2005
Starring
Matthew Le Nevez as Kyle Williams
Rachel Taylor as Teri Richards
Jack Thompson as Frederic Schist
Patrick Thompson as Jake Schist
Man-Thing, you make my heart sing! Now that that’s taken care of, on with the review…
“Whatever knows Fear, Burns at the Touch of the Man-Thing.”
aka Kilink in Istanbul
1967
Starring (best guesses here)
Yildirim Gencer as Kilink (Killing)
Irfan Atasoy as Shazem
Muzaffer Tema as Prof. Cemil (Professor Lucy)
Mine Soley as Bespectacled Blonde Babe Assistant
??? as Turkish Grandpa Al Lewis
Directed by Yilmaz Atadeniz
Looks like an old serial chopped up and combined in movie form. It doesn’t even have an ending! There was supposed to be a whole series of these starring Kilink or Killing. In this one he’s evil, but he’s more of an anti-hero. Maybe I can track one of the others down sometime soon. This one itself took me three years trekking in uncharted Asian rain forests searching for a lost Temple of the Hubatonga tribe, only to have my guide Hadji betray me and sell me for a couple of magic beans to a cannibal witch, from who I stole this video during my escape. (Ebay, $8)
2004
Starring
Halle Berry as Patience Phillips/Catwoman
Benjamin Bratt as Tom Lone
Sharon Stone as Laurel Hedare
Lambert Wilson as George Hedare
Frances Conroy as Ophelia
Alex Borstein as Sally
Directed by Pitof
A movie destined to fail, 12 years after Michelle Pfeiffer starred as Catwoman in Batman Returns they finally crank out the spinoff. Except it’s not really a spinoff. We don’t know what it is, exactly, except painful. All of the Catwoman backstory from decades of DC comics is thrown right out, in favor os some multiple Catwomen throughout history garbage. I guess Pitof saw Catwomen of the Moon and decided he liked it. Or not. This movie was plagued with production premonitions of it’s terribleness. It took years to develop, and when Berry was finally signed, it looked like maybe there was something good going on. It was all lies and false hopes. The announcement they were ditching all Batman references was a bad sign, and then Catwoman was announced to not be Selena Kyle but instead the never heard of Patience Phillips. It wasn’t a complete wash yet….
Then the photos of the costume hit.
aka 3 Mighty Men aka Turkish Spiderman
1973
Starring
Aytekin Akkaya as Captain America
Yavuz Selekman as El Santo
From deep in the bowels of Turkey comes this instant winner of insanity! The Turkish film industry has an obsession with making low budget rip offs of American films, and in this case, they’ve pilfered Spiderman, and threw in Captain America, and even El Santo! Direct from bootleg tape to your computer. Subtitles? Who needs them! It’s not like this movie was long on plot anyway. Knowing what was going on would probably make it unwatchable.
1964
Starring
Ken Utsui as Starman (Super Giant)
Finally, our journey through the Starman saga is coming to a close, as we come to the last of the films made by editing episodes of the Super Giant serials of the 1950s. This one, Atomic Rulers, is the worst of the lot, if that is believable. Not only is it a Starman movie, but he doesn’t even fight aliens, but humans from the fictional country of Magolia (not Magnolia or Mongolia, though either would have sounded better). Basically it is on par with the “Superman vs. random guy” stories where “why is this even a challenge?” repeats in your head as you read. But nevertheless we must press on to complete the series and have closure.
1964
Starring
Ken Utsui as Starman (Super Giant)
Like the other Starman movies, this is edited from episodes of the Super Giant serials of the 1950s. As the story unfolds here, the Salamander Men of Planet Kulimon, deep in the Moffit Galaxy (where else would it be?) are planning to destroy Earth. The Emerald Planet, also in the Moffit Galaxy, has a meeting of the Emerald Council as atomic destruction of Earth would contaminate their atmosphere (The Emerald Council must get their science advice from a guy on LSD) They decide to send STARMAN to Earth to solve the problems. Why Starman can’t just go to close by Kulimar and beat up Salamander Men at home is not addressed. In fact, just don’t think about it, this is a STARMAN show, we expect to see long fight sequences where Starman prances about, not plot. And boy does this movie not disappoint on that front.
