Sinbad of the Seven Seas

Enzo G. Castellari's Sinbad of the Seven Seas (fantasy)
8.5/10 or 2/10

Now, this is the first time that I've given a movie two grades. And I will tell you why. This is the first movie that I've reviewed for you that is so awful, so idiotically abysmal, that it has actually crossed some magical line into the land of hilarious. Through some unfortunate twist of fate, Sinbad of the Seven Seas is a movie that will confuse the hell out of me, make me want to throw myself at the television, and then re-watch it because it was so damn funny.

This will be a pretty short review, as there isn't much to say about the cast. Cast as Sinbad himself is Lou Ferrigno, at-least-two-time winner of Mr. Universe. So you know it's only going downhill from here. Picture the Governator in a loincloth, with a slightly larger head, and you've got our boy Lou.

You've probably never heard of any of the other cast members, so I won't bother mentioning them. Hell, unless you grew up in Italy, you haven't even heard of the director. I should ask around in the Italian Department to see if any of the professors have ever heard of this film abomination.

The plot is fairly standard: man saves beautiful lady from evil sorcerer. Except, in this case, while Ferrigno does most of the saving -- being by far the burliest of his buddies -- he doesn't get the girl. He's saving his friend's girl. Yeah, I don't get it either, but I guess these guys are tight, or something. Anyway, Sinbad has to find some crystals that will... do something, and then the sorcerer won't be able to rule the world. Because all evil sorcerers want to do is rule the world.

Sounds pretty standard so far, right? It gets better. I've mentioned that the director was Italian. Well, so was essentially the entire cast, but the movie was all in English. At some point during the editing process, somebody decided that all those Italian accents were too hard to understand. So, and I kid you not, they dubbed over the entire English movie. With more English. Fortunately, Lou Ferrigno got to keep his own voice, but he still had to re-do everything and dub himself over. You can't understand the stupidity and hilarity until you see it for yourself, as some of the "less Italian" voices they chose made me want to cry.

And I haven't even talked about the acting. There's a reason: it's all crap. Not a single person in the movie can act, except for maybe our damsel in distress Princess Whatsername. Lou sure can't. But do you know what he can do? Run, in slow motion, with oiled-up muscles, on a beach. Oh, yeah. I'm not kidding. You don't know pain until you've watched Lou Ferrigno's man-boobs jiggling to and fro. I believe that jiggling man-boobs -- fine, fine: pectorals -- are the main cause of ocular hemorrhage. That's bleeding eyes, for those of you who weren't paying attention in biology. Not that you learned about bleeding eyes. I digress.

My favourite character is this witch woman who pops in a third of the way in to the film to help out the bad guy. She gets no introduction and has no reason for being there. She just appears one time in a shot, and they decided to keep her around. And not for her looks. She's rocking the David Bowie in Labyrinth hairstyle, and a black, sleeveless swimsuit-esque unitard that is far, far too tight. I was constantly afraid that her incredibly saggy breasts were going to fall out and that my eyes were going to pack their bags and leave altogether. The fact that she made a much more attractive man than she did a woman was a bit startling as well. Plus, her dubbed voice is awful. Did I mention that she has no reason to be there?

I also want to personally thank the writers of this script for coming up with some of the worst dialogue ever written. This way, George Lucas will have an example of what not to do that wasn't created by him! I will now insert a small quote from the film.

Sinbad: "Wait a minute, wait a minute! Where is everybody? There's nobody here!"
Poochie: "...there's nobody here!"
Sinbad: "I just said that. That's the point! ..."

By, "that's the point", he means, "that's why I said it, damn it all!" Oh, and yeah, there's a character named Poochie the Dwarf. No lie. Ah, the dialogue. Priceless.

Because this is such an obvious B-grade movie, a copy is damn hard to track down. As always, if you know me in person, ask for my copy. You will not regret it. Well, actually, you really will, but in a good way. You'll never be the same again. Ever.

Watch it.

Tin Man

Nick Willing's Tin Man (drama, sci-fi, fantasy)
8.5 / 10

Okay, so this is technically a TV mini-series, but whatever. It was released on DVD. It's got three 1.5-hour chunks spanning two discs, so it's about the same length as your average Lord of the Rings movie. Zing! Plus, it's one of the coolest Wizard of Oz adaptions ever made, so it deserves praise and... praise.

The cast. The cast! Zooey Deschanel pops up again in my reviews. I swear, it's as though she has the sense to pick good movies, or something. Weird. As usual, she plays the cute, mostly-confused character surrounded by weirdos and/or in some odd situation. Like Elf, Hitchhiker's, The Happening... You get the idea, right? Zooey is a cutie-patootie, but methinks she needs to pull a Jim Carrey a la Eternal Sunshine and break free of her typecast. I will say that she makes a pretty good new-age Dorothy Gale, or "D.G.", though.

Alongside Ms. Adorablepants is the frickin' amazing Alan Cumming, better known for his role as Nightcrawler in the X-Men series. Did you know this guy is Scottish?! I've seen him in a handful of roles now with German, British and American accents, but the guy is from Scotland. Fan-freaking-tastic. I had no idea whatsoever. I figured the British wasn't real, but the American accent had me convinced. He's his usual awesome self, playing the reincarnation of the Scarecrow. And if you don't finish Tin Man loving him and his character, you have no heart. Segue!

Neal McDonough, who you've probably seen and forgotten about, played an itty-bitty role in Minority Report, and apparently showed up at some point during Star Trek: First Contact, but I only remember him in the former. Despite a long list of credentials, the poor guy is relegated to the "Oh Hey, That Guy" list. He plays our Tin Man, and is essentially the other protaganist alongside D.G. There's a lot of plot surrounding his family, and not nearly as much about the Scarecrow or the Lion. Segue!

Raoul Trujillo. Oh. My. God. If you haven't seen the film Frankenfish, ask me for my copy and you can borrow it. Watch it several times. It only gets better. B-grade monster movies make me so happy. Maybe you've seen him in something else, but I sure haven't. Raoul plays our Lion, though the story doesn't make him out to be as cowardly as his predecessor. And the other characters keep commenting on his so-called cowardice. But I didn't notice any. Seriously. Raoul is the man, and that's all I need to say.

The general idea of the story is the same. D.G. is plopped in the OZ, or the Outer Zone, and tries to figure out why she's there. However, they've added themselves a hell of a lot of side stories, like D.G.'s parents. Instead of a green-skinned ugly witch, we have the lovely Kathleen Robertson as Azkedellia, our evil witch of the West. Er, of the OZ. Whatever. The Wizard is instead The Mystic Man, and you'll pee yourself when you see what they've done with Toto.

So basically, the Scarecrow wants his brain back -- it was stolen by Azkadellia for reasons that, obviously, he can't remember. The Tin Man is an ex-cop who was forced to watch the baddies torture his family over and over. (Fun tidbit: In Tin Man, the term 'tin man' actually refers to OZ police officers.) Finally, the Lion is a telepathic -- yep -- lion-man who doesn't really have much motive to tag along in the story, but does anyway... because Raoul Trujillo is amazing, and the movie needed more of him. And last, but not least, D.G. is trying to stop Azkadellia from throwing the entire OZ into eternal darkness. You know, the usual. She's also trying to figure out why she feels as though she's been in the OZ before... Ooh, spooky.

If I haven't convinced you to watch this movie yet, I apologize. I'll start threatening next. Watch it. Seriously. This movie... sorry, TV mini-series, is well-written, the score is incredible, the characters are the same and yet completely different from the original film, Raoul Trujillo is in it... Sorry, I can't get past that. When I realized who he was, I almost had a fit in the middle of the computer lab. There are literally tears of glee in my eyes as I type this.

Watch it.