Showing posts with label superhero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label superhero. Show all posts

Weekly Dose of Head Trauma Extra: UltraChrist!

MMA Team | Friday, July 24, 2009 | , , | 0 comments



First off, I have to say I never realized that intentionally looking for bad movies could be such a pain in the ass. I literally spent several hours to find this (my sister was the one who insisted we watch it actually), but wow....just wow, "UltraChrist!" melted sections of my brain that somehow survived my viewing of "Jesus Christ: Vampire hunter".




The plot begins with Jesus coming back down to earth and the first 3 minutes pretty much deal with him getting clothes. Yes, you read that right. If your first thought was "what the hell?" that pretty much sums up this movie. After he finds a smoking jacket and a pipe (God, I wish I were kidding) he meets and gets drunk with an ex-marketing guy who isn't really relevant to the plot until like the last 20 minutes of the film. Anyway, this guy sends the film on a further downward spiral by recommending Jesus should mimic a superhero in order to "reach out to the youth of today".




So yes, most of the movie is focused on Jesus running around in spandex fighting sin and building very flat romantic tension with his seamstress friend, while God (understandably) wants him out of the costume and sends an archangel to get him out of it. Lurking in the background of this is the AntiChrist, who has taken the role of the most important man possible (at least according to this movie) the head of NY's park service.



(This man decides if you can use parks and the torment of your immortal soul, fear him)

So after Satan fails to kill Jesus with a PDF (yes, I know this shit is bananas, just run with it) he summons the most evil people he can think of to be his personal Legion of Doom, if you'll allow the incredibly geeky analogy; Hitler (well, a rather portly one who likes bestiality), Vlad Ill Tepes a.k.a Vlad the Impaler done up Drac style, Richard Nixon (basically a dude in a Nixon mask with a recorder taped to the side of his mask), and the lead singer of The Doors for some reason.



The rest of the plot is mind meltingly bizarre, and it ends with a cage fight between the archangel sent down to take Jesus' spandex horror suit and a dude in a Richard Nixon mask. This is followed by a bad musical number about how Jesus approves of sex, which somehow converts most of the world's youth to christianity. The only good thing about the end is watching a "terrorist" toss a bomb into the trash because he decided he was through with terrorism.



Overall the movie looks like it was done by three guys and their friends one booze-soaked weekend. The movie just feels either like a cheap class project, only the content is something you'd never want seen publicly, or, given how many things are explicitly about sex, a bad soft core porn. I honestly can say this is a brain stabbingly bad movie and if you feel like torturing yourself for an hour and a half, have fun with it. I just needed to share this little horror and purge myself of what it's done to my brain. Now, I just need to stop the blood leaking out of my ears...



Forsees no Spandex related panic in the near future,

Jenna Darknight


(The pictures are used for non-profit purposes. Ultrachrist belongs to Kerry Douglas Dye and the others involved in the project. ...who are nice people and don't want to sue me.)

Weekly Dose of Head Trauma: Zebraman

MMA Team | Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | , , , | 0 comments

Jen here, finally getting a post up.  In this week's descent into things that make my head cave in, we're going to take a look at a movie I'm actually rather fond of, despite, or perhaps because of it's infinite weirdness.


  American cinema could take lessons from what goes on in the Far East.  Here we are, living our predictable lives watching another generic boomfest when an Asian movie will run past us in a technicolor dream coat, bringing with it perplexed joy and amusement for us confused Americans.  Takashi Miike, who happens to be a favorite of contemporary Asian Director of mine because his movies are mind blowingly awesome is one of those directors who approaches movies as a story-telling medium and, not only that, but he also utilizes it amazingly well.  Zebraman was the first of his works I was exposed to, thanks to a friend who likes to E-mail me movie suggestions, and it's still probably my favorite from him, though The Great Yokai War (another great movie I'll talk about another time) is a close second.


And when I mean good, I mean it's borderline something I shouldn't be able to talk about on a blog segment that will deal mainly with bad movies.  The only legitimate reason for the article being posted is that the movie is just so far out that it somehow sticks the dial on awesome even as it makes parts of your brain short out.






Zebraman reminds me a great deal of Neverending Story, Stardust and Princess Bride in that it functions within it's genre, yet it's very tongue and cheek.  Zebraman is about a guy who's wife is cheating on him, his kids don't respect him, has a job where he's not respected or noticed, and his only joy is dressing up like the superhero from an old obscure 70s show and pretending to attack his pillows.  He is both a satire on the fan culture that the internet perpetuates, where adults can sit and argue about whether He-man would kick Thundarr the Barbarian's ass until they're about to pass out, and a fan fulfillment.  He gets to become Zebraman, a reward for never letting go of the childishness most people try to shed (The Great Yokai War also deals with this theme).




There's also a lot of scenes that point out the functional retardedness of superheroes.  There's scenes with Zebraman running up to a lady being mugged or peeking from behind the snack food isle at the Japanese equivalent of a 7-11.  Even the victims in trouble stop and stare at him, because well, he's a grown man running around in a black and while Zebra superhero costume.  It reminds us of why many superheroes have a nocturnal regiment; it doesn't matter how badass you are, you're still a guy in a goofy costume.  I mean, just look at Superman, it's amazing he's never been laughed out Metropolis (Of course Superman's kind of a DICK so that might be why no one's laughed at his red sew on boots and matching undies outside his clothes).


It's a quirky watch and one I recommend to people when they ask for a movie suggestion simply because one has to experience it for the sheer uniqueness of the experience. 


Black and White Ecstacy, baby.  Shine on, Zebraman.


Jenna Darknight


(the images used here were used for non profit reasons and belong to  Takashi Miike and the people who made this amazing fim...who are nice people and don't want to sue me.)

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