GLEAMING THE CUBE

Hands down this is one of the worst titles in film history. I can just imagine some studio exec "hangin" with some skaters at the park looking for some cool phrase to use, and they told him "Gleaming the Cube, dude!" as a joke, to see if he'd go along with it. That always sounded like a masturbation euphemism more than a skating trick. Ultimately, even the studio must have realized what a crappy title it was 'cause when it was released on TV later on, it was titled, "A Brother's Justice". Of course, this wasn't the worst film that Christian Slater was in. He went on to give us...

THE WIZARD

Oh my, this overblown Nintendo commercial was easily one of the worst films ever made. The tagline for the film stated, "It's More Than A Game...It's The Chance of a Lifetime". Uhhh...okay. You've got Fred Savage and his buddy "Luke" who seems a bit dumb, but he's really really good at Nintendo. So they take an odyssey across the country to enter a big time Ninendo tournament. Full of gratuitous plugs for up and coming Nintendo games like Super Mario 3 and Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, the game looks hopeless dated now. Particularly disturbing is an 13 year old character played by Christine Bateman who, as an excuse to ward off some investigator, shouts to a crowd of people in a casino, "He touched my breast!" Yeah, that's it...teach impressionable kids to lie about sexual harassment. Wheeeee! And speaking of sexual harrassment

SHOWGIRLS

Ahhh...this is almost nature's perfect bad movie. Elizabeth Berkeley of "Saved by the Bell" fame is naked like crazy in this movie, as is Gina Gershon and other folks. Liz plays Nomi Malone, a small town girl who decides to hitchhike to vegas to become a showgirl. Of course, she doesn't get the role right away, so she has to make it as a lap dancer and stripper in the meantime. Hands down, this Joe Ezterhaus scripted movie has some of the worst dialogue the world has ever seen.

Like when her old boss from the stip club comes to visit her at her new Showgirls job he says in amazement, "It must be weird not having people cum on you."

Or when Gina Gershon's character Crystal Conners tells Nomi, "You've got nice tits, I like nice tits" and she replies, "I like having nice tits."

Ha ha! You get the feeling Joe Ezterhaus has never seen a girl naked that wasn't in a movie. Apparently Drew Barrymore was the "dream choice" to play the role of Nomi, but for some reason refused. Just imagine the career nosedive she would have taken with that one. But she went on to star in and inspire one of the greatest film trilogies of all time next to Star Wars...

POISON IVY

This was Drew's coming out role as one of Hollywood's preeminent "bad girls". Drew plays "Ivy" a disturbed and sexy girl who ends up befriending Sara Gilbert from "Roseanne" and teaches her to be naughty, while worming her way into her father's life, and ultimately bed. The scenes of Tom Skerritt licking Drew's thighs are downright letcherous. Don't blink or you'll miss Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie, too! Though there was a lot of "hot" scenes in the film, Drew was never fully nude, as she was still only 16 when the film was made. But that all changed in 1995, when Alyssa Milano shed her "Who's the Boss" roots and gave us...

POISON IVY 2: LILY

Maybe they should have subtitled this "Flooze The Boss"! Yep, Alyssa Milano shows it all in this film, where at the ripe age of 23 she was more than eager to shed her good girl image and go hog wild in this sequel that has Milano finding Drew's diary she supposedly kept from the first one, and somehow the influence of it turns her into a slut. The movie sucks rocks, but if you want to see tons of cheezy Alyssa Milano nude scenes (who am I fooling... IF? this will not disappoint. I think this came out directly on video, and was in all likelihood the end of the series. How could they top it? GOOD LORD...THEY DID!!!!

POISON IVY 3: NEW SEDUCTION

The premise of this one is that Ivy had a sister named Violet, who has the same genetic whore genes that have run rampant throughout the series. Who cares what it's about, you've got the outstanding Jaime Pressly who wears about as much clothes in this film as...uhhh...a naked chick.

You can tell this movie was aimed at guys (duh). Check out this review of the film from the Internet Movie Database written by a female:

"This is one of the god-awfulest movies that i have ever seen. This film was sexually frustrated, and had only decent sex scenes that kept me interested. I was almost embarrassed to be caught watching this soft porn flick and was frustrated throughout the film. The acting was incredibly lousy and the ending sucked even more. Though, that one guy...what was his name? Mike....looked damn good and even the girls were very pretty, but come on...It was terrible"

Now here's the same movie reviewed by a guy:

"The third in this ailing straight-to-video "Lolita-from-hell" series gets a boost of titanic proportions with the casting of the jaw-droppingly gorgeous newcomer Jaime Pressly in the lead. Possessing the delicate beauty of a young Michelle Pfeiffer, the morals of a young Traci Lords and breasts that would be noticeable in a potato sack, let alone the tight tops that she is called upon to wear - or, more often, not wear - Pressly is guaranteed to make your temperature rise. As the manipulative Violet, she uses her body and wiles to seduce and then destroy the rich family who, years before, ruined her mothers life by sacking her as their maid."

Well, if anything, the IVY movies teach us that no matter how old and sleazy a guy gets, there's always some hot young thang ready to seduce us and destroy our lives (but with tons of hot sex as the payoff).

With each of the IVY films you think, "Wow...I'll never fall for a hottie like that that's mess up my family". But then they tempt you more.."Oh yeah...what about this girl? Okay...how about THIS one!?!?"

Hats off to the Poison Ivy series for exploring the American Dream.

-liquorhead