THE 500 POUND JERK (1973)

When his breakfast cereal is discovered to have zero nutritional value, advertising man (James Franciscus) is given three months to save the cereal or be shitcanned. Around the same time, he has car trouble and at the garage meets a goofy lummox (Alex Karras) who doesn’t even workout but can lift up a car. This gives Franciscus an idea: train this birdbrained motherfucker for a few months, then toss his ass into the 1972 Olympics, avoid getting massacred by militants, win a gold medal in weightlifting and claim that the worthless cereal is why the Mongo motherfucker is so strong. Sounds like a completely sleazeball thing to do, but that's advertising for you.

When the title “The 500 Pound Jerk” popped up on the screen, I envisioned that the movie was going to be about a 500 pound bodybuilder walking around the Olympics being a douche. Imagine Rodney Dangerfield from BACK TO SCHOOL in Rich Piana’s body.  But nope, it’s about a weightlifting move called the Clean and Jerk and the 500 pounds is weight range they are going for to win the gold medal. How lame. That was disappointing. Still, this could have been a good film if they had leaned more towards the comedy aspect. But nope once again, instead, the filmmakers eat up time by shoehorning in a boring love story about our hero and a Russian gymnast. Lame!

Promising title, boring story, good acting by James Franciscus, interesting clips of the actual 1972 Olympic Games, that one guy from A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, sluggish pace, Howard Cosell, weak ending. Honestly, I don't even know why THE 500 POUND JERK was made. There's nothing to it. Worth a watch for James Franciscus fans, but that's about it.  That said, I'm about 100% convinced that somebody involved with the making of 1974's BLAZING SADDLES saw THE 500 POUND JERK because Alex Kerras plays pretty much the same character in that film but just in a cowboy hat. "Mongo only pawn in game of life." So, for that alone, I'm glad this film was made.

CITY ON FIRE (1979)

The star-studded cast can't hide the fact that the story for this movie suuuuuccckkkks.  After being introduced to all of the (bland) characters, we're finally treated to this nameless city blowing the fuck up (thanks to a disgruntled oil refinery employee) and...it's pretty boring.  Poorly photographed explosions mixed in with stock footage.  The story eventually focuses in on some firemen's efforts to rescue the people trapped in a hospital and...that's boring as well.  In fact, there's nothing about CITY ON FIRE that isn't boring!  Boring script, boring special effects, boring photography, boring acting.  I really enjoy disaster movies, but CITY ON FIRE straight-up bored me to death.  Which is a shame since Henry Fonda and Shelley Winters are both amazing talents (just watch MISTER ROBERTS or A PLACE IN THE SUN if you don't believe me), but they are strictly on auto-pilot here.  Collecting a paycheck.

Outside of morbid curiosity or self-hatred, I can't think of too many reasons to ever subject yourself to this overcooked turkey.  Skip it with a vengeance.

According to Box Office Mojo, CITY ON FIRE cost $5.3 million to make and only brought in $784,000.  That's kinda funny.

Eating egg shells.

THE LAST SHARK (1981)

A huge shark starts attacking people in the waters surrounding a small coastal city.  And to make matter even worse...it's right before their big windsurfing competition!!!  People get eaten and lots of stock footage of clearly different types of sharks is shown until finally the townsfolk have had enough and decide to kill the beast.  A guy with a helicopter goes out to catch the shark (he doesn't, but the shark does end up catching him!); some divers confront the shark with dynamite, but the shark chases him into a cave and then smashes the rocks until it closes up the entrance (wow!); a group of teenagers go hunting for the shark with a shotgun and one of 'em comes back minus a leg (that scene was awesome); an overzealous TV reporter chains a giant hunk of meat to a dock and the dock gets pulled out to sea along with a bunch of people on it (what the hell?) and in maybe my favorite scene: the shark hits a small boat and the dude standing in the boat goes flying straight up into the air!  It was hilarious.

Yeah, this is a JAWS (and JAWS 2) ripoff, but in the right state of mind it's very funny.  I don't understand why Steven Spielberg had to be a sore sport and sue the makers of this film. Yes, it has a lot of similarities to the first two JAWS films, but the movie is so goddamn shitty that now all I want to do is watch JAWS again just to see a good shark movie!

Zero nudity, mediocre acting, terrible music, shitty looking shark, lots of stock footage, American flags everywhere (that'd actually make a good drinking game), fake looking helicopter crash...THE LAST SHARK is a turd, but it makes up for it in laughs.