The Neighbors: Episodes Two - Four [2015]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

With the remaining three episodes of "The Neighbors" we had some episodes with loose main plots in each episode and then a whole lot of nonsense on the side. Episode two was about Princess Penelope, a British princess, inexplicably coming to live in the apartments because I guess this is a yearly slumming trip for her. Episode three was about throwing a birthday party for Bebe. And episode four was about Charlie going on vacation for a while and putting Ricky Rick in charge of the building with Bebe's sister Crazy Suzy coming in later. Each of these plots only took up a small portion of the episode since the rest was filled with shouting matches and sex-free porno scenes. The first episode really set the standard. Adam has come to the conclusion that the apartment is actually a brothel and we're all inclined to agree.

As for things of note, we have had a couple interesting new discoveries and developments about the show and also, Tommy Wiseau's sense of humor (it is so much easier to write about a Wiseau production in list form):

• Charlie (Wiseau #1) ends pretty much every scene he's in with the phrase "What a day!" Sometimes Bebe does it too. When Ricky Rick (Wiseau #2) took over the apartment he said it and then quickly added, "That's what Charlie would say!" as if this would somehow suspend our disbelief.
• While everyone in the first episode kept talking about chicken, in episode two and occasionally from that point on people kept talking about ice cream. This seems to show that Tommy Wiseau only has the barest grasp of the concept of theme but darn it he's going to try.
• In every scene where the tenants gather together there is one girl who we think we have never seen before. One time she introduced herself as Trish and had a Southern-ish accent but often we are not so lucky. The large cast is at least 25% blandly attractive brunette girls and they seem to switch out often. Some other characters you literally only see once and then never again even if they are more memorable.
• Speaking of this, the only other seemingly ongoing subplot in these episodes was about Philadelphia (perpetually bikini-clad girl) having a crush on Patricia (possibly the other bikini-clad girl in episode one but she always wears clothes now). Philly insists she's not gay. Patricia essentially says, "Whatever. I am." Either way they both have a three-way with stoner Troy (who lives in room 420) because porno.
• Before Charlie is going to leave on his trip to Hawaii, some of the tenants gather in his office to sing "Frere Jacques" to him. Why? Are they finally admitting that Wiseau knows French? Wouldn't it make more sense if he was going on a trip to a French-speaking place? Why a nursery rhyme? They didn't even do it in rounds. 
• They actually showed that the characters are aware of the fact that they live in a porno building. Ed, the handyman, tells Ricky Rick that if he wants to have sex with a random person all he has to do is go to the laundry room at a certain time.
• And finally, in the last post I mentioned that Ed wears Tommy Wiseau brand underwear. In episode two, Charlie and Bebe comment on his tank top and he tells them he gets all his shirts and underwear from tommywiseau.com which is in fact a real site where you can buy these things as well as Ricky Rick's letterman jacket. If you want to see a gif of Tim and Ricky Rick playing catch with a basketball while the theme loops eternally, click on the "Neighbors" tab at the top.

Will there be more of this show in the future? No one knows yet. Obviously it got terrible reviews from people who have probably never seen "The Room". I honestly think that as long as Wiseau has the money, he will always be providing the world with his particular brand of crazy in one form or another. It might not be more of this show but gosh it will be something.

Quote: A Classic Piece of Wiseau Dialogue: "I heard you got a gun for free and didn't pay anything!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I can't think."

The Neighbors: Episode One [2015]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Since 2007, Tommy Wiseau has been trying to make a television series about a bunch of people living together in an apartment building but had not managed to for various reasons until now and oh, it is everything you would expect and more. Not only does it have Wiseau's trademark ridiculous dialogue, unlikely, nonsensical plots, ear-wormy public domain music, and re-establishing shots, it actually has much, much lower production value and worse acting than "The Room." Now with even fewer clothes.

There isn't really a plot; just a bunch of people shouting at each other and acting out the first three minutes of a porno. There was a slight consistent thread about mentioning a chicken but otherwise, I've got nothing so instead I'll just tell you what each character did. I had to rewatch most of the episode to get the names so I hope this is appreciated.

• Charlie is one of the landlords. He is played by Wiseau in a short, black, new wave wig.
• Bebe is the other landlord. She doesn't seem to care about procedure and just let's people get away with stuff if they seem nice. These two characters are essentially indistinguishable except by Wiseau's crazy accent.
• Tim, the Denny, constantly asks them for $20 and plays basketball all the time. He has Cici's chicken, Fifi.
• Troy is a stoner who apparently sells guns.
• Richard has plans to kill himself if he doesn't get a job soon. Then he flirts with Philadelphia.
• Philadelphia constantly wears a bikini even while making chicken. Screw the likelihood of burning yourself.
• The "Asian MF" blames the "black rapper guy" for hogging the wifi. It comes off racist.
• The "black rapper guy" hates that the "Asian MF" for supposedly being bisexual and claims he also screws chickens. It comes off homophobic.
• Ed is the repair man who wears wifebeaters and Tommy Wiseau brand underwear.
• Mariana screws Ed on the washing machines. This is a thing they do.
• Ricky Rick is Tommy Wiseau in a blonde wig and letterman jacket.
• Lula is Ricky Rick's (seemingly reluctant) girlfriend who wants a gun for their anniversary and hypnotizes Troy into giving it to her for free. She's clearly a witch.
• Don comes to Charlie and Bebe with the fact that he has a crush on some guy named Patrick but insists he isn't gay.
• Monica is Don's pregnant wife who wants a divorce after hearing of the secret crush. Charlie and Bebe seem surprised that she's pregnant in spite of it clearly being her third trimester.
• CiCi never stops shouting at people to give her back her chicken.
• Pink Dress girl (possibly Patricia or Anna) ordered a pizza to be delivered.
• Her roommate (possibly Patricia or Anna) wears a bikini and pays for the pizza with money hidden in it.
• Joe is the pizza guy who gets an apartment there after seeing the porno potential with this living arrangement.

As with "The Room" there are too many lines to pick out specific quotes but there is one scene in particular that killed Adam and Kay. After being hypnotized by Lula, Troy freaks out initially saying, "I'm so stupid" and then the scene cuts to him screaming three times, each time more melodramatic than the first. Then on the fourth cut, he is just sitting there and says calmly, "I'm okay" as if nothing happened.

Keith: "There are no bigger narcissists that we know than Cool Cat and Tommy Wiseau."
Kay: "That's almost Shakespearian."
Adam: "Never was there a tale of more woe than that of Cool Cat and Tommy Wiseau."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was too much."

Cool Cat Saves The Kids [2014]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

The members of the Bad Movie Night crew in their mid-20s have memories of McGruff the Crime Dog as the main anthropomorphic animal giving out life lessons of their childhood. He sang songs about just saying no to drugs with no discussion of the complexity of societal pressures and he acted a lot like a detective with his trench coat and ability to sniff out wrong doing. Plus, he was a bloodhound who managed to be both huggable and command a sense of authority. In retrospect, he was actually kind of cool but this was probably because a lot of his really baffling 80s drug songs weren't played for us in the early-mid 90s. Now imagine someone wanted to create a new McGruff for the modern child. 

Enter Cool Cat. Cool Cat is relentlessly, oppressively enthusiastic at all times and in spite of being a giant anthropomorphic cat, is supposed to be a kid. Cool Cat spends his days playing pretending games or building in a sandbox with his friend Maria (who seems too old to play in sandboxes and do kids even do that anymore?) while getting bullied, both cyber and IRL, by a blonde kid with a lisp. In the middle of this, Cool Cat goes to Hollywood and has a float in the parade for which he and his father, Cool Cat creator Derek Savage, write songs. Cool Cat dabbles in rock, rap, and salsa music and pretty much exclusively sings about how cool he is while Savage does guitar solos to show off his signed Van Halen guitar. Pro tip: kids have no idea what you're talking about, Savage, and don't care. Later, Cool Cat and Maria are taught lessons in fending off bullies by Vivica A. Fox (her advice? scream at the bully til they get embarrassed and run away) and a visibly drunk Erik Estrada who somehow wasn't cast the play the cop. The bully ends up getting his hands on a gun and more effectively steals candy from babies, an actual explanation of his crimes from the movie, without any real explanations of the hard consequences associated with playing with guns or the dangers of someone who hates you getting their hands on one. Bully gets arrested and doesn't get bailed out because he has crappy parents and Cool Cat, Maria, and Bully's former conspirator laugh at his misfortune.

This Movie fails as an educational video in so many ways that I need to list them:

• Cool Cat is a huge narcissist. He has posters of himself all over his walls and is always talking or singing about why he's the coolest. Kids becoming more and more narcissistic is actually an increasing problem in today's society.
• After explaining the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street, Cool Cat deliberately runs across the street without looking both ways to try to stop the bully.
• There is repeated instance on the fact that bullies don't have any friends, which we all know is often false, or that not having friends may even make you a bully, which is soul-crushing for kids who have trouble making friends.
• The bully clearly has a bad home life. This is not discussed as a problem kids may need to face that could have an effect on a kid's behavior towards others.
• Derek Savage says that if you find a gun, tell an adult in charge and they will decide if they need to call the police. Parents should probably just call the police.
• The movie encourages taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others.
• In spite of trying to be inclusive with both English and Spanish in songs, his Spanish pronunciation is pretty bad.
• Cool Cat's mom is an anthropomorphic cat wearing the same suit as Cool Cat. Not only did this lead to bad split screen editing and weird dubbing but it promotes a furry lifestyle. Just say no to inter-species sex.

Quotes:

"Breaking News: we have terrible news!"

"I have so much to do before that! What should I do?"

"That darn Vivica A. Fox and Erik Estrada messed it up!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: It was *two thumbs down motion*.

The Head [1959]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

Ah, the German film industry. Glorious in the early days of film and certainly notable now but kind of an unacknowledged animal during the Cold War era. You'll be happy to know, the West Germans were making bad horror like the rest of us. After Keith's request for an old film, we pulled out Adam's 50 packs of movies and we decided on "The Head" or in the original German, "Die Nackte und der Satan" which according to Google Translate means, "The Naked And Satan." "The Head", vague as it is, is actually more accurate if less intriguing.

The plot is essentially a marginally less boring version of "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" with bad dubbing. A scientist discovers how to remove a dog's head and keep it alive, shows it to some collegues who are going to operate on him in an effort to save his life, and wakes up from surgery without a body himself. The very Aryan mad scientist who did it really wanted to get ahead. He also kills the only witness. He then decides to experiment a step further by kidnapping a stripper (advertised as "Super Sex Attraction Lilly!") and putting the head of a nurse he has a crush on who went in for back surgery on the stripper's body. With the exception of the nurse suddenly picking up the stripper's bad habits, this works out fine-ish until a sculptor very familiar with the stripper's body notices a distinct resemblance. The mad scientist pulls the, "You belong to me because I made you!" thing on her and it's a long half-hour trudge to his inevitable death.

At an hour and a half, this movie feels crazy long and is a chore to sit though with so little plot. At least it did have a few really creepy lines.

Quotes:
[in reference to a corpse] "I know you want to talk to him but don't count on him speaking to you."

[takes drink from glass] "What is it?"
"Now you can go to sleep."

"I just want you to loosen your blouse and hold still a while."

After Earth [2013]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

We have done it. We have completed the trifecta of bad Shyamalan movies: "The Happening," "The Last Airbender," and now, at last, "After Earth" a project Will Smith devised because he wanted to do another movie with his son Jaden in hopes that it would solidify Jaden's career as, not just a professional crazy person on Twitter, but an actor as well. How wonderful that there was a director up for the challenge. While this movie wasn't as funny and rewatch worthy as "The Happening" it was phenominally easier to sit through than "The Last Airbender" so there's that.

The background of this movie is essentially: the humans have moved to other planets after disasters and attacks by aliens called Ursa who hunt by smelling people's fear. According to fearless Ursa hunter Will Smith, Earth is nowhere you wanna be because, "Everything has evolved over 1000 years to kill humans." Evolution gets faster in the future. Will and his son Jaden, who wants to be like his father but "did not get promoted to ranger, sir", go on a trip to try to bond but the plane crashes killing everyone except for them and landing on that deadly wasteland called Earth. With Will paralyzed, Jaden must travel across the land to find the tail end of the ship so they can call for help. The rest of the plot is like a boring video game with random attacks from various creatures, supply checks, health kits, a superior giving instructions over a headset, no less than five restorative naps, no less than three visions of his dead sister whose death he feels responsible for, and finally, a big boss battle against an Ursa where he proves he has also learned how to have no fear. Only through becoming like his father does he finally gain his father's love. Great message for the kids.

The acting in this movie, like all the M. Night trifecta movies is truely something to behold. Will Smith, usually one of the most charismatic actors is Hollywood, spends the entire movie with the single expression of barely restrained hatred while Jaden is constantly two seconds from a sobbing meltdown. The movie poster shows this dichotomy well. Also, for some reason everyone talks with different variations of a "future accent" which lead to us mishearing things like "beacon" as "bacon" and "saucer" as "salsa." Regrettably, there was no bacon salsa to be had.

Quotes: 
"[something, something] Bingo power!"
"Both of my legs are broken . . . one very badly."
"I see my blood bubbling up . . . mixing with the sunlight . . and I think, wow . . .that's really pretty."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Better than last week."