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."