MSTable movies: J

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JACK FROST (1996) A-pix Entertainment, Inc./Frost Bite Films, Ltd.
This killer named Jack Frost is on his way to be executed in winter when his car is hit by a truck with genetic material inside. He turns into a evil snowman who goes around killing people. They keep trying to kill it, but it just won't die. The best part is when he shakes this girl to death in the shower. Me and my friends laughed for hours!!! The snowman is classic.
Nicole, jchavas@facstaff.wisc.edu
JACOB'S LADDER (1990) Carolco Pictures
This was one of the most aggravating pieces of shlock I've ever had the misfortune to endure. I only saw it once, a long time ago, but the memory is still agonizing.

Jacob, a Vietnam vet played by Tim Robbins, starts having hallucinations about demons all around him. That's about it for 90% of the movie, him and his paranoia and hallucinatory tentacles.

Towards the end, the writer tries to introduce a feeble plot about how Jacob and his old war buddies might have been victims of an army experiment involving drugs used to increase their combat performance. Supposedly, the government is covering up this misguided experiment. Unfortunately, this plot attempt barely takes its first breath before sinking beneath the sea of Jacob's angst.

Finally, Jacob has a seizure or gets injured or something (I forget the details) and ends up in a hospital, where he has lots of hallucinations involving the doctors being demons. His chiropractor (that's right, played by Danny Aiello) comes to the hospital to save him.

After a few bone wrenchings, the chiropractor convinces Jacob that the demons he sees are actually some kind of subliminal message that he's sending to himself, and if he can figure out the message, the demons will go away or turn into angels or some such.

So, Jacob figures out he's really still in Vietnam, lying on a cot in a MASH unit, dying. His entire life (this whole useless movie) has been a figment of his deranged last moments of imagination. Then he croaks.

The movie ends with a vague (and highly questionable) remark about how the US Government actually did test combat drugs on combat troops in Vietnam without their knowledge. As if trying to claim this movie was some kind of moral or political statement would change my mind about how horrid it was.

Boring...pointless...meaningless...excruciatingly painful...worst 2 hours I've ever spent in front of a TV. I don't know if Mike and the bots could save it.

Ted Collins, tcollins@qcom.net
JADE (1995) Paramount Home Video
Oh lordy, why does Joe Eszterhas still have a career? This film begins nicely enough with the offscreen (but loud) murder of some old rich guy, set to Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring". Some so and so official (David Caruso) is on the case to find out who could have hacked up the guy with a wicked-looking hatchet. "This was rage," he says, looking at the body. He does some looking around, finding evidence and discovering that the victim was a perv who liked weird sex and collecting (DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE UNDER 18 OR EASILY OFFENDED!) pubes from his favorite sex partners, keeping them in little metal boxes. The Chinese ideogram for "jade" appears on the lid of one such box. Caruso does some more snooping around, and tries to find out who this "Jade" person is supposed to be, and finds pictures of the Governor (apparently, or some other sort of high mucky-muck, as portrayed by Richard Crenna) humping some chick (Angie Everhart. AAAAAGGGH!) who is questioned about "Jade" and hit by a car soon after. Anyhoo, the wife (Linda Fiorentino) of Caruso's friend (Chazz Palminteri) is somehow implicated in all the murderous nonsense going on, as it somehow seems apparent that she also has a taste for kink when it isn't her hubby who's humping her like a teenager. And an apparent cover-up for the whole thing is going on as well... I don't think I can go on anymore about this. Suffice to say, weird sex, weird death, and we don't know whodunnit until the end.
Duncan Shea, sarazawa@hotmail.com
JAWS 3 (1983)
A movie ripe with material for ripping. A shark 35ft. in length (yeah right!) really bad acting from the likes of Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett Jr. Originally shot in 3-d, the obvious get-a-reaction shots look really stupid when seen on t.v. now. Basic plot: The Brody family still hasn't caught on to the fact that they shouldn't go in the water and a perfectly good vacation is ruined when a shark and her offspring turn Sea World upside down.
kerahern@mary.cs.fsu.edu
JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987) Universal Pictures
OK, start with the title -- since every one of the sharks prior to this flick died (in sequence: blown up with a compressed-air tank hit by a .30-06; bit down on a power line; blown up w/ hand grenade), how the devil does the Carcharodonotic League [:)] know *who* has been do- ing for their members?

In any event -- Martin Brody (J1, J2) has died of a heart attack; according to his wife (a remarkably useless Lorraine Gary), the attack was brought on by his continually having to fight sharks (I think it had more to do with his hearing that they were making *another* *bloody* *flick*!). After yet another unsuspecting Brody is turned into lunch meat by one of the Toothy Bretheren, Mama Brody finally gets the idea that maybe moving away from Amity might be a wise idea (*NO*.). So, where does she move? Nebraska? North Dakota? Idaho?

No.

Would you believe *THE* *BAHAMAS*?! (Sweet pick -- *surround* yourself with water perfectly suited for the creature you're trying to escape! One wonders if that background sound is Darwin cartwheeling in his grave.)

She hooks up with one of her kids, who is doing research with a local sea-goon (Mario Van Peebles demonstrating why he never gets good film roles) and a local ferry pilot (Michael Caine -- no more info is needed here). No sooner has she settled in than -- yep -- people start getting fished to death. There is the ObTryingToAvoidFate, followed by the ObClimacticBattle, and the ObGoofyAssDeathForTheShark (impaled w/ the broken bowsprit of a fast-moving motor yacht).

Things to watch for, when one is not spewing like a beer can just pulled from a paint mixer:

Folks, I don't mind telling y'all -- this one is conceivably the absolute, abject, utmost, ultimately execrable pile of celluloid com- post to ever be committed to 16mm. Evidently, the film co. needed a 90-minute tax write-off. As Roy Orbison (I think) said, "Baby, *you* *got* *it*!"

We are talking a new dimension (specifically, underwater) to _*DEEP*_ *HURTING*.

Chris French, csadn@ix.netcom.com
JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995) Alliance Communications Inc./TriStar/Cinevision
(or, indeed, almost anything with Keanu Reeves as the star)

As I watched this stinker, I said to my friend, "This is a movie we'll see on MST3K sometime soon." If you saw it, you know what I'm talking about. If not, well, you have to see for yourself. Major plot holes, bad acting all around, and a few scenes that just make no sense whatsoever.

Phil Catelinet, catelinp@gunet.georgetown.edu
Rebuttal
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (1959) 20th Century Fox
Inane songs, giant iguanas, and literally hours of rock climbing make this a treat for any MSTie. Bearing almost no resemblance to the Jules Verne book of the same name, the first hour or so of the movie follows the life of a Scottish geology professor (with a British accent), his equally Scottish student (with an American accent), and the student's girlfriend as they do nothing that has much to do with anything. Later, the two Scotsmen go to Iceland to get to the center of the earth before their rival, a double-crossing Swede who turns out to be dead. They join up with a local Icelander named Hans, the dead Swede's wife, and Hans's girlfriend Gertrude the duck to visit the center of the earth anyway. The grandson of Arne Saknussem menaces them for a while, then joins up with our heroes after his elderly porter dies. A long period of rock climbing, punctuated by a series of random events, follows. Eventually, the survivors are blasted out of a volcano. One of the last scenes involves the Scottish student, a couple of nuns, and a sheep-- I am not making this up. The "underground" sequences were filmed in the Carlsbad Caverns, home of Earth vs. the Spider. Starring Pat Boone as the younger Scotsman.
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF TIME (1967) Dorad Corporation/Borealis Enterprises
Three people get lost in time and really crappy special effects along the way. The set really does look like cardboard, and almost all the actors were never heard from again after this movie. Besides, what other movie can boast an actress named "Poupee Gamin" and has Lyle ("Wonder Womaaaaaaaaaaan!!!") Waggoner as an alien? =^)
Troy N. Diggs, tdiggs@aztec.astate.edu

Petréa Mitchell
pravn@m5p.com