MANHATTAN (1979)

Forty-two year old comedy writer Isaac (Allen) is in a relationship with a beautiful 17-year-old high school student, that is until until he starts hooking up with his best friend's mistress. That's pretty much the entire film, but it's all somebody with the storytelling genius of Woody Allen needs to create a wonderful and involving film. When we first meet Isaac he's hanging out with his young lover and his best friend and his best friend's wife. The friend tells Isaac that he's secretly having an affair. As luck would have it, not too long afterwards Isaac runs into the friend and his mistress while at an art gallery. Isaac takes an instant disliking to her (she insulted Ingmar Bergman!!!!!), but underneath his hatred is the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat and it's only a matter of time before they're screwing so great. Screws so great? Screws so great.

MANHATTAN is an excellent film, but I guess it wasn't excellent enough for The Academy Awards that year because they didn't even nominate it for Best Picture! Then again the real Best Picture of 1979 (ALIEN) didn't get nominated either, so what the fuck do I know? I'm just some asshole who spends too much time and stays up way too late writing bullshit that nobody reads...but let's be more optimistic. Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Um, well, there are certain things, I...I guess, that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay...um for me...uh. Oh, I would say, what, Robert McCammon to name one thing. And um and John Steinbeck and...um... the...The Beatles...and um, death metal...Swedish movies naturally..."The Earth" by Emile Zola, umm...Jack Lemmon, Flannery O'Connor...umm those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne...uh..the crabs at Sam Wo's...Rambo and Susie's furry little faces.

[Update 2018: add Charlie's furry little face to the list.]

ZOMBIE 5: KILLING BIRDS (1988)

ZOMBIE 5: KILLING BIRDS. Now when I hear a title of a film like that, my wee little brain connects the words "zombie" "killing" and "birds" and I create the expectation in my head that the film I'm about to watch is about zombie birds killing people. Wrong!!! ZOMBIE 5: KILLING BIRDS isn't about zombie birds you big dummy, it's actually the extremely slow moving story of a group of college geeks going out in the woods bird watching. While wandering around the woods they come upon a deserted house and decide to spend the night. This is like over 40 minutes into the movie at this point. During their stay one of the students starts having weird, lame visions about knives and murder. Later that night, some slooooooow zombies attack and eventually kill most everybody in boring ways. The End.

High school level special effects, horrible acting, zero nudity, unattractive females all around, an overly confusing story that just plain dumb. I cannot think of a single reason to watch this film other than to laugh right in it's stupid face. If you're a zombie fan then you're going to be disappointed at the crusty slow movers; if you're a gorehound you're gonna be disappointed at the weak gore and if you're a killer animal fan then you're really going to be disappointed because other than one lame eye gouging scene there is zero onscreen bird-on-human violence.

Skip it with a vengeance and never look back.

During the zombie attack this guy asks his computer for suggestions on what to do. What the fuck? That doesn't even make sense at all. For the sake of journalism, I asked Siri what I should do if zombies attacked and she actually brought up a Wolfram Alpha page about zombie movies. I'm kinda impressed. I then asked her if she has a hairy pussy and she gave me directions to a nearby pet store. What the hell? LOL. Why?!

CRITTERS 4 (1992)

For a low budget sci-fi film, CRITTERS 4 (while not really original) isn't too horrible, but as a CRITTERS sequel it's pretty goddamn lame because there's hardly any Krite action until the last act of the film and even then it's weak.

In 1992, that stupid ass motherfucker Charlie (yes, he's still around stinking up the entire franchise) gets himself locked in a spaceship along with two Krite eggs and put into some kind of hibernation. Fast-forward 53 years and a salvage ship comes across Charlie's ship just floating around in space. The crew contacts the owners of the ship and are instructed to report to a nearby station to collect their reward. Once there, they crew discovers the station has been abandoned. Even worse, the two Krites escape and are now on the loose.

That set up took nearly 40 minutes of screen time, but it's not too bad since it was kinda entertaining.  Unfortunately though, instead of being claustrophobic and tense (like ALIEN), the remainder of CRITTERS 4 is just a long snoozefest. The two Krites are about as scary as a Muppet, the cheap sets get really old really quick, the story doesn't go anywhere, the action is pathetic and having Charlie as a main character is a fucking personal insult to every single person who paid to see this film.

If you want to complete the CRITTERS series, then you have no choice but to watch C4, but honestly everybody else should just stay away. It's not horrible, but it's not good either. There's so many better things you could be doing with your life than watching CRITTERS 4. Skip it.

Part 1 - Critters (1986)
Part 2 - Critters 2 (1988)
Part 3 - Critters 3 (1991)

What computers will look like in the year 2045.