Uncle Sam (The Coli Movie Club)
- Thread starter kp404
- Start date
-
- Tags
- movie club
Man this is an inconvenience but whatever will watch.
Most movies are, but you'll be alright :oJdidit:
R.E.N. Spells Ren
Veteran
Lol, with the holiday weekend, and obscurity of this film, there's little chance I'll get to watch this.
We should let this marinate, take a week off from the movie club, let every one catch up.
We should let this marinate, take a week off from the movie club, let every one catch up.
I provided a link
Keep that shyt on Netflix
I have to watch on my computer or hook my phone to the TV but whatever it will get done.I provided a link
Got DAMN this sh"t is terrible. BRB got like 20 minutes left.
Well. Here we are then.
B-Films are never really all that satisfying to me. Perhaps it is my sense of humor that has ever mutated over the years, or the baggage of experience that I heave into every film that I watch, but the appeal of B-Movies has been lost on me for some time. It wasn't always like that. I've seen several Troma films and for a sliver of my life I would sit and watch dumb movies on netflix.
It may well be because finding a, on some levels, palatable B-movie is one of those truly difficult things to do. It involves sitting through some of the most boring and stupid concepts and ideas put to film, and the list never actually ends. B-Movies are forever, ground deeply into the film industry for life and for as long as everyone in LA has a screenplay for sale. So, for time immemorial.
I've never been one to enjoy the B-film because of its sheer stupidity. This is the reason I reckon as to why this was picked for the club this week. It has all the elements of a B-film that we should laugh and jeer at but instead the film descends into tedium, despite its failed attempts at humor, social satire, horror, crafting a coherent story, and just general filmmaking which should, yes, be risible. But the diagnosis is much more grave than that. It's not so much as laughing at those involved in such a fukkwitted production as it is a gut-wrenching exercise of collaborative lived failure, sweeping from every component of the production, from the actors, the producers, editors, and eventually extending to us, the audience, for consciously giving it the time of day. A rare, indelible consensus of fizzling abjectness and non-achievement.
Random Thoughts:
- The intro montage of all the Uncle Sam's and US jingoism was actually sort of disturbing. The one unsettling thing that this film achieved was nothing they actually filmed, but a montage of pulled newsreels and clips.
- Where the fukk did the crippled kid come from!? And why can he talk to Sam?
- Woof, Robert Forster. Breh better be thanking god that Quentin Tarantino is alive every day he wakes up.
- Woof, Isaac Hayes.
- How long is that fukking potato sack race?
- The killings are what really chap my hide. They're not overly gruesome, nor are they creative at all. Everything is just lukewarm and a bit mehh
. With a B film you gotta go either way, or both. Like it needs to be Final Destination type of creativity or Troma Toxic Avenger gruesomeness. This has neither. It's like the writers put whatever first came to mind. Robert Forster lit up on a fireworks display. No more boring. Impaled by a flag pole. NOPE. Just cut his head off. Nailed it.
- Why did the cannonball blow up at the end?
- A favored tactic of B-films is-- and in a way almost acknowledging their boringness--to at least put some t*ts and muff to break up the dullness. This actually also made me angry because we got some struggle titted broad. I literally said in my head, "Oh sweet, t*ts" and we didn't even get that much, just a small flash. You can't be a b-movie and have serious film prudishness or humility.
Alright, while I'm waiting for an HD torrent of Uncle Sam to wind up, here's my two cents.
Cent 1: I think the term "B-Movie" gets bandied around way too much. Any film that exists within the limits and conventions of its genre I call a B-movie. If I had a rough definition, it would be "motion picture that cares way more about bad-ass holy shyt moments of cinema than it does about exploring the human condition, and doesn't have blockbuster money behind it. Doesn't mean the film sucks. I'd call the first Terminator a B-movie. I'd call The Thing, which is one of my top ten movies EASY, a B-movie.
shyt, John Carpenter is basically the Scorsese of that chamber
. Same goes for most westerns, martial arts flick and action movies. Comedies I can't be sure about except for caper stuff like Midnight Run and Nothing to Lose. Mob movies, at least the certified dope ones, I wouldn't include due to that "exploration of the human condition" claptrap usually being the foundation of the story and character portrayals.Cent 2: When you're watching "So Bad It's Good" movies, you need to bare in mind: The struggle is the blessing. I've watched hours of straight up
, footage that by the agreed upon standard of film making is unwatchable. But you stick with it and get to that scene where the acting, production, direction and concepts all come together forming a perfect storm of failure, you've never seen something like it in a film before, and you're there 
at how the fukk nobody got tapped on the shoulder to say "maybe we should shoot it again, but this time..." I watch a ton of films, TV, stand up, but when you get that
moment it's probably the most I'm going to laugh that month: drunk, fukked up and falling out my chair with everyone else in the room weeping and losing their shyt as well 
. It's interesting because you best believe Michael Bay and Brett Ratner would be getting their films cussed out by the last two Blockbusters employees in existence right now if they didn't have the money, oversight and production pedigree of their studios behind them, that's why it can be kind of educational to watch theses films because today we're used to high production values ensuring a finished product built on corny played out ideas looks pro and is halfway watchable.
With this stuff tho, nah, you telling me you don't want to watch a film where it's obvious that no one making it actually had the skill, judgement, or resources to adequately express their artistic vision but cried YOLO and did it anyway? This shyt is bebop son, you don't know where it's going to go! Like you wouldn't watch pre-schoolers get liquored up, or chimpanzees play with handguns? It shouldn't happen, and it's not going to be pretty, but it could be funny as fukk.
If I was finnin to go full
and stick my head up my arse I'd call it anti-cinema. Anyway, that may explain why this Fellini boxset I borrowed off a friend gathers dust while I stay watching Jim Kelly and Michael Dudikoff joints. Hope Uncle Sam's got some flavour
Grafx: wack
Trax: basic
Breax: wack
Lyrix:wack
I like yucky mixed drinks. Real spicy food. Doomsday prepping. I can relate to enjoying something with an unpleasant undertone... but sh"t gotta be jazzy. Gotta have some soul. Some enjoyable component. This wasn't bad enough (good enough?) to qualify as "so bad it's good". Even judging on the bizzaro backwards scale it's just not enough of a wreck to stop traffic.
One Ebert
Oh. By the way: Five point scale. No halfs. Sh"t is either a C or a B. No C+ B- bullsh"t. (Dis sh"t F)
Trax: basic
Breax: wack
Lyrix:wack
I like yucky mixed drinks. Real spicy food. Doomsday prepping. I can relate to enjoying something with an unpleasant undertone... but sh"t gotta be jazzy. Gotta have some soul. Some enjoyable component. This wasn't bad enough (good enough?) to qualify as "so bad it's good". Even judging on the bizzaro backwards scale it's just not enough of a wreck to stop traffic.
One Ebert
Oh. By the way: Five point scale. No halfs. Sh"t is either a C or a B. No C+ B- bullsh"t. (Dis sh"t F)
i think if found something you guys might enjoy
The guy who made this movie really hated wars...I mean he hated war with a passion.
So what this movie basically ends up being is an anti-war horror movie with bad acting and no budget to speak of which is really not the most appealing sounding thing in the world. What saves this movie from being just bad and moves it into the so bad it's good category is the clunky direction, heavy-handed script and best of all the creepily earnest acting of Christopher Ogden as Jody. I loved the fact that no one he lived with seemed to like him all that much. It was like his mom and aunt knew that he was a freak and wanted as little contact wiht him as possible.
If this kid wasn't in this movie being all wierd and inappropriately jingoistic I don't think I would have enjoyed this movie as much as I did. But then this movie upped the ante by introducing Jody's burned up, wheelchair bound and blind friend Barry who was like a future Batman villain and it just increased the bizarreness to all sorts of awesome levels and made me like this movie even more.
Uncle Sam was the least necessary part of this movie. He wasn't all that compelling a movie monster, his schtick was weak sauce and his kills were the antithesis of creative. And his behavior was very inappropriate around young boys. That caressing of Barry's face while whispering sweet nothings at the kid had me hoping Chris Hansen would pop out of a bush and put a stop to the madness.
So I enjoyed the creepy kid actors, could not care less about Uncle Sam and felt bad that Robert Forster was stuck doing shyt like this before Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown and saved his career.
I give this one and half Roger Eberts just because of the adolescent creep factor. :ebert::eberthalf:
So what this movie basically ends up being is an anti-war horror movie with bad acting and no budget to speak of which is really not the most appealing sounding thing in the world. What saves this movie from being just bad and moves it into the so bad it's good category is the clunky direction, heavy-handed script and best of all the creepily earnest acting of Christopher Ogden as Jody. I loved the fact that no one he lived with seemed to like him all that much. It was like his mom and aunt knew that he was a freak and wanted as little contact wiht him as possible.
If this kid wasn't in this movie being all wierd and inappropriately jingoistic I don't think I would have enjoyed this movie as much as I did. But then this movie upped the ante by introducing Jody's burned up, wheelchair bound and blind friend Barry who was like a future Batman villain and it just increased the bizarreness to all sorts of awesome levels and made me like this movie even more.
Uncle Sam was the least necessary part of this movie. He wasn't all that compelling a movie monster, his schtick was weak sauce and his kills were the antithesis of creative. And his behavior was very inappropriate around young boys. That caressing of Barry's face while whispering sweet nothings at the kid had me hoping Chris Hansen would pop out of a bush and put a stop to the madness.
So I enjoyed the creepy kid actors, could not care less about Uncle Sam and felt bad that Robert Forster was stuck doing shyt like this before Tarantino cast him in Jackie Brown and saved his career.
I give this one and half Roger Eberts just because of the adolescent creep factor. :ebert::eberthalf:
I can't watch scary movies I sleep alone. Is it like Jack Frost, scary movie so bad it's hilarious? 
Roaden Polynice
Superstar
Feel like not a lot of people watched this one