A Deep Dive into Weirdo Cinema [4] Quiz

Answer: Stephen Chow

A fun love letter to the martial arts tradition, "Kung Fu Hustle" was Stephen Chow's follow-up to the internationally successful "Shaolin Soccer" and it found similar praise for its tight, funny action storytelling. In the movie, Chow, as Sing, joins a 1940s Shanghai gang and fulfills his destiny as a Kung Fu master by splitting off from the gang.

Heavily allusive to other classic cinematic works (not limited to Hong Kong and martial arts cinema), "Kung Fu Hustle" (2004) is a treat for any filmgoer. Its popularity coming out of the Toronto International Film Festival led it to steamroll in the international box office, becoming the highest-grossing Hong Kong-made film of all time, a record it kept for seven years.

Answer: Super Mario Bros.

One of the earliest video game-inspired movies to hit the big screen, "Super Mario Bros." was a hint of the source material and not quite a full dose of what players had come to expect playing the classic NES games. Starring, of all people, Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, the film saw the plumber descend into Dinohattan to save Princess Daisy from Dennis Hopper's President Koopa. Does that sound close to the game? At all? No?

Truth is, it started a decades-long streak of bad video game adaptations. Hoskins, notably, thought it was the worst movie he ever did; Hopper called it a nightmare, blaming the husband-and-wife directing team. The movie flopped in the box office, but it is a relic from a really early time in video gaming history. Of course, thirty years later, Nintendo would give "Super Mario Bros." a full animated film treatment with "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (to modest acclaim).

Answer: Johnny Depp

Originally released in early 2016 on FunnyorDie .com, the fifty-minute-long "Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie" eventually made its way to Netflix as a surprise creation kept quite under wraps despite the presidential elections that were ongoing at the time. Partly due to the notoriety of the ghostwritten "The Art of the Deal" book released by Trump in the 1980s and due to the relative silence in Johnny Depp's career at the time, the appearance of this comedic adaptation managed to be quite positively received. Depp, nearly unrecognizable in the role as the soon-to-be-President, was the type of acting get that wouldn't stay quiet under normal circumstances.

Interestingly, the film was written for the screen by Joe Randazzo, the former editor of the satirical news outlet, "The Onion".

Answer: Death Note

Based on a popular manga released between 2003 and 2006 and already previously adapted as an anime and a series of feature films in Japan, "Death Note" was a blessing and a curse when it was announced as a Netflix original film and released in 2017. On one hand, the movie, about the use of a book that could kill anyone whose name was written inside, was directed by horror mainstay Adam Wingard, whose eye for action and tone had already been established with a track record in indie circles. On the other hand, "Death Note", while regarded highly by anime fans, does tread a line with some of its characters in that their mannerisms don't necessarily hold up for international audiences.

What resulted was an odd film-- one which attempted to layer the complexities of a multi-season anime in the runtime of an hour-and-forty minute feature film. Although Willem Dafoe as the Shinigami Ryuk might have been an inspired choice, it didn't balance out a stuffed-to-the-brim attempt at adaptation that, ultimately, didn't really impress.

Answer: Truth or Dare

Blumhouse Productions, which started in the 2000s, rose to a place of prominence in the horror community because, within a decade or two, it had attracted not only major names and franchises in the space (like "Halloween" and "Paranormal Activity"), but had a relatively strong track record for otherwise original intellectual properties ("Happy Death Day" being one). Blumhouse's "Truth or Dare", however, which released in 2018, was not one of the stronger ones.

Starring Lucy Hale and Tyler Posey, the film posited the question of "what would happen if a bad spirit from Mexico forced you to play Truth or Dare and it not only ruined your life, but got you killed?" While it may have appealed to a teen audience, the film proved more silly than anything. Nonetheless, like most other Blumhouse films, the reception didn't much matter. Its low budget meant making bank at the box office to the tune of nearly $100,000,000 USD.

Answer: Shock and Terror

Almost entirely self-financed by writer/director/producer James Nguyen, "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" is a piece of independent cinematic art with the simple premise of "what if birds got really bad?" Set in California, the first half of the film is a slow burn in which main characters Rod and Nathalie go about their lives, meeting each other and falling in love while succeeding professionally beyond their wildest dreams (he 'catches the big fish' at work and starts his own business with the windfall while she becomes a 'Victoria's Secret' model). At the halfway point of the film, disaster strikes, and clip art birds start attacking and killing everyone, even blowing up gas stations with dive bomb kamikaze techniques.

The movie is utter madness and, swiftly after its 2010 release, became an instant bad movie cult classic. Nguyen made a sequel, "Birdemic 2: The Resurrection", in 2013 and another, "Sea Eagle", in 2022 in an effort to capitalize on the 'so-bad-it's-good' fame of the first, but nothing can compare. "Birdemic" is simply bad movie manna from Heaven.

Answer: Surf Ninjas

How do you combine the early '90s radical coolness of L.A. surfer dudes with the obvious gimme of cool you find in sick ninja moves? Well, you make "Surf Ninjas", a 1993 movie with the acting talents of all three listed in the question, none of whom you might actually consider for either surfing or ninjas. In the movie, two surfers turn out to be princes from the Southeast Asian nation of Patusan, but that isn't known until they start getting attacked in L.A. What results is a trip to their homeland to fight Colonel Chi (Nielsen), who seems to be ruling there as a despot.

This one was a box office flop, and it might not be hard to see why. Combining the two main aesthetics of the film-- surfing and martial arts-- could be a hit for kids if it were done with tact, but adding in comic relief at every angle and ensuring it's that definitive type of early '90s wacky...well, that's not how to do it.

Answer: Jupiter Ascending

Written and directed by the Wachowskis who introduced the world to "The Matrix" in 1999, "Jupiter Ascending" seemed to be an attempt to create something of a massive scale across the futuristic far reaches of the solar system, but with such vastness, it fell by the wayside trying to tell a complex story about consumption, especially of Earth's people and resources. One may wonder...'didn't they do that in "The Matrix"?' Yes they kind of did.

Starring Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, and Sean Bean (who survives, but has the fate of being part-man-part-bee), the movie was praised for its striking graphics, but barely recouped its significant budget (hitting approx. $200,000,000 USD.). Critics cited the story as the issue; it was too dull...or complicated...or ill-fitting. Either way, it showed. It ended up nominated for six Razzies and winning one for Eddie Redmayne's supporting villain. Redmayne would win an Oscar in the same year for "The Theory of Everything".

Answer: Fantasy Island

In discussing Blumhouse Pictures, this 2020 movie was the next in line for director Jeff Wadlow who also previously wrote and directed "Truth or Dare". A film reboot of the 1970s show "Fantasy Island", this movie brought a handful of people to the fated destination to live out their worst nightmares. Bringing back Lucy Hale (also from "Truth or Dare") but featuring Michael Peņa and Maggie Q, it seemed to be a bit of a prequel to the show which, one might think, is odd. You'd be right; the tone simply isn't there.

Despite the flaws, the movie managed a modest $49,000,000 USD in the box office. Nominated for five Razzies, it failed to make any real splash, especially since COVID-19 locked down theatres and all real talk of big releases about a month later.

Answer: The Terminator

A Tamil-language 2010 film, "Enthiran" goes the distance in terms of what you'd expect from a Bollywood-affiliated sci-fi action movie. Not only does it clock in at a seemingly prerequisite three hour runtime, but much of the story flits around in tone from romantic side-plot to Terminator apocalypse almost at a whim with Chitti, the droid, being played by Rajinikanth in scenes ranging from "machine working as normal" to "giant orb of droids withstanding bullet barrages". The film is essentially about an android who falls in love with his creator's girlfriend.

It's a wild ride, and a sequel was released in 2018 (simply titled "2.0") with Rajinikanth returning as the Chitti character. In fact, one of the upgrades to Chitti in this sequel was an alternate version, named Kutti, who could transform into a cell phone. Naturally, "2.0" would become the highest-grossing Tamil film of all time.