Catwoman (2004)

Patience Phillips is a timid graphic designer who accidentally discovers that her employer's new product is dangerously toxic.  She gets murdered for her trouble, but is mysteriously brought back to life by an Egyptian Mau cat.  Now blessed with feline-themed superpowers, she sets out to expose the people who murdered her.

So this film is notorious for its awfulness.  It won no less than four "Golden Raspberry" awards.  Halle Berry even turned up to collect hers in person.  It must therefore be a complete train wreck of a movie, right?

Well ... not really.

Now Catwoman is in no way a good film.  I'm certainly not saying that.  For instance, it introduces themes - "the Catwoman is an eternal paragon of female independence, passed down through the ages!" - and then just kinda forgets about them shortly thereafter.  And whenever it tries to be funny, it more-or-less embarrasses itself.  The final showdown with the villain also features some of the lamest superhero battle banter ever written.

But the simple fact is that it's not the extravaganza of terribad that you've probably heard.  Zombie Hunter is a terrible film.  As is Scavengers.  Or Grizzly Rage.  Anyone who thinks Catwoman deserves its opprobrium simply doesn't know how pee-filled the cinematic gene pool gets when you're down in the shallow end.

In actual fact, Catwoman is merely pedestrian and mediocre.  Now that's certainly pretty inexcusable from a $100 million film starring an Oscar winner, and it means I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but it doesn't put it anywhere close to the same shameful category as the three films listed above (and frankly, I've seen worse even than them, in my time).

Burn Notice, Season 2 (2008)

At the end of the first season of Burn Notice, Michael Westen finally made contact with the secretive organisation that "burned" him as a spy.  Westen's agenda is to get the evidence he needs to be reinstated by the CIA.  The organisation's agenda ... well, they're not big on sharing what it is they're up to, but now that Westen's found them they resolve to use him to complete some business for them.  And if he doesn't cooperate, the handler they've assigned (Clara, played by Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer) will ensure that "unfortunate events" befall his friends and family.

And thus the basic thread of this second season is put in place.  Westen tries to get the goods on Clara; Clara uses him for her own obscure purposes; and Westen tries to sabotage those purposes without really knowing what they are or getting caught doing so.  And of course in the meantime he has to keep putting food on the table, which means taking more odd jobs when they pop up.

Naturally all of these goals are often going to be working at cross-purposes and Westen – aided again by his trigger-happy "ex" Fiona, old buddy Sam, and (whether he wants it or not) his mother – must often keep multiple, ready to explode agendas in motion at the same time.

Season 2 of Burn Notice continues to deliver fun characters, neat "heist movie"-style storylines, and an engaging overarching plot that evolves in visible and meaningful ways over the course of its sixteen episodes.  Whether it can keep this up for its entire seven season run is yet to be seen, but it's definitely hitting the mark here.

Shock Treatment (1981)

Although The Rocky Horror Picture Show was not initially well-received, it became a cult favourite at midnight cinema screenings and went on to a long and lucrative run.  It was still being shown once a week at a cinema here until the early 90s, for instance, a good fifteen years after its release.

Sort-of sequel Shock Treatment has never achieved that same level of success, and it's not that hard to see why.  For one thing, it has some fairly significant structural flaws, such as "who the heck is actually the protagonist in this film?"; and then there's the fact that while it is as stylised and over the top as the earlier film, it lacks the titillation factor as an attraction.

I think its lack of success is a shame - though I'm pleased to read that there is some level of cult following for the film - because Shock Treatment is a much more ambitious film in terms of its narrative themes.  It lampoons pop psychology and televangelism, and makes some pretty prescient observations on 'reality TV', which was not yet a thing at the time it was made.

The film joins Brad and Janet several years after they got married.  They're living in the all-American town of Denton, where the the people are passionately proud of their community, and express that passion through a compulsive obsession with locally produced TV shows.  Brad doesn't really fit in, and his awkwardness is a constant embarrassment to Janet.  When they are called to participate in the show 'Marriage Maze', it sets in chain a series of events that threaten not only their relationship but their whole community.  Events that are being orchestrated by the mysterious sponsor of the TV station, Farley Flavors, who has an agenda of his own.

If you're at all a fan of off-the-wall, quirky musicals, I think Shock Treatment is worth your time.  Just don't expect Rocky Horror 2, or anything resembling a traditional film, really.

The Killer Robots! Crash and Burn (2016)

Apparently "The Killer Robots!" are a Florida-based "theatrical rock band", who take the stage dressed as ... well, as Killer Robots ... and who produce a variety of multimedia materials that encapsulate their passion for both music and science fiction.  I didn't know any of this when I impulse-bought this film from Google Play, but I did know it by the time I got around to actually watching the film.

The film begins with a group of robots press-ganged into fighting in gladiatorial battles.  They prove much tougher than the arena owners expect, however, and destroy three monstrous opponents before attempting to escape.

Said attempt ultimately ends in their own destruction, and if this had just been a short film that ended there, I'd probably have given it a qualified recommendation for its manic energy and memorable (if uneven) visual design and special effects.

However, that's only "chapter one", and the film continues for a good many chapters more.  The robots are rebuilt in part two, and tasked with a mission: they must travel to a distant world with a cure for the terrible virus that has swept the population.  That's a computer virus, of course, since said population is also robots.  Unfortunately, the virus also causes everyone infected by it to become homicidal, and there's also a bad guy chasing them for not terribly well-explained reasons, so the task is not an easy one.

This film is pretty much all about the cheap-but-often-interesting visual design and the goofy humour, with the plot being very much a secondary concern.  That steadily becomes more and more of a weakness the longer the movie continues.

So overall, I'd have to say skip the film, and maybe just watch the trailer, which packs in pretty much all of the movie's selling points in a handy two-and-a-half minute bundle.

Cobra (1986)

So the qualification on my recommendation of this film is that you must truly, truly love cheese.  This film delivers high absurdity with total earnestness.  There is not a single moment in the script that suggests that Stallone (who wrote the script from a novel by Paula Gosling) is remotely aware how ridiculous the whole thing is; no sly aside, no wink at the camera, no lampshade in sight.

Of course, the 1980s were a time when people seriously thought Dungeons & Dragons was a recruitment tool for satanists or dispatched 24 boats to scour Loch Ness for a monster.  So it was clearly a very different decade.

But one way in which the 1980s and today are similar are that both are times with considerable popular angst about violent crime rates.  Angst that was much more justified in the 80s than it is today, to be fair.

Cobra is part of the Hollywood reaction against that angst (real world reactions included much harsher sentencing practices).  And since the film comes from Golan & Globus, whose other mid-80s output included American Ninja, Invasion USA and Delta Force you can probably guess for yourself how nuanced and insightful said reaction might be.  But just in case you need some detail ...

There's a secret cult at work in LA.  Their hobbies include gathering in derelict factories to bang axes together, preaching about the "new world", and random acts of murder.  One such act is witnessed by a model named Ingrid.  The cult tracks her down; an easy enough task given that one of their number is in the LAPD; but their attempt to add her to their list of victims goes awry.  They're really going to regret missing on that first attempt, because now Ingrid has come to the attention of police detective Marion "Cobra" Cobretti.  And well, you just have to look at the image above to see how things are likely to progress now.

Cobra is wonderfully terrible.

Grosse Point Blank (1997)

I first saw Grosse Point Blank shortly after it was released, when I rented it from the local video store.  I liked it a lot and later purchased a copy on VHS.  But time and media formats move on, so I now own it on DVD.  And per the rules of this blog, that means I need to watch the film again.  What a hardship :)

Martin Blank is a killer for hire; a profession at which he's very adept.  However, his mantra of "if I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me there" seems to be starting to wear a little thin for him, and he's contemplating retirement.  It's a notion that becomes even more attractive when rival hitman Grover approaches him with a "take it or die" offer to join up with a new "union" of professional assassins.

Unfortunately for Blank, he can't quit quite yet: a job goes awry and he's forced to take on an additional contract with the same employer as a "make good" favour.  Said contract takes him back to his childhood home of Grosse Point, and the woman he left without a word on prom night, just as their high school ten year reunion rolls around.  It seems Martin's past and present lives are on a collision course.  The question is, will he survive the experience?

So obviously from my comments above I'm a big fan of this film.  It has a great cast, a fine script with a lot of wonderful deadpan dialogue, and a soundtrack that really scratches my tragically 80s musical tastes.

If you like your humour a bit on the blackly quirky side, Grosse Point Blank should hit the target.

Castle, Season 2 (2009)

Much as with season two of The Americans, the qualification on my recommendation here is a simple one: if you liked season one of Castle, you're almost certainly going to like season two, and should check it out.

The basic premise of the show is unchanged: wealthy crime novelist Richard Castle works with NYPD detective Kate Beckett to solve murders.  Ostensibly, Castle does this because he's using Beckett as the inspiration for his new fictional heroine, "Nikki Heat", but it's pretty clear that he does it because he enjoys both the challenge of the cases and the company of Ms Beckett herself.  As for the NYPD ... well, they go along with Castle's participation because the Mayor believes it is good PR.  And sure, Beckett may slowly becoming accustomed to having the irreverent but charming Richard Castle in her life.

One of the things I said in my review of the first season of this show was that I hoped they would do more with the supporting cast in later seasons, and apparently someone heard my comment, invented a time machine, and went back to 2009 to make sure my desires were met.  Which was nice of them, I am sure you will agree.  Castle's mother and daughter both have a more substantial presence in this season, and "sidekick cops" Ryan and Esposito also get more attention.  I approve.

Outside of the fine supporting cast, Castle continues to deliver the quirky cases that are very clearly a part of the show's formula.  It seems no-one in New York ever just gets murdered as the result of a simple argument turning violent.  There's always some tangled skein of secrets to sort out, often involving some outré element such as vampire cosplay, BDSM clubs, or an amnesiac who may be a witness.

Castle is a fine light dramedy show, where the trappings of the police procedural are mostly there to drive the character and dialogue-based humour.  It's definitely stronger when playing for laughs than for drama, but it's fun TV overall.  Well worth a look if you're in the mood for something light.