Total Recall (1990), 7/10
This is the Paul Verhoeven classic about a man in a cyberpunk future wanting to have an implanted memory of a vacation on Mars. Things go awry when he discovers that he's actually a secret agent whose real memories have been suppressed, and a whole lot of whiz bang action ensues. The film's full of iconic scenes: the three-breasted woman, tons of quippy one-liners, Arnie going "eugheahhegheuhgeuagh", and being a visual effects blowout and pioneer in a lot of ways.
I enjoyed it, but I felt it was kind of getting in its own way a lot of the time. There's a whole lot to appreciate: all the effects are stunning. This is probably the best-looking film done mostly with traditional effects I've seen, the compositing, matte paintings, miniatures and prosthetics look absolutely stellar. There's some really fun scenes where the perception of reality comes into question, and tons of really fun and showy action. Verhoeven goes all out with the carnage as glass shatters, sets get destroyed with abandon and those delicious Robocop-style blood squibs galore.
However, all of the action and effects spectacle felt kind of secondary to me. Easily the most interesting parts of the movie were the ones where the main character's identity is messed with, and the audience's perception of the film's reality gets questioned. The initial Bourne Identity-style mystery is really well executed, and I always love a well done "down the rabbit hole" story. So whenever another chase scene or shootout started (which is very frequently) I felt kind of interrupted because I could have had a whole movie of just the intrigue. I haven't read the short story this is based on, but I think I'd like this premise way more as a spy thriller than an over the top action movie, which it was apparently changed to during scripting. Don't get me wrong: it's a really fun over the top action movie. But the premise and first act set up a much more layered and complex movie than it ends up being. It's too much frosting and not enough cake. Apparently the 2012 version with Colin Farrell didn't do things very differently either, so I think the best version of this story is still yet to be made.
I also had another one of my bad movie nights, featuring:
War of the Worlds (2025), 3/10
This is this year's biggest "so bad it's good" movie, and watching it drunk with friends was a whole barrel of fun. It's the classic story in a similar format to the 1930s broadcast, but reinvented for the 21st century: in the original it was from the POV of a radio broadcaster, here it's an NSA surveillance agent played by Ice Cube. The entire film is seen through computer screens, phone and drone cameras and news footage. This was due to Covid restrictions when this was shot, but that doesn't automatically make the premise completely worthless. I wouldn't say the movie wastes it, but because the script is dumb as a bag of rocks it turns it into unintended hilarity instead. There's constant, egregiously nonsensical technobabble being spouted and written on screen, the characters are ridiculous caricatures, the technical aspect is done completely atrociously, it's riddled with clichés of the most aggravating kind. Ice Cube provides some hilarious reaction GIFs with his performance and there's some genuinely jaw-dropping product placement (seriously, you are not ready for how this movie's climax plays out). It is consistently stupid and entertaining. Excellent "drunk with friends" entertainment.
The Star Wars Holiday Special, 2/10
This is the legendary, and legendarily bad TV special from 1978, making it the first official piece of Star Wars canon after the first movie. It was aired only once, but lived on through recorded VHS tapes, and to this day it has never had an official release aside from the animated segment as an easter egg on a 2011 blu-ray release. Good thing that some enterprising renegade remastered it in 1080p and put it on Youtube for everyone to see and suffer through for free, and it's been that way for 7 years. As a comment put it: "The only reason Disney hasn’t copyright struck this is because that would require admitting they own it"
It lives up to its infamous reputation. It is bizarre, utterly misguided, baffling, dull as shit, dated beyond description and just an overall head-scratcher. The tissue-thin "plot", around which the various segments are organized, is about Chewbacca's family (betcha didn't know Chewie was an absent father and husband) in their house on "life day", which looks suspiciously like a 70s apartment on Christmas with some sci-fi decor. Then stuff just happens in a fashion I'm assuming was typical of TV variety specials of the time: guest stars and appearances, musical numbers, an animated segment featuring the first appearance of Boba Fett and some other stuff. I'm having a hard time recalling large chunks of it, because it is so scattershot in its structure that it's hard to keep up, especially if you're drunk. It's got plenty of hilariously awful production values and awkward acting. How Harrison Ford came back for Empire after being put in this is beyond me. But most of the time it's simply boring, so there's ultimately not very much to say. I am still going to say it's worth watching if you're into so bad it's good entertainment, if only because it's so infamous.
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