Bratz Diamondz
Bratz Diamondz
aka Bratz: Passion 4 Fashion Diamondz
2006
Directed by The Devil Himself!
The Bratz toy line is the worst toy line to hit the shelves in the history of girl’s toys. I do not make this statement lightly. Bratz are accurately criticized for sending the wrong message to young girls, and that message is “become a materialistic bitch who dresses like a whore.” You see, these women have a passion, for fashion! Fashion seems to be wearing midriff-bearing clothing, while your face makes you look like an Anime schoolgirl who was attacked by a collagen injector on their lips. The Bratz line has one good point, it makes all the people who waste time attacking Barbie for giving girls the wrong message look like idiots. Barbie at least got elected president, was a doctor, a veterinarian, and an astronaut. That’s like 40 years of school training she finished by age 35. Barbie even got more realistic proportions a few years ago. Bratz have done nothing but put on fashion shows and sing in a terrible band. Bratz dolls are proportioned like the spawns of the devil, with their oversized head so large it should crush their micro-pixie bodies. I’ve meet female gymnasts with more defined curves.
Bratz toys include such brains-destroying lines as Bratz, Bratz Kidz, Bratz Babyz, Lil Bratz, Itsy Bitsy Bratz, Bratz Boyz, and Bratz Petz. Bratz Babyz had their own thongs until public pressure had them converted to full-covered panties. Don’t forget to give your Bratz Baby her own “Brattoo” at the Brattoo Parlor playset. I hear tramp stamps are popular on swingsets these days. Bratz have also spawned their own television show, and several direct to DVD movies. Bratz Rock Angelz and Bratz Genie Magic will also be rotting on your local video store shelf, along with the abomination called Bratz Babyz. Recently released is Bratz Fashion Pixiez, and soon a live action Bratz film. For those of you who hate Bratz like I do, remember that the factory workers in China who create the dolls make a whopping $0.17 an hour during their 94 ½ hour weeks. It seems the Bratz creators have a Passion 4 Exploitation. The MGA company (the makers of Bratz) denies that story,
Another nail in the coffin of this movie is the fact that I can’t figure out what exactly its name is supposed to be. Bratz Diamondz seems to be the name, but the DVD cover and almost all references to it has “Passion 4 Fashion” crammed into the middle of it. In addition, the plot line revolves around some sort of reality show, where a British character named Byron Powell hosts. I can’t imagine who he could be based on. The Bratz girls compete against the girls of Your Thing, a rival fashion magazine to the Bratz fashion magazine. Yeah, like any of these girls can write their name, let alone a magazine article. The plot alone gets dumber and crazier as we go on, which we will be there every step of the way. Why? At this point I no longer know. Bratz has destroyed much of my mind. Thank goodness I stayed away from the Bratz Babyz movie, or I would have been killed.
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Categories: Movies, Ugly Tags: animated, Bratz, Dionne Quan, Greg Ellis, Jessica Dicicio, Olivia Hack, Soliel Moon Frye, Tia Mowry, toys to movies, Wendie Malick
DOA: Dead or Alive
DOA: Dead or Alive
2006
Directed by Corey Yuen
DOA: Dead or Alive is not a movie. It is not a video game. It is a music video. A ninety minute music video with no discernable song (except maybe “I like the way you move” as it is used during one montage.) But you don’t need a song, you just need lots of women bouncing around in micro-clothes, and dozens of action sequences with posing shots. Actually, there is a movie a lot like this one, but instead of just being mindless action, Hero went a step farther and goes all commie in the end. DOA goes all “Let’s be friends!” and then goes back to sword-wielding chicks in spandex. That’s not to say DOA is any good. However, I was expecting it to be so horrible, that when it turned out to be passable I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, I’ll never watch it again, but there are many films I won’t be watching again, for I don’t have the time. Speaking of Hero, several of the scenes here are directly lifted from that film, as well as movies such as Crouching Tiger, Kill Bill, and Charlie’s Angels. Just part of the flash in the pan fun of DOA. But the imitations are not complete nor memorable on their own, giving another reason why there is little value in rewatching this film.
DOA: Dead or Alive is based on a series of video games, fighting video games mostly. These games have plots, as much of plots as fighting games can have, and the film chooses to ignore much of it. As I have never played the game nor care about the original story, it is not a big deal to me, but I remember a few people making a big stink when this came out. As some people complain about everything, they were easily ignored. They probably would have attacked the Q*Bert cartoon had it aired while they were alive. One of the main drawing points of the video games is the many teenage girls that bounce around and jiggle while beating the crap out of gigantic opponents. DOA games also spawned the ridiculous DOA Extreme Volleyball games, where you watch the female characters run around on an island, playing mini-games and buying ever-more revealing bikinis for the girls. Obviously a game for very lonely men. Fan service triumphed and there was plenty of volleyball in the DOA movie, but as they are real girls I am not complaining.
The movie plot itself is ludicrous. The DOA tournament is held, which randomly invites the world’s greatest fighters by some sort of flying invitation/blade that always seems to invite people just after a cool action sequence. They are then set against each other for a $10 million prize, but organizer Donovan may have another agenda. Realistic? Of course not, but much of this movie is not, so no bother. Luckily, some Wikipedia nerd has chosen to tell us that one of the major factual errors in the film is that a ninja clan would not be staffed by hundreds of armed soldiers. He seems not to have taken issue with the nanobot/magic sunglasses technology, which should tell you something about Wikipedia. The biggest flaw he found in a movie that opens with a girl fly-walking over hundreds of troops, diving off a sword, flying over a wall, ripping off her clothes to reveal a backpack, which opens to reveal a hang glider, and gets an invitation to the DOA tournament thrown at her by someone who was watching all this. But, yeah, too many armed guards for a ninja clan. Thanks Asperger McVirgin! People with too much time on their hands aside, the film is rife with several other problems, most noticeably the fact no one seems to get any injury at all, despite constantly being punched and thrown through walls. Hardly a bruise is to be found. It’s all fun and games until someone gets a paper cut. This would spoil all the fun, so just ignore the lack of wounds and go with it. Director Corey Yuen is a Hong Kong import, best known in the US for The Transporter, but best known to me for So Close.
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Ultra Q – Episodes 3 and 4
Ultra Q Episodes 3 and 4
The Gift from Space and The Mammoth Flower
1966
Episode 3 The Gift from Space directed by Hajime Tsuburaya
Episode 4 The Mammoth Flower directed by Koji Kajita
Once again we dip into the world of Ultra Q, the Japanese TV series. A precursor to the Ultraman series, Ultra Q features many giant monsters that our plucky heroes have to deal with. Previously we have gone over the first two episodes, and now we deal with episodes 3 and 4. In addition to the 28 episodes of Ultra Q, a movie was produced in 1990 titledUltra Q: Star of Legend. A follow up series aired in 2004 titled Ultra Q: Dark Fantasy.
Tsuburaya Productions Co. created the TV series, which started to air in 1966. Before it became Ultra Q, however, it was known as Unbalance. As it became less Twilight Zone and more monsters, the name turned out to be a problem, but luckily a sports move called the Ultra C was gaining popularity, and thus Ultra Q was coined. Several artifacts of the original concept remain, including the very Twilight Zone-ish main title theme, as well as a narrator (but one used less frequently.) Several episodes would be somewhat independent stories that barely featured the main characters, and still other episodes would have ambiguous endings.
Thanks to recent Region 2 DVD release, these shows are now available to a whole new generation. However, they aren’t available to me in their entirety, as there are no English subtitles! But that’s where making up what we don’t understand comes in. Plot synopses and visual clues help us get the gist of the episodes, but the subtle parts we are just winging. That actually makes the show a bit better, as if we found out something was lamer than we though we might not like it as much. Such is the way of things.
Main Characters:
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The main cast list is done, so we jump into the episodes!
Episode 3: The Gift from Space
Episode three of Ultra Q gives us a new main character and the most Twilight Zone ending so far. But it is still a solid episode, and the monster from Mars Natnegon has become one of the signature monsters from the series. This episode also is the first involving aliens in the Ultra-universe, who will turn out to be very pesky indeed with their constant monster attacks. Stupid aliens! I shake my fist at you! Invade some other planet for once. I hear Neptune is nice, or Krankor. First the guest cast, and then let’s get started with the episode.
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Categories: Bad, Movies Tags: Hajime Tsuburaya, Hiroko Sakurai, Japan, Jun Tazaki, Junichiro Mukai, Juran, kaiju, Kenji Sahara, Koichi Sato, Koji Kajita, Minoru Takada, Natnegon, plants eating dudes, Sachio Sakai, Ultra Q, Ureo Egawa, We don't need no stinking subtitles, Yasuhiko Saijo, Yoshifumi Tajima, Yutaka Nakayama
Future Cops
Future Cops
aka Chao ji xue xiao ba wang
1993
Directed by Wong Jing
They’re cops from the future, FUTURE COPS! Actually, these future cops look a lot like characters from Street Fighter 2, because they are! This is a film loosely based on the manga adaptation of Street Fighter, and great liberties were taken with some of the characters and the story. Granted, this is a Wong Jing film (writer of Naked Weapon, director of My Kung Fu Sweetheart) so it will be pretty silly regardless. Street Fighter characters would return again in Wong Jing’s City Hunter, based on a different manga and starring Jackie Chan, who becomes Chun Li at one point there. For this encounter, I went to help from others to organize just who is who in the movie, as I was not a big player of Street Fighter games. Mortal Kombat, yes. So besides a vague knowledge that some creepy guys are obsessed with Chun Li and her high kicks in skirts, I knew little to nothing about the characters before beginning. Thanks to my girlfriend and Wikipedia, I was able to piece together most of the characters. Wong Jing took many liberties, including changing most of the names, flipping people from hero to villain and vice versa, and throwing in a few random things just because he’s Wong Jing. There is also a parade of famous Hong Kong celebrities, too many to list in this paragraph, we will deal with them in the lengthy Roll Call section. This would be like taking the Oceans 11 casts and putting them in a Super Smash Brothers movie. Future Cops is full of wild action, crazy stunts, and zany antics. And it is a whole lot of fun! So sit right back and prepare, this video game don’t need extra quarters or furious button smashing, it is on autopilot!
The Future Cops:
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The villains (Future Rascals):
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The People of 1993:
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Categories: Bad, Movies Tags: Aaron Kwok Fu-Sing, Andy Hui Chi-On, Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Billy Chow Bei-Lei, Charlie Yeung Choi-Nei, Chingmy Yau Suk-Ching, Dicky Cheung Wai-Kin, Ekin Cheng Yee-Kin, Hong Kong, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Ken Lo Wai-Kwong, King-Tan Yuen, Richard Ng Yiu-Hon, Simon Yam Tat-Wah, Video game movie, William Tuan Wai Lun, Winnie Lau Siu-Wai, Wong Jing
