EDITOR’S NOTE: This was first on the site on September 2, 2019.

Despite the teaming of Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Escape Plan underperformed at the U.S. box office. So how have there been three of these films? Simple. International box-office success, as this movie debuted in first place in several foreign markets, with the total international gross more than doubling its $50 million budget, leading to a worldwide gross of $137.3 million.

Ray Breslin (Stallone) is a former prosecutor, businessman and skilled structure engineer, but he’s really known for being the world’s best escape artist. As part of Breslin-Clark, he poses as an inmate to test supermax prisons from the inside out. His goal? Keeping criminals in jail, because back when he was a lawyer, his wife and child were killed by a convict he put away that escaped.

Breslin and business partner Lester Clark (Vincent D’Onofrio) get a multimillion-dollar offer from CIA agent Jessica Mayer, who wants them to test a top secret prison where several prisoners have disappeared. They’re not told where this prison is, but Breslin allows himself to be captured. However, things go wrong right away, as his tracking chip is removed and he has no idea where he is.

Now, he’s under the control of Warden Hobbes (Jim Caviezel) and meets fellow prisoner Emil Rottmayer (Schwarzenegger). Together with Javed, a Muslim prisoner, they start to create an escape plan — but soon learn that they are on a cargo ship in the middle of the ocean.

This movie is packed with interesting supporting players. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson plays Hush, Ray’s best friend and technical expert. Sam Neill is a prison doctor. And former soccer star Vinnie Jones is the lead guard.

Escape Plan was directed by Mikael Hafstrom (1408) and was written by Jason Keller and Miles Chapman, who has written all of the Escape Plan films. It’s way better than the next two films in the series, but that kind of goes without saying, right?

See also: Escape Plan 2: Hades and Escape Plan: The Extractors.

The American directorial debut of South Korean director Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil), this was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first lead acting role in a decade.

He plays Sheriff Ray Owens, who has left behind Los Angeles for the small town of Sommerton Junction, Arizona. A failed mission led to his partner being crippled and his team killed, so now he writes parking tickets and tries to hide his depression.

Now, Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) has escaped from custody and his men have cleared a path to Mexico for him. The only thing stopping him is the town of Sommerton Junction. Owens realizes that the odds are against him, so he deputizes a vet with PTSD named Mike Figuerola (Luis Guzman) and goofball weapons collector Lewis Dinkum (Johnny Knoxville).

You know why I love Arnold? During filming, he was spotted at a WalMart. He was there buying clothes for the crew, who were freezing during the desert night shoots.

A live action adaptation of Shotaro Ishinomori’s 1967 adult manga — which in turn came from the manga Cyborg 009 — this movie was made to celebrate its creator’s 75th birthday.

Taking place in the year 20XX, Mylene Hoffman is Agent 009-1, constantly battling the Cold War between the Eastern and Western Blocks as part of the Zero Zero Organization. When she loses her license after a mission gone wrong, she must discover her lost memories.

Sure, you’ve seen it all before, but have you seen a secret agent not named Chesty Morgan who has machine guns inside her breasts?

Director Koichi Sakamoto and writer Keiichi Hasegawa have both worked on the Kamen Rider and Ultraman franchises, but this film allows them to go all out with blood — most of it CGI — and suggestive situations. Well, it’s still a soft R-rated film, so don’t expect Naked Killer. I mean, it does have a sapphic BDSM scene where an evil cyborg has her way with the movie’s heroine, so maybe what I find dirty has a design error.

There’s also a 1969 TV series called Flower Action 009/1 and an anime with the same name that was made in 2006.

Mark Lindsay Chapman sounds like the name of the man programmed to kill John Lennon, Mark David Chapman, which kept him from playing the man who put a tampon on his head and yelled “I love May Pang” in John and Yoko: A Love Story, a biographical NBC made-for-Tv movie that had involvement from Yoko Ono, who liked his audition but felt it was bad karma and Mark McGann got the role instead. Chapman did end up playing Lennon in Chapter 27 and got killed by real life cult leader Jared Leto who played Chapman.

Chapman — the actor, not the MK Ultra killer carrying a marked-up copy of Catcher in the Rye — is the voice of the invisible dog Albert in this movie.

As for the movie, imagine Home Alone with an invisible dog who is not above dragging its hero whenever he screws up — which is often — and burglars trying to get a secret hidden in a birthday gift.

Common Sense Media said that this movie was the “familiar tale of a boy and his dog running from wacky criminals who are trying to get back a secret formula.” Have we as a movie-making society become so cynical to film that there is more than one canine espionage movie? I mean, Abner is an English sheepdog, which explains his accent and sometimes that’s enough for me. Throw in David DeLuise and David Chokachi from Baywatch working from a story by Andrew Stevens and how can you watch any more, Common Sense Media? You warned parents that this movie has scenes in which “elderly folks are the butt of numerous jokes; there are farts aplenty and some mild sexual innuendo” and to me, you’re describing pretty much the movies that I wish were being discussed by Film Twitter’s most tight assed and unhumorous critics in the same way they point their magic fingers at a film no one has cared about ever and made it something worthy of pedestal raising. I implore you, do the same for Abner the Invisible Dog!

It has to be better than how Common Sense Media summed up this Fred Olen Ray movie: ” A time waster for all but those kids who think it’s hysterical to hear dogs fart and watch brainless grown-ups trip on banana peels, smash their fingers in doors, and react to stink bombs.”

For shame.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Awful Dr. Orloff. Nightmares Come at Night. A Virgin Among the Living Dead. Female Vampire. Golden Temple Amazons. The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus. Helga The She Wolf of Spilberg, Maniac Killer, The Man with the Severed Head. The films of Eurociné — more than a hundred movies — may not be considered as anything more than schlock, but this documentary by Christophe Bier attempts to change all of that.

Marius Lesoeur was a carnival man who used the same ballyhoo to make movies, which mostly were about wild animals and exotic dancing, which are both subjects that we can get behind, as well as violence, action and nudity, all of which made their way into the films of his new studio. This movie posits Lesoeur as the Roger Corman of France, yet perhaps a bit sillier and at an even lower budget. Then there’s the theory of just shooting movies and dubbing later, as well as using the same footage and costumes as many times as possible. Anything to make a movie!

What I loved most was seeing scenes from so many of these films — with the logo and artwork before each movie — and the breakdown of how it was made, why it was made and how audiences reacted, as well as stories about the filmmakers. This movie could have been nine hours long — it clocks in at a short 77 minutes — and I’d watch it more than twice.

After Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies, Al Pereira (Antonio Mayans, who directed the film after the death of Jess Franco, who started it) is so disappointed that he never wants to work with Franco again. Yet Franco keeps begging, the Alligator Ladies (Carmen Montes, Irene Verdú and Paula Davis) are still after him and he has a crisis of faith, family and sexuality to solve.

From seeing Franco make the movie and interact with fans, as well as the typical Franco slowed down women stripped and rubbing one another scenes, the new story directed by Mayans has Al in Germany, caught by his daughter as he’s in the midst of a threesome. Also, he sees a dead body and has no idea who the killers are after: the actor, the actor playing the actor in the movie within a movie, he himself as the director, Franco or Franco within the movie, even saying dialogue like, “It’s a decomposition of human matter in cinematographic expression.”

Also — a tender man on man scene? And Franco trapped — happily — for all eternity endlessly filming girl on girl love?

Heady stuff, but mostly it’s Alligator Ladies stripping with those video effects Jess was doing before his death. Even this close to death, the man was still making filth and for that, we should always love him.

With no budget and no real script, an 82-year-old Jess Franco is alone — his muse and wife Lina Romay died a few months before — and directing his final movie, Al Pereira vs. the Alligator Ladies.

With Paula Davis (Paula-Paula), Carmen Monte (Killer Barbys vs. Dracula), Irene Verdu and Antonio Mayans ready to act, Franco remains filled with energy despite his age and depression. There’s one moment where the older maniac’s energy is too much for the young crew, who tell him they can no longer rub their body parts together, and he loses it on everyone, retreating to close his eyes and just deal with reality. It’s also inordinately depressing because Franco really looks ready to die.

The way that his movies are made looks exactly like I thought they would. It’s boring at times, yet at others you can see the fire in the faded eyes of a man who made hundreds of movies. This movie made me confront my mortality in ways that other high art minded movies never could.

How much do you love cinema? Are you willing, like the threesome known as the Fuck Bombers in this movie, willing to put your life on the line to film real violence in the guise of creating a good movie? Will you be like the crime boss Ikegami, who is so obsessed by samurai films that he turns his gang’s base into a castle and forces everyone to wear costumes? Or would you be Sasaki, a man who other see as potentially the next Bruce Lee?

Why Don’t You Play In Hell? finds the Fuck Bombers separated ten years after their failed prayer to the God of Cinema, hoping to finally make a movie they can be proud of.

In the past, a mob boss named Muto defeated a home invasion, killing everyone but Ikegami. Now so many years later, they have both gained followers and are destined to battle one another, as the Fuck Bombers have the destiny of capturing it all on film.

Here’s to director and writer Sion Sono, someone who is so willing to make it great while keeping it weird as it gets. I get the feeling that much like his heroes in this film, he is willing to die to create something that pleases the God of Cinema.

We should all love movies. We should all be willing to die for them, but as you will discover, Fuck Bombers never die.

You can watch this on Tubi.