Shane Watches a Bad Movie on Facebook with Friends: The Impossible Kid of Kung-fu

1982 spy movie

Rating: 6/20 (Fred: 19/20; Carrie: 20/20; Libby: did not finish)

Plot: Mr. X, a criminal who wears what looks to be a KKK hood, is kidnapping millionaires as part of some not-very-elaborate plot to get some money. Only one little secret agent can stop him!

I've decided that my Facebook friends don't really understand my movie rating system. Fred called this the worst movie we've seen to date with the Bad Movie Club, but he gave it a 19/20 because he was enamored with a scene where Weng Weng walks on a tightrope. Carrie, halfway through, announced that she wished she would have just done her homework because that would have been more entertaining than this movie. But she was impressed with a scene where Weng Weng jumps over a chasm on a pocket rocket. I mean, who wouldn't be? Libby was unable to finish. But heck, what are people looking for? You've got 2'9" Weng Weng, the previous Billy Curtis Award winner who I wrote about here, riding that aforementioned sweet ride, beating up on thugs three times his size, taking time to love on the ladies a bit, and performs what I have to believe are his own stunts, most notably that jump across the ditch on his motorbike and a leap of about 150 feet from a building. The plot is so simple that a first grader could have penned it, but it still somehow manages to be confusing. Weng Weng's great in this sequel to For Your Height Only, but nobody else in the movie really belongs in a movie. The worst thing about the film is probably the score which alternates between three songs--one flute-heavy suspenseful piece, one song that sounds a little too close to Mancini's "Pink Panther" thing, and another one. They're as repetitive as the rest of the movie. But, come on! Weng Weng displays action chops that I'd stack against anybody's, and he's got one of the best haircuts that I've ever seen. In fact, the next time I get my haircut, I'm going to ask the to "give me the Weng Weng," and when they look at me in a confused manner, I will hook up a VCR and pop in a tape of Weng Weng's highlights. But there's no way in hell I'm going to allow any of them to operate a scissor after that experience!

The Living Daylights

1987 James Bond movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A crazy arms dealer wants to start World War III, and James Bond has to stop him!

Timothy Dalton is really dull, and the arms dealer played by Joe Don Baker, a former "Worst Acting of the Year" award winner on this blog, isn't much more interesting. The main villain Koskov is even duller. And the thug has a great name--Necros--but really doesn't do it for me either. The Bond girl is really plain, and there's very little style here. The movie does have a ton of twists and turns, a solid spy story, and plenty of action scenes in a story that has Bond globetrotting and making all kinds of interesting friends. It's a stronger spy story than the typical Bond movies, and it's bookended by a couple creative and exciting action sequences, the opening taking place on Gibraltar and the story ending big with some fisticuffs inside and just on the outside of a crashing airplane with a bomb on it. My favorite moment in this one is the demonstration of the Ghetto Blaster, a gadget that will forever keep this one in the 1980s. This isn't a terrible movie, but it could have been a whole lot better.

The Spy Who Loved Me

1977 James Bond movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: It's just like the plot of the last James Bond movie I watched except with boats instead of spaceships and an indestructible guy with metal teeth.

Call me a blasphemer, but I really might like Roger Moore as Bond as much as I like Sean Connery. The movies I've seen and remember with Roger Moore are at least a little more fun. I think I prefer my Bond to be a little goofy. A good Bond movie needs a good villain, and this one's got a couple--a dude who has webbed fingers for absolutely no good reason and Jaws with those metal teeth. And Richard Kiel's character really is indestructible. He is pinned against a wall with an SUV, he has a bunch of heavy shit dropped on him, survives a car crash through the roof of a house, and [SPOILER ALERT] ludicrously bites a shark to death. I just love the way Kiel dwarfs Roger Moore in these scenes. Curt Jurgens plays an interesting enough villain--still can't figure out why he they needed to give him webbed fingers--but the henchman definitely overshadows him here. He probably needs a new dentist though. This entry's stuffed with great action, from more blue-screen skiing scenes with disco accompaniment to explosions/magnets/sharks hooey at the end. In between, you get trampolining and gymnastics backed by "Nobody Does It Better;" a great obvious dummy falling off a cliff; a thrilling chase sequence featuring a motorcycle, a helicopter, and a fly submarine-car; and a nearly pornographic shark attack with some soothing classical music behind it. Since this is a Bond movie, he travels around a lot, and here, he gets to see pyramids. That's a terrific scene, and I loved how music and color was used there. There's also another cool bad guy base, the Atlantis, although I'd argue that a villain who once again has a perfect opportunity to kill the protagonist and refuses to take it probably doesn't deserve a cool base. And then there's Barbara Bach, the titular spy who loved him unless I'm confused and he's the titular spy who loved her. If one of them has to be titular, I'm going to go with Bach though. Indeed, there's some side boob in a shower scene. Bach's easy on the spy's eyes, but either her accent or her lack of acting ability makes it seem like she's a terrible actress. I do love the play between her and Bond though. The wonderfully leggy Caroline Munro (Mrs. Phibes herself) is also in this, and my favorite moment in any James Bond movie just might be when she winks in this movie. Needless to say, I'm putting that toward the front of my masturbation rolodex. Throw in plenty of double entendre ("Let him pull out immediately," "Delve deeply into Egypt's treasures," and Bach's character called Agent Triple X) and some camel noises that I'm pretty sure came straight out of Star Wars. One gripe: There are a lot of similarities between this and You Only Live Twice. Boats eating boats in a serpentine effort to start World War III isn't that far off from the spaceship eating spaceships thing in that movie.

You Only Live Twice

1967 James Bond movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The villainous Blofeld is back, this time with a spaceship that eats spaceships and a bitchin' evil base inside of a volcano. James Bond has to stop him in order to stop World War III.

Confusing story here, and Roald Dahl's probably to blame. I didn't know he wrote a James Bond. Although there's a lot of coolness here--an autogyro, a mostly-faceless Blofeld with a kitty, ninjas, the evil lair inside of a volcano--it's probably a good thing he didn't write more of these. Of course, I should give him credit for a line like this one: "The firing power inside my small crater has enough fire power to annihilate a small army." If I had a dime for every time I heard that! That volcano, by the way, is really dopey looking, slightly more impressive than the one from that Beast from a Prehistoric Planet movie I watched a few weeks ago. There is a really great ninja vs. guys-who-aren't-ninjas battle scene at the volcano base with all kinds of action, the kind of action where you just know there are extras who are dying multiple times. Bond seems in peril for the duration of the movie, almost dying more than twice, and there's one time when he should have died but the villain doesn't take advantage of a golden opportunity to off him. That's not the biggest issue I had with this though. No, that would be the whole "I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese" silliness. Despite some lulls, this is an exciting James Bond entry. Oh, and Nancy Sinatra did the theme song which is a definite bonus.

Goldfinger

1964 James Bond movie

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Bond has to stop the titular villain who plans on contaminating the world's gold supply. Oddjob has a dangerous hat. Pussy Galore has a dangerous name.

You think Connery takes great pleasure in saying that first name? Poosy, he says. His expression after Pussy Galore introduces herself is my favorite thing in this movie with a lot of favorite things in it--the cool car with its ejector seat, cute Jill Masterson covered in gold paint for what has to be one of the sexiest deaths in movie history, the delivery of a "What's with that trick pool table?" line, a whole laser-to-the-crotch sequence, scores of extras collapsing from nerve gas like they're in a B-movie (how many extras, do you reckon, fell down more than once?). No, wait. My favorite thing about this is a shot of this old lady with a machine gun. This has everything you'd expect from a James Bond movie but a much better henchman, the mute Oddball. Yes, there are villains who are as iconic, but you can't have a conversation about iconic villains without mentioning him. That first appearance--a shadow with that hat of his--is terrific, and then you get to see him vandalize statues, smash golf balls in his bare hand, and help his boss cheat, all the things you hope to see from a criminal mastermind's henchman. So good. Add in the typical Bond fun dialogue ("You expect me to talk?" "No, Bond, I expect you to die."), double entendre ("Positively shocking" will make you groan.), a car chase or three, some gadgets, a great pre-credit action sequence involving confined fisticuffs, and a ridiculous Shirley Bassey title song, and you've got yourself a Bond film, probably one of the best.

Bonus points for slipping the name Pussy Galore in there. Seriously, how'd that happen?

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

1969 James Bond movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Annie's adoptive father is at it again, this time putting out an advertisement for "Hot Chicks with Allergies" in order to create an army of hypnotized women to help him kill everybody. James Bond is sent to stop him.

I'm not exactly a James Bond expert, but I'm pretty sure George Lazenby is universally considered the best 007. This entry suffers a bit from some dated special effects and general silliness, both exemplified in some exciting skiing scenes featuring obvious blue screens and a plummeting dummy. Still, they're thrilling scenes.  There's also a pretty bitchin' icy car chase. Aside from some effects, this also suffers from a few cliches, including the whole bad-guy-giving-away-all-his-plans-and-refusing-to-instantly-dispose-of-the-good-guy thing. You know, like in almost every episode of the Batman television show. But I imagine people don't really watch James Bond movies for the realism. This movie does have some nice stylistic touches--there's a whistling midget (what they were called back in '69), some cool colors and the CASINO reflected in a pool near the beginning, great music enhancing beach fisticuffs, dizzying jump cuts and weird angles and close-ups during other brawling scenes, and one great death featuring pink snow that might rival Fargo's woodchipper scene. You even get to see chunks if you're into that sort of thing. Of course, the subsequent "He had lots of guts" is the kind of brilliantly stupid line that makes you want to high-five somebody. And James Bond movies really need a director who knows how to properly display a woman, and Peter Hunt does a good job with showing us Blofield's brainwashed beauties. I hope that doesn't sound too chauvinistic. I really do like Lazenby. There's a bit of meta-humor with a line about "the other guy," and I like how he steals a Playboy. He's suave, and the dialogue's got all those double entendre you'd normally expect along with some fun dramatic irony. The Alpine setting is cool, and Savalas's Blofied, seemingly not all that popular, is a worthy adversary up until the end when a chase scene gets way too stupid. I think I might just like Savalas because of the way he smokes his cigarette here. I also liked how Blofield was using cassettes to brainwash the women. It just seemed so quaint--"Do you remember when you were allergic to chickens?" I can imagine Savalas saying, "Is that really what you want me to read here?" I'm really not sure how I feel about the wedding and honeymoon that follows, a marriage that is only slightly longer than a Kardashian's. It humanizes the character a bit, but it all seems so cheap.

For Your Height Only

1981 little person James Bond

Rating: 5/20

Plot: The evil Mr. Giant has kidnapped some scientist and is planning on using him for some evil plan that never made any sense to me. There's only one little guy who can stop him and his band of ruffians--Agent Double-O! Mayhem ensues.

I've also seen the title of this as For Y'ur Height Only. I'm going to go ahead and go with what's on the poster since, you know, it's actually a real word and all.

A story behind this movie made me laugh. Apparently, Imelda Marcos put together the Manila International Film Festival as a way of showing off Filipino culture. Only one film sold though--this one! I'm sure that made Marcos proud.

This has one heck of a body count. Star Weng Weng (pronounced Wang Wang) kills about as many bad guys as James Bond does in all of those movies combined, I think. He does it with his guns, sure, but also with his lethal little hands and feet. As ridiculous as it might seem to have an action star of his stature (2'9", the shortest leading actor ever [Troyer, by the way, is actually an inch shorter but has never had a starring role.]), the guy moves fluidly, packs a tiny but strong-looking punch, and performs his stunts admirably. I assume it's Weng Weng doing his own stunts anyway. I doubt they found a 2'9" stunt double. That the fight scenes don't look completely ridiculous is really pretty impressive. Well, let me clarify. There are multiple scenes involving Weng Weng scooting across the floor and shooting people. It's like his signature move. And it's cool and all, but he's got to be covered in butter or something in order for that to happen. Still, I'm not knocking this little guy's action chops, and if you saw this bitchin' jump/kick/shoot thing, you wouldn't either. The makers utilize Weng Weng's stature to the fullest, and part of his spy skills involve him being able to get into places that spies of a regular stature wouldn't be able to squeeze into. One great scene involves Weng Weng climbing through an opening at the top of a fence. A pedestrian (an actual pedestrian, not a film extra) spots him and looks really confused. Mostly, this is played pretty straight with more than its fair share of sight gags. Sure, there's some silliness. For one, it rips off the James Bond theme which seems pretty ballsy to me. There's a Stooge-esque pie-throwing scene, an X-ray glasses gag that ended with Weng Weng covering his mouth to conceal a Pillsbury giggle (legendary, by the way), a scene involving a lethal flying hat that ended with that same giggle, and a scene where he uses a jet pack that forced me to conceal a little giggle. Other silliness involving a telecommunications device that is essentially a mirror with lights around it with a nearby action figure, the surprise of seeing the main villain Mr. Giant for the first time near the end of the movie, and a scene straight from Mary Poppins that had to have been extremely dangerous for the little dummy they used in Weng Weng's place made it difficult to take this seriously as an action movie. The numerous scenes where Weng Weng essentially trips a villain and incapacitates him also don't seem all that realistic. The real nuttiness is with the dubbing or poorly translated dialogue. I'm sure it's poorly translated anyway because I'm sure the people responsible for writing For Your Height Only had a top-notch script that would make the Philippines and Imelda Marcos proud. But check out these gems:

"Don't be a nosy Parker, Paco."
"Talk! Talk or you'll eat lead!" (Actually, you need to hear the dubbed bad guy voices. They all sound like they're straight out of 1950's gangster movies.
(Weng Weng's boss when going over the weapons/gadgets) "I like how you pay attention."

Or take this dialogue:

Big boss man: Nobody could begin to guess. There's a lot of dough in this dough. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Happy pushing. Happy pushing. The boss says to cover every kindergarten...and sandbox. We're gonna teach them something about pleasure.
A subordinate: Yeah, but what if Double-O should appear, huh?
Big boss man: You blast him into another world. You kill him. There's always a way.

This was another nice exchange, and I wonder if the translators rhymed intentionally or not:

Subordinate: He's a mass killer, that Double-O. Who will be the next to go?
Big boss man: I said shut your hole!

Or the line after they find a signalling device on the hot little female spy? "So this is how you communicate with your little Weng." Come on! Remember, it's pronounced to rhyme with dang.

Another good one:

Guy 1: That little man has done it to us again. He's made a monkey out of the forces of evil. He's as slippery as an eel. How the devil do you hold on to an eel?
Guy 2: To be beaten by a lousy eel! We must get him at all cost!
Guy 3: I declare war on that little stinker!

But nothing beats this exchange which might be the best dialogue I've ever heard in a Filipino little person spy movie:

Woman: You're a great person, ya know.
Weng Weng: You don't have to say. It ain't the size. It's the way you use it.
Woman: Maybe, but are you a sexual animal?
Weng Weng: I don't know.
Woman: I'm crazy about you, Agent Double-O. Why, I don't know. Maybe it's the way you strut your stuff. You know sex is like tequila. Take one sip and you're a goner.
Weng Weng: Shall we get it on?
Woman: Yes, darling. Bare your bod.


All in all, I really enjoyed this fun little (no pun intended) movie and look forward to seeing this pint-sized badass ("Pettite, like a potato," as one character says) in the handful of other actioners he starred in.

Our Man Flint

1966 spy spoof

Rating: 11/20

Plot: Controversial super-agent Flint is called upon to save the world from super-terrorists who want to use an earthquake machine to wreak havoc.

Shane, of shane-movies, really has nothing to say about this movie. He apologizes for the inconvenience.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

1997 spoofy comedy

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Groovy secret agent Austin Powers has himself cryogenically frozen after his nemesis Dr. Evil has himself cyrogenically frozen some time in the psychedelic sixties. Some time in the future, Dr. Evil comes back with an evil plan to destroy the world. Powers is unfrozen to put a stop to it.

"The militant wing of the Salvation Army." And that's about it. The only thing in this movie that I thought was even marginally funny. I saw this when it came out but was surprised how I remembered every single detail as I watched it again. I did remember correctly that there's very little funny about this movie. Part of the problem is that there are quite a few of these spy spoof things, a lot even with a psychedelic hue. An over-saturation maybe. A lot of it is a dependence on potty humor. You get penis jokes, poop jokes, urine jokes, innuendo. Those are crutches for the non-creative, and if I want to enjoy that kind of humor, I'll just lock myself in the bathroom for a few hours with a couple puppets or, if I'm feeling really frisky, three puppets. I'll give credit to Myers for creating two unique characters. Personally, I think the Dr. Evil character is a lot more fun than the titular man of mystery, but even he gets a little old by the end of this. Elizabeth Hurley provides some eye candy and there's a lot of color to enjoy, but this movie doesn't have nearly enough material. Maybe they saved it for the sequels.

The Mackintosh Man

1973 spy thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: English intelligence agent Joseph Rearden is recruited by the titular man to pose as a diamond thief in order to be arrested, infiltrate a spy ring, and uncover just who is behind it all.

Not a bad little Huston action thriller although I was pretty confused most of the time. Paul Newman's performance is weird. I'm not sure exactly what his nationality was supposed to be, but he definitely wasn't convincing as an Australian jewel thief as his accent drifts in and out. He's not convincing as an action star either, especially when he's awkwardly punching or kicking people during a big escape scene. Newman sort of goes through the spy motions, and there's no depth to his character. The plot's pretty typical for this sort of thing. A big twist barely seems like a twist at all. There's nothing new with the action scenes although a prison bust-out sequence is nifty and a car chase, mostly because of the locale and the vehicles involved, is fun. I liked Maurice Jarre's repetitive score, reminiscent of the zither madness in The Third Man. I had trouble identifying the instrument, but it was something atypical, and I liked how the music felt free to just stomp in whenever it wanted to.

The Man with the Golden Gun

1974 James Bond movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: 007 finds out that the titular man wants to kill him with the titular gun and globetrots to find the assassin before the assassin finds him so that he can go back to saving the world or whatever it is he does.

Bitchin' 70s funk here! Within minutes, you've got Herve Villechaize, the appearance of a third nipple, fake skeletons, an old-timey shooting range, chaos in a house of mirrors, and wax figure finger target practice. Then, the theme song to end all theme songs! "One golden shot means another poor victim has come to a glittering end. For a price, he'll erase anyone. The man with the golden gun!" All behind the visual of women's dancing silhouettes against a background of fireworks! Shipoopi! Just when you think the movie has to slow down and take a breath, you're treated to details of a circus-born assassin, bellydancing, swallowed bullets, gun fondling, kung-fu hijinks, an attack with a watermelon, faux nipples, sumo wedgies, threats with a trident, something called a Solex Agitator or something, a car chase, a boat chase, another car chase, a racist Cajun, elephant molestation, a car-plane, a sun gun, a stunt that out-Dukes the Duke Boys with slide whistle accompaniment, a conceited Christopher Lee, explosions, more than a few bad puns, and a lot more Herve Villechaize. This is nutty stuff, but you've got a great bad guy doing his damage with a cigarette case, a lighter, and a fountain pen, and an intriguing plot stuffed with too many twists and turns for the average slide whistler to be able to keep up with. I'm far from a James Bond aficionado, but I really like the tongue-in-cheek approach this one has. It's nutty but not afraid to be nutty. It leaps on a kung-fu bandwagon unapologetically. It's got lines like Christopher Lee's "Look behind you. . .lower" which, in context, is as funny as anything I've heard in any comedies I've recently seen. It's got exotic locales, improbable action sequences galore, and beautiful women. And Herve Villechaize, sometimes shirtless! What more could a warm-blooded man want?

The Quiller Memorandum

1966 spy movie

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Quentin Quiller is playing an elaborate and deadly game of hide-and-seek with neo-Nazi fiends in Germany. Obi-Wan Kenobi helps him out. Several people try to give him cigarettes, and he gets it on with a sexy school teacher. Not bad for a cheap weekend spy fantasy camp run by amateurs!

"Can I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like two tickets for The Quiller Memorandum."

I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have seen this movie in a theater back in the mid-60s because I wouldn't want to say that title through that little hole in the glass to a person who can probably barely hear me. Even if the man who would later play Obi-Wan Kenobi was in the movie. This could have used some more thrill and a more engaging main character. Segal's Quiller doesn't really do much. But it all works in a kind of quiet way, and there are a couple really good scenes. I also liked the music performed, I believe, by the Quiller Memorandumers. The Pinter-penned script makes this quite a bit different from your average spy movie.