Need to identify this eighties/early nineties film.

this is the plot of the Black Hole, to the letter.

Yeah, but like I said the cyborg I remember didn't look at all like the cyborg(?) in Black Hole, he was definitely a human with some cybernetic parts.

I think this is "That Movie Tuomas Made Up".

ernest borgnine?
man is straight up human, dog

The fact that this movie in question is in grainy black and white, but has rapping, seems like it should be some sort of clue, because they invented color movies before rap was a "thing"

Who said it was in "grainy black and white"? The TV series you link to might possibly be it, but the plot synopsis is too short to really tell.

Oh, I see Tombot for some reason wrote that I said the movie was in black and white, but I never said that. I think it migh'tve had this sort of film noir pastiche feel, but it was in colour.

no, I didn't say that.

I think that the movie 'unfinished business' asked abt on 7 March 2007 might be HEART AND SOULS (1993), from the director of TREMORS

also:

http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/club/4297/pics/android03.jpg

KINSKI!

She's not aged well.

Wow, this thread.

This is still a mystery to me.

You were doing a lot of mushrooms in the early nineties?

This still rings true. That Kinski film is called Android? I remember liking it when I saw it years and years and years ago.

New year, maybe someone will finally identify this?

me OTM in 2007

I watched the "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" episode Will mentioned upthread, but unfortunately it wasn't what I was looking for. So I still need to identify this.

Sexvision?

I want to see this movie

Gigli

xp I mainly want to see what other forces are at play................

Spent like an hour and a half yesterday running keywords through IMDb on this ("Typewriter", "novelist", "sex-change") and checking EVERY unfamiliar movie or TV episode from the 80s & early 90s that came up. Found nothing even remotely close.

I suppose that's a shameful confession more than anything else.

In the early nineties I remember seeing this film, which must've been made a couple of years earlier, and I wonder if anyone could identify it. It was an American film about a crime novelist, who suddenly realizes he has a magic typewriter: whatever he writes with it comes true! Unfortunately, one of the villains of his books has come to life, and he steals the magic typewriter. Using the typewriter the villain does all sort of nasty things to the writer: first he turns him into a woman, and then makes him speak only by rapping (he hates rap). That's about all I can remember, except that at one point the writer rap about how awful it is that he can't scratch his balls (because he's now a woman).

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, April 20, 2006 8:40 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You were doing a lot of mushrooms in the early nineties?

― Mingus Realty (noodle vague), Thursday, April 20, 2006 8:44 AM (3 years ago)

this is exactly what i was thinking

<3 noodle

Is it possible you've conflated several films in your memory, T?

I guess it's possible, but I'm certain that I remember a movie/TV series where...

1) the villain has magically turned the male protagonist into a woman,

2) he has used the same magic to make the protagonist speak only by rapping, even though he hates rap music,

3) the protagonists raps how awful it is that he can't scratch his balls anymore.

I guess it's possible I've conflated this with a magic typewriter story, but I do have a clear memory of the protagonist being a writer whose typewriter makes things written with it come true. Anyway, I'm quite sure of at least seeing the sex change and the rapping part, so if anyone knows a movie where this happens, let me know. The reason I think is a movie and not a TV series is that the "scratching my balls" gag seems a bit risque for an late 80s/early 90s American TV.

And no, it's not "Sexvision", I don't think Finnish TV was showing porn films back then. And I'd certainly remember if it was porn.

I've been trying to locate "Screamplay" (which someone mentioned in 2006) on the web, but with no luck. All I've found is trailer for that movie, but that doesn't ring any bells. Plus "Screamplay" is from 1985, which seems a bit early for rap-related jokes. But if anyone has seen it or has a copy of it, let me know.

Anyway, big thanks for Contederizer and others for their effort in trying to find this!

I still haven't found out what the movie in the original post is, but I recalled two other movies/TV series from my childhood whose names I've forgotten, so maybe you might identify them? Both of these are from the 80s, I think.

1) This might've been a movie or a TV series: it featured a kid who found a magical underwater world with talking fish and stuff, kinda like in The Little Mermaid. The scenes that took place in the "real world" were done in live action, but when the kid went underwater, he and everything else turned into cartoons. (A similar trick was used in the the movie James and the Giant Peach, but this one is much older.)

2) This one was definitely a TV series: it featured a boy who ended up in space in a rather weird way. Someone or something dislodged his room (but nothing else) from his parents' house, and the room was floating in space. So when he opened the door to his room, all he could see was stars! The series also had a cyborg bad guy with a scary, glowing cyborg eye.

The first one is almost certainly The Water Babies, as detailed here.

Yeah, that's most likely it! Thanks Ned!

2 sounds like Jason of Star Command

http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu92/damien_stone/jason-3-dragos.jpg

A few years ago I took Tuomos' description to the A/V Maniacs boards. Truly, if anyone could identify this thing, it would be them. But I forgot to post a link to the thread (this revive reminded me).

So here's the thread I started and a handful of guesses:
http://www.avmaniacs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33311

for some reason this reminded me of the late-eighties amazing stores series produced by steven spielberg. i cross-referenced that with "typewriter" and found out there was an episode where a screenwriter finds out he is in possession of a magical screenplay-writing houseplant that feeds off the cathode rays emitted by his black-and-white television set. interesting, kinda, but unfortunately it does not solve this puzzle.

I don't think "Jason of Star Command" is it... The bad guy in the series I recall did have a similar cyborg eye as the guy in that pic, but otherwise it doesn't ring a bell. The plot summaries don't mention anything about a kid and his room flying into space.

Thanks for the link, Ben. I tried to check the movies suggested in that thread, but none of them sound like the real deal... Except maybe for Screamplay, which was mentioned in this thread too. But so far I haven't been able to find that movie online, or even a proper summary of its plot. If anyone happens to own a copy of Screamplay or knows more about it, let me know.

http://www.amazon.com/Screamplay/dp/B0010C54F8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-video&qid=1267478899&sr=8-1

I tried that, but I get an error message saying that you can't watch the movie outside the US due to copyright.

Screamplay is on Netflix (US) - 2 stars.

Aspiring screenwriter Edgar Allen (Rufus B. Seder) works as a janitor for room and board at the Welcome Apartments, a run-down building filled with freaky characters and bizarre plot twists that wriggle their way into Edgar's horror movie script. Reality blurs with Edgar's vivid imagination, driving him into a state of creative madness. Katy Bolger and George Cordeiro costar. Extras include commentary by director Rufus B. Seder and much more.

http://cdn-7.nflximg.com/us/boxshots/large/70025317.jpg

no mention of rapping about ball scratching?

It's a Troma movie - there's a good chance that if any ball-scratch rap actually exists they were the perpetrators.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaIGviRcodE

I didn't need to know that existed, but thanks!

The trailer to the Troma flick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THhTkkWvhho

Yeah, I've watched the trailer, but it doesn't provide any hints whether this might be the right movie. And I'm not gonna pay to get it, if it turns out it's not the one. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to a proper plot summary of it anywhere on the net, and the few reviews I've found don't mention anything about sex change or rapping.

tuomas, have you tried submitting your question to the onion's av club staff? they take a while to get back to you, but they're usually otm.

they're gonna have a hard time finding a movie that TUOMAS MADE UP...(in his self conscious)

If you watch the trailer and it doesn't allow you to say yes or no I think this really is an imaginary amalgam of tons of things. There aren't that many movies drawing on German expressionism - I would think that visual style would be memorable, especially as a relative youngster.

Good luck, Tuomas Quixote.

Well, the thing is that I remember that the movie had a film noirish feel to it, but based on that trailer Screamplay feels kinda too over-the-top to be the movie I'm looking for. Then again, maybe they just put the most OTT bits in the trailer? I've been able to rule out almost all the other suggestions based on plot summaries or clips on Youtube, but so far Screamplay is the only movie I can't dismiss for certain. Like you said, rapping about not being able to stratch your balls is the sort of joke you'd expect to see in a Troma movie. Then again, 1985 feels a bit early for a movie to have rap jokes... Or is it?

white people were aware there was a form of music annoying them called rap in 1985

You say upthread you think it was in color, so I think you need to rule this out, too. I agree it seems slightly early for a rap joke, especially in a movie that appears to be an homage to an earlier era. Reading up on Screamplay it seems Troma released it but had nothing to do with it creatively, so that lowers the odds of a ball scratching gender-bender rap sequence even further.

screamplay is available for instant play on netflix, somebody watch it already

Thanks for volunteering!