Microkhan by Brendan I. Koerner

Entries Tagged as 'Bad Movie Friday'

“A Smith & Wesson Beats Four Aces”

August 20th, 2010 · 7 Comments

It gives me tremendous pleasure to announce the long-awaited return of Bad Movie Friday, which has been on hiatus for a couple of weeks. I’m bringing it back after discovering a trove of utmost goodness on YouTube—namely, the collection of Andy Sidaris, previously lionized in this space as the writer-director behind the legendary Hard Ticket [...]

“Some People Get Mad…The Revenger Gets Even”

July 30th, 2010 · 5 Comments

Sorry to end the week with a whole bunch of radio silence, but the work crush got the best of me on this sunny summer Friday. Didn’t want to leave y’all with Mac Batchelor atop the page—no offense, Mac—so let me outro with yet another installment of Bad Movie Friday. This week’s victim/honoree is the [...]

And So the Khan Returneth

July 26th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Thanks for putting up with the spotty posting last week, as I struggled to keep up with the hectic sked over at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ realm. Did my best to cross-post when I could, but I’ll admit to lazing out a bit—which is why you’re getting Bad Movie Friday on a Monday. (All the background on [...]

“When Getting Even Just Isn’t Enough”

July 16th, 2010 · 2 Comments

In the name of holding our blogging cards close to our chest, so that next week’s TNC guest stint is something special, we’re gonna be taking you straight into Bad Movie Friday on this lazy summer morn. Some of our closest friends would argue that Avenging Force doesn’t deserve a place in the schlock pantheon, [...]

The Language Barrier

May 21st, 2010 · 2 Comments

Bananas week ’round here, as we put the finishing touches on our addiction opus for Wired and prep for a much-needed vacation. (If anyone knows of must-see attraction on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, please advise.) So we’re gonna float into the weekend by reviving our Bad Movie Friday feature, which has been absent from these pages [...]

“Call in the Welding Team…”

April 16th, 2010 · 4 Comments

We have very vivid memories of the disappointment we felt upon first seeing The Phantom Menace. One of our pals had scored tickets to a late-night showing at the mammoth Ziegfeld Theater, and we ducked out of a raging party just to get our Star Wars on. The lights dimmed and the movie opened not [...]

Feel the Chemistry

April 9th, 2010 · No Comments

An exceedingly quick Bad Movie Friday this week, as we need to duck away and deal with some weighty matters. So we’re going with a slam dunk: Cyborg Cop, directed by quasi-legendary Sam Firstenberg (aka the man who gave birth to that cinematic abomination known as American Ninja). While Firstenberg may have some action chops, [...]

A Nightmare Even Orwell Couldn’t Conjure

March 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment

Thanks a million for your forbearance this week. All deadlines shall be met by sundown, and we’ll hopefully be back to full-on Microkhaning come Monday. Let us kiss off this dismal week, however, with a very special Bad Movie Friday entry: The Apple, a baffling stab at trying to combine a dystopian nightmare with a [...]

“An Alligator Half That Size Would Starve in a Week”

March 12th, 2010 · 4 Comments

We’re a bit embarrassed to admit this, but we once wrote a magazine piece that seriously examined the physiological feasibility of Godzilla. We called various eggheads and asked them to assess whether a lizard-like creature as massive as Tokyo’s favorite monster could ever exist in the real world. The universal answer, of course, was nyet—Godzilla’s [...]

A Smirking Humanoid Named Sherman

March 5th, 2010 · 4 Comments

Ttaubotneanauayean for your patience this week, as we eased up on the posting in order to tackle our crushing Wired gig. All will resume to normal on Tuesday, after we’ve hit our deadline. To reward your steadfastness, we’d like to offer up a very special Bad Movie Friday entry: 1989′s Millennium, starring the truly mismatched [...]

That’s What You Get for Not Hailing to the Chimp

February 26th, 2010 · No Comments

We have never attempted to conceal our fascination with movies starring non-human primates. That quirk of our character shines through yet again in this week’s Bad Movie Friday installment, featuring the 1951 Ronald Regan vehicle Bedtime for Bonzo. Suffice to say that the trailer above makes us weep for the scientific literacy of Eisenhower Era [...]

Harvey Takes a Stretch

February 12th, 2010 · 2 Comments

For the record, we think Harvey Keitel’s performance in Bad Lieutenant is one of the most awesome acting jobs in cinematic history. It’s such a grandiose villainous turn, in fact, that we have a tough time seeing him as anything other than a crack-smoking, sexually deviant New York City cop. And so we get a [...]

“There’s a Female Up There Circling Mother Earth”

January 22nd, 2010 · No Comments

Not much time for Bad Movie Friday this week, as we’re scrambling on the Secret Major Project™. So this vintage anti-Soviet propaganda film about the travails of Laika will have to suffice. It gets really amazing around the 42-second mark, when one of Laika’s American peers dons granny glasses in order to peep the space-race [...]

The Absolute Nadir of Animation

January 15th, 2010 · 11 Comments

One of the greatest movie-review slams we’ve come across in recent months is Nathan Rabin’s brutal takedown of I Hate Valentine’s Day, the latest project from My Big, Fat Greek Wedding mastermind Nia Vardalos. The whole pan is full of choice insults, but the apex comes in the kicker: “If the comic strip character Cathy [...]

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Tags:1980s·Bad Movie Friday·Cathy·comics·movies

Dolph on a Mission

January 8th, 2010 · 2 Comments

We here at Microkhan headquarters have been been shy about expressing our love for modern pentathlon, by far the most underrated sport in the Summer Olympics. And so we were recently overjoyed to discover that none other than Dolph Lundgren, one of the finest actors of the past half century, shares our affinity for the [...]

Stallone in Full McBain Mode

December 18th, 2009 · 7 Comments

We have a complicated relationship with Cobra, and thus hesitated for a beat before deciding to honor it with this week’s Bad Movie Friday showcase spot. To its credit, the movie does a fine job of conjuring up a psycho murder cult, the members of which gather in warehouses to bang together axes in rhythmic [...]

Watch for Falling Rocks

December 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments

We’re more than a little ashamed to admit we remember the brief Ewok craze of the mid-1980s, when two made-for-TV follow-ups to Return of the Jedi hit the tube. While we realize now that the Ewoks were a harbinger of the soul-crushing awfulness of Jar-Jar Binks, we were suckers for the furry critters back in [...]

The Loss of Mike Figgis

December 4th, 2009 · 4 Comments

On one of our first-ever dates with the Grand Empress, we were smitten by the depth of her hostility toward The Loss of Sexual Innocence, arguably the most annoying, self-consciously bizarre film ever committed to celluloid—and thus prime fodder for the return of our semi-beloved Bad Movie Friday feature. Now, don’t get us wrong—we sorta [...]

“Thrillingly Embarrassing”

November 13th, 2009 · 5 Comments

After a week’s hiatus, Bad Movie Friday returns with a vengeance, in the form of the made-for-TV Rosie O’Donnell vehicle Riding the Bus with My Sister. Perhaps Ms. O’Donnell reckoned that her star turn as a mentally handicapped woman would be critic proof, as no one wants to be accused of insensitivity. But she didn’t [...]

“Kingdom of Heaven Number One”

November 6th, 2009 · No Comments

No Bad Movie Friday this week, as The Tubes yielded up precious few usable clips from Smokey and the Bandit Part 3. Instead, we’re gonna hit you with a special treat—rare archival footage from the heyday of Father Divine, taken during his prosperous Harlem phase. It’s best viewed in tandem with this 1953 Life spread, [...]

The Last 3,000 Miles

October 23rd, 2009 · 4 Comments

After a tremendous week of work, contemplation, and gorging on fish tacos out here in Palo Alto, we’re heading back to Microkhan headquarters this evening. Not much time for blogging today, alas, as we try to suck a last few moments of enjoyment out of this trip. So we’re skipping right ahead to Bad Movie [...]

Blue Screen Blues

October 9th, 2009 · No Comments

A quick Bad Movie Friday this week, as we’re absorbed in the game of narrative non-fiction writing (i.e. the gig that pays the bills ’round here). Let’s just say that we probably owe Krull another look; we saw it at a grade-school birthday party back when it came out, and probably didn’t yet have the [...]

Truly Unsafe at Any Speed

October 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments

This is the last post we scheduled before departing for Kenya last weekend—a Bad Movie Friday entry that rankles with its unrealistic depiction of vehicular combustion. Even the 1971 Ford Pinto wasn’t quite this fragile. Thanks to those of you stuck with us this week, despite knowing that a WordPress bot was at the posting [...]

“It’s Dangerous for Strangers in Atlantis”

September 25th, 2009 · 3 Comments

On our forthcoming trip to Africa, we certainly hope we don’t suffer Kathy Ireland’s fate and slip into an underground realm populated by refugees from an Olivia Newton-John video. But we reckon anything’s possible, so we’ll be sure to conceal our surface-world origins should foam columns give way. Believe it or not, we actually saw [...]

The Physics of the Impossible

September 18th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Unlike some past movies we’ve highlighted as part of Bad Movie Friday—notably the irredeemably dreadful Hard to Ticket to Hawaii—Gleaming the Cube is actually halfway watchable, provided you’re willing to switch off your brain for 90 minutes. But even when we’re feeling truly charitable, there are two things that can’t help but irk us to [...]

“At the End of the Day, It’s Just a Snake”

September 1st, 2009 · 2 Comments

Ordinarily we’d save Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent for our weekly Bad Movie Friday feature. But, honestly, we don’t think we can sleep too many more days without knowing exactly what star DMX mumbles in the middle of this trailer. We think his closing line is, “The only thing you have to look forward [...]

A Fiberglass Romance

August 21st, 2009 · 3 Comments

Had Corvette Summer been blessed with a better casting director, perhaps it would have escaped the ignominy of our weekly Bad Movie Friday slot. But no—they just had to cast the 27-year-old Mark Hamill as a high-school student, and noted character actress Annie Potts as a Vegas sexpot (a far cry from her ideal role [...]

A Death Less Ordinary

August 14th, 2009 · 3 Comments

It’s probably a bit of stretch to file 1999′s Deep Blue Sea under our ever-popular Bad Movie Friday heading. While the premise of the film could scarcely be more ridiculous—hyper-intelligent mako sharks?—the sunken-laboratory thriller is not without its guilty pleasures. Chief among them is this classic scene, which features Samuel L. Jackson at his edgy [...]

Beastmaster Errata

August 10th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Look, we’re big enough Mongolian monarchs to admit when we’ve goofed. And that’s exactly what appears to be the case with last week’s Bad Movie Friday post about the 1982 Marc Singer vehicle The Beastmaster. We riffed about Singer’s apparent refusal to save the life of the ferret that had just helped pluck him from [...]

The Sacrificial Ferret

August 7th, 2009 · 9 Comments

Whatever you may be drinking this weekend, please plan on pouring a little out for the heroic ferret in this classic The Beastmaster clip. We have no idea why Marc Singer’s character, supposedly a Dr. Doolittle-like friend to the animals, doesn’t try and help his rodent savior. But that’s just one of the many eternal [...]