The 50 Film Challenge
The movies that Oscar forgot

Background

One of my many presents for Christmas 2002 was new DVD player. Hyundai, actually. With the player, there was 50 films from Prism Leisure, worldwide distributers of DTV "classics".

You know what I mean: Roger Corman films, exploitation movies, badly-dubbed martial arts flicks and, the most curious of all, the misleading boxes. These feature a recent photo of a big star. If said star appears more than fleetingly in the movie, then it was a long, long time before the cover photo was taken.

The original challenge

So, the self-imposed challenge was to watch all 50 films and review them within one year.

That sounds easier than it is. Some of the films are good, some are passable, but most - like Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy 2 - are hard-going. But I have learned to expand my horizons and learn to love the dire, embrace the risible and revel in dialogue that would make even daytime soap writers cringe with embarrassment.

Well, it didn't go at all well. I managed to watch 18 all the way through and review 12. And I promise you, I lost a lot more than 30 hours of my life. There are others which I tried to watch and just couldn't put myself through it (Cyborg 3, for example). I also gave the martial arts DVD away to a better home, so bye, bye Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.

The new challenge

So, having failed miserably, I turned my back on the movies and just walked away. Didn't so much as look at them for a whole year, but hope springs eternal. There's a new challenge in town and that is to finish watching the remaining ones and review them by 31 December 2005.

The films

Here's all the films, in alphabetical order. I've tried to identify who the most recognisable star is, so you get an idea of the quality of film we're dealing with here. Those highlighted in grey are movies I either couldn't sit through or gave away.

You can also have a look at the status report, which list the films by date added and provides some meaningless statistics on the films seen so far.

Title	Biggest Star	Rating
Alien Intruder	Billy Dee Williams
America's Dream	Wesley Snipes
Armageddon	Rutger Hauer
Black Eagle	J-C Van Damme
Bloodlines: The Lord Lucan Story	-
Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy 2	- none -	0/10
Call of the Wild, The	Rutger Hauer
Corrupt	Harvey Keitel
Cyborg 3: The Recycler	Malcolm MacDowell
Dark Side of the Sun, The	Brad Pitt	4/10
Darrow	Kevin Spacey	7/10
Def By Temptation	Samuel L Jackson	7/10
Dollar for the Dead	Emilio Estevez
Fire on the Amazon	Sandra Bullock	1/10
Fist of Fury II	Bruce Lee
Gulliver's Travels	Richard Harris
Hammers over the Anvil	Russell Crowe
Home Team	Steve Guttenberg
James Dean: Race with Destiny	Robert Mitchum
Justice	James Belushi
Kickboxer	J-C Van Damme
Kid Called Danger, A	-
Klansman, The	Lee Marvin
Lawnmower Man, The	Pierce Brosnan
Lost World, The	Patrick Bergen
Magic Bubble, The	George Clooney	6/10
Man and the Myth, The	Bruce Lee
Massacre in Rome	Richard Burton
Master with Cracked Fingers	Jackie Chan
Molokai: The Forbidden Island	Sam Neill
Muhammad Ali: King of the World	-
Nightmaster	Nicole Kidman	2/10
Peacekeeper, The	Dolph Lundgren	4/10
Primal Species	Scott Valentine	2/10
Red Surf	George Clooney
Return from the River Kwai	Denholm Elliot
Riot	Sugar Ray Leonard
Robocop: Crash & Burn	Leslie Hope
Robocop: Dark Justice	Leslie Hope
Robocop: Meltdown	Leslie Hope
Robocop: Resurrection	Leslie Hope
Rumble in Hong Kong	Jackie Chan
Shepherd, The	C. Thomas Howell
Skeleton Coast	Oliver Reed
Split Decisions	Gene Hackman	4/10
Tiger Warsaw	Patrick Swayze
Titanic (animated)	-
Train to Hell	Hugh Grant	1/10
Treasure Island	Jack Palance
Whistle Blower, The #	Michael Caine	7/10

The 50 Film Challenge The movies that Oscar forgot

Background

The original challenge

The new challenge

The films

The 50 Film Challenge
The movies that Oscar forgot