2. Queen of the Amazons

I failed to see this movie as an actual Sci-fi but rather some sort of shitty hybrid between a safari movie and a noir. It starts of with some chick (I’ll call chick 1) coming to Akbar, Africa to find her missing fiancé Greg. She’s with Greg’s father and some other old dude. It has a very mysterious noir feel to it and some silhouetted guy giving orders to everyone behind the scenes. Then there is a great scene of some tiger attacking a group of explorers. Then there is a stock footage scene of some random riot in the streets. That all happened in the first ten minutes. Then chick 1 and her group leaves Akbar to some other African place and it kind of starts to go down hill. There is a ton of stock footage in this movie, probably about half of the movie consists of stock footage and all of it is completly unnecessary. When they get to the second city there’s like a ten minute stock footage scene of African natives doing tribal dances and it’s completely pointless. So anyway, chick 1 and her group hire a guide to lead them into the safari to find Greg. The guide is sexist and says no but then chick 1 shows the guide that she has good aim with a pistol so then the guide likes her. Then there is a rather long and pointless scene of chick 1 and the guide going to recruit a cook to come with them on the safari which is one of the most retarded ideas I’ve ever heard because as far as I know there isn’t a particularly large need of a cook on a safari but they say that he is the best so what the hell? Then there is another long stock footage scene of more bushmen dancing. Then chick 1 and her group finally start their quest to find Greg and for some reason they take about one hundred black slaves with them so this way we get about ten minutes worth of stock footage of black slaves marching around Africa. At some point during the quest we hear of a rumor of some Amazons living in the safari that are really mean or something and they are ruled by a ruthless white queen. Then the guide gets violently attacked by a huge lion and escapes with a mere scratch. Afterwards chick 1 mends his tiny-ass scratch and they get into this awkward conversation about whether she could love him if she wasn’t already engaged which is especially a weird conversation since they’ve only known each other for about a day. Then some white dude in their group gets murdered and the guide is able to tell from the footprint of the murderer that the killer was white and not black because apparently we make different footprints. Then it goes straight to Greg who is living with the Queen of the Amazons and is apparently in love with her even though just earlier chick 1 informed us that she and Greg had known each other since they were kids and had always been in love with each other. So chick 1 and her crew get to the camp of the Amazons but Greg isn’t there because he is out running errands for the Queen. The Queen talks to chick 1 in private and asks if it’s ok that she and Greg are in love with each other. Chick 1 is cool with it. Then the guide reveals to the Queen that he has some sort of ulterior motive for going on the trip which involves ivory trafficking or something. Then the cook appears and reveals that he is the murderer and the one behind the ivory trafficking. Then a little fight breaks out between chick 1’s slaves and the cook’s slaves and Greg comes back and joins his father in the fight. There is a happy ending with the first ever double-marriage in the safari! Chick 1 marries the guide who she just met and her life-long lover Greg marries the Queen who he also just met. Everybody wins!

Score: 3

1. The Incredible Petrified World

Well, first of all this movie hardly appeals as a Sci-fi, and there sure as hell ain’t anything incredible about it. Here’s the basic plot: some scientist dude wants to break a record by lowering some people into the ocean in a pod deeper than anyone has ever been lowered before! It’s measured by a “Depth by Foot” meter. But the chain breaks and the four people get trapped underwater in the pod which for some reason remains suspended in the same location deep in the sea after the cable breaks. The four people are Craig, Dale (a girl), Laurie, and some other dude whose name I forgot. So one of the guys sees some light out of the pod window and the four put on wet suits and swim out. The four find this underwater cavern that is full of air so they decide to chill there. They start to wander around hoping that the cavern leads them back to the surface. While wandering they find an old dirty man who’s been in there for fourteen years and he tells the four that there is no escape. The four decide that there’s no choice but to live in the cave with the old man. Meanwhile, for some reason there are an abundance of close ups on the old man accompanied by very suspenseful music. The guys go back to the pod to get some supplies and the pod is apparently still suspended in mid sea and defying the laws of physics by not continuing to sink. While they are gone there is some unnecessary drama between the girls. Dale’s jealous because Craig loves Laurie and therefore Craig and Laurie are kind of happy to be living together in the cave for the rest f their lives because they at least have each other. The old man feels sorry for Dale so he suggests that the two of them should kill the other three. She doesn’t really want to so then the old man decides that he should probably kill her. However, before he can, an underwater volcano erupts which causes a bunch of rocks to fall on the old man. Meanwhile, the brother of the scientist who messed up the first pod experiment discovered what went wrong so he proceeds to construct a new sea pod (in a matter of minutes apparently) and then go to the exact same location and attempt the very same task—this time sending his brother (the one who failed) down in the pod. Coincidently, Craig and that other dude are still swimming around in the water when the second pod comes down in the exact same spot. One of them happens to run out of air at that exact moment and the other one pulls him into the second pod. Inside the pod, the conscious man and the scientist decided to give the passed out guy coffee instead of mouth-to-mouth, and it works! Yes! Then Craig goes back to the cave where the girls are trapped by the crumbling walls (the volcano is still erupting I guess). Craig enters the cave and a rock falls on him and he suspensefully passes out for about two seconds. Then the girls see him and lightly tap his shoulder and he gains consciousness. Then they all go back to the pod and then to the surface and there is a small celebration and a few cheesy jokes.

Score: 2

50 Movie Pack: SciFi Classics!!!

So, I got a lot of free time on my hands since I'm not taking any classes right now and I don't have a job. It'd be a shame to waste all this time in some petty manner so I decided that I better do something good for the community, but i wasn't quite sure what. Then one fateful day I was at my uncle's house and I stumbled across this DVD box set of 50 terrible SciFi movies and I thought to myself "what kind of idiot would waste his time watching all those terrible movies?" Yet at the same time I felt sad . . . it seems that people today are so caught up in unimportant affairs like politics, working, or spending time with their families that they completely neglect to pay proper respect to the works of art which essentially laid the foundation for our whole society--I'm talking about SciFi flicks, really old ones. At that moment I knew what I had to do with my time. It was time for me to step up and take on the responsibility of my heedless society and watch all 50 of these god-awful films. Just so everyone is able to reap the benefits of my sacrifice, I'll write a brief summary of each of these films as I struggle my way through them. Should anyone chose to follow my courageous example and watch some of these things, I'll also give the films a score ranging 1 through 5.

The scoring corresponds to the following:

1 = terrible movie, almost impossible to watch in entirety, had to force myself to watch it, almost annoyed that I wasted my time watching it

2 = pretty bad, it's possible to watch once without having to exert my attention too much, I'll probably never watch it again

3 = it held my attention, I didn't have too hard of a time watching it once, probably won't watch it again

4 = decent movie, has enough redeeming qualities to make me think it might be worth watching again

5 = entertaining movie (although entertaining doesn't necessarily mean good), will probably watch it again at some point and would recommend that you watch it too!

I notice that each pf these films has a short description on their DVD sleeves. However, I don't plan on reading the descriptions until after I view them because I'm assuming the descriptions will only deter me from watching them in the first place. I might reference these descriptions in my summary's though because I have a feeling that several of them won't accurately represent the films they supposedly describe. We'll see. Also, I plan on viewing these films in the order they're arranged in the box set. Maybe there's some logic to the order (though I highly doubt it). All assign a number to each film I watch in the order I view them. (for example, the first film I watch is umber 1 . . .)

May the force be with you!