High Voltage [1997]

All 90s action movies are roughly the same, but you have to respect the director of this film for their clear appreciation for John Woo movies without the execution. A team of three guys and a girl rob a bank but it turns out the bank is run by the Vietnamese mafia and the bank manager (played by Shannon Lee, Daughter of Bruce) is kind of a lackey of the mafia leader. She has some sexual tension with the lead robber so he promises to get her out, steal money, and kill him eventually. There are a lot of random side people, like the guy from Cobra Kai and his girlfriend, some dude in a bar bathroom with a glory hole, etc. but they are mostly just more punching bags for the final battle. At one point the token girl in the gang's boyfriend gets shot and killed so they hold a priest at gunpoint to marry her to the corpse. It's wild. Our final showdown takes place at the lead robber's Sicilian uncle's hotel. Shirts are ripped. Rooms are destroyed. The bad guys are defeated by the other bad guys. Equilibrium achieved.

Overall this movie is almost worth it, but it drags a bit. We got some really bad acting and reaction shots and other weird directing so if you have a higher tolerance for low budget 90s action, this might be worth your time.

Spoon Rating: 4

How To Be A Teenage Ninja [1990] & How Can I Tell If I'm Really In Love? [1986]

Today we had two short films. They're both on YouTube though so you can check them out there.

First we had How To Be A Teenage Ninja, an instructional guide on some basic martial arts moves. Some kids are being chased by bullies so they hide in a cave. There a ninja man (or spirit, it's a bit unclear), instructs them in martial arts until they are ready to be released back outside to scare off the bullies. You are clearly meant to do the moves and exercises with the kids who are all standing way too close to each other so they're all in the frame. They manage to go from white belts to yellow belts to green belts to red belts in 25 minutes. Overall, there were a few chuckles, but it's mostly an exercise video.

Spoon Rating: 3

The second film was a 50 minute hodgepodge of teens, including Jason Bateman and Ted Danson of all people, talking about what they think love is. No clear conclusions are made. It's chaotically edited with no clear organization, consensus, or definitions, and plenty of weird images just stuck onto scenes like someone just learned video editing software. It's somewhat anti-sex and very heteronormative and stereotypical, which is kind of funny, but mostly it is way too long. That being said, we did get a good amount of laughs from the unhinged editing and some of the comments the kids made.

Spoon Rating: 5

Good Burger [1997]

After a few weeks off due to illness and family stuff, we came back with a blast from my childhood. One day Adam and I were discussing movies from when we were kids and how they sometimes made good bad movie night picks, and I remembered how at one point my brother and I watched Good Burger over and over for two days straight before we had to return it to the video store and I never saw it again. So Adam whipped up some good (impossible) burgers with good patatas bravas instead of our usual BMN soup and we started the evening with some of the All That sketches that inspired the film. Much to our surprise and pleasure, they weren't unwatchable. In fact, some of them were genuinely funny. Good news for good burgers.

The film has a pretty simple premise stuffed with wacky hijinks. Kel plays Ed, the character we know from the sketches, and Kenan plays our everyman, Dexter, who thoroughly messes up by borrowing his mom's car while she's away and crashing into his teacher's, Sinbad's, car after driving without a license. In order to pay for the damage, he has to get a summer job, starting at the pretentious new Mondo Burger and then getting a job at the titular Good Burger when he couldn't hack it. He somewhat begrudgingly becomes friends with Ed, hits on Monique (one of the other employees), and drives the Burgermobile, which is still more dignified than the Wienermobile. Things change for Good Burger though when Dexter tries Ed's special sauce and they start putting it on the burgers, making them real competition for Mondo Burger and their space suit uniforms. From there, it's wild moment after wild moment. Dexter takes advantage of Ed's ignorance to get 80% of his sauce bonus! They make a delivery to Shaq! Unfunny Lori Beth Denberg cameo! Mondo Burger sends Carmen Electra to seduce Ed into revealing the recipe and it fails! Monique discovers that Dexter is exploiting Ed for money and tells him to leave! Ed buys Dexter a thoughtful gift showing that Dexter really is an ass! They get thrown in a mental hospital with Abe Vigoda (the fry cook who longs for death), George Clinton, and the girl from Freaks and Geeks in her first film role! MENTAL HOSPITAL DANCE SEQUENCE. Did I mention the Good Burger manager is Dan Schneider?! Mondo Burger is putting dangerous chemicals in their burgers to make them huge! Ed saves the day! Play the Less Than Jake punk ska version of "I'm A Dude"!

Honestly, this is a completely watchable film. I don't know if kids nowadays would find it as fun as my brother and I did when we were little, but as nostalgic millennial adults we all got some genuine laughs and weren't bored.

Spoon Rating: None.

Star Rating: 3/5