It's Rocket Jones movie review time! Cheer or cringe, it's all the same to me.

There have been some classic "low budget" moments in film history. For instance, in "The Beast from Yucca Flats", the entire movie was filmed silent, and all dialog and sound effects were added during post-production. To avoid synchronization problems, the character speaking always has his face turned away from the camera or is off-screen. This results in the odd effect of having two people talking, and you only ever see the person listening as the conversation happens.

Another example is the movie (danged if I can recall what the title was) where all of the sound equipment fell into the lake on the first day of shooting. Their budget didn't allow them to get new equipment, so once again they shot it silent and dubbed in the dialog in post production.

This review is about "Rat Pfink A Boo Boo". That's not a typo, at least, it's not anymore. When the original movie titles were created, instead of "Rat Pfink *and* Boo Boo", they said "Rat Pfink *A* Boo Boo". There wasn't enough money to correct the mistake, so the movie title was changed to match. The cover art also spells it out as "Rat *Phink* A(nd) Boo Boo", which introduces a whole new misspelling to the mix and may have been intentional.

Anyway, if it wasn't for the "legend" behind the movie, this stinker would've been long forgotten. Taking full advantage of low-budget strategies like extended close ups and long, repetitive chase scenes, the movie stretches out to an hour and ten minutes or so, while actually having about twenty minutes of actual action.

If you're a big fan of crappy "rock and roll" singers and the even crappier songs they write and perform - see my review of "The Giant Gila Monster" for the all-time big bag o' barf award - then you're gonna *love* this one. At one point the narrator explains:

Lonnie Lords is a rock star. He carries his guitar with him everywhere he goes because he never knows when he'll be called upon to perform. Lonnie likes to sing.

Sing by the window Lonnie, I'll help you out.

The first half of the movie shows a gang of three guys who... I'm not sure what they do, but they do it as a gang. One always carries a hammer on a string, another a length of chain, and the black guy laughs a lot and they make him ride in the back of the truck. They pick women at random and psychologically abuse them before robbing them.

When they kidnap Lonnie's girlfriend, Lonnie and Titus the gardener become the title heroes and head out to rescue the fair maiden and save the day. This takes a while because mucho time is spent in close ups, car chase scenes and incredibly badly done fights. Did I already say that? Gee, just like this movie! Oh, and there's a gorilla loose too, for no reason that I could figure out. Also, there are many long close ups, car chase scenes and badly done fights.

If - and I mean that in a questioning-your-sanity kinda way - IF, you need to see this just to complete your viewing list of all-time worst movies ever, you have my sympathies. Otherwise, leave it alone. Or go watch "Giant Gila Monster".

Posted by: Ted at 05:13 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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