As is to be expected, in the wake of the very successful E.T., some massively derivative imitators were released. In '86 Flight of the Navigator used Paul Reubens' Pee-wee Herman voice as that of an alien ship which befriends a boy who just wants to get home. To be sure that was a smarmy, 2nd-hand effort. But by far, the other much worse product came with 1988's "Mac and Me." This was so much more appalling, that "Navigator" was instantly blown out of everyone's collective memory. Mac and Me is so heinous that it could melt the brains of the unborn.
Remarkably, the movie is so burdened by wall-to-wall garbazh, that stealing the entire plot of another movie could be the least of it's problems.
An unrelated movie, called "East Side Story," came out in 1997. It's a sort of "That's Entertainment!" of Soviet era propagandistic musical numbers on topics as naff as productivity objectives, living in a workers paradise, ideological purity, etc.. Mmmm... delicious! That's what you get when the machinery of state has no natural competitors. But "Mac and Me" is what capitalism would be bringing you morning, noon and night if powerful fans of ca$h never had their avarice checked by people who know better; critics and people with taste. As one cynical remark goes: If Thomas Edison had an MBA he would have just kept making larger candles.
This speed-course in half-assed, capitalist film-making includes, as noted, a plot lifted intact from a more successful movie (Why reinvent the wheel?), takes the form of a 90 minute McDonalds commercial (You want to lose 90 minutes of selling time?), interrupted by Coke commercials, has an alien that looks like a 4 dollar rubber fetus (because it is a 4 dollar rubber fetus), a (sym)pathetic hero in a wheelchair, and a script produced after sniffing the finest glue one could buy at the 99 cent store. Did $omebody $ay MAC-Donald$?
Somehow the execs didn't imagine we'd notice the endless shilling, maybe 200 percent more than in a typical movie, while taking their express-elevator ride to profit hell. So let's acknowledge these brave geniuses, who strived to make capitalism safe for uh... more capitalism, by name so they make it into the history books; Producers Mark Damon, William B. Kerr, and R.J. Louis; AND so this review is inescapably linked to their names in internet search results.
Of course there are questions that capitalism does't answer. Why do the aliens heads look like human scrotums? Why do they walk like babies with a load in their diapers? Why do they like whistling the first few notes of "Happy Trails (to you)?"
This is the lowest point in movie history, in any country, ever. Whoever would try to displace this as the "Worst Movie Ever Made" must first use it as a checklist to make sure their movie fails as spectacularly in as many places.
Remarkably, the movie is so burdened by wall-to-wall garbazh, that stealing the entire plot of another movie could be the least of it's problems.
An unrelated movie, called "East Side Story," came out in 1997. It's a sort of "That's Entertainment!" of Soviet era propagandistic musical numbers on topics as naff as productivity objectives, living in a workers paradise, ideological purity, etc.. Mmmm... delicious! That's what you get when the machinery of state has no natural competitors. But "Mac and Me" is what capitalism would be bringing you morning, noon and night if powerful fans of ca$h never had their avarice checked by people who know better; critics and people with taste. As one cynical remark goes: If Thomas Edison had an MBA he would have just kept making larger candles.
This speed-course in half-assed, capitalist film-making includes, as noted, a plot lifted intact from a more successful movie (Why reinvent the wheel?), takes the form of a 90 minute McDonalds commercial (You want to lose 90 minutes of selling time?), interrupted by Coke commercials, has an alien that looks like a 4 dollar rubber fetus (because it is a 4 dollar rubber fetus), a (sym)pathetic hero in a wheelchair, and a script produced after sniffing the finest glue one could buy at the 99 cent store. Did $omebody $ay MAC-Donald$?
Somehow the execs didn't imagine we'd notice the endless shilling, maybe 200 percent more than in a typical movie, while taking their express-elevator ride to profit hell. So let's acknowledge these brave geniuses, who strived to make capitalism safe for uh... more capitalism, by name so they make it into the history books; Producers Mark Damon, William B. Kerr, and R.J. Louis; AND so this review is inescapably linked to their names in internet search results.
Of course there are questions that capitalism does't answer. Why do the aliens heads look like human scrotums? Why do they walk like babies with a load in their diapers? Why do they like whistling the first few notes of "Happy Trails (to you)?"
This is the lowest point in movie history, in any country, ever. Whoever would try to displace this as the "Worst Movie Ever Made" must first use it as a checklist to make sure their movie fails as spectacularly in as many places.