“Can’t say I really blame Aunt Em for wanting to strap Dorothy up to the electroshock machine. WTF kind of stuff is she telling people? Can’t Dorothy just tell them about the cute stuff, like the Lollipop Guild or whatever? I think if she had focused more on the non-creepy aspects of Oz, Aunt Em would be praising her for her creativity and imagination, not sending her off to Dr. Shocker, erm, Worley.”

In the web series Britannia Rules?, reviewer Richard Murphy looks at some of the more questionable moments in British film, TV, and pop culture. By special request of the Agony Booth, Richard is kicking off a new series-within-the-series titled “The Special Relationship”, wherein he looks at American movie remakes that don’t quite live up to their British source material.

“The Special Relationship” starts here, with a comparison of the ‘60s British series The Avengers, and the Razzie-winning 1998 American remake starring Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, and Sean Connery!

“This episode talks down to the audience at every opportunity, throws in all kinds of gratuitous gags, and only exists to shove a moral down our throats. Even by the time it aired, the show’s audience had learned to expect more than that, and I shudder to think that there were probably more than a few people who had been telling their friends about this great show called Avatar: The Last Airbender that was so much better than any other American cartoon, only to have this be the next episode that aired.”

This could very well be considered the greatest film ever made, provided that every print of every movie not about giant killer bunny rabbits suddenly disappeared from the face of the planet.

“And I know what you parents out there must be thinking: taking care of an egg is a total cakewalk compared to an actual baby, right? How could watching an egg possibly teach you what it’s like to be a parent? But you have to keep in mind that Spike is a Degrassi kid. And taking care of inanimate objects is way beyond most Degrassi kids. I hear when Spike was a little girl, her pet rock died.”

“For some reason, this film was marketed as a more ‘serious’ movie, even though I’m pretty certain anybody who’s a fan of either Sylvester Stallone or Sharon Stone doesn’t go to the movies for serious dramatics. Stallone’s fans go to see him kill a lot of things and be macho, and Stone’s fans go in the vain hope she’ll do another leg spreading scene like in Basic Instinct. To be fair, she does get naked in this film. On the downside, so does Sly.”

“I wish I could express to you how unsettling this is. To see a former James Bond replicate fellatio with a breakfast link as a come-on has got to be one of the worst things ever committed to film. Seriously, all the sanguinary excesses in the entire Saw movie series are nothing compared to watching the wrinkled Roger Moore licking a saveloy in order to seduce Horatio Sanz.”

“How do I know this will be an amazing episode? Because dude, they don’t even need to explain what happened in Part I! No ‘Previously On’, no nothing. Why? Because they assume—and rightly so—that Part I’s awesomeness has by now simply integrated itself into your DNA and become a part of your basic humanity. That Part I was so intense, you already intuitively know what it was about, even if you can’t consciously remember much of anything (I think Michelle was kidnapped by ninjas?). That’s how awesome this episode will be.”

“But you can see why this incident would be so unmemorable to the captain. Nearly getting blasted to bits, abandoning ship, adrift in space for weeks, and ultimately immortalized in the textbooks for a feat of heroism would almost totally pass from anyone’s memory after nine years.”

“Season three contains what just about every fan agrees are the two worst episodes of the series: ‘The Rocket Racer’ and ‘The Spot’. In fact, there was a debate for a while over which was the worse episode. My vote always went to ‘The Spot’, because ‘Rocket Racer’ may have been centered on a dull character and even duller villains, but at least that character wasn’t intensely annoying, and there were no gaping plot holes that I could see instantly, even as a kid.”

“Sato pitches knives at a newspaper article covering the crime that sent him away. This strikes me as odd. Do criminals actually clip out news items from the low points in their careers? Sometimes I think back to that time I was mugged by a Girl Scout leader/meth-tweaker at a Chuck E. Cheese years back, and I promise you, that newspaper article is not in any of my scrapbooks.”

“The only parts of the film I can actually say I kind of like are the two Tyrannosaurus rampages in the middle of the movie, and the beast running wild in San Diego. Even then, my enjoyment is negated by the lousy characters, and when a guy like me (who can find enjoyment in pretty much anything) isn’t able to glean any satisfaction from a giant monster wreaking havoc, something has gone seriously wrong with your movie. This is one of those films that works just fine when the special effects are in control and nobody is talking. But when they do talk... Jesus.”

“Bear with me here; the protagonist doesn’t start out hot, nor does he stay that way throughout the entire episode. But it’s those little bits of magical, bad-assed hotness that really make this episode shine. It’s like when Anakin Skywalker finally turned bad—he was extra hot because you had to wait a little while for it to happen.”

“So by now, we're watching a drunk Bill Cosby performing surgery on himself with a hunting knife. Hey, having fun yet, Cosby Show fans?”

From an undisclosed location in the Middle East comes the Agony Booth's first ever video review! Our very own Michael "Mendo" Novelli comes to us (almost) live from across the world to give us his take on one of the least-loved James Bond films, The Man with the Golden Gun!

Special thanks to editor John Sensebe AKA Bargaintuan for all his hard work in putting this together!

“Arnold is so taciturn in this film he makes the Terminator seem like a livestock auctioneer.”

“Helpful hint to spare your heirs some confusion, heartbreak, and bewilderment: If you know you’re going to die, and you have the time, throw out your porn, your leather gimp suit, and all those embarrassing letters where you confess to horrific crime sprees. Oh, and dismantle your evil, indestructible cars.”

“The hit car literally chases Bill around the school grounds, while Ralph takes forever to get his clothes off. It’s like the Keystone Superheroes.”

“Obviously, they were going for a movie similar to the Indiana Jones films, but as we’ll see, they had neither the resources nor the skill to pull it off.”

“This movie was released in—hold onto your hats, folks!—1910, making this the oldest movie to be recapped on the Agony Booth! Yeah, that’s right. This movie is one hundred years old! Eat it, The Adventure of the Wrong Santa Claus! Don’t you be bringing that Wilsonian-era crap into this house!”