Tammy [2014]

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

They say to never judge a book by its cover and the same is probably supposed to be true of movies. However, in this case Adam completely judged a movie by its cover and was right. Although one can debate the merits of Rotten Tomatoes, it is always pretty accurate when it comes to bad movies and a good source for us to use when it comes to new films that aren't as talked about as the bad movie classics. This movie actually has a 23% which is much higher than most of the films we watch but still well within the bad category.

Tammy is down on her luck: her car got totaled, she lost her job, and her husband was cheating on her with the neighbor. Therefore, you should feel sympathy for her, you know, if she wasn't so intolerably angry and stupid. She decides she wants to get away and so does her alcoholic, diabetic grandmother so they head out on a road trip to Niagara Falls. Hi-jinx ensue including drunk driving, old people car sex, and eventually Tammy robbing one of the branches of the fast food place she used to work for in order to get money to bail her grandma out of jail. Things start to reach a climax when they go to Tammy's pyromaniac lesbian great aunt's house for a Fourth of July party and her aunt tells her to get her crap together. And, because this movie follows the formula, she does. Although she's still annoying. 'Murrica.

The thing is, with different jokes this movie could have been okay if not particularly memorable. It actually had some funny parts, many of which came from the employee at the fast food restaurant who Tammy robbed. All in all, nowhere near as painful as a lot of things we watch but still not good.

Quotes:

"Would you like to come in for some color TV or sex?"

"Nobody should die in a lawn chair."

"Oh, is she crying? Someone please hug her."

Tammy: "Don't make me choose which one of you I kill."

Employee: *calmly* "Larry." *looks at him sympathetically* "You're older."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was okay."

REWATCH: Disco Godfather [1979]

The person who runs this blog had to work tonight so the rest of the Bad Movie Night crew decided to watch a good movie. Hence, there is no article this week.

Last week we rewatched "Disco Godfather" since Sarah had been foolish enough to fall asleep during all the glory the first time around (in her defense, work had worn her out; she did not do it on purpose or because it wasn't sufficiently amazing). There's nothing new we really have to say about it so if you didn't read the write up on it the first time we watched it back in February, now is the time to click the link in the title and educate yourself.

Otherwise, just gaze upon Rudy Ray Moore's open, sparkly shirt and consider this: we counted and in the movie he says "put your weight on it" 23 times and often in groups of five or six "put your weight on it"s.

Ed [1996]

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

"Ed" was billed as a delightful family comedy but was actually a terrifying and thought-provoking portrayal of discrimination in modern society. The lead character is perfectly capable of performing tasks demanded of a human both physically and mentally, clearly understands English even if its evolutionary disadvantage prevents it from clearly responding, and is even allowed to play baseball. And yet, one of owners of the baseball team tells the players to "treat him like a team member" after telling the lead that he owns him. He literally thinks of his as property. The team owner even has the gall to later insist that they should not let him play because, "We already let all kinds of people play this game" which reasonably prompted one of the black players to ask, "What's that supposed to mean?" This is movie that has both underlying racist tones and overt speciesest tones and you can't help but feel sympathy for our unfortunate lead's disadvantages.

I'm talking, of course, about Matt Leblanc.

This movie is about a chimp who plays baseball and lives with Matt Leblanc, causing stupid chaos for an hour and a half with one minor moment of tension towards the end where the chimp gets sold to a circus run by bikers and then rescued. Before we started the movie, Adam (who paid a whole $4 to rent this on Amazon) couldn't wait for the inevitable, "There's nowhere in the rulebook that says a monkey can't play" scene. We got that along with a scene in the beginning where the coach of the team pulls out a book titled "The Plan." We suspect he was reading ahead in the script.

This movie was a cartoon with all the hi-jinks and sound effects you'd expect that happened to feature real people. It was also full of shameless advertising plugs including at least three instances of drinking Coca-Cola or featuring the logo (and one of the monkey refusing a Pepsi) and "Friends" playing on the television which happens to feature His Woodenness Matt Leblanc. And I sure hope you like "spanking the monkey" jokes. There were at least two. Ironically, the monkey spanked Leblanc instead.

To show you what glory you would be missing from not watching this film, here's the many faces of Matt Leblanc:

Confused.

Pensive

Angry

Happy

Gassy

Violently Aroused

Quotes:
"Hacksaw my legs and call me shorty"
"Forget practice. You're all useless. Go home." (also what the director probably said to the actors)

(after Matt Leblanc's character receives a horseshoe in the mail from his parents)
Keith: "A horseshoe in a barn holds luck."
Adam: "It's not a bowl, dad. It can't hold anything."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was good for bad night. It was bad."

Catwoman [2004]

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

It's hard to believe that 2004 was ten years ago but in case you've forgotten some of the worst things about movies of the early 00's, thankfully we have this piece of bad movie history to remind you of it. The Marvel comics movie craze had really kicked off two years earlier with Sam Raimi's "Spiderman" and DC wouldn't have any movies even close to being as notable as that until 2005's "Batman Begins". For now, they tried "Catwoman" which seems to steal from "Spiderman" in ways ranging from origin, transformation, coloration of the film, CGI, and even the way she leaps around buildings. It's also another great example of post-feminism and faux female empowerment (see: the "Charlie's Angels" review) with some kind of mythology that makes no sense (women=cats).

In Epcot Gotham, our hero starts out as an awkward and submissive (a requirement of superhero movies of this era) marketing employee designing an ad for an anti-aging cream who is suddenly being stalked by an uncharacteristically attached cat. This cat is her guardian angel cat who brings her back to life after she finds out that the cream is evil and the executives tried to kill her to keep their secret. Once she's revived, she takes on some cat tendencies like superhuman gymnastic abilities, a craving for tuna, and the desire to eat freshly dead people's faces (not really, but wouldn't that be great?). She gets fired for cat napping at the office, walks around on catwalks, and then steals some jewels like a cat burgler and weirdly doesn't remember doing it. They aren't really clear on whether Catwoman is an alter ego or a dissociative personality. As we all do, she taps into her power by wearing black leather, cutting her hair, carrying a whip, and defeating an evil Sharon Stone with an unbreakable face. There's some useless annoying coworker side characters and a disposable love interest played by the guy who played every cop love interest in female-lead films of the early 00s. Also, everyone let out a loud groan when she first described something as "puuuuuurrfect." It was bad but at least it had a plot which made it far more tolerable than last week.

Keith requested that we end the evening with a round of "Jingle Cats" but he was mercifully outvoted.

And to pad out this review a bit, here are some pictures of the cats of Bad Movie Night:

Alice (R.I.P.)

Adam's Nickname: Bitch

Theme Song: "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen

Roxy

Adam's Nickname: Pathetic 

Theme Song: "Lovefool" by The Cardigans

Nico

Adam's Nickname: Battered Housewife

Theme Song: "I Hate Everything About You" by Three Days Grace

Quote: "I'm a woman. I'm used to doing things I don't wanna do."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it. Had a lot of action in it."

Mutant Chronicles [2008]

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

Have you ever felt like you really wanted to watch an Uwe Boll movie without actually giving money to Uwe Boll? Have I got a film for you! Apparently based on a role playing game and very visually reminiscent of "Alone In The Dark" (see: seizure-inducing), "Mutant Chronicles" does a lot of work to make sure to get on our list of some of the most boring movies we've watched in spite of being heavily action.

After five minutes of unintelligible backstory, a war in present day (whenever that is) that looked like some kind of alternate universe dieselpunk World War mash-up, and a bunch of monks talking about the backstory, we all looked to Sarah to explain what was going on. Her main job within the group has become to follow the plot when the rest of us have tuned it out. As she explained to us, some alien machine that creates mutant came to earth and they buried it because it could destroy the world through zombification. During the war, it gets accidentally dug up and these monks who are part of a brotherhood to watch over and destroy the machine gather a bunch of army people to go on a suicide mission to destroy it. The movie literally falls into a huge plothole and the other 70 minutes of the film consist of this group travelling through tunnels like a knockoff Indiana Jones movie, fighting mutants, and dying off one by one in violent CGI ways until all that remains is part-mutant Thomas Jane and a limp cigarette. At least we get a few minutes of perpetually irritated Olive Garden patron, John Malkovich, saying he can't escape to Mars with most of the humans because the gravity difference is bad for his gastrointestinal tract. I know you wanted to think about Mr. Malkovich's bathroom issues.

So who's to blame for this film? A lot of people. This movie had 13 executive producers.

How Adam thought to improve this movie. Everything's better when it's a la mode.

How Sarah thought to improve this movie. And she was the one who paid for it.

Quotes:

"You can fuck a lot of people but you only die once."

"Put it in the hole!"

"Which hole?"

"Any hole!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Didn't like it. If I could have slept through it I would have. I wasn't in my recliner."

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun [1985]

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

It's the 80s! The Cold War is still going on, cocaine is all the rage, and the conservatives are running the most powerful countries in the world. Also, dancing movies are a big deal.

In this teen flick, Sarah Jessica Parker moves to Chicago which is actually awesome because she can try out to be on Dance TV! Along with her friend Helen Hunt, and Helen Hunt's eccentric cranium accessories that often consist of animals, they sneak off to open auditions against the will of SJP's strict military father. There Helen Hunt gets kicked out but SJP is moved forward and paired up with our hero who was introduced without a shirt. Too bad the stereotypical rich bitch antagonist wants him and the spot on Dance TV and will do anything to get it including having her daddy blackmail the hero by threatening his father's job. Also, rich bitch is pissed off that SJP, Helen Hunt, and the hero's sister, Shannen Doherty, found an invitiation to her coming out party, made a bunch of copies, and then gave them to a bunch of alternative types with no table manners who smashed everything. SJP and the hero hook up and beat rich bitch in the dancing competition with their excessive use of gymnastics and suddenly all the parents have forgiven and forgotten. It's the typical 80s teen movie formula with all its terrible fashions, predictable endings, and no budget to pay for the originals of any songs so you get some generic "Dancing In The Street" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" to accompany a score that's heavily synth. Relish in the glory of these dated quotes:

Quotes:
"Velcro: next to the Walkman and Tab, it's the world's greatest invention."

"Let's hear it for steroids!"

"You're such a little punk!"
"You think I'm punk?! That's not as cool as new wave but it's better than preteen!"

"You're taking a fashion risk. I like that."

[on a motorcycle] "It's the safest thing you'll ever have between your legs."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It was good. I like dancing."

Highlander 2: The Quickening [1991]

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

On first glance at the special edition DVD cover for this film that Sarah purchased at the Book Barn, we almost thought that perhaps it might not be the movie that is often hailed as one of the worst of all time. That movie has the distinctly memorable title of "Highlander 2: The Quickening" while this one merely says "Highlander 2." Don't worry; it was the same movie and the first few minutes made that clear as we stepped into a world of awful. Apparently there cannot be only one "Highlander" film but oh, there should have been.

All of us had seen the original "Highlander" but none of us could really remember it. Fortunately, this movie had absolutely nothing to do with the original and mostly retconed it out of existence. In a world ripped off from "Blade Runner", it's 2025 and McLeod the immortal is an old man at the opera reflecting on how he was sent to Earth from his home planet after he and his teacher, Sean Connery, tried to fight against the stupidly named General Katana. Then he leaves the opera and gets attacked by cyberpunk birdmen and absorbs their power to become young and promptly has sex with an environmentalist who hates him in a dirty alleyway. Somehow this also leads to Sean Connery getting resurrected in Scotland so he buys a suit and travels to meet McLeod in New York (or wherever the movie takes place). But soon Katana comes to Earth (it's where the party's at, apparently) in order to kill them. Not sure why, exactly. To absorb their power? That's mostly what immortals do in these films. There's also this plot about a shield protecting the Earth that is run by an evil corporation and McLeod has to stop it. For the reference, a lot of this movie is told in flashback so it's pretty hard to follow but it tries hard to distract you from the insanity of the plot with pretty but nonsensical sets, confusing, and at one point hypnotic, camera work, and a soulful bagpipe rendition of "Amazing Grace." There's also some comedy in the hammy facial expressions of the actors, the often incongruous or just plain 80s-style music, and the fact that all the main characters look like hair metal band rejects.

Quotes:
[after having Katana smash up his cab so he can't go anywhere] "I should have stayed in school."
"She died an old woman . . . I still loved her."
"Everybody's gotta be someplace."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I don't know what to think."

Monster In The Closet [1986]

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

Our first Troma film! Troma films are odd because they are intentionally ridiculous but how much comedy is intended versus how much comedy you get out of the movie has a tendency to show a notable disparity so they still seem to qualify as bad movies. Plus they are low budget, often rip off other movies, and usually end up with some technical errors. This one had a boom mic at the top of the screen in one shot.

So what's the movie about? A monster with a huge, constantly open mouth that spits out a smaller monster tongue and appears to be able to hop from closet to closet is killing people. It's up to a Clark Kent clone journalist, a science teacher and her genius son, and a scientist who might be the science teacher's father to save the town once the monster comes out of the closet. There are a lot of long scenes of the crew searching around for the monster, a baby Paul Walker (meaning we just unintentionally watched two Paul Walker movies in a row), a running gag about the science teacher being distracted by the sexy of the journalist when he takes off his glasses (Adam referred to this transformation as "from Phil Collins to Henry Rollins"), and a priest who insists that killing a cockroach is a violation of the sixth commandment (which for the reference is "Thou shall not commit adultery"). There are allusions, or rip-offs, of Psycho, Alien, and a host of better movies including the strange tendency to name characters things like Dick Clark, Scoop Johnson, and Dr. Pennyworth. Thankfully, the monster coming out of the closet ends up leading to its downfall when you realize that the joke in the title was more than just a joke. Maybe the movie is trolling us by making us think it's a stupid horror film when it's really a profound meditation on sexuality. Or not. Someone should write a thesis.

Quotes:
"Sometimes you can save more lives by not pulling the trigger."
"Don't be touchy, Dicky boy."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it."

Tammy And The T-Rex [1994]

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

We had two potential selections for last Monday's movie, both of them "dinosaur with human qualities does stuff" themed. Unfortunately, the "dinosaur and human buddy cop" movie lost out to "well, it has Denise Richards and Paul Walker and . . . you know how in Rebo Cop a guy dies and his brain is kind of reused? That, essentially."

In a world were everyone who does a sport must only go to practice in a crop top, we meet our star-crossed lovers, popular cheerleader Tammy and slightly awkward and curiously unpopular football player Michael. Nothing could destroy this union born in a John Melloncamp song about the American dream except for maybe Tammy's super abusive biker "boyfriend" (I put that in quotes because I assume she tried/tries to break up with him but, well, abusive). All hope is shattered when what was supposed to be a night of teen sex turned into Michael getting attacked by the "boyfriend" and ending up in intensive care. He is proclaimed dead by a mad scientist and his assistant who have a particular use for his brain: to put it inside an automoton dinosaur they made, thereby Jurassic Park-ing stuff up and showing the potential for bodies that never die. No, the science is not in any way plausible even for a silly movie. So what does Michael do in his new body? Get revenge on the biker guy and his friends, trying to reveal his true identity to Tammy's GBF before hunting down Tammy herself to reveal what happened to him. The next twenty minutes are mostly Tammy and her GBF trying to find a human body for Michael and it's very Weekend at Bernie's. I'm sure you already guessed that Michael ends up killing the scientist but honestly, nothing will prepare you for how the "where do we put Michael's brain" problem is solved. If you don't want to bother watching the whole thing, consult the lovely Wikipedia plot summary. It is . . . shocking.

Quotes:

[Our new favorite thing to shout at each other] "I don't want to see you for the rest of my life EVER!"

[A cop on two witnesses of the dinosaur attack] "They're in shock. You're gonna hafta slap it out of 'em."

"Dead is as old as you're gonna get."

Adam's Grandma's Review: [long pause] "I don't know what to think of it . . . poor Michael."

NEWS: "The Room Actors: Where Are They Now? A Mockumentary" Kickstarter

Robyn Paris, who played Michelle in The Room, has a Kickstarter to raise money to make a mockmentary about what happened to The Room actors after starring in the best bad movie ever. They haven't reached their initial goal yet and the more they make, the bigger the project will be so think about contributing! At least go on the Kickstarter and watch the video they put together and read the Room themed contribution categories.

See? She chocolates us.

WolfCop [2014]

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

Sometimes bad movies are a bit too self aware and try too hard to be ridiculous. This movie is trying rather hard to be a cult classic which seems to be a phenomenon that will come along more and more ever since the popularity of "Sharknado." Don't get me wrong; it was still entertaining and silly but with the increasing acceptability of enjoying bad movies, the genuine, unintentional bad movie might start to become a thing of the past since anyone unsatisfied with their finished product can just claim that it was supposed to be funny.

"WolfCop", yes that's the correct way to write it, takes place in a small hick Canadian town which has a yearly event called the "Drink and Shoot" which really says it all honestly. Of course, they also have a store called "Liquor Donuts" which Keith pointed out would be better named "Drunkin' Donuts". Our main character is a raging alcoholic cop who is constantly being asked to check up on the town conspiracy theorist and spends a lot of time trying to boink the bartender at the local watering hole. Until one day he ends up in the forest, blacks out, wakes up with an upside down pentagram on his chest, and later turns into a wolfman. Alcohol is a helluva drug. Since the conspiracy theorist is seemingly the only person who is chill with this change, they pimp a car and do some vigilante justice, as you do, before the wolfman gets laid by the bartender in a scene that makes most people look away and furries declare it the best movie ever. So why is any of this happening? Evil town ritual mostly everyone is in on that correlates with the solar eclipse. What else really?

Other fun things of note: this is the second time I've gotten to use the "penis birth" tag (I won't go into detail there), there's a character listed as "Pee Punk", and before the credits it said that "WolfCop II" would be coming in 2015. Quite confident. Unfortunately, I could not find a video of the theme song but that also exists.

Quotes:
"Hey, you got any books on devil worship?"

[on upside down pentagram symbols in the woods]
"Heavy metal?"
". . . Lead? . . . Mercury?"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "For bad movie night, bad."

Bats: Human Harvest [2007]

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

Yesterday we again dipped into the wondrous renewable resource of bad movies known as the Sci-Fi channel. For the reference we didn't actually know that this was such a movie at the time; Sarah just picked it up at the Book Barn for a buck or two because the title was irresistible. However, there were plenty of tell-tale Sci-Fi channel signs: the shoddy CGI, the overly earnest acting, and the plot that managed to be summed up on Wikipedia with two short paragraphs. I could write a longer post on the movie right here.

In spite of the glorious title that evokes fond memories of "Birdemic: Shock And Terror", 90% of the movie seems to be shots of people in military garb running through the same patch of woods and occasionally shooting at other people with fake Russian accents. The meager plot is about an American army team and Russian CIA agent going into Chechnya to find a missing scientist. For no reason any of us can remember, this scientist went a little cuckoo and biologically engineered bats that are larger than regular bats (but not huge or anything), have camouflaging capabilities, and thirst for blood. Russians and Americans shoot each other for no reason and occasionally get picked up by a swarm of bats or have their hand ripped off by them (best scene in the movie). In the end, the loose cannon leader who doesn't play by the rules blows up the evil scientist, getting the scientist's bat resistant blood all over him and he saves the two remaining team members.

Unfortunately, the movie lacked harvesting of any kind and at a mere 87 minutes this movie should have gone by much quicker than it did but it was so boring most of the time that it felt like four hours. We even took an intermission to eat a variety of bat-shaped snacks.

Little Debbie's bat brownies, bats & bones candy from Barnes & Noble, and locally made chocolate-covered oreos and nonpareils. Also bat necklaces.

Cute spooky treats.

Waiting for the harvest, appropriately adorned

Quotes: "So many stories and they all have the same ending."

"You think I'll leave here without poppin' the doctor?"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I liked it. It was long but it was good."

The Beast Of Yucca Flats [1961]

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



File this one under: "Movies We Are Baffled That They Aren't Directed By Ed Wood." The movie takes place in the fictional atomic bomb experimental area Yucca Flats which we kept pronouncing with a long U even though the voiceover say it with a short u like a 2-year-old describing a bad taste. Also, they are the most mountainous flats ever. A scientist, played by Tor Johnson of "Plan 9" fame, who escaped from "behind the Iron Curtain" goes there on a visit and ends up trying to avoid other men from "behind the Iron Curtain" who want to shoot him (only one gun ever fires with many of them out of frame with just the sound of a shot to indicate that anything happened). Somehow this leads to the commencement of stock footage of an atomic bomb which turns the scientist into a beast man who looks almost the same but with some scaly skin and a lust to kill everything. He strangles a couple in a car and chases two clueless city kids and then gets shot down by the desert police.

It's mostly just a lot of wandering through various terrain and strangling for no reason. It's the B-horror version of "Gerry" with an A-bombsploitation edge complete with ominous voiceovers waxing poetic about the wheels of justice/progress/technology. Garnish with implied necrophilia and the fastest "Time To Tit" so far of any film we've seen (literally it opens on boob) and this movie is not even worth its 54 minute run time. Bad movie history right here.

Quote: [voiceover] "It's 110 degrees in the shade . . . and there's no shade."

Adam's Grandma's review: [immediately after it ends] "What's the plot?"

Con Air [1997]

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

I had to double check that Michael Bay was not involved in this film because this is an insanely Michael Bay film. The movie opens with shots of war that are mostly explosions and close-ups of American flags for God's sake. And just look at that movie cover!

The movie follows the curiosity that is Nicolas Cage as he returns home from a war (which one?), has some rednecks uncharacteristically hate on him for being military (don't rednecks love blind patriotism?) and having an attractive wife (who specifically won't sleep with them thereby making her a whore or something), and then accidentally kills one of them in a fight (while explosions burst behind them for no reason). Being that his hands are deadly weapons, he gets sent away for seven years, getting parole on the day of his daughter who he's never met's birthday. He just needs to take one little prison plane ride first and OH NO, John Malkovich is a crazy and clever killer who has teamed up with other inmates to hijack the plane! What will our hero do? Recite oddly cadenced lines and try to find a way to get his cellmate friend his insulin while sending John Cusack clues about where the plane is so the government can stop it, that's what. Among the various passengers there's best selling black militant author Ving Rhames, creepy rapist Danny Trejo, silly crackhead Dave Chappelle, and the inexplicable only sane man cannibal Steve Buscemi and his Buscemeyes. Hilarity ensues of both the intentional and unintentional kind with a bit more of the latter as the convicts try to make it to Mexico and run out of gas, ending up in a plane graveyard of a town in the desert. This really could have set the scene for a fun buddy comedy but unfortunately the movie up until that point didn't seem to be heading in that direction. What followed instead were scene after scene of fighting and explosions and none of us knew what was going on. Then the action switched to Vegas and repeated. Bad guys died, modes of transportation became scrap metal, and Nic Cage met his daughter while that annoying Trisha Yearwood song that was so damn popular at the time played again. 

Also, there was a scene where a car was tied to the end of a plane and when the plane was taking off, the car smashed directly into a control tower. This is a metaphor for the film as a whole, I'm sure.

Nic Cageiest Line: "Put the bunny back in the box!"

Adam's Missing Movie Line: "I may be a con but I have CONviction."

Adam's Grandma's Review: "It's good like you said. Lots of action."

I Know Who Killed Me [2007]

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

Did you know that during the peak of Lindsay Lohan's highly publicized insanity she made a movie? Even better, what little press the movie had surrounded the idea that she played twins in it which called back to the first of her two most famous movies and was the biggest spoiler of the film. Whoops.

The movie opens on a lengthy shot of Lohan dancing in a strip club, shot like someone who has probably made a music video once or twice, before cutting to Lohan reading depressing self-insert fanfics in front of her class while somehow managing to be the smartest, bestest, most popular girl eva. This girl, Aubrey, gets abducted and tortured by a guy who has already killed one of her classmates but when she is found and wakes up in the hospital she insists that her name is Dakota and that she's a stripper who grew up in a poor, drug-soaked house. Everyone thinks she's full of shit (she did write stories about this idea) or possibly under going some kind of repression from her torture. Dakota smokes cigarettes, nails Aubrey's boyfriend, and thinks everyone's an asshole. She slowly reveals that her limbs were not cut off by some psycho but just kind of fell off resulting in the exact same missing arm and leg as the first victim of this psycho. Limbs just do that sometimes. The explanation for why any of this is happening is so phenomenally dumb and unlikely that I'll let you find out on your own. Hint: it's "The Parent Trap" but with injury.

You quickly catch onto the fact that the movie doesn't seem to fully get symbolism since it pretty much tells you all you need to know with color. Any scene with Aubrey is blue and she only wears blue. Any scene with Dakota is red and she only wears red. This is not an exaggeration. On top of that distracting fact, there are unnecessarily long stripper scenes, a phoned in performance from Lohan, a fair amount of gore porn, a villain whose motivation is never explained, and the fact that the movie name makes no sense but still manages to get dropped in the film. You do not know who killed you. You're still alive, you never died in the past, and no one has even tried to kill you. Nothing about this statement is accurate aside from the fact that it is exactly the kind of name a bad movie would have. Success.

Quote:
[To a girl with one leg] "You're a kicker!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Interesting."

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever [2002]

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

We've got another "worst movies ever" list topper with a solid 0% on Rotten Tomatoes for you this evening. Every Steven Segal movie in the world back to back would not feel as tedious or have as much pointless action as the hour and 31 minutes we endured watching "Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever." Michael Bay wishes he had this many explosions in his films but probably has at least one person near him telling him it might be a bit excessive. I guess this is what you get for letting a guy going by the monkier of "Kaos" direct your movie.

 

I can barely even describe this move since only about five minutes of the entire thing had dialogue and some sembalance of plot which only Sarah seemed to half follow and then had to explain to the rest of us. This is what we could manage to decipher: In a world of flapping black trench coats, Sever flips her hair and then kidnaps some women's kid and keeps him in a rather cozy cage with Hostess cupcakes while fighting against the kid's father, Kant, by destroying an industrial park with bullets. Ecks is brought in to fight Sever (we think) but learns that his wife is still alive and the kidnapped kid is actually his and that Kant made him think his wife was dead for some reason and therefore ex-Ecks wife. Also Kant killed Sever's family so she hates him. It doesn't take long for the movie to go from Ecks vs. Sever to Ecks and Sever vs. Kant. Also there's something about microbots that can be put in someone's body for later biological warfare. In the words of Harley Quinn "Why don't ya just shoot 'im?". Truthfully though, they did try in the Stormtrooper, no-aim-whatsoever kind of way. The movie is mostly just flying bullets, exploding cars, fight choreography peppered with random pauses and poses, and guns that shoot things they can't actually shoot all set to a score and soundtrack that was probably burned onto a CD with "Badass Mix #5" Sharpied on it.

 

Summarizing Quote: "Situation out of hand."

 

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Okay."

Gerry [2002]

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

Yesterday we dove into another new genre of bad movie for us: art house. Now the problem with bad art house movies is that someone, somewhere is always going to think that it is actually brilliant and that we are uneducated plebeians for thinking that it's crap. Our movie for instance has a 62% on Rotten Tomatoes and unlike "Sharknado"'s 82%, this rating doesn't come with irony or appreciation for bad movies.

"Gerry" isn't so much a movie as it is a slideshow of nature scenes that manages to go on for over an hour and a half. Here's the plot: two guys named Gerry (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) go for a hike, deviate from the path to "the thing at the end of the path", get lost for days, and one of them ends up finding the road and leaving with some random family. That's not the plot in a nutshell. It's the whole plot. The only other things going on involve a short running scene, meaningless conversations about "Wheel of Fortune" and an "Age Of Empires"-esque video game, Affleck!Gerry getting marooned on a rock that he somehow can't get down in spite of the fact that he climbed it, a conversation about how they got lost that uses the word "gerry" about twelve times, and Affleck!Gerry hallucinating Damon!Gerry telling him that he knows how to get back to the car. Aside from the ending, THAT'S the whole movie. The one thing that can be said about it is that when you're watching it, you really feel like you're lost with them but instead of sympathizing with their plight, you want nothing more than for the two of them to just die so your torment can end.

Thankfully, we were aware of how boring this movie was before we watched it so we came prepared:

In case you're wondering how many of these were actually consumed, it breaks down like this (in order of lowest caffeine tolerance to highest):

Adam's Grandma: Nothing. Maybe tea.

Kay: Sonic Energy Refresher

Keith: Mountain Dew Kickstart

Sarah: Vitamin Water Energy, Full Throttle

Adam: Monster Muscle, Spike Shooter (300mg of caffeine), Amp

I don't know who drank the Guarana Root Beer. Probably Adam.

Movie Quotes:
[when he can't get down from the rock] Affleck!Gerry: I'm rock marooned! Make me a dirt mattress!

BMN Quotes:
[during a long scene]
Keith: Oh, I thought your computer froze.
Adam: We'd never know if my computer froze.

Kay: What do you think was the budget of this movie?
Sarah: Nothing.
Kay: It cost a few thousand to hire Damon and for Affleck they threw a fifty at him and let him wear a shirt with a star on it to convince him that he was the star.

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I told you; it was boring."
(Note: She didn't fall asleep during this movie but it's probably because Adam was so caffeine high and bored that he kept screaming every ten minutes.)

BOOK REVIEW: "The Disaster Artist" by Greg Sestero & Tom Bissell

If you find yourself wondering why I'm doing a book review on a blog devoted to the bad movies we watch every Monday, then clearly you have yet to hear of this book (or perhaps can't figure out where you've heard of the first author before). The full title of the book is "The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made" and the author is more commonly known as "Oh, hi Mark."

The book is essentially written with two alternating timelines: one that focuses on Greg Sestero's friendship with Tommy Wiseau and the effect it had on their lives and careers, and the other that focuses specifically on the making of "The Room."

In the first timeline, Sestero recounts meeting Wiseau in a San Francisco acting class where he watches him butcher a Shakespeare sonnet before the class and then has the gall to tell the teacher that she is the one in the wrong for criticizing him. Impressed by his unfounded confidence and courage, Sestero decides that he must do a scene with him, a decision that leads to the oddest of friendships. At first Wiseau is a great friend, giving encouragement and assistance when Sestero has no one else who supports him, going on sponteneous adventures to sites significant to James Dean, one of their mutual favorite actors, and being optimistic about both Sestero's career and his own. However, as Sestero's career starts to take off and Wiseau remains stagnant, things start to become strained between them. Somehow they end up hostile roommates before Wiseau disappears for months and comes back with the idea to write his own play/screenplay to prove that he can be not only an actor but a director, producer, and writer. The book draws parallels of their relationship to the main friendships in The Talented Mr. Ripley and Sunset Boulevard, which is exactly as unnerving as it sounds.

This part of the book is mostly the story of their friendship but there are a lot of interesting things to it. Aside from just recounting how close friendships and competition can be a volatile mixture, you also get Sestero's personal story of how difficult it can be to find fame in Los Angeles and how his career is simultaneously helped and harmed by his friendship with Wiseau (along with some hilarious commentary on Wiseau from his mother). This part of the story also shows many of the quirks about Tommy Wiseau that make him such a strange person and often, explain parts of "The Room." Sestero talks about Wiseau's reluctance to reveal his age, origin, or job, and perpetually acts like he is already famous. He's endlessly paranoid about people poisoning his food and records all his phone conversations to listen to later, and is deeply ageist in spite of no one knowing what his age really is. 

In case you're wondering if the book answers any of these questions, I would say it partially does. While Sestero can't confirm Wiseau's origin or job, the books does offer plenty of hints and offers a rather detailed potential back story of which Wiseau frequently changes the details. His age is offered but the answer is still unbelievable to Sestero and to anyone else who has seen Wiseau. The only truth Wiseau seems to offer Sestero in their friendship is that he has been in two very serious car accidents which might explain something, but what?

While pieces of Wiseau's life may still be somewhat shrouded in mystery, in the portion of the book surrounding "The Room"'s production many questions you may have had about the film get answered. Sestero manages to explain how a movie that looked so cheap cost $6 million dollars, why there are so many lapses in logic and consistency, and just how much power Wiseau had over the movie (literally all of it). Sestero also talks about the actors in the movie which really makes the reader understand why anyone would agree to appear in something so horrible. Sestero himself ended up in the movie because the day before they started filming Wiseau pleaded him to be in it, insisting that he wrote the part of Mark for him and offering him a ton of money and a new car to play the role . . . without firing the guy who was originally offered the part or telling him until they had been filming a few days. You learn why Juliette Danielle who plays Lisa took the role when so many other actresses balked out, how everyone felt so bad for Philip Haldiman being stuck playing the endlessly creepy character of Denny who was supposed to be about ten years his junior, and about the fascinating back story of Dan Janjigian who plays Chris-R. Sestero really makes you feel for these actors and crew members as he had, watching them fruitlessly offer suggestion, suffer in poor working conditions, and, often, furiously quit, all in the name of Wiseau's vanity project.

"The Disaster Artist" is captivating and hilarious and touching and terrifying in equal parts. Every fan of "The Room" should read it and, honestly, if you aren't a fan of "The Room", I would assume it just means you haven't seen it yet and therefore should.

As a final note, it must be said that earlier this year Seth Rogan's production company got the rights to the book and there is a film planned with James Franco directing and his younger brother, Dave Franco, playing Sestero. So that's a thing.