Balls of Fury

Hot on the heels of Dodgeball, Talladega Nights, Blades of Glory and Gymkata comes the latest in the woefully long list of "comedies" about ridiculous "sports". Please enjoy my highly ironic use of "quotes" in that last sentence.

This time around, the sport in question (seriously in question) is table tennis or ping-pong. Replace Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrel, Will Ferrel or Kurt Thomas (the gymnast, not the NBA star) with some pudgy dude and there you go. Hey listen, I've got nothing against pudgy dudes. I am a pudgy dude. I'm just trying to make a point. Oh, you can add a little Christopher Walken as a race inappropriate semi-Asian bad guy and voila...this suckfest!

The plot is stolen directly from the Bruce Lee classic Enter the Dragon. Once again, substitute martial arts with ping-pong. Doesn't this seem highly creative to all of you? Me too. After I watched it the first time, I wanted to watch it again immediately. Wait...replace immediately with never again. There. That sounds better.

The comedy was ultra-high brow in this little gem. My favorite bit was when our hero had to smuggle a vibrator shaped transmitter into the bad guy's lair. I shouldn't have to tell you this and I'm sorry if I am ruining any future SPIKE-TV viewing of it, but he hid it up his butt. To illustrate how funny/painful this would be, the filmmakers had our hero walk funny...like he had something up his butt...into the lair. For about a minute. Through the gates. Into the courtyard. Up some stairs. I want that minute back in my life. That minute and all the minutes that I spent afterwards groaning at the utter lack of imagination that it took to write/direct these scenes. Now I have to add the minute or so that it took me to type those last few sentences. Vicious cycle. Let's move on.

Hmm...lets's move on to what? I think that pretty much illustrates what demographic the producers of this movie were aiming for. Functioning retards who have either $10 to spend or the ability to work a cable TV/DVD remote control. And I think they might have even groaned at the "transmitter up the ass" scene.

Great CGI, though. Christopher Walken looked almost human. Almost. Man, that guy creeps me out!

Survival Island

Now I know that no one out there is gonna watch this turd. I just know it. I'm sure that no one has even heard of it, much less have it on their NetFlix queue. In case you are confused, it also goes by the name of Three. Did that help? Nah, I didn't think it would.

The only reason, ONLY REASON, I watched this horrible little film is that I couldn't sleep and it was the only movie on the nearly 100 movie channels that we have that I hadn't seen. And it starred Billy Zane, the obviously gay leading man type whose career has really gone nowhere. Beyond playing despicable types like he did in Titanic. Oh, and he got to play a despicable type right here in this one. But I enjoy me some camp every now and again, and when I want camp I go straight towards the gays. See what I did there? Straight...gay. Ah, good times.

So, Mr. Zane and his real-life beard and ridiculously proportioned (32E-24-35. Hey, it's right there on her IMDB page...back off) British actress Kelly Brook star in this little tale about a rich asshole, his hot wife (just keep telling yourself that you are straight, Zane) and a hot-headed Argentinian guy who worked for them on a yacht cruising the Caribbean. Sound familiar? Sure...basically the plot of Wertmuller's very good Swept Away and the very bad remake by Guy Ritchie. Just add Zane and wackiness ensues. Probably that way in real life too. You would have to ask around certain West Village clubs in NYC to be sure.

The story goes a little something like this: Rich asshole, his wife and their friends rent a yacht for a luxury tour of the Caribbean. Rich asshole pisses off fiery worker on yacht to the point were fiery worker quits. On the boat. In the middle of the ocean. Okay? Anyway, I guess he plans to swim to the nearest island because he grabs a pair of goggles right before he "accidentally" causes a fire on board. Everyone dies except the fiery Argentinian dude and the rich asshole's hot wife. The wind up on a deserted island alone. Or so we are led to believe.

After a couple of days of leering and nude swimming, the fiery Argentinian dude finds Billy Zane unconscious on a reef a little ways off the island while fishing. He should really just end his suffering, but he decides to save his gay ass. That's when all the trouble begins. Zane is extremely jealous so he tries to assert his dominance. That doesn't really work and his hot wife winds up attracted to the fiery Argentinian dude. They have sex while Zane is off fishing and the game is afoot.

The boys try killing one another in various ways, blah blah blah. It just really sucks. And there are montage shots of a crazy witch woman doing a voodoo dance all through the film that is really annoying. Has something to do with something that happened towards the beginning of the film. I think. I really didn't care enough to pay attention.

The only thing worth watching this film for is the lovely Kelly Brook. Not her acting. She couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. But she looks pretty good in a bikini. Tell you what, leave the film alone and check out some of her NSFWish stuff here, here or here.

You are most welcome.