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I think I've finally seen the Worst Movie Ever Made, and it hurts me to say that. As a big fan of indie cinema, gay or otherwise, I had high hopes. Several minutes into the film, however, the sheriff appeared and has my vote for the worst actor of this or any other century. His performance, and the dialog he was forced to perform, caused me the unusual step of stopping the DVD in its track. Hours later when I screwed up enough courage to press the play button again, it was no better.
Aside from the sheriff and his cartoon-racist deputies, the film has an attractive cast for whom I felt genuine sympathy since they had such a miserable script. The idea behind the film is fine - using lynching of gay men in the "New South" the same way it was used on black men in the Old South, leaving "strange fruit" hanging from the trees.
With an accomplished writer and director, we might have had a movie. Instead we get fake detective work, platitudes about homosexuality, and a cliché with a the one good white man trying to save the day.
I have no doubt that racism still flourishes. The FBI is currently investigating a white school bus driver in the back woods of Louisana who forced the black kids to get to the back of the bus. But this town is a cartoon, and it is hard to believe anything you see or hear.
There a few subplots in a weak attempt to try to make the main character more three-dimensional, but for the most part, they also fail miserably.
For the truly masochistic, the DVD contains some deleted scenes that will leave you running for cover.
The is probably the first movie that makes me believe that writer/directors should have to pass a test and get licensed before they can make a film. Although I would look forward to seeing several of the cast members in better films, I would be hard-pressed to witness anything else from this director.


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This opens with the company credits informing us it`s by World International Network . I knew I`d seen this company credit before but couldn`t remember where , but knew it was at the start of a really bad movie I`d seen so I seriously thought about changing channels , only thing was I`d seen every film on the other channels which is one of the problems of being an IMDB reviewer . What the hell I thought it won`t really matter if WANTED is good or bad because I`ll still be able to review it for this site.
As I expected WANTED wasn`t all that good . It`s a plot I`d seen so many times ( Too many times ) before involving a fugitive on the run , a bit like THE INCREDIBLE HULK TV series without the shirt ripping . Jimmy crosses the mob in an entirely contrived way and goes on the run and in an entirely contrived manner finds himself working at a catholic reform school . Have you noticed an oft used description in the last sentence ? " Entirely contrived " is the answer . Let me repeat for the hard of thinking that this is an entirely contrived film where everything relies on coincidence . Another problem I had was the reform school run by the church - it`s far too compassionate and kind , I`m led to believe these type of establishments make Alcatraz look like a country club , I`m saying this is a fact but when the head priest looks like the spitting image of Donald Rumsfeld you do feel there`s a large amount of sugar coating going on .
To be honest despite the ridiculous plot twists etc WANTED isn`t really a bad thriller though it`s a terribly good one either . I never really had the urge to switch it off no matter how contrived it became which is an under hand compliment to the movie


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This movie about a man on the run for killing a mobster is the kind of film you can watch entirely on fast forward, once you know who's who, and not lose a thing. It has an attractive cast but the plot is a virtual writer's guide to cinema cliche, and boy does the dialogue clunk!


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Pretty terrible, but not entirely unwatchable. Another review mentioned "predictable" - and that's almost an understatement. You can make a game out of guessing what the next line will be. Every character is either stereotype or archetypical. The good guy in a bad situation, the struggle between older and younger priest on acceptance and discipline, the repressed, sexually/emotionally deprived woman returning to the small town after failing in the big city, engaged to the hotheaded, feeble minded beau from youth, the unredeemable bad guys, two "lost boys" looking for a sense of family - they're all here, and none of them with even the remotest spin of something new. From the first few minutes you can figure out exactly what will happen by film's end. The story isn't entirely lame, but direction, acting (even from a cast with some talent) everything is thrown together without skill. As to the storyline, we've all seen it before in a movie called "Sister Act." This is also one of those films where inattention to small details show up in an even more glaring light. (As example: the nurse and our hero drive into town but park several blocks away from their destinations (post office and hardware store) - yet both walk across empty parking lots for no apparent reason. Or the passage of morning to night during a scene that seemingly should occur in no more than half an hour. The movie is filled with that kind of stuff and then tags on an improbable denouement.


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The most impressive thing about 'Anemic Cinema' is its title: an anagram which is very nearly also a palindrome. Unfortunately, it only works in American English, since in Britain 'anaemic' is spelt differently.
I've always found the dilettante Man Ray and his artistic efforts to be deeply pretentious, and I've never understood why his work attracts so much attention. Apart from his Rayographs (which he invented by accident, and which are merely direct-contact photo prints), his one real contribution to culture seems to be that he was the first photographer to depict female nudity in a manner that was accepted as art rather than as porn. But surely this had to happen eventually, and there's no real reason why Ray deserves the credit. The critical reaction to Man Ray reminds me of the story about the Emperor's New Clothes.
Back in the early 1960s, the second season of 'The Twilight Zone' opened each episode with a shot of revolving concentric circles in black and white. There's an image in 'Anemic Cinema' which is so similar, I wonder if 'Twilight Zone' borrowed it from this film. The main difference is that the revolving image here is a black and white spiral. Indeed, if ever there was any movie that deserves to be described as a spiral, this one is it. Throughout 'Anemic Cinema', we're treated(?) to shots of a revolving disc containing words (in French) moving in a spiral. The effect is vertiginous, and the texts -- about incest and Eskimos -- are nearly Dada in their meaninglessness. I did laugh at one clever sexual pun.
The emperor is naked, folks, and this movie just barely rates 2 points out of 10. Au suivant!


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So this guy goes into a psychiatrist's office for his first appointment. After the paperwork is done, the psychiatrist says "I'm going to show you ink blots. Tell me what you see in them." "Well, says the patient," looking at the first one, "I see a man and a woman having sex." On seeing the second one, he says "I see two women having sex." On seeing the third, he says "I see two men having sex." On seeing the next one, he says "I see two men and two women having sex." The psychiatrist puts down the the inkblots. "So," he says, "We'll start by discussing your monomania." "MY monomania?" says the guy. "And you with all these dirty pictures!" That's how this movie strikes me.


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I'm giving it a three instead of the lower number it deserves because of its history. A full-length movie made by high school students! It shows, too, but that's part of the charm and appeal. Get ahold of some of the stuff George Lucas did at UCLA; this is better. Maybe due to being a group effort.
A monster made of toxic waste and too much garbage--these kids were way ahead of their time!--starts ravaging the town of Milpitas during a high school dance. The monster destroys randomly, leaving garbage and smelly footprints.
The movie has local TV and radio people, the Milpitas mayor, the Samuel Ayer High School principal, and a whole bunch of the high school students and their parents, not to mention the mayor's daughter as the ingénue.
Dumb? Yeah! Fun? Yeah! Great screen writing? C'mon, they're untrained high schoolies! Copy that comment for the acting, cinematography, directing, et cetera.
Milpitas is right next to San Jose in the heart of Silicon Valley; maybe one of the graphics geniuses there will update the video somehow. Now THERE's a challenge.


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This is a VERY bad movie. However, I read that it was made by a high-school teacher so maybe I should give it at least a TINY bit of praise for it's ambitious (yet awful) special effects. Here is the plot: a monster emerges from a pile of trash and pollution in the town of Milpitas, California and embarks on a destructive rampage. I'm about to spoil the "big surprise" about what the monster looks like, so please read the rest of this at your own risk. You have been warned! The monster looks sort of like a giant, two-legged fly wearing a gas mask. In some scenes, the monster is an actor wearing a costume. In other scenes, the monster is created by stop-motion animation. The acting is terrible. The dialogue is terrible. The special effects are terrible. The plot is predictable. Stay away!


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It is real easy to toast, roast, flay, and otherwise burn this film for all of its abundant flaws. It was made by high school students and faculty and a whole community; it shows! Sure, I could examine the script which is just ridiculous. A monster created from the garbage of a growing Californian city starts eating garbage and taking garbage cans all over the city. Soon this huge beast with wings no less begins to destroy buildings and even plays the "beauty and the beast" act with a young high school girl. Fortunately for her there is a gang of guys, her former boyfriend nicknamed "The Penguin," and the town drunk out to help her. The direction is awful, the production values just dreadful, the acting non-existent, and the pace sluggish. The movie is hard to sit through - period. However, that being said, it is also a miracle of a film when you consider that this thing was crafted by an entire community. You can see all the collective effort from the actors, the actual mayor and actual firemen and policemen, to the area location shots used. I also was really amazed at all the local businesses credited at the film's end with helping to finance or contribute in some way to the film. When you look at the film from that perspective, it is indeed quite an achievement. I didn't know anything about it before I sat down and watched it. Now that I have found out something about it, I am impressed. But make no mistake - I have no...NO...desire to sit through it again.


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This is the result of the town of Milpitas California making a home movie and subjecting the rest of the world to it. Legendary in some circles as the biggest cinematic turkey this movie is rightly thought of as a bad movie. Part comedy, part giant monster horror movie this movie is full of non actors not acting. the plot has something to do with a giant monster being created from the garbage and pollution in the area and going on a rampage. The monster, which we don't see until the final 20 minutes, is rather cool looking but isn't cool enough to warrant watching the preceding hour of boredom. Frankly even hardened bad movie lovers are going to have a tough time getting through to the end. This is a stinker.


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I've heard that this move was put together by a bunch of high-school students. As a high-school art or theatre project it's not too bad. Unless you lived near milpitas in the seventies or knew someone involved in the making of the movie, this is pretty awful. Most of the actors are clearly not actors, but locals who volunteered. Bob Wilkins (the original host of Creature Features on KTVU in Oakland appears, but only for about a minute). Some of the monster effects are done with stop motion animation and some with a man in a monster suit and each works okay on it's own, but there is no continuity between the two. Watching without dialog, you'd assume that the movie had 2 monsters. I guess the most unsupportable aspect is that even the main characters, who I assume are the kids behind the movie, cannot even pretend to act. These kids must have been involved in theater in some way to want to do this project, but they display zero believable emotion in front of the camera.


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In the past 5 years I have rented some bad movies...completely on purpose. See I aspire to be a movie reviewer, and as we all know there are horrible movies released every year. Anyway, about 3 months ago I rented this one. I watched it all the way through...and cried profusely. This is one of those movies that is so freakin bad it makes you want to puke. It actually put a sick feeling in my stomach. I've seen lots of bad movies (Mystery Science Theater 3000 anyone?) but this one takes the cake. The plot was hard to follow, the lighting horrible and the sounds almost inaudible. If there was a negative rating on the scale here this movie would be at -11 for me. This may seem odd, but I highly recommend it. It's something you have to see for yourself...but don't say I didn't warn you. I don't think this review could get any more precise so I'm done now.



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The parallels between this film and "Captain Walrus" (an independant film shown at the Team Projection Film Festival in 1994) are so blindingly obvious that any praise for "Sally Marshall Is Not An Alien" must be viewed with the knowledge that it is riding on the success of another work.
In Captain Walrus, two young boys (Geoff and Roger, played by Dean Turner and Brett Allen respectively) examine the bizarre behaviour of their new neighbour Britney (played by Louise Farley). As the two boys watch through their telescope, they observe the repeated visits of a man in uniform who they call Captain Walrus (played by Peter Sargent). However, the emphasis in Captain Walrus is on the pointless and somewhat power-hungry actions of the neighbour Britney, and less on the friendship between the two boys.
A critical success at the film festival, the plot of Captain Walrus has obviously been appropriated and rehashed in order to give the Australian Film Community another notch on the belt with regards to children's product. Although Sally Marshall is not an Alien is a fine film, and a credit to its producers, its inauthenticity leaves something to be deserved.


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Reading the other two comments, I had to wonder if I had seen the same movie!
Perhaps life is drastically different in Australia, but, wow - call it sci-fi or fantasy, but people just don't act like this.
I couldn't pass up this review without commenting on it myself.. it gets better after the first half hour, but I doubt most could make it that far..
Yikes.


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Veber is not renown for his outstanding directorial skills. In fact nobody cares as long as they got the laughs, quite a few here to be honest, scattered in the whole process, thanks to Depardieu's half-wit characterization and the dialogue Veber puts in his mouth.
But this is not enough to make a great comedy since there's no movie outside of the usual Veber premise: a tough guy is doomed to team up with a very naive character. In L'Emmerdeur, La Chèvre or Les Compères there was a real story going on over the fire vs. water proceedings. Le Diner de cons, although it was a play, managed to create a real suspense about the next catastrophe Pinon would cause. In Tais-toi the backstory about the vengeance is both redundant and too weak to arouse our interest. Plus the heavies are lame both on screen and in the script.
Now what's wrong? Veber wraps this up creating no action, no rhythm. Instead he uses systematically and overuses ellipses (maybe he met William Goldman in Hollywood) and the 'music' really stresses that lack of nerve and a backbone in the story.
So you'll have to be content with Depardieu's performance.


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I attended a screening of this film. Travolta came to do a Q & A after the film ended. It was a small screening room in Tribeca. Out of courtesy to him I did not walk out which I wanted to do. This is film-making at its worst. To start the script was poorly written. The writer writes in one voice. The dialogue was stilted and clichéd. How this writer/director got Scarlet Johansen, John Travolta and Lions Gate Entertainment to back her on this is the only brilliant thing she accomplished in this fiasco.
I do in fact recommend this film to all aspiring screenwriters, directors and filmmakers. Because when you are told that you are wasting your time and it will be impossible for you to reach your goals. Hey...just look at this crap and say to yourself...if they can make this then anythings poosible.
PS- Travolta did a great Q&A though...he was at ease, spoke freely and was a down to earth nice guy. The director/writer stood on the sidelines. When John tried to engage her in the conversation she stood back like a piece of wood and never joined in. I looked at her and I thought...how was this person able to successfully "pitch" to agents, studio execs, top talent ...when she can't open her mouth at a screening of her own film. The conclusion from a few of us in attendance was that she must have strong family connections in the business.
After you watch this you should follow it with Guy Ritchie's zero star masterpiece "Swept Away" with the most unintentionally funny and worst performance by wife Madonna. She's so bad and looks so bad in this film I figure this was her his way of getting back at her for all the abuse he takes from her at home.


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What a waste. John Travolta and Scarlett Johansen deserved better than this. To start at the beginning, JT was horribly miscast in the lead here. The role called for someone who could convince as a broken-down anti-hero, someone who could look haunted and defeated. Billy Bob Thornton would have fit the bill, or even Al Pacino, but JT is just too alive, and looks to be having too much fun. Also, surely someone who has been through the mill to the extent JT's character had would have suffered some physical effects? The character presented to the audience looked as if he could start as tight end for the Oakland Raiders. Scarlett faired little better role-wise. Where was the pain and conflict of what should surely have been troubling development? And as for the "plot" ... well, none of it makes sense. The characters leap from one frame of mind to another seemingly without cause - and certainly without explanation. The pace of the film also leaves something to be desired, namely, pace. This is a very slow film, not that I have anything against slow films, as long as they are heading somewhere. The pace only picks up towards the very end, when it shifts from a slow dirge to a frantic race to pack in as many tired clichés as possible. In this it succeeds - the only thing missing being something involving a small dog. 3 out of 10 for this one purely for Gabriel Macht's performance - he was the only member of the cast who was a) well cast and b) able to convince in his role. All in all, a terrible disappointment and a real waste of a couple of hours.


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This movie is an incredibly self-indulgent character piece that assumes that the mere impression of a story is as good as an actual story. It was utterly painful to watch and had I not been suckered in to buy the DVD because of John Travolta and the positive buzz, I would not have finished watching it.
This film lacks anything resembling an interesting premise and seems to rely on weighty (and frankly, heavy-handed) characterization. There is one altercation scene between Purslane and Bobby Long in which a TV is destroyed that, when played out, is incredibly flaccid and ill-timed.
I found myself caring less and less about the characters as I watched it. It was probably very fun, film-school-wise, to make it. But it is just awfully boring to watch. A indulgent and pretentious film school project you should not waste money on.


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This overheated southern Gothic "mellerdramer" has a few decent moments --but is too often spoiled by a novice director piling cliché upon cliché, and a star who apparently decided to take it upon himself to turn the picture into his personal showcase, rather than allowing writer/director Gabel to update Inge or Williams as a sort of contemporary "Midnight Cowboy" meets "Lolita" tearjerker.
Close your eyes, listen to the exaggerated southern accents, and try to decide if you're witnessing a feature film, or an acting class -- full of eager amateurs.
Johansson is for once tolerable (i.e. less pouty than usual) -- though by no means good, Macht is decent, though a little too pretty-boy cute to be believed, and Travolta chews the scenery as never before (with the help of a decent editor and some directorial restraint, his performance might have been really touching; as it is, he -- and almost everyone else -- is too unlikable to ever move us past the point of boredom or revulsion). Kara Unger is perhaps best of all; had her role been developed beyond a few lines, she might have even found herself with a Best Supporting Actress nomination.
Pic is almost saved by Leonard Cohen-style growling theme song, decent production design and locations, and continual reference to literary works (which has earned the otherwise standard screenplay reviews such as "poetic.") Also helpful are a few old pros in the cast like Sonny Shroyer, and perhaps most importantly, Soderbergh cameraman Elliot Davis -- whose fine work will no doubt be credited to the first-time director, who, ten or twenty years from now, may actually learn how to direct.
But probably not.


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The director does not know what to do with a camera... too many options and she always always always picks the wrong one... she let travolta take charge... and he controls the movie from the beginning to the end... the characters are not developed... maybe because we need to watch them singing... no pace at all, sometimes too fast sometimes too slow... miscasted: travolta OK... johansson, she is too grown up to be a 18... even if she is really 20...
the happy ending? well it looks like that there must be one, so the story is sad but not too sad... travolta doesn't know how to play a guitar but the director doesn't look she cares too much that he is totally out of synch...
the idea is the only thing that is great... but how she developed it? well, it is simply full of stereotypes and lines heard too many times...
too bad, another missed chance...


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On the cusp of being insufferable. Somehow I stayed just slightly interested, but was it because I truly wanted to know what the "secret" was (which, I should say, is pretty damned obvious) or because I hoped Scarlett Johansson would put on a more sexy outfit? This movie is poor and what's more it's a disgrace to all the lonely, alcoholic Southern literature professors out there. Travolta wants his Oscar so bad he is willing to cry drunkenly in the bathroom after urinating blood. Sorry, pal. . .you were more believable is "Staying Alive." Not everyone can pull a Peter Fonda in "Ulee's Gold." If you want the against-type brave anti- hero Oscar you have to, um, actually act. . .not just pout on screen. Stop this director before he/she (name is vague on gender) directs again!


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There is a phrase by the experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky, who says some films are structured like a camera mounted on the head of a dog who goes down an alley, sniffing everything along the way.
That's how this movie is. The structure is "Kurosawa started out as a baby, then he became a kid, then a young man, then a movie director, then he started making 'masterpieces', then he grew old, The End." The word 'masterpiece' is used a lot in this film to describe Kurosawa's output, without explaining *what* makes his films so good/great. Just because the off-screen narrator reading a script says that a film is a masterpiece, are we supposed to kiss his rear-end and accept that a certain movie is one of the great works of art of the 20th century? And one more point. The voice of Paul Scofield is used as the voice of Kurosawa, when excerpts from the director's memoirs are being read off screen. He brings pear-shaped Shakespearean tones to the text...but why him?? If you were making a documentary about Billie Holiday, would you use Dame Judi Densch as her voice????


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Rocketship X-M should be viewed by any serious movie buff for the following reasons:
1) It is one the first -- and the few -- movies not to have a happy ending. Doubtless the effect was more profound in post-World War II America than it would be today, but nonetheless the sad ending adds to the film's message.
2) It is also one of the first movies to deal with space travel in a serious fashion, using space as a valid setting for drama. The lack of scientific background notwithstanding, the movie stands on its own as dramatic fare. It's not so much a space drama as it is a drama set in space.
3) The anti-nuclear war message is delivered in a serious manner that is not lost in sfx involving large grasshoppers, men, or animal. The effect of Martian society from nuclear devastation is starkly and frankly presented. The fact that the survivors from the expedition crash land and as such are unable to preach the lesson learned on Mars adds another element of sadness to the tragic ending.
Sterno says take a ride on Rocketship X-M.


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I first saw this when it came out in the theater. Though only 13 at the time, I was an avid reader of "hard science" science fiction stories. The technical gaffes of the film are burned into my memory.
Some of the following may have significant spoilers.
Even as a youngster, I knew the premise is silly. The rocket takes off for a lunar mission, in a cosmos where there is always a gravitational effect on the crew (though loose objects float as in zero gravity) and because of that, the "cabin" (the area with the controls, whatever they called it) was gyrostabalized to maintain the "correct" orientation (so that when they landed, why didn't they land standing on their heads?) and where, at least in near-earth space, the rocket engines had to be running continually -- with propellant combusting away without an oxidizer. When the engines quit, the rocket stopped _dead_ in space, and couldn't start going until a PhD chemist determined it needed at a little oxidizer. This time, the rocket recalled it had momentum, and the next thing our heroes know they're near Mars (even a 13-year-old nerd knew such a minimum-energy trip would take over 200 days).
They land, find the air was breathable (though at the time scientific data revealed that the pressure, even if the atmosphere were pure oxygen, would be too low to do any good). They decide to camp outside the ship, and even build a campfire. They come armed, even though they were supposedly going to the Moon, where firearms wouldn't be needed.
They get a sight of a collapsed civilization, encounter stray martians who look just like people, develop an anti nuclear war philosophy, and those who survive try to get back to the home planet, and die in the attempt by crashing on the Earth! To do that would require such a long orbital period, they'd have died of starvation long before approaching their destination.
The film it preceded, Destination Moon, used real science most effectively (even though their "rescue" with the Oxygen Tank forgot about the moment arm from the tank's center of gravity to the output nozzle). This film showed woeful ignorance of even the most basic science. Only the most technologically illiterate should think of it as a science fiction film: it's on a par with the old Flash Gordon serials where their rocketships took off from their bellies and climbed in spirals, and whose engines were always on.
The story on this one I considered banal, and I can recommend this only as a film to be shown to students for them to pick out technical gaffes.


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Wow, this was a real stinker. This early sci-fi flick has nothing going for it than pure camp. There's so much scientific mambo-jumbo in the dialog it's laughable. The female character played by Osa Massen is just a plot device for the male characters to serve sexist remarks during the entire length of the film. Watch this one with your girlfriend I guarantee it will make her blood boil.The only good thing is the musical score which expertly build the moods of the film. The special-effects are rather crude but not bad considering the vintage of the movie. With some good B-stars in the lead roles,the acting isn't too bad. But the lines they are given must have given them quite a challenge. The challenge of not laughing their heads off.


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Minor spoilers
First I must say how rare and charming it is to find a movie with such basic messages in it: nuclear war will inevitably destroy all of civilization, and women are for making babies. It is absolutely incredible how well formulated the plot is to hit in these two points, as with a golden hammer. Essentially, everything about this movie annoyed me. The casual sexism, the character whose sole trait was coming from Texas, the mysterious choice of dying Mars orange, and of course the flawed science of it all. Then the martian woman screaming as if she had just noticed that she was blind? What was that? However, I will give it credit. The fifties did spit out some sillier things. But not much...


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I bought "Rocketship X-M" on DVD in a two-pack with "Destination Moon." Now I see why the distributors did that: no one who had ever seen this movie would buy it on its own.
I cannot fathom what school system turned out the reviewer who claimed that RXM is "great in its predictions of how space travel would take place..." Launch straight up, and then do a 90-degree right turn and circle faster and faster until you reach escape velocity... I don't think I recall that from the Apollo program. Never mind that the astronauts should be weightless once they shut off the engines, gravity changes directions every time they pass through the hatch to the engine room. Going to the moon, but "missed" it? No problem, it's just a hop-skip-and-a-jump (with a helping hand from divine providence) and you'll be at Mars! And OK, if you want to put life on Mars, given the state of planetary knowledge in 1950, it was a forgivable convention for the sake of the storytelling, but can you make them look at least a LITTLE alien? These Martians looked like extras from the cast of "10,000 B.C." I can accept some scientific mistakes, but this wouldn't pass muster with an above-average second-grader.
And that's aside from the screaming plot holes: 12 minutes before launch (as you're reminded of constantly by the nagging P.A. voice saying "X minus so many minutes") the astronauts are giving a press conference! I guess the time crunch is why Dr. Eckstrom didn't change out of his coat and tie before launching into space. And how handy that, even though they were planning to go to the moon and had pressure suits for that, they brought hiking gear (and rifles!) just in case they ended up at Mars. They're lucky they landed anywhere, since apparently the method they had developed for landing was to have Dr.E look out the window and tell the "pilot" (Lloyd Bridges) to tweak down the throttles every now and then. Note to the designers of the XM-2: how about giving the pilot a window seat?
Ditto the previous comments on the casual sexism that had eye-candy Dr. Lisa (Osa Massen) doom them all by repeatedly screwing up her fuel calculations, but hey that was the early '50s. She was there to fill her sweater, not a useful function.
"Rocketship X-M" is notable for being one of the first of the first films to say "ohmigod we're all going to blow ourselves up with these here A-bombs", but one can note that about it without wasting 77 minutes watching such dreck. By the way, that message might have had a bit more impact had there been some money in the budget for actual sets of the Martian city ruins, rather than just matte paintings.
I can appreciate "good" bad sci-fi, for the unique way the "future" used to look, and for the inherent (if condescending) humor you can find when when we look back on the naivety of audiences 60 years ago, but this film must have been insulting even then. "Rocketship X-M" isn't even suitable for an MST3K-style lampooning. Sometimes, bad is just... bad.
Anybody want to buy a DVD? Used only once, I swear.


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Although it can be VERY tedious at times, this movie is really not all that bad. The acting is fairly well done, if stereotypical, and the production values are pretty high considering some of the Sci-Fi movies that were to come later in the decade.
My biggest problem with this film are some of the very outdated characterizations in it. There's the guy from Texas, the "professional" scientist, and worst of all the woman scientist who finally realizes her womanhood. For a film seeking to make a statement about mankind, it loses some of it's impact by reducing its characters through sexist stereotypes.


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To call "Rocketship X-M" a science fiction classic is due more to its release date (1950), its savvy ability to capitalize on the publicity for "Destination Moon", and the appearance of actors who would later star in television as Sea Hunt's Mike Nelson, Rockford's dad and Wyatt Earp.
The movie itself is bad enough to be good fodder for MST3K and is best viewed with commentary from Joel and the robots. This is the type of movie best suited to added riffing from the MST3K characters; something preachy, slow-paced, poorly scripted, and full of painfully bad acting. While unintentionally funny stuff like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" don't lend themselves to satirical commentary (because the movie constantly upstages the hosts), really bad and dull movies like "Rocketship X-M" are ideal. So add some stars to the rating if you are watching the MST3K version.
The basic story has the crew taking an unplanned right turn at the moon and ending up on Mars. What they find on that planet are the remnants of a human-like civilization devastated by an atomic war. Only one Martian is shown in close-up, a normal looking woman who is blind or at least has no pupils in her eyes. The men look like the "goons" in the old Popeye cartoons, they scamper agilely around the cliffs and throw boulders at the crew with amazing accuracy-especially if they are supposed to be blind. Of course none of this is ever explained as doing so would require some sign of logical analysis from the writers of the screenplay.
The scenes on Mars are presented in something called "Sepia Color" to distinguish them from the rest of the B&W movie. If this has you thinking "Wizard of Oz" you will be disappointed because it is just black and white stuff with a slight brown tint added to the print in post-production.
In keeping with the moronic sexism of the movie, the icy female scientist screws up her fuel calculations-both coming and going. Her failure to measure up to the men causes her feminine side to surface and she and Mike Nelson coo sweetly to each other as they face their doom (insert sound of gagging here).
The real stars of the movie are the reporters at the command center. So much so that MST3K was inspired to specially salute these unheralded heroes. The intrepid squad of "newsies" are featured for the first 10 minutes of the movie, then take stations about 12 inches behind the technicians and monitoring equipment in the command center. Later they are called upon to ask the moronic questions needed by the mission director to expound on the movie's already too obvious message.
The DVD has an extremely low audio level, is not captioned, and is accompanied by a trailer. Although you will be thankful that it is only 77 minutes, it is still about 60 minutes too long as any 30 minute episode of "The Twilight Zone" has several times more content than this entire movie.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.


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I completely understand the historical significance of Rocketship X-M, but that doesn't make it a good movie. To begin with, the plot (or what there is of it) is dull and lifeless. Five astronauts blast off for the moon  they get knocked off course and end up on Mars (huh?)  cavemen-looking Martians throw rocks at them  they return to Earth and meet a fiery death  The End. Believe it or not, but this pithy plot description makes it sound much more interesting than it really is. To make matters worse, John Emery's character, Dr. Karl Eckstrom, feels it necessary to give long drawn out speeches on everything from the nature of man to the dangers of nuclear weapons. It's just a thrill-a-minute (sarcasm intended).
Looking back at Rocketship X-M almost 60 years later, I would call the portrayal of women funny if it weren't all so sad and misguided. There are a number of examples I could cite, but there's one exchange of dialogue just after take-off between the male chauvinist pilot Floyd (played by the irritating, plastic-haired Lloyd Bridges) and Dr. Lisa Van Horn (the only female crewmember and the constant object of Floyd's often creepy attention) that illustrates the film's attitudes toward women quite nicely:
 Floyd: "I've been wondering, how did a girl like you get mixed up in a thing like this in the first place."
 Dr. Van Horn: "I suppose you think that women should only cook and sew and bear children."
 Floyd: "Isn't that enough?"
I think Floyd should have stayed behind with the cavemen!


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I'm seeing a pattern here. If you see a movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000, chances are if you go to IMDb.com there will be hordes of lovers of the film, yet it was picked to be on that TV show because it was sooo bad. I'm sorry but I read a lot about Rocketship X-M as being some landmark sci fi film that stressed realism. Well if that is the case I could write for several paragraphs about how even with 1950's knowledge this movie is utterly flawed. Gravity might be the first obvious observation, or as MST3K did as a skit "selective gravity", also what about when they are plunging to their death and they are just standing there looking out of the window, um would'nt the ship being upside down effect that scene? I would like to think that they started with good intentions and that it ran over budget or something but I think this movie was just plain cheese as in the from under type. Just compare this to "When Worlds Collide" which was released in 1951 to see the true place where this movie ranks, there's no comparison. The movie gets a 2 or maybe 3 on its own, its not even funny to watch on its own. It gets about a 5 or 6 as a MST3K episode as there is no action or much to make fun of, just bad, bad, bad, oh did I mention, it's bad.


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You have to hand it to writer-director John Hughes. With enormous success behind him in the misfit-teenager/high school vein, he managed to branch out into other areas of comedy, finding in the bargain a great ally in comedian-actor John Candy. Here, goof-off adult Candy becomes a better person after agreeing to babysit his brother's wiseacre kids; it's a surefire formula designed to please both cynical teens as well as their parents, and it isn't any wonder the film was a winner with theater audiences. Still, Hughes relies almost completely on Candy's charm to put the scenario over, and one may eventually grow tired of the repetitious gags with the star front and center. The kids are sitcom-smart, the other adults shapeless blobs, and Amy Madigan is too intense, too hyped-up playing Uncle Buck's girlfriend. Later became a TV series, which is befitting since the material was already television-perfected. *1/2 from ****


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Of the four main players in here - John Candy, Jean Kelly, Amy Madigan and Macauley Caulkin - the only one I've never heard about (at that time) was the one that annoyed the heck out of me and ruined the film. Well, she must have done a decent job of acting to make me want to throw her and the VHS into the garbage pail. I am referring to Kelly in the role of teenage brat, "Tia Russell." Ironically, six years later she played a stunning and extremely likable role in the person of "Rowena Morgan" in "Mr. Holland's Opus."
Candy, as usual, is fun to watch as "Buck Russell," or the title character, "Uncle Buck." Few actors were better at playing a lovable, hapless slob than Candy. I enjoyed his character in here, but I cannot watch that spoiled teen girl more than once. Also, in the first few minutes of the film, the little boy "Miles" (Cauklin) says the word "G-damn." How bad is that, having a six-year-old kid saying the Lord's name in vain on film? These Hollywood people are such sickos. No wonder many of their child actors turn out to be mentally screwed up, Caulkin being a case in point.


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Big fat slob 'Uncle Buck', played by John (eats-a-lot-of) Candy, visits the sane members of his family for a week in order to baby-sit two cute kids (Gaby Hoffman and MacCauley Culkin) and a pretty but snobby teenager (Jean Louisa Kelly). The shenanigans begin when Buck makes breakfast and then tries to sleep in a bed two sizes too small for his blimp of a body.
Mostly dull, but peppered with two or three funny scenes including Buck trying to get a word in edge-wise on the telephone with his angry girlfriend (Amy Madigan) and his meeting with a very disgusting clown.
Candy looks like he weighs 600 pounds.


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Full disclosure: I was born in 1967. At first the premise tickled me -- after all, if you were a teenager growing up in the age of Reagan, a trip down memory lane was worth a laugh or three. Pop Rocks, Atari and Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots? Loved 'em, not *despite* the fact they were goofy, but *because* they were goofy and silly and fun. But when VH1 decided to make the series "I Love Last Tuesday", I knew enough was enough. Goes Hal Sparks have nothing better to do than read from a teleprompter how idiotic Slinkys are? (Wait, let me check... hmmm, no. No, it appears he doesn't.) Snarky, snotty uber-hip posturing has its place, but enough already!


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Let's face it, this is a pretty bad film.However if you go in ready to make fun of it you can survive the experience.Okay, you'll scream in agony a lot.African jungle fun in a dopey kind of way.
Tom Conway (who spends most of the film wearing a funky chapeau) is using the local witch doctor and mad science to create a "perfect" being.It looks like a varmint that has been on a six week drunk and is in a sack dress.Ugly is being kind.But it won't kill for him because he's using a good girl as his subject.He needs a bad bad girl.
Marla English and Lance Fuller are two petty crooks in search of African gold.Acting lessons for Ms English should have been at the top of the search list.She's a bad girl and lets everybody know it in a performance worthy of a junior high school play.Mike "Touch" Connors is the white guide English & Fuller con into leading the expedition.
English & Conway finally meet and it is a match made in hell.She is the perfect subject to become his voodoo creature because she'll do anything (stress anything) to get what she wants.You will do anything to stop the agony of this movie at this point.
What made this movie interesting for me was Conway wearing that funky tribal hat/headdress/floral piece!Still trying to figure out what kind of dead animal it was.Guess he thought if he pulled it down low enough over his eyes nobody would recognize him.
Truly bad cinema.


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