Movies - The Good, the Bad, and the Awful

I don't have an issue with bad movies - I've watched too many of them to be able to do that. For instance, during one exceptionally cold winter, my friend Melissa and I saw every lousy film that came out during the traditional movie wasteland months of January and February. "Beverly Hills Ninja," "Daylight," "Volcano," and "Dante's Peak" (not actually that bad, for the genre) are among the titles I remember (and let's not even comment on "Anaconda").

During an unfortunate period of interest in Val Kilmer, I saw "The Island of Dr. Moreau" remake. Four times. In the theater. Full price tickets. Mercifully, a stomach virus ended that pattern. I am also probably one of the very few people who actually saw the Richard Grieco movie (does anyone remember him? According to him he was going to be "hot for the next seven years..." I think he was around for about seven minutes) "If Looks Could Kill." (Never heard of it? There are many good reasons. Grieco himself among them.)

Back in the early 90's, Charlie Sheen made a movie called "Courage Mountain." If I remember correctly, it was a very strange remake of "Heidi," and Sheen played the classic character Peter to a teenaged unknown's Heidi. I don't know how, but I convinced my friend Cynara to go see it with me (she also sat through "If Looks Could Kill." She was a shockingly patient friend).

That went about as well as you can probably imagine. And this was many years BEFORE the "Violent Torpedo of Truth" tour. I remember three things about that movie:

1. Charlie Sheen's "Peter" went off to "war" (in Switzerland?); evidently they had a low costume budget, because he wore a completely different uniform than any one else in the movie;

2. The editing was so bad that several "dead" extras were seen moving around in the background;

3. There was a crazy guy sitting two rows ahead of us who REALLY enjoyed the movie.

I also voluntarily rented "Dinner for Shmucks" (a horrible remake of the classic French comedy, "The Dinner Guest"), "Wicker Park," "Hollywood Homicide," "GI Joe," (okay, that one was worth it because of Byung-Hun Lee - that's a post in itself), and many more.

So what makes "Skyline" different?

a - It "stars" Eric Balfour.

b - The aliens come to earth for the specific purpose of sucking out human brains and planting them in ... robot versions of the aliens? That's never really made clear.

c - There's no actual ending. Did they run out of film? Money? Paper? Electricity (for the laptop)?

This movie appears to have had a fairly decent budget, and the special effects are not terrible. But seriously, these aliens, who clearly have superior technology (at one point, they're nuked by the Army, fall apart, and then put themselves back together), come to EARTH for brains?

Shouldn't they have done some reconnaissance work first? Because if I had that kind of technology and power, I wouldn't want to take the chance of ending up with super-powerful robots running around with the brains of, say, the cast of "Jersey Shore," "The Bachelor/Bachelorette," "Charlie Sheen," or anybody else involved in any of the movies I listed above.

Aliens in movies: Just as dumb as the rest of us.