Cine de las Estrellas

Here in the Triangle (NC) we have recently been awarded a second Spanish-language channel. Telemundo is great because it shows amazingly awful old movies. The night before Melina left for Jackson (see below!), we saw part of "Aguila Negra (Black Eagle)."

It was pretty easy to understand because it was dubbed into slow, melodious Spanish by Italians. Why Italians, I wonder?

I started watching partway through and here is what I saw: there was a very musclebound guy on a little boat, he was doing a cheerleader-type split with his legs splayed straight to the sides, supported on barrels. Guys were throwing knives to him and he was then throwing the knives at another barrel while the guys, and also some girls in bikinis, looked on approvingly and gave him thumbs up.

Then there was a very slow-moving oriental spy hero, I'm going to call him SpyHero from now on, who had two whiney sons with him who kept complaining to this blond lady with big hair - first I thought she was the oriental guy's girlfriend but then I thought she was more like a babysitter who was a spy as a sideline - that their dad was not spending enough time with them.

SpyHero came to the edge of a cliff with the babysitting lady spy and the kids. I guess it was a not-too-secret mission because the dad strapped on a hang-gliding kite and soared off the cliff, looking down at the sea with binoculars. Why weren't the bad guys ever looking up in the air? They could have picked off SpyHero right easy.

I thought the babysitter was pretty negligent, she let the boys stand RIGHT NEXT to the cliff. I would not have allowed that. Maybe she should stick to espionage.

A paunchy guy in a little boat (you never see boats this little in movies any more) looked up and noticed SpyHero in the hang-gliding kite.

Then I must have stopped paying attention because next thing I knew SpyHero was underwater collecting stuff. Then somehow (maybe this was when Melina showed up and distracted me) the paunchy guy was drowning so SpyHero did an excellent lifesaving hold just like the one I learned in high school and he started saving the paunchy guy, quite slowly and with a lot of splashing. After a great deal of effort they both slowly managed to climb a little ladder into another little boat.

Meanwhile, on shore in beautiful Malta, some skinny guys were complaining about a boat "Gorky" that was coming from Odessa. There was lots of great scenery. I want to go to Malta.

The whiny kids and the lady with big hair got kidnapped. Maybe the kidnappers were Russians but it was hard to tell because they all spoke Spanish with an Italian accent.

This was SUCH a slow action movie, with the worst fake punching I've ever seen.. There was also much uninteresting footage of dull tourists meandering through museums.

"Black Eagle" was not as much fun as another bad movie on Telemundo, also dubbed into Spanish by Italians.

In this previous one, the heroine was like Xena the Warrior Princess, except she had red hair and thin legs. She was in a sewer with a young Oriental prince. There were monsters and the kid was slashing at them while he was waist-deep in water.

There was a large pearl stuck to a wall sconce there in the sewer and an old guy was trying to chip the pearl off the sconce. The prince didn't think that was a good idea and I have to say I agreed. Remember the lessons of Flash Gordon: "You are safe as long as nobody strikes the Gong of Doom."

Do you know what this movie was? I can't find it on the tv.yahoo.com.