Pass Thru [2016]

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

In the last review of a Neil Breen movie, "I Am Here.... Now," Neil played an alien assessing the humans to seem if they were worth keeping around and decided to give them one more chance. Apparently, he changed his mind. Also, my assessment that this movie would improve upon the Breen formula was wrong as "Fateful Findings" is definitely still his best film, but this movie definitely helped us to come to an understanding of why. "Fateful Findings" has the most straightforward story while still being full of weird moments and deviations from the main story. It's Breen's "Mulholland Drive." His latest film "Pass Thru" is more like his "Inland Empire": It seems to have a plot but there are so many thrown in scenes that don't show a definite order that you have to piece together the background and why on your own.

Neil Breen, out of work bridge troll, plays "artificial intelligence from the future" who is currently slumming it in the desert, living in a shanty trailer and truck, and shooting up heroin when he isn't communicating with rock paintings and hanging out with a poorly CGI-ed tiger. Also in the desert are a bunch of immigrants with American accents who got mixed up in the heroin trade which is specifically given out to people like "the bankers," "the pimps," "the government officials," and "the CEO" (just the one). Neil lets one immigrant and her niece live in his dirty trailer and they all have some wacky hijinks that mostly involve throwing things. After a while, Neil decides he's going to do something about this messed up planet and decides to "disappear" anyone who has every harmed another. Ignoring the fact that this includes everyone, he first disappears the evil drug trade people and frees the American immigrants. Then he goes to a fancy party at a green screen mansion and kills everyone's vibe before blowing up the mansion in a beautifully crap CGI effect. His final act is to disappear the newscasters reporting on the disappearances and then to give an endless broadcast about what has been done, proving the Neil really should be on late night cable more than a film screen. In a really minor subplot, a bunch of kids who are into astronomy bring their scientist friend into the desert to look at some space phenomenon that clearly has to do with Neil's character but we aren't totally sure how. The film ends with Neil and the aunt walking through a sea of dead bodies which are actually just the same ten people duplicated over and over again.

This film hits a lot of the Breen standards, but it makes us a little worried that he's running out of ideas. Premise wise, this movie is quite similar to "I Am Here.... Now," but at least it still contains the expected weird dialogue, reused footage from different angles, bad acting, and nonsensical plot. In addition, this is truly some of the finest poor CGI we have ever seen.

Quotes:

Newscaster: "It's as if all the harmful people on the earth are disappearing!"

Rich Lady: "They don't need to know why or any reason."

Spoon Rating: 7.

The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah [2015]

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

Two households both alike in dignity, in fair South Dakota where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new community, where everyone loves Jesus now so our sins are washed clean. 

Yes. It has finally happened. After weeks of trying to find it online, attempts to order it directly from the website it's sold on and finding that none of the links actually worked, and then finally setting on a fairly reasonable price on eBay, we have gotten it: "The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah." And this movie delivered. It was one of those perfectly bad movies where the production value is not terrible but still makes it look like a home movie with a decent camera, the acting is bad but the actors are really trying, and the script is just insane while trying to be as earnest as possible. Truely these are the elements of the best kind of bad movie: the movie that tries so, so hard to be good, but is off in every way. With this one you can also throw in a hefty dose of preachiness and anti-Semitism to really round out the film. Talking about it won't do it justice but here it goes.

A conservative Jewish stereotype dad takes a college professor job in South Dakota where his family must live next to his very Christian boss and his family. They both have sons (Abraham and Paul) of about the same age who love Tim Tebow and Harry Potter and they become friends. The Jewish father gives his son books on the Holocaust and talks to him about preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. The Christian father gives his son books about Jews who love Jesus and talks to him about doing missionary work in his own backyard *hint, hint*. After some brief discussion about Jesus with his friend, Abe states having dreams where Jesus essentially tells him that he needs to accept him as his savior and that Harry Potter is evil. He has three dreams that are shot in the exact same way as he discusses them with Paul and a neighborhood girl, Sarah. He also speaks in tongues. Paul starts wondering if his father's "Harry Potter is okay and speaking in tongues is weird" stance is backwards and he and Sarah go to research more conservative churches. Meanwhile, Abe talks to God. Seriously. We didn't think the movie would go there but it did. 

Abe decides to tell his father that he has accepted Jesus in one of the best scenes in film history. The father asks if it's a girl that has his mind occupied. He says it's a guy and the father has a gay scare. Then Abe clarifies that the guy is question is actually Jesus and his dad responds by tearing his shirt open and growling.

Abe's father sends him off to New York to be with his uncle and be in a more Jewish friendly environment in hopes that it will cure him of Jesus fever. Instead Abe drives away a rabbi, a "deprogramer," and heals his cousin's multiple sclerosis. They all convert to Abe's "Jew but with Jesus" ideology. Why anyone is still worshipping Jesus at this point when Abe is clearly the messiah is beyond me.

Abe's father and Christian dad argue about religion where Christian dad actually compares not believing Jesus is the messiah to not believing that the Holocaust happened as if one of these things is not 100% provable while the other is pure faith. Abe comes home having converted everyone and his mom and dad decide to read some literature about Jesus to try to understand their son. They walk away converts. Also, Paul convinces his dad to follow a stricter idea of the Bible. Now everyone loves Jesus and hates fun. Let's go to a Messianic church together! Also, Abe's cousin is here and being shipped with Paul! And Abe and Sarah are also being shipped because of their names! Ignore that it's creepy for parents to play matchmaker with their 12-year-olds! And let's have a bar mitzvah for everyone! "Hava Naglia" plays on repeat for eternity. We wonder why it took us three hours to watch a two hour movie and then realized it was because we stopped it so often to laugh or discuss the movie's various inaccuracies about Jewish people. If that isn't a sign of this movie's quality, then I guess you'll just have to pray to Yeshua for answers and hope he brought his megaphone to answer you with.

Quotes:
"It only takes one bad egg to ruin the egg salad."

"Think with your heart, not with your logic."

"What did your family do when you came out of the closet about Jesus?"

Spoon Rating: 7.5

Single Room Furnished [1968]

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

This movie is an experience. Not every movie we watch is an experience and not every movie described as an experience is necessarily a movie that's so bad it's worth watching. Although this movie rated below the "5 and up is worth watching" threshold, it's such an experience that it won't be a complete waste of time to watch it. It is odd in a way that I can only describe as a failed Tennessee Williams play: all the melodrama and none of the substance. On the Wikipedia page the movie is described like it's a drug deal: "The feature was Jayne Mansfield's final "filmed" starring role. . . The feature was released "legally" and "officially" in 1968." Why so many quotation marks, movie? What are you hiding?

This "movie" is initially introduced by a guy who really wants you, the audience, to know that this is Jayne Mansfield's last role and a dramatic role and that you should really like it or else you are shaming the ghost of Jayne Mansfield. We are then treated to an apartment set that is definitely not on a sound stage and a snippy teen fighting with her mom about being slutty and Italian. The teen then encounters the super of the building who tells her a series of stories all featuring this one woman's decline and how she kept trying to reinvent herself. First he tells her about the woman, then called Johnnie, and how she got married young to a guy who left her six months later to join the navy because his super hot friend is having such a good time there. If we were playing Tennessee Williams Bingo this is where you would mark off "gay subtext." Johnnie has a miscarriage and renames herself Mae. Then the super tells a story of the only happy couple to live in the building, Charlie and Flo, and we have to watch their intensely awkward courtship filled with fish smells and admitting they don't know anything (side note: no characters in this movie have any education). Charlie is friendly with Mae who got knocked up by a random drifter who gave her a fake name. He feels bad and spontaneously proposes to her before realizing what a stupid idea that is and marries Flo instead. Finally, in the present, Mae is now Eileen, a prostitute in a relationship with another navy guy who wants to marry her. In a fit that shows how mentally unstable they both are, he threatens to kill her but kills himself instead. Snippy teen gets perspective. Eileen continues to wallow in crazy.

This movie is clearly trying to teach something or at least get to the heart of the lives of regular people. If only the writer knew anything about how humans communicate. Aside from strange dialogue and the Home Depot sound stage set, the acting is peculiar (yes, Jayne too; my apologies to her ghost), and the direction is really strange. A lot of the time it's shot like a stage play but sometimes the camera will go off in a random direction while someone is talking.

Also, there's more than one room. And furnished is a generous word to use for most of them.

Quotes:
"Take your stinking boat and throw it in the ocean!"

"Where does he get off playing dollhouse with real life human dolls?"  

"The world smells like BEER."

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

Spoon Rating: 4

1990: The Bronx Warriors [1982]

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

There is a grand tradition in the bad movie world of Italian rip-offs of Hollywood movies. While seemingly not as common now as it was in the 80s, you still get parodies of the concept like "Italian Spiderman." These knock-offs often have the same basic idea as the original but a lower budget and very strange acting choices. Italian rip-offs aren't always bad, though. "A Fistful of Dollars" was pretty much an unauthorized remake of Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" and both are really great, iconic films. This movie is not one of those exceptions. 

If you want the plot, combine "Mad Max" with "Escape From New York" with "The Warriors." In the super futuristic world of 1990, the Bronx has become a gang controlled wasteland that the law can't touch. A girl who is supposed to be 17 but looks about 30, runs away from Manhattan to the Bronx to hide from her inheritance of a sketchy company that controls everything. She meets up with a motorcycle gang and starts dating the head of the gang, Trash, a guy who is only capable of wearing the tightest pants and 70% of a shirt and looks like an Italian Hayden Christensen in face and acting ability. Trash and his collection of hair metal band rejects become involved in a gang war staged to try to get that supposedly teenage girl back to her family. Motorcycle gang teams up with a Rolls Royce gang and they fight other, more evil gangs like the Zombies and a "Mortal Kombat" boss. Eventually, the cops, or a cop gang, shows up and tries to off everyone while the leader of the cops cackles like the villain he is. The ending is unclear.

While this movie had some comically over-the-top moments, a lot of the time we were spacing out and trying to gather the plot afterwards. The dialogue is odd and fixated on butts for some reason, the editing leads to illogical cuts, the aesthetic of the movie is more "Return to Oz" than "Mad Max," and, as can be expected of Iow-budget Italian films, it's strangely dubbed. 

Quotes:
"It could be a pile of shit out of someone's asshole!"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "I agree with everyone else."

Spoon Rating: 3

The Masked Saint [2016]

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

We are continuing to fail in our efforts to acquire "The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah" but we haven't given up hope entirely. Today we had to default to this film after an attempt to watch a different film about Christian time travelers fell through, but this was a solid back up. "The Masked Saint" is based on a true story of a wrestler who's also a preacher and how he tried to turn around a failing church in the Midwest while also beating up dudes on the side. This movie really wants you to know that Jesus and going around punching people are not mutually exclusive and that somehow they can come together for the greater good . . . or something. The message isn't totally clear.

Our main character, whose name I don't remember so I'm just going to call him The Masked Saint, even though that makes him sound both conceited and dead, is a wrestler who gets very injured during a fight with his nemesis who doesn't play by the rules, The Reaper. He takes this as a sign to retire and moves to a nowhere town to try to save the church there. After going door to door and having everyone very reasonably shut him out and a failure of a speech where he said 'faith' twenty times, things start to turn around when he starts sticking up for people like the town battered housewife and the town prostitute. With the help of a black lady lifted from the Stephen King "Magical Black Person" handbook, he remembers his former glory as The Masked Saint and uses this as inspiration for both his church and a side career of vigilante justice. This alienates him from his family and congregation, I guess because fighting bad guys leaves little time for writing sermons. He redeems himself with a cage match against The Reaper where the fighting is planned and televised and therefore more appropriate than stopping criminals. Everyone suddenly likes him again. I'm not totally sure this movie had an arc of any sort; people just feels things and then they don't. 

Overall this movie is pretty amusing. It's got a decent production value and the acting is mostly earnest and not comically exaggerated or poor but the weak writing and the odd premise make for so many strange moments that you will definitely laugh. 

Quotes:

Robber: "Who are you?"
Saint: "The good guy!" *punches him in the face*

Spoon Rating: 5

Beowulf [2007]

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

Blame Kay for this one. The original goal of the evening had been to watch a wildly anti-Semetic Christian movie Sarah heard about on a podcast but, in the absense of the internet, Kay had another suggestion. The possibility of watching "Beowulf" had been a vague threat for years but with the fact that Kay is currently teaching the poem to a bunch of high school seniors it made perfect sense to suck it up and finally watch this beast. Before getting into the plot, it should be noted that one of the absolute worst things about this movie is apparent immediately and actually caused Sarah to stop watching this movie after five minutes when she tried to watch it a few years ago: this movie is animated and it looks terrible. All the characters are made to look like the actors but with dead eyes and a lack of expression. This movie lives in the uncanny valley. It was also clearly made to be 3D so random things are thrown at the screen constantly.

If you've read the poem before, think that times 100 Hollywoods. Hrothgar, king of the Danes, has a slight problem with an unholy demon named Grendel, played by a burnt Crispin Glover, who breaks into his mead hall and eats a bunch of his warriors. Thankfully, Beowulf, the awesomest guy ever oh my god, lives just across the way in Geatland and comes to his aid. He decides to fight Grendel barehanded (and naked for some reason) because GLORY. Unfreth, a hater played by the ultimate hater John Malkovich, is unconvinced. After offing Grendel and proving he's the real deal, Baewulf ventures into Grendel's lair to fight Grendel's mother who for some reason has been reimagined from a hag into a naked, gold-covered Angelina Jolie. They bang so he can make up for killing her son by giving her a new son and she promises a kingdom in return. The terms of the deal are a bit sketchy but he doesn't really think about it until Hrothgar falls comically to his death and he becomes the new king. A few decades later when Beowulf is older but still banging a teenager in addition to Hrothgar's former wife, a dragon attacks who was the result of him banging Grendel's mom. He kills it and dies in the process. Wiglaf, the loyalest bro in history, weeps. 

This movie was very obviously made in a post-"300" world. Beowulf says, "I am Beowulf" at least five times which lead all of us to an "I'm Spartacus!"-like frenzy. It's very silly and will make you cringe if you know the original but it's not without some enjoyable moments once you get past the early Playstation Two graphics and obvious 3D pandering moments.

BMN Quotes:
Unferth: "I don't like the smell of this, my lord."
Keith: "Something's rotten in Denmark."

Quotes:
*Hrothgar blatantly falls off the railing*
"He must have fallen!"

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

Spoon Rating: 4

Chopping Mall [1986]

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

There should have been a movie night on Halloween. There should have been a good movie night actually. Unfortunately, Sarah ended up in the hospital after an allergic reaction and Kay had the flu so no one was ready to party. At least we managed to pick up Bad Movie Night again the week after with "Chopping Mall," a clear winner from the title. In the same way that "The Skateboard Kid" epitomized the 90s aesthetic, this movie WAS the 80s. It was also a ripoff of "Dawn Of The Dead" and "Repo Cop" in the form of waist-high robot mall cops that are about as intimidating as a dalek wearing a flower crown.

A new mall, 80s church, has a great solution to the problem of shoplifters: a crew of robots that will stun anyone who doesn't flash a valid employee ID. There's no way this could go wrong, right? After hours, a quadruple date goes on that involves the three of the four established couples having sex in display beds while the two people on a blind date watched "Attack of the Crab Monsters." Since we have fairly recently watched "Attack of the Crab Monsters," we immediately predicted the rest of the movie to follow a similar pattern to that one. Somehow a thunder storm causes the robots to become killing machines and they go after the fornicators. The least likable couple dies first: dude gets his throat destroyed, girl gets her head blown up. Then comes the stupid couple. The survivors confuse the robots with mannequins but it doesn't solve everything. The married couple dies heroically since they weren't sinning as much. The final girl sets the last robot on fire and the bad movie watchers come out alive. As well they should.

Overall this movie is very silly and adheres very strictly to the three act formula but the actual worst thing about it: no chopping. None whatsoever. These robots shoot lasers and pinch but they don't ever chop. 

Spoon Rating: 3

Pumpkinhead [1988]

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

 

Tonight marked the epic return of Randy. Not Pumpkinhead. We've actually never watched it on Bad Movie Night before. But original BMN member, Randy, decided that if he was going to come back, he was going to need to bring something especially awful and he definitely succeeded. Directed by special effects master Stan Winston, this film had a guarantee of quality . . . in the field of special effects. The rubber suit was quality. The rest of the film was not. How this film became a cult classic that spawned many sequels (and a comic book?!) is kind of a mystery. Most of the time a good horror movie is made and then shoddy sequels follow. It should also be noted that Randy bought this movie at Walmart and that it was the "Special Collector's Edition." Why someone would want to collect a special edition of this movie is beyond any of our comprehensions.

In an American South filled with redneck gypsies and where the outside is very blue and the inside is very orange, there lives a man and his tiny son. The son gets killed in a tragic dirt bike accident and the father decides to foolishly take revenge on the yuppies who ran him over.He does this by visiting a scary demon in the words who tells him to dig up the grave of a slightly less scary demon that will take revenge for him. Some magic is done and now the fates of Pumpkinhead (the lesser demon) and the man are entwined. All this backstory feels like it takes up a full hour of the film. Pumpkinhead goes on a killing massacre of the yuppies that takes him through the hollowed out remains of a church ad up trees. There's a comical amount of head grabbing in this movie: from the dad grabbing his son's head, to the yuppie boys grabbing the yuppie girls' heads to try to comfort them, to Pumpkinhead grabbing heads as a means of stealing people (maybe he wants a normal one). Ultimately the man realizes that revenge is bad and allows himself to be killed so that Pumpkinhead can die as well. The end shows the demon lady burying the corpse of the man in Pumpkinhead's pedestal-shaped grave in the pumpkin patch, setting up for an infinite amount of sequels.

Quotes:

"We have to go back to look for Steve!"

"We don't know what's out there!"

"STEVE IS OUT THERE!"

Spoon Rating: 3.5

REWATCH: Death Bed: The Bed That Eats [1977]

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

We watched this classic, "Death Bed: The Bed That Eats," for the first time almost three years ago and we still can't seem to follow the back story of how this bed came to be evil. According to Wikipedia, most reliable of sources, "Long ago, a demon fell in love with a woman and conjured up a bed on which to make love to her. The woman died during the act, and, in his grief, the demon wept tears of blood which fell on the bed and caused it to come to life. While the demon rests, the bed's evil is contained, but once every ten years, the demon wakes, giving the bed the power to physically eat human beings." Okay. The bed also moans, eats, boozes up, and is best friends with a consumptive wall hostage from the 1800s who he spared from death so he could suffer eternally. The film is divided up into four parts: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Just Desserts, obviously. It is madness and worth every second of the hour and 17 minutes you will spend watching it. Read the original review here.

Also in the original review we tried to come up with as many death bed puns as possible. Because we did such a thorough job last time we only have a few more:

• Death Bed: Fitted For A King
• Death Bed: Bed, Death, and Beyond

"Death Bed: Making The Bed" is still a crowd favorite.

Quote (and new BMN motto): "You're nothing if you're not grotesque."

Spoon Rating: 7.5

REWATCH: Troll 2 [1990]

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

"Troll 2" is a masterpiece of bad movies. I can't even fully explain it all in a post. From the fact that there isn't a single troll in the movie, to the forced acting and extravagant overacting, to the odd script, to the weird fact that plants are evil, to the lack of ending and so much more, it's hard to pick a favorite thing.

Some things that happen:
* A kid hallucinates his dead grandpa who at one point appears in the mirror of his sister's room by accident.
* The sister's boyfriend is clearly banging his friends in a trailer after they stalked her on her family vacation.
* The family vacation her dad picked is to go to a town of 65 people and do a house exchange. The town is called Nilbog. Spell it backwards.
* The locals are not quirky. They are goblins in people suits.
* They also want you to eat their weird green food so you turn into a plant that they can eat.
* Speaking of: "They're eating her! . . . And then they're going to eat me! . . . OH MY GOOOOOOOODDD!"
* One of the boyfriend's friends gets defeated by a baloney sandwich given to him by Sherrif Gene Freak. Such a trustworthy name!
* Two of the friends end up in a church that is now the home of the Goblin Queen (way less awesome than the Goblin King, of course). She's melodramatic, some sort of fakey Druid, and uses a magic spell to get hot so she can seduce the third friend. They eat a corncob together and makeout in a sea of popcorn. This scene is never explained but it's very corny.
* At one point the kid pees all over goblin food to save his family and his dad lectures him about how he, "can't piss on hospitality!"
* The movie actually uses the line: "Only the power of goodness can destroy these monsters."
* But it doesn't totally work because the goblins also poisoned their food at their house and the mom turns into goblin food.
* Cliffhanger! 
* I don't think there's a "Troll 3."
* Were there actual trolls in "Troll"?

Other Quotes:
"You're human!"
"Very human. Wanna see?"

Adam's Grandma's Review: "Kinda good, kinda bad."

Spoon Rating: 8.5

Attack Of The Crab Monsters [1957]

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

Often movies in which something attacks are pretty straightforward. There are usually scientists of some sort alongside blue collar workers who notice something strange, that something strange is some kind of anomaly of nature, that strange thing goes on a rampage, and then the scientists kill the thing usually with fire or electricity. "Attack of the Crab Monsters" follows this formula pretty closely and was ultimately unexciting enough that we started watching it at 1.25x speed even though it was only a hour anyway but there were a few really unique parts to it:
* Part of the plot involves a ravine suddenly appearing where there was no ravine before. I can't be sure whether this had anything to do with the story in particular by the scientists talked about it a fair amount.
* Two guys play poker where they use sticks of dynamite as betting chips. They were smoking cigarettes the whole time.
* A guy loses his hand and somehow immediately dies from this.
* Whenever someone gets eaten by one of the giant crabs, they are absorbed into the crab collective hive mind and can somehow communicate telepathically with humans. They use this skill to lure the protagonists into their caves.
* The crabs have human eyes which are hilarious on the one hand and a horrifying abomination on the other hand.

BMN Quotes:
Adam: "He got crabs."
Sarah: "Usually a round of antibiotics will clear that up."

Spoon Rating: 3

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

Abunai Sisters [2009]

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

Boobs. And total nonsense. Mostly boobs though and the show wants you to know that.

Spoon Rating: 6

Adam's Grandma's Review: "That was cute."

Repo Jake [1990]

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

Sometimes movies can be so underground there isn't even a Wikipedia page for them. While this is often a good thing in terms of us being fully aware that the movie is low quality before we even start watching it, it can become a real problem when your designated plot follower falls asleep in the middle of the movie and then can't relate the plot to you when the rest of the crew inevitably gets distracted and confused. Such is what happened on this night and it will be my struggle to try to recall what was happening in this film with only one anonymously written IMDb summary for assistance.

That IMDb summary goes like this, "Jake Baxter takes a job as a repoman with hopes of living the quiet life. Plans go sour when he's whipped into supersonic action, involving a vicious crime lord, a mob of angry car owners, a sadistic porno ring and lastly a brutal, illegal and very lethal car race known throughout L.A.'s underworld as the Slam Track." Let's break that down because it is not nearly as interesting as that summary makes it sound. This dude from Minnesota moves to LA to work as a repo man and somehow thinks this will be a nice, quiet change from his surely fast-paced life in the Midwest. Right. Okay. In his first twenty minutes in the city, he beats up a mugger and throws him through the same glass windows twice. The woman who was mugged helps him find an apartment in her building and they get into a relationship in spite of the fact that he never stays through an entire date with her without running off somewhere for no reason. People get mad at him for repossessing cars, the repo men joke around, there's a porn ring (clarification: they are sadistic and make porn; they do not make sadistic porn) who also dabbles in pimping and drugs, and in the end Jake must win a race because a bunch of evil people have bet on him to win. He throws the race for no explainable reason and just solves the conflicts by beating up the bad guys and throwing a party with his coworkers.I'm not entirely sure if this movie was hard to follow because we were all kind of bored or if it was just so nonsensically written and edited that trying to follow the plot was utterly pointless. At least the unnecessary porn ring scenes gave us some good lines.

Quotes:
"Why are they in bikinis?"
"It says so in the script."
"These girls can't read!"

"They're fucking and they're sucking the shit out of each other."

BMN Quotes:
Jake: "Then my wife got sick."
Adam: "So God repoed her."

Spoon Rating: 3

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

HIgh School Musical 3: Senior Year [2008]

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

So if "High School Musical" is your standard clumsy, clueless, and formulaic Disney Channel Original Movie and "High School Musical 2" is the first movie with the crazy turned all the way up, "High School Musical 3" is what happens when the crazy meter has exploded from Zac Efron's golf course dance and all you have left are references to other musicals and overdoses of meta and earnestness. This movie tried really, really hard to be a real movie. The movie was shown in theaters instead of just on the Disney channel. The budget progressed from 7 million to 11 million but all of that extra money seemed to go into sets and costumes because the overall quality really did not increase. The plot was thin, perhaps even thinner than the previous movies, and while the music seemed to have more instruments, it didn't get any better. As for the choreography, it seemed to get more elaborate and lengthy but I wouldn't call this an improvement so much as a feature.

The gang is now in their senior year and are going to put on a musical extravaganza to celebrate. Sharpay has become the antagonist again because she . . . wants to star in the show? Probably. Either way she has an assistant now with the fakest British accent ever who wants to usurp her as the main singer and antagonist. Meanwhile in subplots A and B, Gabriella got into Stanford with early orientation (what?) and Troy is expected to go to the University of Albuquerque like his dad. However, Troy has also had someone apply to Julliard for him and some reps are coming to the show because this movie has no idea how college applications, auditions, or talent works. The movie meanders through existential dread and many music numbers that make pretty blatant references to "A Chorus Line," "Grease," and anything Fosse. There's a scene where Troy drives to the empty school during a thunder storm, which Kay immediately foresaw as the inevitable "Footloose" reference, and he sings and dances his way through his river of emotions. In spite of all high school film conventions, this movie SKIPS prom because it's too busy with music numbers and weird costumes (Adam on one of Ryan's outfits: "What is he wearing? Is he going to go catch butterflies in Germany?"). So little is happening that we formulated a theory that Gabriella is wearing so many empire waist dresses that she's hiding a secret pregnancy and got really into this backstory. They even introduced a throwaway clueless side character who does nothing. After plenty of non-action, there's the final show where we find out that Troy is going to Berkley to be closer to Gabriella and the graduation where Troy gives a speech (why?) where we mentions that they're all in this together. The show ends with an eerie gospal-y cover of "All In This Together" and the background turning into a stage behind the main characters. It was in that moment that we realized something: it was all an act. "High School Musical" is not just an unrealistic portrayl of high school but it is a performance of high school. Nothing was ever meant to resemble reality because it was all part of a show within a show. Even the freeze frame we got near the end ended after a few seconds as if we were in some kind of film-based version of Brechtian epic theater and we were supposed to see the separation and reflect only on the lessons and not all the artiface like the huge sets and the bland pop songs and the thin plot.

Someone tried to add depth to "High School Musical"

I need to lie down.

Quotes:
Sharpay: "How can you think about food at a time like this?"
Ryan: "It's lunchtime."

Sharpay: "I heard Kelsi is writing something amazing for Troy and Gabriella." 
Ryan: "A song, most likely."

Spoon Rating: 5

High School Musical 2 [2007]

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

Keith: “What are we watching tonight”

Adam: “High School Musical . . . 2.”

Keith: “Nooooo! I have to leave. I have things to do.”

In spite of Keith’s initial reluctance because of his hatred of “High School Musical” last week, he and the rest of us were all pleasantly surprised to see that “High School Musical 2” is actually much worse than the first one and much funnier. This movie took everything that was strange about the first movie (the use of musical conventions, the plot, the dancing, the everything) and made it a lot stranger and more unrealistic which ended up making it a lot more tolerable to watch as a bad movie.

The movie starts in drama class as the clock is ticking down to summer where we have a huge opening dance number that is this movie’s rip-off of the ending song of “Grease.” Everything seems harmonious at East High. They’re still apparently all in this together until it’s clear that Sharpay still has an evil plan to get Troy and win a stake-less talent show at the country club her parents own. She is also now a full on Paris Hilton wannabe. She convinces the management of the club to hire Troy and they end up having to hire everyone because Troy apparently can’t work without his 20 closest friends. Troy and Gabriella, in spite of probably having dated since the last movie, still haven’t kissed and a lot of the movie is a long journey to that moment. The piano girl, who is weirdly invested in their relationship or possibly in being their third, writes them a song that they could sing in the talent show but Troy still insists that he can’t sing in spite of presumably staring in the school musical somewhere in that span of time in between movies. Sharpie doesn’t like any of this so she alienates her brother and creates ways to spend more time with Troy like having him caddy for her father while they play golf (Adam: “Couldn’t they have been playing a whiter sport like squash”). She gets him promoted and has Daddy introduce him to a bunch of college basketball players and all this preferential treatment turns Troy into a jerk who doesn’t show up to dates or staff events. He has a few heart-to-hearts with his dad where a basketball is always comically present. At one point Troy says he doesn't know who he is anymore and his dad hands him a picture of himself in uniform that he just had in his room. While Troy is rehearsing talent show stuff with Shurple and her taffeta-crapping skirt, Ryan is hanging with the plebeians and having so much sexual tension with Chad that they changed clothes in between scenes (presumably after sexing). After having a Michael Jackson dance outburst on a golf course, Troy comes back to who he was and romantic music plays while he apologizes to Chad even though Chad is dating Ryan. Gabriella, who had left the club in disgust with Troy, comes back during the talent show and everyone is in this together again. Until the next movie, I’d bet.

This movie was nuts. It’s hard to believe that this movie probably had a much larger budget than the first one because of the surprise success of the first. The music was probably a bit less generic than the music in the first but in all the wrong ways. The kiss plot was comical considering they’re in high school. Everyone’s reluctance to admit they can dance and sing in spite of constantly dancing and singing feels like some kind of surrealist performance art. But overall, this movie really succeeds in how the campiness has been turned up to eleven with no apologies given. You do you, HSM!

Quotes:

Sharpay: “Ugh, Ryan, speak to mother!”

Ryan: “Hi, Mommy!”

Sharpay: *looks at lone drummer in an empty room* “Give me a beat!” *struts out*

BMN Commentary:

Troy: “Listen.” *coyotes howling*

Adam: “Coyotes. They’ll eat our flesh.”

Fulton: (to Troy) “It would seem the Evans family thinks you have untapped potential.”

Adam: “And they wanna tap that.”

Keith: He has a picture of himself in his room. 

Adam: He and Sharpay have more in common than we thought.

Spoon Rating: 7

Adam’s Grandma’s Review: “Nice. Lot of dancing.”

High School Musical [2006]

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

I'm sure there are many who would immediately object to the idea that "High School Musical" was watched at Bad Movie Night but it is also clear that there are a lot of people who see this movie through such strong nostalgia goggles that they somehow missed that it's awful. Disney Channel Original movies have never been the pinnacle of quality (except "Brink"; do not diss "Brink" around us) but there's something especially terrible about this movie. From the loose "Romeo & Juliet" premise, to the cheesy, generic pop songs, to the conflicts that go nowhere, this movie was made in a factory and it was only by a bizarre wave of popularity that it spawned two sequels, which we will also be watching.

The plot revolves around Troy and Gabriella, two teens who meet at a ski resort over Christmas break and are forced into singing karaoke only to find that they both like singing and each other. When break ends, it turns out that Gabriella has moved to Troy's school by random chance but they can't be friends because they live in a dystopia teen novel where everyone can only have one interest but drugs, sex, and violence do not exist. In spite of Troy loving basketball and Gabriella loving science, they end up lowkey trying out for the school musical (with a song so bland we had to pause the movie to make sure it wasn't the song from the karaoke scene) and get listed among the callbacks, causing the school to go into turmoil. Sharpey and Ryan, twins who stars in all the school's productions, are out to destroy them . . . somehow, and the other students all start confessing that they (*gasp*) like more than one thing. A really strange dance and song situation occurs where they sing about "sticking to the status quo" because I guess the school's secret police will arrest them otherwise for unspecified crimes against The Institutation. Competing for the antagonist roles are Troy and Gabriella's best friends who at exactly two-thirds of the way through this exactly one hour and thirty minute movie, try to tear them apart. Things are resolved quickly after Gabriella sings this movie's "Hopelessly Devoted to You." But, oh no, the twins get the basketball championship, scholastic decatholan, and musical auditions moved to the same day to try to sabotage Troy and Gabriella! It doesn't work. They sing and everyone loves them and then the twins have a complete 180 and support them. They all change into school colors and do a silly dance number about how "they're all in this together." I suffer.

Next week will be "High School Musical 2" where I have a feeling they will no longer all be in this together for the sake of contrived conflict (and because they didn't realize there was going to be a sequel when they made the first one).

Spoon Rating: 5

The Skateboard Kid [1993]

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

It has been mentioned before that the majority of the Bad Movie Night crew consists of millenials: born in the late 80s, once 90s kids, and now sad 20-somethings. As such, we are amused by anything that is a movie time capsule of the 90s; anything that was completely topical when it was made but is now a hilarious product of its time. Enter "The Skateboard Kid," a movie whose title alone places it right where we were expecting. I took so many notes on this movie that I decided to just make some of them into a 90s Bingo game rather than comment on every little silly 90s thing that happens in the film. 

The plot of "Skateboard Kid" is exactly what you want from a 90s movie. A kid who likes to skateboard moves to a new town with his dad because his dad got a job running a really crappy television station. Skateboard Kid doesn't get along with the other skateboarders in town, particularly Eddie Vedder Wannabe Ponytail Guy who is the son of a crooked used car salesman. Ponytail breaks Skateboard Kid's skateboard and he ends up getting another one for free from a nice lady who runs a pawn shop who he helped fudge some bills for (and whose bill collector he made eat a goldfish; this doesn't make more sense in context). This skateboard belonged to a magican in the 70s and after he pimps it out with a motor and lights, lightning strikes and the board comes to life. Pawn Shop lady and her daughter come over for dinner and there is a clear love triangle between SK's dad, Pawn Shop lady, and crooked salesman who blackmail Pawn Shop lady into marrying him because she has a treasure map or something and she needs money to pay for her house and her daughter's heart surgery. Meanwhile Skateboard Kid is . . . trying to help by flying around on the skateboard and ripping off the silhouette on the moon scene from "ET." At one point the skateboard breaks so Skateboard Kid makes a sail out of his flannel shirt and rides his only friend's corpse to stop the wedding. Pawn Shop lady delivers a solid not joke ("I do . . . NOT!") and the treasure is found. Presumably SK's dad and Pawn Shop lady get married and everyone lives happily ever after but the last few minutes of our copy of the movie cut off so we can't be sure.

I can't for the life of me figure out who this movie is supposed to be for. The skateboarding seems like it should appeal to teens but the movie is completely for young kids. It's low budget, the acting is often bizarre, the special effects on the skateboard are nightmare-ish, and the plot is just so conventional and dry that we were really thankful for all the other things that kept us laughing. It wasn't very radical, tubular, or x-treme, but it was a better use of our time than a lot of the films we have seen lately.

Play some 90s Bingo!

Quote:
"If that kid gets anywhere near Maggie Mills, you're an organ donor!"

Spoon Rating: 6

Grandma's Review: "It was good."