiculous that it could only exist in the pre-9/11 era, where the greatest threat to air travel wasn’t terrorism, but satanic heavy metal concerts broadcast live from a 747. Yes, that’s the plot. And no, it does not get any smarter from there. Let’s start with the hero we never asked for: Slade Craven (yes, that’s his real name), a Marilyn Manson knockoff who looks like Hot Topic threw up on a scarecrow. This man struts onto the plane in full goth-rock regalia, sneering at everyone like he just walked out of a badly lit music video, but give him 30 minutes and he transforms from a moody poser into an airborne action hero, karate-kicking terrorists and saving the day with all the grace of a drunk dad at a Slipknot concert. Watching him go from “edgy Rockstar” to “Die Hard protagonist” is like watching Ozzy Osbourne suddenly pilot a space shuttle. It makes no sense, and that’s why it’s beautiful. The cast, if you can call them that, behaves less like humans and more like malfunctioning AI programmed by someone who thinks they understand human emotions. Dialogue is delivered with all the enthusiasm of a hostage video, and nobody reacts to anything with the appropriate level of concern. At one point, a terrorist hijacks the plane, and the reaction from the crew is roughly equivalent to someone realizing they forgot to pay their internet bill. And then there’s Joe Mantegna, who spends every scene looking like he wandered onto the wrong set and refused to leave. His job is to play an FBI agent trying to make sense of the madness, but he mostly just stares into the abyss, radiating the same exhausted energy as a substitute teacher dealing with a class that just discovered energy drinks. You can feel him asking himself, Why am I here? The answer: we don’t know, Joe. We really don’t. The villains? Well, they think they’re terrorists, but their actual motivation is so incoherent that by the time their master plan is revealed (summoning Satan via airplane concert???), you’ll have given up on logic entirely. There’s hacking, plane fights, a shockingly high number of fake Slade Cravens, and an ending so abrupt it feels like the film itself decided it had suffered enough. Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal is cinematic junk food at its absolute worst—and most entertaining. It’s a movie that doesn’t just jump the shark; it hijacks the shark midair, flies it into a storm, and then fights Satan on top of it. If you love bad movies, this one deserves a place on your shelf, right next to a can of expired Monster Energy and a broken Playstation 2 controller.

Fact: Real ninjas throughout history used jazz hands to assassinate their targets. "Dancing Ninja" might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're into a movie that revels in its own absurdity, you'll find a lot to love here. The film's corny jokes hit just the right note, and its satire—though subtle at times—adds a clever twist that keeps you on your toes. Every member of the cast and crew clearly put a tremendous amount of effort into the project, infusing each scene with passion and a genuine commitment to the film’s offbeat vision. And then there's David Hasselhoff—majestic, as always. His performance is a standout, lending the movie an unexpected layer of charm and gravitas amidst all the wild, no-holds-barred antics. "Dancing Ninja" isn’t afraid to take risks; it brings big old balls to the table and holds nothing back, making for a refreshingly bold viewing experience. In short, while this movie may not be for everyone, its unapologetic style and relentless energy are exactly what make it such a cult favorite. If you're in the mood for a film that dares to be different, "Dancing Ninja" is definitely worth a watch. Special Interview! with Harry Medved and Harry Pallenberg from "Locationland" on PBSSocal Harry and Harry have a great show in which they search out some of the hidden and forgotten locations and sets used in some of our favorite movies. Stinker Madness royalty Joe Dante and genius of the century Dana Gould guest on some of their episodes, among others. Be sure to check out their new episode about Plan Nine from Outer Space! Find all their content on YouTube:

A Murder of Time - The old "write a best-selling novel and give it to your enemy for revenge" caper "A Murder of Crows" is a nonsensical thriller that manages to take an interesting premise and turn it into a complete mess. The plot centers around a "corrupt" lawyer named Lawson, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., who, after being framed for a murder he didn't commit, goes down a rabbit hole of trying to find out who did it. Rather than doing the smart thing—turning the evidence over to the authorities—he decides to get involved in a ridiculous scheme to clear his name. What follows is a convoluted, poorly paced disaster that defies logic at every turn. First off, the characters are flat and unconvincing. Lawson, somehow manages to look both confused and smug throughout the entire movie. The villain is so dubious, it's hard to take the stakes seriously. There’s no sense of tension or urgency in the narrative—just a series of random, out-of-place events that feel forced and contrived. The dialogue is clunky, and the attempts at deep philosophical musings on fate and justice come off as completely hollow. The plot twists? They’re ridiculous. Rather than being suspenseful, they’re more likely to make you roll your eyes and wonder how the filmmakers managed to stretch such a thin idea into a feature-length film. The whole premise is absurd. From the moment the movie starts, it feels like the writers took a random collection of crime clichés and decided to throw them together without any real thought. It’s hard to understand who this film was made for—perhaps the genre’s most diehard fans who are willing to suspend all reason, but for anyone else, it’s a frustrating and pointless experience. "A Murder of Crows" is a poorly executed thriller that doesn't deserve your time. Save yourself the trouble and skip it.

Ever wondered what would happen if a group therapy session for people afraid of flying turned into a hostage situation? Neither did I, but Turbulence 2: Fear of Flying takes off with that premise and crashes it gloriously into the realm of “so bad it’s amazing.” The Plot (LOL): The movie starts with a group of nervous fliers boarding a fancy plane to conquer their aerophobia. But mid-flight, surprise! Hijackers reveal their master plan: not only to take over the plane but also unleash a deadly chemical weapon for… reasons? A ragtag group of passengers—including a guy who conquered his fear of flying just in time—must outwit the hijackers, survive turbulence (the metaphorical kind too), and prevent the worst-case scenario. The Cast: Craig Sheffer plays the reluctant everyman hero, Ryan Weaver, who, let's face it, spends the whole movie with a mix of confusion and mild constipation. Jennifer Beals is the love interest-slash-voice of reason, adding just enough gravitas to remind us this movie had a budget. The villain? A generic, vaguely Eastern European bad guy whose motivations are so nonsensical you’ll forget them halfway through the film. But hey, he’s got a leather jacket and a bad attitude, so that’s something! The Very Stupid Ending: Oh, the villain’s "brilliant" plan? It unravels with 30 minutes left. Turns out, unleashing chemical weapons while on the same plane wasn’t exactly a stroke of genius. The plot holes are large enough to fly a 747 through. By the time Ryan literally punches his way to victory (because in-flight security is no match for his fist), you’ll be rooting for the plane to land just so everyone can go home and think about their life choices. Why It's So Good: The dialogue is so cheesy you’ll get calcium poisoning. The special effects—mainly shaky cameras and stock footage of planes—make you nostalgic for middle school PowerPoint transitions. And the stakes? Well, let’s just say the characters might survive, but logic didn’t even make it through the opening credits. Final Verdict: Turbulence 2 is a disaster movie for people who love disasters—in every sense of the word. It’s the cinematic equivalent of finding out your in-flight meal is a microwaved ham sandwich: disappointing, weirdly satisfying, and undeniably hilarious when you’re at 30,000 feet. Grab some popcorn, and let this plane crash land straight into your guilty pleasure watchlist.

Grumpy Old Men but they can fart fire! In theory, Supervized could have been a quirky, heartfelt exploration of aging superheroes grappling with retirement, purpose, and the loss of their glory days. In practice, it’s a tedious, joyless slog that squanders its promising premise on cheap gags, uninspired storytelling, and a finale so absurd it feels like the filmmakers gave up trying to make sense of their own plot. The story follows a group of retired superheroes living in a nursing home, a setting rife with potential for meaningful commentary or even genuinely funny moments. Instead, we’re treated to a series of groan-worthy jokes about old age that feel like they were ripped from a 1990s sitcom. The humor never rises above the most obvious low-hanging fruit: people forgetting things, struggling with bodily functions, and being generally "out of touch." It’s like the writers typed "old people jokes" into a search engine and just pasted the results into the script. The cast—featuring the likes of Tom Berenger, Beau Bridges, and Fionnula Flanagan—does its best to bring some life to the flat material, but even seasoned actors can only do so much with dialogue this uninspired. Berenger’s attempt to imbue his character with gravitas falls flat amidst the ham-fisted writing, while Bridges is left to play the clichéd role of the wacky sidekick who barely lands a laugh. As the film stumbles through its predictable and uninspired first two acts, you might hope for a twist or some emotional payoff to salvage the experience. Unfortunately, what you get instead is a third act so spectacularly stupid it feels like a parody of itself. The plot collapses into a nonsensical mess involving a villainous conspiracy and a half-baked action sequence that looks cheaper than your average cosplay convention. Supervized is a movie for no one. It takes an almost-interesting concept and smothers it with tired jokes, clunky dialogue, and an insulting lack of imagination. If you want to feel crappy about getting old, there are better options—watch About Schmidt or even The Bucket List. At least those films respect their audience enough to deliver something resembling insight or emotional depth. Avoid Supervized at all costs. It’s not just a bad superhero movie; it’s an affront to anyone who was hoping for even the faintest spark of creativity.