Rating: Summary: "Atmospheric conditions in outer space"? Classic dribble! Review: Yes; THAT "Plan 9 from Outer Space." And why not? As we all know, or at least those of us who have seen Tim Burton's classic "Ed Wood" know, Edward D. Wood Jr. was not just an ordinary director. He was perhaps the most passionate director ever to arrive in Hollywood. It is obvious this devotion made him very likable; otherwise no one would work for him and his films would never be made. This film in particular, is definitely not overrated; for sheer entertainment, it's hard to find a better deal (especially as I got the DVD here [inexpensively]). You want to imagine this movie? Here is how to make something resembling it. Get yourself a copy of the script for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". Now open it in Microsoft Word and select "Autosummarize". Read through the script to make sure it is desirably inconsistent, silly, and poor. Got that? Now go over to the mall, grab about 30 people who what to be in a movie, and shoot it. Done already? Haven't you made an exquisite masterpiece? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Doesn't have that special touch of diseased craftsmanship and love does it? That is Wood's gift. He crafted dreadful lines that he must have known I'd be writing about 40 years later; "You'll be up there, but I'll be safe in there" and Cristo's tense-switching, pause-fraught opening monologue immediately come to mind. Included on the disk, if you buy the purple one with Vampira on the cover, is a fascinating documentary expounding on the genius Ed Wood was and what his significance is today.
Rating: Summary: Plan 9: A New Way to Look at Bad Movies Review: PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE represents a real challenge for serious reviewers. Truly it is a god-awful movie that is characterized by abysmal acting, scripting, directing, and the cheesiest of special effects. Having said that, I now distinguish PLAN 9 from other horrendously poor movies which ought never see the light of day. Films of this latter category, CALIGULA comes to mind, are marked with more than just the shortcomings noted above. These movies are truly painful to watch as they desensitize the audience with the utter seriousness of cast, crew, and director, all of whom collaborate to produce a film that holds any viewer in total contempt. Movies like PLAN 9 or ROBOT MONSTER are fun to watch. Not even a low-intelligence viewer can possibly take seriously Bela Lugosi's chiropractor who held a black cape across his face to hide the absence caused by Lugosi's unfortunate death. Further,for a movie to be bad enough to be good, that movie must have some truly oddball characters. PLAN 9 has its share: Tor Johnson, the behemoth ex-wrestler who staggers about the set with the same twisted grin that he used before bodyslamming an opponent in the ring; Vampira, the tiny-waisted sexpot who radiated all the fake menace of a Holloween body suit; and then the immortal Dudley Manlove, who boasted of a new weapon that could destroy the universe. Most reviewers go into some detail about the plot and how the actors interact with each other and with the audience. With films like PLAN 9, no mention of plot is needed. All the viewer needs to know is that this category of film requires its own value system. And perhaps that is the inner lesson toward which director Ed Wood subconsciously if not hilariously groped: that a multitude of conditions requires a multitude of responses. Sort of like life itself.
Rating: Summary: Everything you've heard is true Review: While it can be argued that this movie is so bad it is good, I cannot with good conscience give this movie more than a generous two stars. Having endured Manos: The Hands Of Fate, I can authoritatively declare that Plan 9 From Outer Space is not the worst movie ever made. Still, what this movie brings to your screen is bad acting, terrible scripting, exceedingly cheap sets and special effects, and an incredibly annoying, arrogant narrator of events. The authorities go on and on about the terrible mutilation of the murder victims they discover, yet not only is there no blood, there is not even the faintest scratch to be seen when the camera pans over the bodies. While the use of dangling hubcaps for spaceships is bad enough, the fact that the airline pilot witness describes them as cigar-shaped is . . . just weird. When your headliner is Tor Johnson, you know you're in trouble. Having seen several Tor movies, I sort of like the big guy for some strange reason. He actually has lines early in this one, and it soon becomes obvious why spoken lines and Tor Johnson just don't belong together. In honor of Tor, I feel compelled to describe the movie's plot in Tor's unique idiomatic language: Woman die. Man die. UFO come to cemetery. Dead people walk again. Tor die. Tor walk again. Police come. Day and night change every five minutes. Army men come. Spacemen come make fun of humans. Movie ends.Believe it or not, this film actually does have a social conscience (which is not necessarily a good thing). Of course, the best way to get men to do away with nuclear weapons is probably not to tell them how stupid they are. It saddens me to see Bela Lugosi end his career this way; he gets no lines and is forced to cry over the death of his wife (the incredibly tiny-wasted Vampira). Worst of all, Lugosi died during the filming and was replaced in some segments by someone who looks nothing like him. There are only three reasons to watch this movie: 1) to laugh at its pervasive ineptness, 2) to see if it is as bad as everyone says it is (the answer is yes), or 3) to learn how not to make a movie.
Rating: Summary: Not to be Missed. . .and not to be too vigorously despised. Review: This is not the worst film I have ever seen. (The worst has got to be GLEN OR GLENDA. It hangs together like a wet baloney grinder, on soft white bread with too much mayo.) PLAN 9 does have a plot, if you look for it. And the scientific interlude about 'Solarbinite'is not as bad as it sounds on first hearing. It is simply that it somehow became the fashion to hate PLAN 9, to crucify it for the twentieth century's sins, or something. So do many good, even great, souls fall prey to public opinion. Meanwhile, all the dirtbags and crooks perpetrating all the misery of the world go undiscovered, and hence unstopped and unpunished. Come on, ROBOT MONSTER is worse than this, isn't it? Although there are no rapid day/night changes, admittedly... So give PLAN 9 another chance. After all, you ARE going to live forever.
Rating: Summary: A Return To More Innocent Times Review: "Plan 9" was not meant to be watched over and over again on home entertainment systems. It was a simply a movie that, in the fifties, usually screened on Saturdays with two others, besides! True, "Plan 9" appeared a lot of times, but that was because the audiences really appeared to enjoy it. I lived in West L.A at the time, a time when people actually rode their horses into Palms(the nearest movie house to us) and hitched their mares to the post in front of the theatre) In this context, I don't think anyone in the audience, mostly children, noticed these technical errors written of. Most were caused by the low budget. Placing characters outside, even at high noon, requires expensive lighting and placing them outside at night really costs. In any event, the two stars of the movie, Wolcott and Manlove(?!?) didn't do that bad if you are young, quite innocent, and have your pretty cousin sitting next to you. After forty years, I still remembered some of the dialogue! Yes, Mr. Spielberg and Mr. Lucas, with their seventy million dollar budgets, make the slick movies with the better actors and minus the rough edges. Mr. Wood seems to have used what he HAD to conceive of plots that would justify using them. The "sexy" feminine leads(My Gosh, Tanna, really needed to keep her rump out of the camera frame,and the wife, who seems okay at first but, by the end, seems more like some librarian from Kansas), also adds little here. But we were more interested in those cool space craft and I'll bet more than one person my age tried, then, to make his own--based on the rather sere sets that Wood used. Tor needed some work on his grammer "I got be looking around." and Manlove goes way over the edge, but Wolcott really does okay for what he had to work with. Not for adults, then, unless you want to see how a lack of money can affect a movie. A great piece of nostalgia from the fifties.
Rating: Summary: So bad it's... bad! Review: This is a hilarious example of terrible filmmaking - so bad, it's bad. Truly, you have to watch this more than once to get the full effect. I purchased it as a gift for a good friend (a pastor!) who greatly enjoyed it and loaned to my husband and me for date night. We had tears from laughing so hard!
Rating: Summary: very bad , very good , very funny Review: I think there is a difference between a movie that is really good just made very very bad , and a movie that is just very bad. Plan 9 From Outer Space is actually quite good ..I was quite entertained by it...maybe it was the really horrible dialogue , the que card reading acting , the cardboard sets , the flying saucers painted silver with doorknobs attached flying via string , or that each scene turns from mightnight to day. Whatever reason it was I've watched it at least 6 x's , and I actually think it improves with each veiwing. I think movies like Moulin Rouge are the really bad films because it's junk filmmaking like that , that is polluting the minds of movie fans..not Plan 9..this film is just to sit back and laugh at or to watch with friends when you're bored. Definitly check this one out.
Rating: Summary: Vampires and cardbord tombstones oh my! Review: By now, pretty much everybody has heard of Plan 9 from outer space, if you are one of the ones who hasent, you should be ashamed of yourself. Plan 9 is the 2nd best comedy film ever made (Only Robot monster is funnier). It also won the Golden Turkey award for worst film ever made (The Exorcist 2: the Heritic came in 2nd) Its pretty strange that Ed Wood (won the Golden turkey award for worst director of all time) thought that this was supposed to be a serious epic. Instead we have a horrible narrator, stone cold acting, cardbord tombstones, 2 aliens that want to take over the planet, laugable sets ( an airplane cockpit with cardbord steering wheels and a shower curtian) lots of stock footage of military activities, and even Bela Lugosi standing ominously around his house. Theres a ton more, (Especially the space ships) that I wont go into. Plan 9 has no real stars with the exception of a few seconds of Bela Lugosi, who had the very good judgment to die before the film was completed. All the other charachters are so bad, its funny. Who can forget Tor Jhonson waddiling around looking like a hippopotimus, the dim witted police officers, and the lovable antics of the silk pajama wearing aliens. If you havent seen this classic, its about high time you went out and watched it! Ed Wood forevor!!! The good: Its plan 9 from outer space!!! The bad: Are you kidding me? And the Ugly: See above
Rating: Summary: Mabey the worst film of all times. But what a blast.... Review: One day I asked my father what was the worst film he ever saw. He named Plan 9 right away. When I first sat down and watched this movie right from the very beginning I knew that this was going to be interseting at least. When Criswell say's "We are all interested in the future for that is were we will spend the rest of our lives" you know that with writing like that you are in for a trip. The movie is written,produced,and directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. Ed would go down in history as the worst director of all time. The plot is at least an interesting one. Aliens come to earth to stop us from making a bomb that will destroy the universe. At face this is not a bad plot. However in the hands of Ed Wood you know no good will come of it. And it doesn't. Some of the worst diolauge ever is right here in this movie like- "Don't worry you'll be up there, and i'll be in there' and they'll be up there." "You humans are stupid, stupid, stupid." "Well one thing's for sure. The captins dead. Murdered. And somones responsible." There is more over acting in this movie than ever on one screen. The addition of cult fav Tor Johnson as a police captin is really funny as is vampira who whould not talk in the film. As you may know the late Bella Lagosi is in the movie for all of tem minutes and get's top billing. Bella, at this time broke and hooked on drugs, had an interesting friendship with Wood and stared in two other movies, (Bride of the Monster, and the awful Glen or Glenda) and is the only bright spot in any of Woods films. Tim Burton made the movie ED WOOD in the 90's and it recieved wild success. Martin Landau would win an oscar for his role as Bella and the movies would bring people to see Wood's films. When watching ED WOOD you say to you'r self 'There is no way he was that bad' then you see the movie and understand he was. Ed Wood did have a real passion for the movie biz and a real zeal about his movies. however it also clouded his judgement to see that he could neither act, write, produce, or direct. Ed Wood is the worst ever but his movies are some of the funniest. It is ironic to think that the worst director of all time is responsible for a great actor winning the industry's highest award.
Rating: Summary: Ed Wood at his campy BEST !!!!!!!!!! Review: THis film Is Pure camp at its best,an Dig those cute Future space uniforms,LOL.
|