Thursday Night Double Feature: Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs and Machine Girl

Let me just start these reviews with a disclaimer: NERDS ONLY NEED APPLY. It's Thursday night, I had a tough week of classes, and I need to cut loose. Is it time for another movie I can, in good conscience, recommend to anyone? No. Tonight is the night that nerds must reign, and therefore, I watched two movies tonight that only nerds can appreciate. Did I cave in to my baser needs as a true nerd? That would be an emphatic yes.

First on the list is the second of three Futurama films, The Beast With a Billion Backs. For all you Futurama fans out there...well...it's better than the first movie, but still not better than some of the best Futurama episodes. I am one of the rare beasts that have little love for The Simpsons, and an almost crazy love for Futurama. I guess I just love cartoons that feature robots and squid as lead characters more than anything else. I know I may get roasted alive on a spit for this, but The Simpsons is just incredibly not awesome for me. Naturally, after watching countless reruns of Futurama on Adult Swim, I was ecstatic to learn that the entire cast returned for three feature films, the first of which was Bender's Big Score, which was just so-so, and kind of a letdown. The Beast With a Billion Backs is better, but not by much. Unfortunately, these feature films seem to get really caught up in a little thing called "the plot". I get that the creators wanted to make some movies with great storylines, but most of the comedy that made Futurama great tends to get lost in the attempt to stick to an actual plot. Futurama was best when the comedy was the baseline for the plot, not the other way around. So, it was entertaining, I laughed out loud a few times, but I expected better. Here's hoping the last film, Bender's Game, really delivers.


And so, we move on to one of the craziest movies I have ever laid my nerdy eyes upon, Machine Girl. I can say with complete honesty that this is the wildest Japanese film I have ever seen. That statement shouldn't be taken lightly, as I have seen some craaaazy shit in Japanese film, including but not limited to: killer hair extensions, dancing claymation cannibals, and a male member that turns into a drill. The Japanese are CRAZY, yo. However, as bizarre as the Japanese film industry can get, one thing they do really well is the slapstick comedy. Machine girl is one of the bloodiest movies I've ever seen, but it is also one of the most hilarious. In the tradition of early Peter Jackson, director Noboru Iguchi goes so over the top with his gore that it becomes laugh-out-loud hilarious. The lead character, in her first acting role, does a great job, considering a lot of Japanese actresses show little emotion. She plays a student whose younger brother is killed by yakuza, (the Japanese equivalent of the mafia) who subsequently goes on a revenge bender, slicing and dicing everyone who gets in her way. I couldn't stop myself from rolling around on the floor, laughing hysterically, as I am treated to visions of an arm that gets tempura fried and neverending waterfalls of blood. It's crazy, it's hilarious, it's weird and wonderful, and that's the best kind of film for us gorehound nerds.