A Deep Dive into Weirdo Cinema [20] Quiz

Answer: Nintendo

Although the plot of this movie about a kid with a tragic past headed to a video game tournament in California is quite contrived, even for the time, you have to give it up for the sheer commercial shove that Nintendo makes throughout. While Fred Savage's nine-year-old gamer savant ran away from home, his divided family, split after the drowning of his older sister, hired a bounty hunter to bring him back. What resulted was a series of adventures culminating in a video game tournament in which the best of the best just had to get as many points as possible in "Super Mario Bros. 3", which hadn't been released at the time, and Jimmy's success here solved pretty much everything in the end.

In its day, "The Wizard" was heavily panned for being an hour-and-a-half-long commercial for Nintendo. Its image as a campy cult classic has improved since, especially due to its inclusion of the ill-advised and short-lived Power Glove accessory.

Answer: Music

Starring Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr., and Sia's dancing muse, Maddie Ziegler, "Music" was modestly-anticipated in the years leading to its release if not because it featured Sia's first foray into movies, then because it promised to be colourful and eccentric, much in line with the album releases that catapulted Sia into the musical spotlight. What resulted was a box office flop that lost more than $15,000,000 USD (COVID-19 didn't help) and garnered widespread ire from film critics and mental health communities.

About a young woman (Hudson) dealing with substance abuse while taking care of her autistic sister (played by Ziegler, who is notably not on the autism spectrum), the film flitted back and forth between heavy medical storylines and lively song-and-dance numbers at its whim. Filmed in about a month in 2017, it took four years before the movie finally hit cinemas (briefly), and another couple months before Sia, Hudson, and Ziegler all won Razzies for their involvement.

Answer: The Adventures of Açela

There's something intriguing about cursed animation, and "The Adventures of Açela" brings that appeal with only a few frames. Written and directed by Turkish filmmaker Özgür Dogruöz, this movie followed a group of children who, after speaking to a Taleteller, embarked on an adventure to reunite with said Taleteller somewhere deeper in the woods while, along the way, they were beset upon by some sort of mysterious troll.

Oh yeah, and at two separate instance, a green alien appears before the children, materializing from a puff of mist, to perform a dance and vanish.

It's truly the type of unintentional masterpiece that only royalty-free music, visual assets, and character models can come together to make, even if its story and dialogue are almost unintelligible.

Answer: Puppet Master

In a series containing everything from Nazi scientists to Egyptian magic, "Puppet Master" has always brought simply silly fun where it's unclear whether or not you root for the humans, the puppets, or someone completely different. The original films had the puppets acting as instruments of evil, but later ones had them working together with the good guys to overthrow worse guys.

By the time "Axis Termination", the third in a loose trilogy, came around, the film's canon had been retconned a few times over with films inserting themselves and prequelizing themselves willy-nilly. This movie, set during an alternate WWII, had the puppets killing the Nazis instead of becoming them (which, ran counter to what the first few seemed to intend).

Full Moon Entertainment (and Charles Band) would continue the series a year later with "Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich", rebooting it all again.

Answer: Carrot Top

While Carrot Top has certainly, in the 2000s, been able to reorient his career and succeed, massively, as a prop comedian with Las Vegas residencies, he was never well-suited for film, and his single leading role as Edison in the 1998 comedy(?) "Chairman of the Board" was proof of that. The debut film of writer/director Alex Mann (who would go on to film "Inspector Gadget 2", "Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2", and "Jingle All the Way 2"), "Chairman of the Board" flopped colossally, making $300,000 USD in the box office on a $7,000,000 budget.

The film had Carrot Top doing what he does normally, creating funny props. The difference was that in the movie, he played an inventor hired by a wealthy businessman amused with his antics. When said businessman passed away, he left a huge share of the company in Edison's hands. Hilarity may or may not have ensued.

Answer: Airplane Mode

Time has not been kind to the reputations of either Logan or Jake Paul, both of whom rose to popularity amongst Gen Z Vine viewers in the 2010s despite truckloads of problematic content. Logan Paul would go on to commit to professional wrestling while Jake Paul would shift into boxing (often in highly-viewed pay-per-views against people well beyond his age). Before these ventures, they made "Airplane Mode".

Starring Logan Paul as himself (or a version of himself, at least), the film put him and a cast of social media influencers on a plane that he needed to land despite his crippling acrophobia. The movie never saw a theatrical release, likely due to the fact that it was shelved for several years following Logan Paul's controversial YouTube vlog in which he and his posse visited Japan's Suicide Forest. Paul was pulled from several affiliate deals in the wake of this while "Airplane Mode" was dropped, quietly, on iTunes in 2019, well past most of its cast's relevance.

Answer: Far Cry

Uwe Boll has, somehow, managed to get his hands on numerous video game filming rights over the decades, managing to flop "House of the Dead", "Alone in the Dark", "BloodRayne", "In the Name of the King", "Postal", and others in his decades-long directing career. "Far Cry" came after all of these, releasing in 2008 and flopping almost instantly, barely seeing any significant theatrical release and making back less than a million of its $30,000,000 USD budget.

It wasn't spent on the cast, either. Starring an English-speaking mostly-German cast of Til Schweiger, Emmanuelle Vaugier, and popular bad guy Udo Kier, it put a mercenary onto a remote island with guns and explosives, setting him on an adventure to stop some lab-grown mutants from breaking loose. Notably, the original game, released in 2004, had a completely different setting but the broad strokes were the same. It just happened to work as a game, and maybe would have worked with a director not known for botching adaptations over and over.

Answer: Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

The directorial debut of Quebec-based cult filmmaker, Lee Demarbre, "Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter" offered up exactly what its title suggested: Jesus Christ defending the people from vampires. It's a bit more complicated than that though, and the film featured not only musical moments, but intense action scenes in which Jesus fought off not only vampires, but scientists working with said vampires and-- get this-- a gaggle of atheists. Teaming up with the luchador El Santo, the pair of them fought their way through Ottawa protecting, amongst others, the lesbian community.

It's the type of movie that benefits from being schlocky. If you're looking for a rough-around-the-edges b-movie, this is one that doesn't overstay its welcome.

Answer: Sister Act

The first "Sister Act", featuring Whoopi Goldberg as a lounge singer sent into witness protection and joining a San Francisco convent, released in 1992 and hit it big, making more than $200,000,000 USD in the box office and cementing Whoopi as a staple comedic actress for this part of the decade. It was so popular that "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" quickly went into production, releasing the very next year and putting Goldberg back into the convent for must less urgent reasons-- simply to save their school and win a competition.

The sequel still made bank at the box office, but took in half the earnings of the original, flopping with critics in its theatrical run. Was it a better film? Not really, but it was an enjoyable return with strong music and most of the original cast, and while it would be easy to overlook, it certainly doesn't do as much of a disservice to the content as other sequels of the day.

Answer: Sting

Though the original play of "Brimstone and Treacle" never made it to the BBC until 1987, eleven years after its creation, Sting starred in a film adaptation of the story in 1982, subverting the initial intent to keep it stored away without being broadcast due to, as the network's Director-General claimed, its "nauseating" content.

The film itself followed the difficult life of a London couple and their disabled daughter as they were beset upon by a random man they let into their home, having helped him off the street when he collapsed. As it turned out, the man was less-than-savoury, and their good deed would be met with the reverse.

Sting would continue to act, periodically, in the 1980s and 1990s, appearing next in David Lynch's "Dune" in 1984. "Brimstone and Treacle", meanwhile, would disappear into the ether.