PAUL (2011)

Maybe I have a pickle up my ass, but I never even cracked smiled once during this movie. I like science fiction comedies (GALAXY QUEST, SPACEBALLS, etc.), but PAUL was a complete dud. Fucking FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR was funnier than this abortion. "Compliance!"

The story is about two sci-fi dorks who are on a road trip checking out different UFO tourist attractions when they witness a car wreck out on a desolate desert highway.  At the crash site they find Paul. Paul is an alien who's on the run from the government, so the two nerds decide to drive him to a location where an alien spaceship can pick him up. Many different alien anal probe and alien testicles comments later the film ends and I sat there in complete amazement that somebody could write a "comedy" script so lame and actually get it made!

I have no idea what anybody could even find funny about this movie. Was there even one joke? Maybe it was all nerd in-jokes that went right over my head. Whatever.  I found it completely weak, with too much drama bullshit going on for my comedic tastes.

Skip it and never look back.

ADALEN 31 (1969)

I'm not knowledgeable about the films of Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg, but according to IMDb this is one of his highest rated films.  Unfortunately I only found it to be mediocre.

From what I can tell, the story (also written by Widerberg) is based on the 1931 Adalen riots where soldiers fired on unarmed striking workers killing five and wounding five. That's an excellent idea for a film and strangely enough it's very reminiscent of Emile Zola's 1885 novel "Germinal", which I love. But the pace of ADALEN 31 is slow. Almost painfully slow. It opens with the workers living a peaceful country life during the strike, but then the owners hire some scabs, the workers attack and whip the shit out of them. The military is brought in.  During a march the workers are fired upon.

Nice story, but like I said it's slow! Honestly the 110 minutes you'll spend watching this film would be better spent reading the first few chapters of Zola's "Germinal" or watching Claude Berri's 1993 adaptation which I think is almost a masterpiece.

MANHATTAN BABY (1982)

[Update 03/02/2021: Need to redo this review completely. Fix the screenshots also.]

While exploring around the Great Pyramid of Giza, an archaeologist is zapped in the eyes with lasers and his daughter possessed by an evil spirit via a crappy looking trinket.  Once back in NYC, the archaeologist is dealing with being blind while his daughter has all kinds of weird shit going on like sand suddenly appearing in her room and a scorpion appearing in a desk drawer. Very exciting stuff!

I'm guessing this is some kind of a evil spirit possession film made to cash in on the popularity of movies like THE EXORCIST and THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, but MANHATTAN BABY is a slow-moving turd that I'm sure has bored the hell out of the majority of people who've had the misfortune of seeing it. First off, it's so surreal and dreamy that you never fully understand what's going on.  Then when you realize there's an evil spirit possessing the daughter you expect there to at least be a big showdown at the end, but no, nothing happens. There's a laughable animal attack scene that looks like crap, then the movie's over. Yawn.

I'm not a fan of Lucio Fulci and MANHATTAN BABY didn't change my mind at all. The pace is painfully slow, the special effects are laughable, the nonstop eyeball close-ups made me want to kick the TV in the nuts and the story is shit. Nothing exciting happens the entire film. It's a snoozefest from beginning to end. Skip it.

URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT (2000)

Where the fuck to even begin with this stinker? After the obviously bullshit beginning, we're introduced to a group of dorks, I mean, film students who are working on their thesis films. Each one is a bigger goober than the last one, but the biggest disappointment is the Final Girl, Amy. Can we at least have an attractive girl in the lead role?! The only thing more bland and boring to look at than her is the script. I honestly think it was just an unrelated throwaway script somebody had laying around, but then after the success of the original URBAN LEGEND, the filmmakers spiced the turd up with some "urban legend" bullshit in hopes of having a big opening weekend before the word got out that this movie sucked chupacabra penis. And guess what? It work! According to Box Office Mojo UL:FC made it's budget back within two weeks.

Anyways, the students are on campus making their crappy films when suddenly somebody wearing a fencing mask (a fencing mask?!!!) starts picking them off one at a time in very boring ways. In the original film, the urban legends were a little more explained, but in this one they just kinda happen.

The whole movie is a disaster. It's bland overload: the special effects, the killer's mask, the story, the main chick's granny panties, Joey "Whoa!" Lawrence, the kills, the weather, the clothes, everything! Everything about this movie was unexciting in the extreme. Skip it with a vengeance and never look back.

Part 1 - Urban Legend (1998)
Part 3 - Urban Legends: Bloody Mary (2005)

"Whoa!"