Next Tuesday is a big one for new releases, including a deluxe boxed set of The Worst of Ed Wood. After hearing Jr. and Scoopy talk about him for months, I couldn't resist, so here, in all of it's (limited) glory, is Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958). Hailed as the worst movie ever made, I would add that it is the worst movie ever made as a serious attempt. Aliens fail at their first 8 plans to contact earth, and resort to plan 9, which involves raising the dead under their control, then using them to conquer earth, before man can invent the photon bomb. It is nearly impossible to mention everything wrong with this film, but inane dialogue, in some cases amazingly badly delivered, cheesy special effects, and no continuity at all lead the list. Maltin awards it a bomb, but then admits it is funnier each time you see it.

The others in the boxed set include Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and Jail Bait.

Just for fun, this is two of Tuna's captures sewn together to make one naked Lea.

Branded is a famous series with Chuck Connors and the theme song and the stripping off the epaulets and the breaking the sword over the knee ...

Oh, wait a minute. This is Braindead, not Branded.

Never mind.

This is a Corman-produced movie that is fundamentally an episode fo the Twilight Zone stretched to 90 minutes. Hey, Corman, there was a good reason why those Serling scripts were only 22 minutes long. Overall, this is a pretty good watch, but it sure drags in the middle.

This one is somewhere in the same general line as The Sixth Sense, Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge, Jacob's Ladder, and other movies of that ilk. A puzzle that you can't quite figure out. Is Pullman mad or sane? Is he dead or alive? Is he really a brain specialist, or is he the patient who projects his hopes into a doctor's job. Is he the sweeet invention of a lover's dream, or is he really as wonderful as he seems? What was the leopard seeking at that altitude? Where are the snows of yesteryear? The answer to some of those questions may be explained in the last minute, if you last that long.

You'll love it if you wondered whatever became of cult favorite Bud Cort. He's in this - as a loony with the top of his head cut off.

I rented this because of an IMDb comment about a Patricia Charbonneau nude scene. The nude scene wasn't nude at all, really. A very brief look at a backside and the side of a hip. With the dark funky lighting, she could be wearing thong underwear. There was also one pretty sexy upskirt (but panties underneath).

Here's a more lengthy explanation.

IMDB summary: 6.5 out of 10.

DVD info from Amazon.

I think this must be a horror movie, since:

Um, let's see. Superman's brother borrows his car and rips off some stolen electronics. The guy who originally stole the merchandise (Eric Roberts) is pretty hacked off, especially since he took the electronic components out of the VCR's and replaced them with 2.5 million dollars in cash.

By the way, Roberts' character name sounds like it should be in a Monty Python sketch. His name is Vic Haddock.

Anyway, Eric sees the car fleeing the scene, researches the owner, and assumes that Superman (I'm referring to Dean Cain here, by the way) pulled off the rip-off.

Well, about at this time, a mysterious new woman comes into Superman's life, and they seem to be hitting it off quite well, until she overhears the brother say that he borrowed the car that night. Then she decides to sleep with the brother. During their liaison who should show up but Julia Roberts' favorite brother, who kills the guy, and it then turns out the girl she was actually working for Big Eric all along.

That part of the movie was a pretty damned good noir, atmospheric and mysterious, and they didn't immediately reveal the connection between the girlfriend and the crime, so they really had you wondering why this sweet girlfriend was suddenly making a play for the brother. That should have been the end of the movie, but unfortunately it wasn't. It was only a third of the way through.

The rest of the movie hinged on the rather lame premise that the girl has fallen in love with The Man of Steel, despite having participated in the murder of his brother, and this makes Eric mucho jealous. So Eric shadows them as they fall in love and get married and have a child, and all along Superman is still wondering just exactly why his brother was brutally murdered, so he hires a detective, and he really isn't too pleased when he finds out that his wife first screwed the brother and then set up his death. That's gotta hurt.

Years go by. Continents shift. They resolve it somehow, but I can't say how. I wouldn't want to spoil the ending for you. Actually the ending is OK, as were the first thirty minutes. The other hour seemed longer than the Hundred Years War.

The star, Lexa Doig, Cowgirl from the Tek War series and Andromeda in the new Roddenberry-based Andromeda series (www.andromedatv.com), is one fine-lookin' woman, but the sex scenes were so dark that it was frustrating. The other woman was in an equally dark scene, but had an unimportant role. (She's a hooker, and Roberts hires her to dress up like Doig.)

IMDB summary: 5.6 out of 10.

DVD info from Amazon.