Nice Cats (1995)

Lately I've been delving into the fascinating and awful world of Mockbuster animation. Extremely low budget rip-offs of Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks films. When it comes to trash cinema, something about this stuff seems sleazier than exploitation. Taking advantage of the ignorance of kids and the ambivalence of parents. The first example I decided to explore is this extremely crude mock-up of The Aristocats awkwardly titled "Nice Cats" ('Artige Katzen' in German).

Mrs. Mcdonald is taking her three cats on vacation to Acapulco. Lauren, the mother cat and her two kittens Lucy and Lionel. It's worth noting that it's they live in San Francisco, I did the math and it's 2,400 miles. That's quite the road trip. By the end of a generic incidental casio jingle, they're in Acapulco and immediately Lucy is getting the itch to wander. Mrs. Mcdonald warns all the cats that there's talk of a cat catcher on the prowl so to stay near the estate. Lucy runs off anyway and gets herself catnapped.

"Bunny Fashion"

"I Love Cats"

In cat jail she meets a stray named Charlie, they work together to plan an escape. Lucy plays dead to distract the cat catcher long enough to bite his bunghole.

By the time they get back to the estate Mrs. Mcdonald has taken the two cats and gone back to San Francisco, an ass move if I ever saw one. So now they have to travel all 2,400 miles on foot, Encountering different animals and humans along the way who help.

The plot is inconsequential. From the onset of the first frame you know that you're in for something truly horrific. One of the strangest companies to piggy back the success of Disney, the German based "Dingo Pictures" is responsible for other atrocities such as 'The Dalmations'  (101 Dalmations), 'Toys' (Toy Story), 'Countryside Bears' (Winnie the Pooh), and the one I'm the most excited to see 'Dinosaur Adventure' (The Land Before Time). Run by a husband and wife team, Ludwig Ickert and Simone Greiss, and I suspect not a single other employee. The backgrounds look like they were hand drawn by elementary schoolers and the characters themselves appear to have been TRACED from the source material. All three cats from "Nice Cats" have the same outline as Duchess from The Aristocats. The animation style reminds me of something between outdated 70's x-rated cartoons and that creepypasta 'Suicide Mouse'. From the limited images I've seen, it appears that all of their films have the same unfinished dullness. If the animation and copyright infringement wasn't enough, the dialog is amateurishly storybook style; with a woman narrating for every character. She has no accent but the grammar and sentax tells me that this was poorly translated from another language. With sentences like "Breathing was difficult for many people because the air was stuffy" - in regards to living in the city, or when the catcher caught a cat saying "That was a successful cat!". My favorite line however is when Lucy announces "I can't find my damn hairbrush!" - apparently Dingo is notorious for sprinkling curse words into their films.

A few other things I appreciated about 'Nice Cats'...

the entire movie is poorly hand drawn up until the end when they board an 8 bit boat. Suddenly we're in a video game.

The placement of the characters over the background went beyond not giving a shit. Charlie is floating in the middle of the frame like some experimental Jean-Christophe Averty shit.

Cameo by fake Thumper.

The saddest pizza I've ever seen. This isn't even Crayola, this is Roseart half way through the school year.

This racially confused Italian restaurant with a pizza being flipped like a pancake and a miniature china-man wearing a coolie and holding two sticks in front of a closed pot. This may be one of the most confusing moments in film history. I am literally stunned.


With my own "nice cat" Egbert recovering from oral surgery, this seemed like as good a time as any to participate in this bewilderment. Egbert has the luxury of pain killers why I painfully endured in sobriety. 'Nice Cats' and "Dingo Pictures" in general  is a personal journey you must decided if you want to take. God help you if you're as masochistic as me.

Big Commotion (1968)

I'm starting to get back into the swing of things. I got a job, I feel like the madness of our life changing move is finally settling down. I'm finding myself back in a routine which is giving me the right state of mind for movie viewing. I mentioned in my last review that I came across a wonderful video store in South Pasadena called Videotheque. It's an all meat no filler kind of place. It ranges from an assortment of some of the greatest movies ever made to some of the weirdest movies ever made and in turn some of the most rare movies ever made. They carry a lot of films put out by 5 Minutes To Live (now known as Cinestrike). I've spent the last five years or so slowly building up a nice little 5mtl hoard but there's still so much more to be discovered and at $15 a pop (plus $6 for shipping) it can be a pricey hobby. And let's face it, collecting movies such as those sold on 5mtl and in my own online shop (I admittedly sell movies I dislike) can be hit or miss. The option to rent is a lifesaver! On that note, I was particularly enthralled to see that they carried what was going to be my next purchase from "Cinestrike" (still can't get used to calling them that). The 1968 Japanese film Big Commotion (Nippon oyafukô jidai)...

The major selling point on this one is that it stars my FAVORITE Japanese group, the Spiders, whose cd I bought on a whim a few years ago based on the incredible cover and have since played it out. They've been compared to a lot of bands, the Beatles, the Electric Prunes, the Ventures and the Monkees (the latter I think is most accurate). Really though, they're a superb rock n' roll group who has a distinct flavor of their own. It wasn't uncommon for them to open for the Beach Boys in Japan. I dare say their sound is in that vein as well, during the Pet Sound years. I could really gush over this group. They're wonderful and if you're unfamiliar I give them my utmost recommendation.

For some reason I thought this one had subtitles but unfortunately it didn't and as far as I know there isn't a copy floating around that does. I was a bit disappointed at first because there does seem to be a plot and I was having a hard time following it, but after a while you get the gist of what's going and I was able to engage myself in the comedic antics. The underlying storyline I seemed to notice revolved around the the lead singer, Masaaki Sakai who was lovesick over a girl and often slipped into fantasy sequences in which he makes a ridiculous cross-eyed face prior to. I found his role in the movie to be completely adorable! His animated features and movement made this movie a lot more watchable. I later realized that he's the main character on the show Monkey Magic! Which I believe was mostly directed by Jun Fukuda.

Aside from him, the rest of the band (there are seven total) seemed be the foils for his shenanigans. I read that this was Japan's answer to the Beatle's Help! but it struck me a lot more like an extended episode of the Monkees television show with Masaaki as the Peter Tork character. Aside from all of that, I still was a bit lost with the story but the other selling point were the awesome live performances and music videos. I'm surprised none of that footage has made it to youtube (unfortunately I don't know how to do any of that or I'd upload them myself). In fact, I'm disapointed that there aren't any decent clips of the Spiders at all other than a 1981 reunion where they cover Day Tripper, which I wouldn't say is one of their finest moments. I was thrilled to hear (and see) all of my favorite songs including Kaze Ga Naiteriru, which has made countless mixes.

All in all, worth a view for serious fans of the Spiders or the Japanese GS movement of the 60's. I was hoping for a bit more psychedelia to get me through the subtitle-less-ness but considering this movie is over two hours I would say it held my attention pretty well. At very least check out their music. You can get the cd used on Amazon for around $10. WELL WORTH IT.

the Last Shark (1981)

I had planned on having this big shark movie marathon to mourn the sad fact that I don't have cable and hence can't partake in Shark Week. I have a thing for sharks, but really just in the fictitious far-far away from me kind of way. Primarily of course, shark movies. The shittier the better. I can only take so much though. One usually tides me over a month or two, so chances are I won't be watching any more bad shark movies this week, and they're all bad. Now, right off the bat let me make something clear. I've never been into Jaws. No, I'm not one of those cult movie fanatics that hates Spielberg on "principle", I like him just fine. Not because it isn't a great crowd pleasing movie. It's certainly is. TOO good in fact. The shark genre is such a giant mistake that the one decent influential film just seems way too tame in comparison. It just doesn't give me what I want; what I need from a shark.

I did manage to watch possibly the most infamous shark movie of them all. Enzo Castellari's the Last Shark. I knew going into this that I was in for a blatant Jaws rip-off. What I didn't realize is that this film would set the standards for all bad shark movies from there on out. In a sense the Last Shark is directly responsible for the Shark Attack 3: Megalodon's and the Sharks in Venice's of the world. All these years I thought they were directly ripping off Jaws, but no. The Last Shark got that out of the way for them. My theory is that all bad shark movies aspire to be the Last Shark. King of the shitty shark movies! For this reason it deserves the utmost appreciation and respect. Unfortunately, this movie borrowed so much from Jaws that they were sued by Universal. The movie itself is a passable rip-off but use of certain publicity material and calling it "the Last Jaws" or "Jaws Returns" in some Countries was what did them in.

I was completely oblivious to the fact that one of my favorite actors, Vic Morrow was in this! With an unbearable Scottish accent and an almost pointless role he was obviously the token celebrity. He's a main character but still somehow seems out of place despite his noble attempt at making this movie serious.

My least favorite character in the movie was the sleazy politician. For two main reasons.

1. he was a perfect movie prick. You'd swear it's Eric Roberts up there. He even has a sleazy moustache.

2. he makes this happen...

There's a plot swimming around here somewhere, and it is strikingly similar to Jaws, so let's not even talk about it. The absolute worst part about this movie is the excruciating editing. Many scenes were drawn out MUCH longer than they should have. The sound on my copy was recorded so low that it's barely audible. I could always hear Vic Morrow since he was yelling all the time, but his heavy fake Scottish accent made him hard to understand anyway. The score was by Guido and Maruizio De Angelis, also known as "Oliver Onions", two of my all time favorite Italian composers. I always get a kick out of their campy cartoonish tunes you'd here in a Bud and Terence comedy, but they also do seriously funky Poliziotteschi scores with equal finesse. This score was a little different though, it had the whole Jaws thing hovering over it which seems like it might have been a bit confining. The main theme is used OVER and OVER so there's not much room for the De Angelis Brothers' quirky experimentation.

This movie did amazingly well in the box office due to the Jaws confusion. I've read some complaints about the way the shark looks. I have no problem with this. In fact, all things considered, I think it looks pretty good. The stock footage is the real problem. Castellari repeatedly uses the same footage of a shark swimming around with a high contrast filter and another one of a shark chomping some meat. Even that would have been ok but the incredible size difference between the stock footage sharks and the mechanical shark is laughable.

"Hi guys"

Enzo Castellari has yet to disappoint, and I'm glad I finally saw this. It really is the beginning of one of my favorite genres. Next I'll be hunting down Lamberto Bava's Devilfish, though Hammerhead (aka SharkMan) with Jeffrey Combs is probably next in my shark que. Let us not forget that Roger Corman's newest production, Sharktopus starring Eric-fucking-Roberts (one of these days I'll have to write an article on Eric Roberts and my delightfully mixed feelings for him) is coming out this year. Yes, it's a good time for sharks. It's ALWAYS a good time for sharks!

The Video 98 Collection Part 7: The Mines of Kilimanjaro (1986)

I almost forgot to review this one! It was just that forgettable. One of the many low budget Italian Indiana Jones rip-offs. Which is partially entirely the reason I wanted to see it. Confusingly, the character who looks and acts like Indiana Jones is killed in the first 10 minutes. The "hero", Dr. Barclay, steps in to find out why his friend was murdered. This guy is a total fop. He's a geek and has no screen presence for a roll like this. I expect my Harrison Ford-a-likes to be rugged, or least resemble Ford is some way, be it looks or behavior. Tobias Hoesl had no character at all. He was practically sleep walking through the whole movie.

Based on some scribblings by the Professor, Dr. Barclay heads to Africa to investigate the murder and pick-up where he left off on a hunt for some big ass diamonds. Our bad guys are the high light of this terrible mistake. A German guy that looks like Heino, and a painfully over the top racially stereo typed "Chinese" guy with a fu manchu moustache who's obviously a fat Italian man.

They're all after the diamonds, the movie is set in the 30's, there are Nazi's, etc, etc.  Nothing really exciting happens. I felt bored throughout this entire movie. The cool holographic box was the selling point. I 'm only reviewing it because I said I would when I listed my Video 98 findings. I've gotten some new stuff since then from there, but I won't be making any promises about reviewing those for this precise reason.


Luigi Ceccarelli did the music. He also did the scores for Women's Prison Massacre and Violence in a Women's Prison. For some reason Franco Bixio owns the copyright to the score, which I thought was kind of strange.

This movie doesn't have enough going for it to give a second look. From what I've read there are other more entertaining Italian Indiana Jones rip-offs, such as Hunters of the Golden Cobra and Ark of the Sun God. Other than a sparkley box and a few laughable costume choices, this is an all around disappointing video find that's already found itself a cozy spot on my shelf to collect dust for an eternity.