Elisa Schlott in Strange Daughter (2017) in 720p

Algina Lipskis and Ibiza Undead (2016)

Mathilde Bundschuh in Das Goldene Zeitalter (2015) in 720p

Alice Krige and Laura Harris in Habitat (1997)
(The quality is not really good enough for sample captures.)

What a wonderful treat it was to watch this movie!

As you know, I love bad movies and this one is truly bad. Not brain-dead bad or boring bad, but fun bad, so bad you can't believe they were serious, like Plan 9 From Outer Space.

I loved every minute of this thing, and I couldn't take my eyes off it. The acting can't be believed, the art direction and f/x are atrocious, the plot makes no sense, every character is a cliche, there is no continuity, they made up their own science when they needed it for the plot, the music sucks, and the dialogue is about as bad as any movie ever written. Even the credits are bad, because they are bright green against a bright orange desert landscape.

In other words, this movie is great!

It's the future, after the ecological disaster, and people can't go out into the sun. Balthazar "I'm Not Charlie Sheen" Getty is the star, and he plays a kid who is having some trouble fitting into his new community.

He has some problems at home with his parents, too. His mom is a hippie space cadet with a Ph.D. in microbiology, and his father is a house. I'm not making this up. His dad is a genius scientist who has determined a way to accelerate evolution a billion years, and now exists as disembodied atoms. He has become one with nature, and has joined with the atoms in the house to create a living habitat for his family, safe from the ecological disaster outside. You think the kids made fun of you because your dad had an accent? Imagine what they'd say if your dad was a suburban 3/2 without one single good walk-in closet.

Balty is a mutant, which seems like it should be expected from the offspring of an eternally stoned woman and a split level ranch house. Because of his unique genes, he alone among all the people of earth can go outside in the sunlight. Perhaps he inherited his dad's aluminum siding.

He's also a potato. We know this because Laura Harris says to him, "Remember when our science teacher told us that the Irish potato famine could have been avoided if there was just one external strain of potato that could have been introduced to strengthen the native crop. Well, the human race is the same way, and you're that potato, aren't you?"

Back to Balty's troubles in the community. The local phys ed teacher is a bully and a fundamentalist Christian fanatic who finds it difficult to relate to a kid whose mom is a half-naked stoned hippie and whose dad has gutters and a porch. So he and the local youth bullies kick the crap out of Balty and tie him out in the sun to die, unaware of his mutant powers. When Balty simply returns with a nice tan, the phys ed teacher then assumes he is some kind of satanic avatar.

Oh, yeah, the girlfriend of the head local bully falls in love with Balty and, by the way, the phys ed teacher is her dad. Small world.

Finally Balty defeats the bullies, aided by his once-pacifist friend who bops the head bully with a log. Balty's dad defeats and kills a bunch of people who are trying to destroy him, including the coach. Dad then figures out a way to give the magical sun-immune powers to the girlfriend and she decides that she and Balty will "wander the earth" together. She doesn't seem too upset about her own dad's death. Then Balty's dad figures out a way to turn Balty's mom into pure energy, and together they float off into the ionosphere. Balty and his girl look up to the heavens and wave, and the girlfriend says "bye." This really cracked me up more than anything else in the movie. "Bye, disembodied atoms, I'm really gonna miss you, even though we've never actually met, and you don't actually have any ears to hear me or eyes to see my wave."

Great, great movie. I don't know if any of you like to toke it up once in a while, and I certainly would not advise you to engage in any illegal activities. But if you do like an occasional doobie, I strongly suggest you rent this before firing up your next one. You can't go wrong, except you might die from giggling.

Mariel Hemingway and others in Personal Best (1982) in 1080hd

Personal Best is a different take on the sports movie genre, first of all because it focuses on women's amateur sports, second because it is also a coming-of-age tale centered around its star, Mariel Hemingway, and third because it stars mostly athletes rather than actors. Mariel plays a talented athlete who just doesn't know what she can do. She doesn't know if she has enough talent or the necessary killer instinct to be a champion. Her naiveté stretches to her personal life as well, where she's confused about her sexuality. She ends up getting a college track scholarship because her lesbian lover badgers the coach into giving her a try against his better judgment. Eventually she develops into a top pentathlete, but that presents a problem because it pits her directly against her lover for a spot on the Olympic team. The strain between the two athletes worsens when Mariel starts to get interested in boys.

While the film's storyline is  similar to any number of other sports movies, virtually everyone in the film is a genuine athlete. The woman who plays Mariel's female lover, Patrice Donnelly, really was a top-rated pentathlete and participated in the 1976 Olympics as a hurdler. The guy who played Mariel's male lover, Kenny Moore, ran the marathon in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, finishing fourth in the latter. Many other cast members made their one and only film appearance in this movie, nearly all of them athletes chosen for their ability to perform realistically on the field rather than their ability to deliver a line. Given the fact that even Mariel Hemingway seems to have been chosen for her athleticism rather than her Shakespearean line readings, Scott Glenn was the only real actor in the film. Despite that, the performances are generally credible. They have a sort of authenticity that makes up for their lack of smoothness. Mariel herself was not capable of playing many different kinds of roles at that point in her career. Basically her entire range consisted of  playing a 12-year-old girl trapped in the broad-shouldered body of a Norse goddess. As it turns out, that was exactly what this role called for, and she was immensely appealing in the psychological aspects of the role. Mariel also spent more than a year on the physical side, engaged in physical training which enabled her to look convincing when competing side-by-side with real athletes.

This was the first directorial effort from Robert Towne, who had previously established a successful career as a screenwriter, having received Oscar nominations for Shampoo and The Last Detail, and having won the statuette for Chinatown. Nearly two decades after Personal Best, Towne went on to direct another sports film, Without Limits, a biographical story about the controversial runner Steve Prefontaine. That may have been Towne's best effort as a director, and his co-author on that script was none other than Kenny Moore, the same two-time Olympic marathoner who played Mariel Hemingway's boyfriend in Personal Best. Moore also had a small role in Tequila Sunrise, which means he was involved in 100% of Towne's directorial efforts in the latter's first 45 years in Hollywood. The string was broken with Ask the Dust in 2006.

Megan Fox wardrobe malfunction