Overview: A wheelchair-bound boy struggles through a world of corporate logos with the help of his newfound friend, a whistling booger from outer space. Together, they enjoy zany antics that are fun for the whole retarded family and help the alien's boil-covered family become official US citizens. GO TEAM USA!!! Directed By: Stewart Raffill (1988) The Case For: The only reason I can think of to watch this movie would be to gape in awe and horror at the sheer amount of product placement that takes place. Every scene brings another large company's product to the forefront and tries lamely to mix it into a nonsensical, vomit-inducing plot. Another thing that keeps you tuned in is wondering in what fantastical manner they will try to rip off ET (and fail horribly) next. The Case Against: Despite the desperate plea by more than a few multinational corporations for you to love this movie, your reaction will be more one of hatred and disgust for the sentient, snot-like creatures that are supposed to tug at your heartstrings. They tug at something, alright, but it's more like that tug you get when you have to take a really big dump but there's no toilet paper to be found so you end up with your pants down behind the local elementary school just as recess is getting out.



The movie's main character in a dramatic pose from the opening fight sequence. So dashing!

You know that book, the one where that holy guy creates a big space rock in the middle of nowhere? It's sort of a tall tale, but it explains a lot. After he does the thing with the rock and the creation, he does a whole bunch of other things, like make some stuff to put on the rock: tapirs, those mushrooms that squirt out clouds of poisonous, lung-exploding spores when you step on them, a vole or two to spice things up, some annoying mountains in the middle of flat stuff; all of these things he secretes out of his Stuff-Gland and sticks them on this crazy rock he's making called "Earth." Anyway, this guy works on decorating his rock for like six straight days or something, but as the story goes, on the seventh day he gets lazy and sleeps in, maybe goes down to the Sizzler for the all-you-can-eat sundae bar instead of working on his creepy old space rock some more. He comes back from the Sizzler feeling nauseated and disturbingly obese, so he downs a few shots of Jack Daniels and hits the hay early.

Here's where the story gets oddly terrifying in an odd, terrifying way. While he is sleeping, the rock plunges into disarray and chaos. Then, something terrible and unforeseen happens that changes the course of events for eons to come. The McDonald's corporation, along with elite friends such as Valvoline, Skittles, Sears, and Coca-Cola, decide to create a movie. A movie worse than any movie ever seen or imagined before. A movie so bad that the only words that can be used to describe it are not words at all, but more like a series of grunts and yelps, such as, "Aaaauuugghiighhh. Grruuuuhhp. Bbbuuuhhhhoohhhh. Eeep!" Even then, the sheer visceral horror that this movie elicits is hard to communicate, but an attempt will have to be made, just as an attempt was made on the life of my poor, dear grandfather one night last fall as he made his solitary way home from the local Elk's Club after a high-stakes game of spin-the-bottle. I miss you, Gramps.

In the year of our rock-creator 1988, the movie "MAC & Me" was unfortunately and irrevocably made. It was made in a large part to ride the greasy, cocaine-stained coattails of the widely-enjoyed and commercially successful movie, "E.T." Unlike "E.T," "MAC & Me" has absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever. From the cheesy acronym Mysterious Alien Creature (MAC), to the dialogue that sounds as though the actors were hauled off into darkened closets and given a sound smacking in the face with ye olde 2 x 4 before the movie was shot, to the movie's alien stars who look as though they are entirely comprised of chewed gum and boils, to the blatant and shameless advertising via dance routine for countless consumer products, this movie blows. It blows hard. As hard as something that blows extremely, unbelievably hard. Like a very large vacuum cleaner. Oh wait, that sucks... Ok, like a 2-dollar crack whore in a back alley on the streets of Jakarta, Indonesia. Wait, that would also suck, perhaps not even as hard as the vacuum. Well, you get my meaning. It's bad.

The movie begins when a NASA probe accidentally kidnaps a freakish family of leprosy-ridden aliens who were happily SUCKING A LIQUID, BROWNISH NOURISHMENT OUT OF THE GROUND WITH THEIR CREEPY LIPLESS MOUTHS on a nearby planet. The aliens are brought back to Earth against their will only to escape from NASA and end up hiding out in the desert of southern California. The youngest alien, a freakish grease-creature with enormous, watery fisheyes, jumps onto the van of a family en route to (shockingly) Los Angeles and is whisked away into the suburban life of Eric, the angelic crippled kid. Also on board the love van are his annoying teenage brother and his ditzy, rodent-like mom.

The family arrives back at home and Eric is immediately alerted (via his supersensitive cripple-powers) to the presence of the alien weirdo. He gives it the sickeningly saccharine nickname of "MAC" which has nothing, absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the "Big Mac" sandwich from McDonald's. Nothing. Not at all. He also decides to keep it as his personal sex slave because even at 10 years old he has the common sense to know that he is a disgusting cripple and that no one will ever want to have sex with him, ever. Also, the creature's mouth is stuck in a permanent whistle-shape, which as it turns out is perfect for things like... whistling.

The movie's heroione in her long-awaited screen debut. Sure was worth the wait, alright. RAWR!

And thus begins the journey of friendship and self-discovery that Eric the lonely crippled kid begins with a disgusting sack of alien garbage at his side. Of course, the only people who can see it are the cripple and his crimp-haired girlie-friend who lives across the street and somehow doesn't care that all of the other kids are going to laugh at her and call her degrading names like "Pancho" and "Steve" because she talks to the depressing crippled kid. On one occasion the kid and his friend are playing in the backyard when Eric suddenly loses control of his wheelchair. The next two minutes are spent with her screaming shrilly over and over again, "EEERRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!!!!! EEEEEEEERRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!!!!" as his wheelchair rolls down a hill, across a field and OH MY GOD OFF OF A CLIFF INTO A RIVER 50 FEET BELOW! This scene has the most obvious use of a stunt dummy since "True Lies" in which they had to put an actual woman's breasts in the scene that was supposed to contain the boobs of the hideous man-beast fish-monster Jamie Lee Curtis. The dummy-cripple plummets to its seeming doom, ricocheting off of the rock face and doubling in half as it hits the water. Meanwhile, as you may not already know, Eric's legs do not work, so he is in serious danger of endrownifying as he demonstrates by flailing convincingly for several minutes before he gives up on life and sinks happily beneath the murk. Luckily, Eric's creepfest Mongoloid alien friend is on hand to dive beneath the water and bring him to the surface, much to the surprise and dismay of the little girl who actually wanted him to die so that she wouldn't have to hang out with the weirdo retard any more.