I do not like to listen to "How Did This Get Made"
unless I have gotten around to seeing the movie. It is audio only, so
despite the hilarity of the discussions, it feels like I am missing out.
There are obviously some exceptions thanks to Jason Mantzoukas's
enthusiasm making "Geostorm" and "Den of Thieves" part of the other
show's vernacular, but otherwise, you have to want to see these movies
on your own before you download an episode.
If your taste allows you to give "Hurricane Heist" a chance, are you
likely to comeback for "Adore", a Robin Wright/Naomi Watts son/lover
swapping drama, the odds of wanting to watch the latter to keep of with
the feed is unlikely. Why would you want to go from ridiculous and bad
to serious and bad?
One misstep, and my mind was not concerned with keeping track of the
feed. Thanks for me accidently setting up notifications to the feed on
my Samsung Galaxy S8.
I really appreciate my girlfriend's parents making her first smartphone a
Galaxy A10E because surely I have mastered the most overrated brand.
From a parenting standpoint, not giving her a choice (which she never
wanted, especially now that it will not fit in her pocket) is a fair
practice, so you do not have to use her tech-savvy boyfriend to justify
it.
As a guy who went to "Mystery Science Theater 3000 Live" and has a Tom
Servo tattoo, I was definitely familiar with "Starcrash", so HDTGM had
me for at least a couple of weeks. It should have been three when they
announced "Friday the 13th: Part 6 - Jason Lives", since Paul Scheer
said it was on Amazon Prime. They must have watched it on that before
October because Bezos knows you can sell anything horror related in
October. At least to everyone but me.
A Voorhees romp is something I presumed my girl would not want to watch,
so I was waiting for her to go to bed (12:00 am). I had forgotten to
check out iTunes deals for the week, so I did not make it to check out
Prime Video until 12:30. The time was not too late since the flick would
fit this website's time restraints, so everything seemed to be going
well. Six hours of sleep would be enough.
Then I found out the lack of free Jason flicks. Being stubborn, I was
going to check out every subscription service to see if it was available
for free. It was not, but I need content, and Pluto TV was the last
place I landed on. Surely a cult flick would come through to me, and I
have yet to watch a "Man versus Monster" tourney flick. I
know, ironic because my first completed script is a zombie versus
pro-wrestling comedy, "Main Event of the Dead". (If you want a treatment
of the story, email me russthebus07@gmail.com).
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Empire Pictures's "Arena" from 1989 would take that experience would
leave me the wiser B-Movie maker. As for the film as a narrative, would
it be a classic like "Re-Animator" or unbearable like "Trancers"? There
is no middle when it comes to a Charles Band production.
As I look at this distributor's Wikipedia page, "Robot Jox" was the last
film in their filmography. If their Lovecraft adaptations was not
enough to warrant respect, pioneering replacing "ck" with "x", a 90's to
early 00' standard, should.
Out in deep space, a space station serves as the center of entertainment
for the entire universe. This satellite holds The Arena, the greatest
combat sports venue ever devised. Or at least it was that before the
gangster/promoter Rogor took over. He holds more power than the leagues
commissioner and using his illicit ties can determine nearly every
outcome. This has lead to no humanoid being able to climb the ranks for
the past 50 years and dashing the dreams of any earthling, like Steve
Armstrong.
Armstrong has been barely surviving on the station. He arrived there
with asperations on becoming a champion, but he soon realized that the
sport is just a business. His goal is now to just scrape up enough cash
to get a ticket home. Sadly, his temper does not allow him to be a great
short order cook, and as a result, he ends up injuring a fighter, Vang,
from the Quinn Camp, the only stable fighting the uphill battle against
Rogor.
This ends up being a blessing in disguise for Quinn since she needs a
new fighter, and the fans have been yearning to see a non-monster in the
ring. With debts to pay, Armstrong really has no choice but to return
to the ring, but it is not long before he is ready to embrace his
destiny. But will destiny be enough to top Rogor's influence?
"Arena" is definitely a movie that should not be watched in a clean or
sober state. That is a good place to start because that means it is
watchable, and I may be encouraging you to watch. And the influences
that should be applied are not because of a bad story, but because it
completely comprised of knock or "Star Wars" masks and poor make up that
dare not interfere with actors hairlines.
The acting for the late 80's is passable. If anything hinders the
dialogue, it is the ridiculous alien jibberish they use or horrid ADR
altering. As for the characters themselves, they are all ridiculous, but
the premise of man goes into a hand-to-hand fight with a bug similarly
structured to Heimlich the caterpillar allows for this. You know from
the box art this is going to be cinema, so you can forgive a lot.
The story follows a very easy to follow narrative, and, contrary to
other 1989 flicks of more realistic combat, does not involve rape and
murder to push the story forward. It has every other cliché in the book
and given the film's premise it does not try to reinvent them. "Arena"
could have tried to figure out a way to build this world, but if it was
over ninety seven minutes, you would need to start mixing substances to
continue having fun watching it.
All the budgetary shortcomings to try and execute a sci-fi action flick
is an experiment worth viewing. "Arena" is a rare low budget alien flick
that does not try to shock its audience which is quite a refreshing
change from most extra terrestrial flicks of the late 80's. It does not
take the time to insult your intelligence so it is fun trip that is even
more jocular the less seriously you take it.
There are times when fun can triumph fine art. "Arena" is one of those times.
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