Message from Space (1978)

MESSAGE FROM SPACE (1978) *

It took two tries to make it all the way through Kinji Fukasaku’s MESSAGE FROM SPACE, one of the first of many STAR WARS rip-offs that only make you appreciate more what George Lucas and gang did in their movies.

How does MESSAGE FROM SPACE rip off STAR WARS? Let us count the ways. A soap, er, space opera, characters named Meia and Hans, a robot, interplanetary strife and destruction, aerial dogfights in space, laser beams, and a musical score by Kenichiro Morioka that should have been enough for grounds for a lawsuit from 20th Century Fox, John Williams, and the London Symphony Orchestra.

I struggled through MESSAGE FROM SPACE and it was a real cinematic endurance contest to get through its 105 minutes. I only made it through about 30 minutes the first try.

At one point in time, I thought about cutting MESSAGE FROM SPACE a little slack for its often lousy special effects, until I read that MESSAGE FROM SPACE cost $5-6 million. Okay, that’s about half of what 20th Century Fox spent on STAR WARS the previous year, but the budget for MESSAGE FROM SPACE apparently established a record (long since broken, of course) for largest budget for a Japanese movie. There went the slack, she be gone.

Vic Morrow (1929-82) sadly found himself at that stage in his career when he appeared in awful movies like HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP, GREAT WHITE, and MESSAGE FROM SPACE. Work is work is work, right? In MESSAGE FROM SPACE, Morrow plays a character named General Garuda and receives top billing in the cast above Sonny Chiba. Garuda Indonesia is the airline of Indonesia. Morrow seems to be drinking in every scene and if you had to act with an imitation R2-D2 named Beba, you’d be a full-blown alcoholic too.

This is one of those films not exactly helped out by a bad dubbing job.

I am normally one equipped with more empathy and enthusiasm than the average cinematic pleasure seeker for movies like MESSAGE FROM SPACE. I mean, for crying out loud, I have given four stars to INFRA-MAN, DRUNKEN MASTER, and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, three incredibly ridiculous movies that immediately came to mind.

I just found scant pleasure to be experienced from MESSAGE FROM SPACE.

Hard to believe, right, when MESSAGE FROM SPACE features eight Liabe seeds. They resemble walnuts, glowing, magical walnuts that are the unifying plot device; bet Nuts.com would do killer business with a MESSAGE FROM SPACE remake. Rather than The Force, MESSAGE FROM SPACE only manages doze nuts. Bad joke, I know right, but the bad movie made me do it. I promise, I promise, I would never write anything like that otherwise.

The Bad News Bears (1976)

THE BAD NEWS BEARS

THE BAD NEWS BEARS (1976) Four stars

I can hear somebody out there shout that THE BAD NEWS BEARS is not an underrated movie.

Sure, it’s not an underrated comedy or an underrated baseball movie, but I believe THE BAD NEWS BEARS is underrated as a serious consideration of competition and the effects of winning both individually and collectively on a team. Perhaps it’s because of director Michael Ritchie (1938-2001), whose other credits include THE CANDIDATE, SMILE, DOWNHILL RACER, and both FLETCH movies, that we get a sports comedy that goes a little deeper.

It’s that additional level that makes THE BAD NEWS BEARS my favorite baseball movie.

The Bears are, of course, the worst team in a prestigious California Little League. They’re a motley crew of misfits or as their firebrand shortstop Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes) puts it in his inimitable way, “All we got on this team are a buncha Jews, spics, niggers, pansies, and a booger-eatin’ moron.”

Of course, they’re not wanted in this elite league — in fact, city councilman and attorney Bob Whitewood (Ben Piazza) sued and won a lawsuit against that prestigious Little League to allow the least skilled athletes (including his son Toby) to play in the first place. The Bears are made up of those bottom-of-the-barrel players.

Whitewood hires Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), a former Minor League pitcher who turned to a life of beer and cleaning swimming pools … but mostly beer. Whitewood pays Buttermaker under the table to coach the Bears.

Buttermaker and the Bears are opposed by Coach Roy Turner (Vic Morrow) and the Yankees, namely Coach Turner’s son and star pitcher Joey Turner (Brandon Cruz, later a punk rock singer), at every turn. The Yankees are a juggernaut, of course, and the assholes and the bullies.

Along the way the Bears pick up two critical acquisitions: 11-year-old tomboy pitcher Amanda Whurlizer (Tatum O’Neal) and local hoodlum Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley), who joins the Bears to get back at Coach Turner and to pursue his crush on Amanda.

The Bears start winning and they make it to the championship game against the hated Yankees.

Please keep in mind THE BAD NEWS BEARS does not end like so many sports movies with the underdog winning the Big Game. It’s funny that both THE BAD NEWS BEARS and ROCKY end differently than all the movies they influenced.

It’s more important that Buttermaker and the Bears finally see the effects winning had on them and how they started becoming more and more like them damn Yankees.

By the final scene, when the Yankees sing an obligatory and condescending cheer for the Bears, they’ve already had it and Tanner speaks for the entire Bears team when he tells the Yankees, “You can take your apology and your trophy and shove ‘em straight up your ass!”

Honestly, that’s a more satisfying finish than a win in the big game.

THE BAD NEWS BEARS IN BREAKING TRAINING and THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN followed in successive years for three movies in three years and both sequels are lesser movies, especially the latter as the Bears resembled a high school baseball team. Kelly Leak, in fact, looks ready to join the cast of BREAKING AWAY. Yeah, GO TO JAPAN should be titled LONG IN THE TOOTH.

Matthau is perfect for the role of Buttermaker and the sequels miss him dearly, as William Devane (BREAKING TRAINING) and Tony Curtis (GO TO JAPAN) lack both the comedic and dramatic touches of Matthau. They’re just not as good as Matthau, who takes on a wide range in THE BAD NEWS BEARS. Matthau (1920-2000) handles the scenes where Buttermaker’s drunk, the quiet moments with Amanda, the screaming matches against Turner, and the shift in his personality after the Bears start winning. Matthau gives a great performance. He’s one of those actors that we’ll follow all the way through a turn toward asshole. Buttermaker takes a major asshole turn.

For example, Buttermaker pitches Amanda into early retirement, instructs Kelly Leak to go chase down and catch every fly ball even the ones hit to the other fielders, and commands godawful hitter Rudi Stein (David Pollock) to purposely get hit by pitches to give the Bears a runner on base.

The younger actors do not wear out their welcome and they’re not too damn cute for their (and our) own good. Yes, thankfully, it’s not one of those movies where the younger actors mug so heavily that I have to check my back pocket for my wallet.

There are many big laughs and moments of truth in THE BAD NEWS BEARS and the film deftly maneuvers between farce and slapstick, satire, sentiment, and drama.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP (1980) One star
Exploitation film legend Roger Corman loved ripping off / paying homage to JAWS, first with PIRANHA then a couple years later with HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP. The great white shark in JAWS and the piranhas did not prey almost exclusively on busty supporting players and extras so this was cinematic evolution at work here.

Yes, these humanoids are horny bastards: They should meet up with the horny aliens from the SPECIES films and we’d have ourselves a party. The humanoids resemble Swamp Thing, only uglier and with no poignant qualities. Do you want a Humanoid from the Deep this Valentine’s Day? They do not take a subtle approach to scoring with the ladies. These humanoids score with busty young women by raping them and leaving almost nothing but a mess behind. Legend has it that Uncle Roger went back in after the director turned in a final cut and shot additional scenes focused on sex and gore. This sounds like CALIGULA or any of the more repugnant Corman productions.

Uncle Roger shows his JAWS hand early on during HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP: There’s a child eaten and an explosion in the first 10 minutes of the film, elements of scenes from JAWS and JAWS 2, respectively. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

In certain sequences, there are jump scares every few moments, soundtracked by gasps, phone calls, and jarring musical score and then we’re brutalized with a “real” scare every so often. These scare tactics backfire miserably.

We have good old Doug McClure as our reluctant proletariat hero, strong working class family man. Just a couple weeks before watching HUMANOIDS I saw McClure survive AT THE EARTH’S CORE. In that classic, he played a fellow named David and Peter Cushing played Doc as we’ll never forget in scene after scene where characters say David and Doc and Doc and David and Doc and David. Here McClure’s Jim and the HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP characters do not share the same romance with “Jim.”

A Native American named Johnny Eagle (who would have been played by Will Sampson if the film had a larger budget) opposes the evil shenanigans of a venal capitalist played by Vic Morrow, who’s seeking a cannery deal for the people of Noyo, yes, Noyo. Eagle sounds forewarnings of portentous doom so naturally he’s set up to be a villain and later turns out to be a hero. Oh, sweet irony!

I mean, just once I’d love to see a film with the Native American as the venal capitalist and the white man as the conscientious environmentalist hero. Anyway, Eagle finds a fight without looking too hard and his presence at the Noyo Salmon Festival spawns a horrible fight scene, indicative of white pattern Native American bashing. Luckily, for all of us, a tear did not stain Johnny Eagle’s face.

Of course, Noyo holds a big carnival for its annual Salmon Festival. Nothing and I mean nothing will stop these Noyo yo-yo’s from holding their carnival, not even mutant killer fish slash humans. So, naturally, our Humanoids from the Deep play the role of the spoiler.

For some bizarre reason, this overdrawn attack-massacre sequence brought out fond memories flashing back on a similar overdrawn sequence in GIANT SPIDER INVASION. A lot of humanoids are killed good, a lot of bit players are taken a bite out of by humanoids, and it’s all broadcast over live radio by a disc jockey calling himself “Madman” although he’s not played by real-life DJ Don Steele, who showed up in both DEATH RACE 2000 and ROCK ’N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, as well as GRAND THEFT AUTO.

None of these scenes are remotely entertaining or interesting and that basically describes HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP.

Been there, seen that, and please roll the final credits.