Tuesday, December 26, 2017

NEWS: Black Christmas [1974]

Okay, the news title is a bit of a lie. Although there kind of is news. "Black Christmas" is not a blaxsplotation movie like Adam thought but actually a really decent pre-"Halloween" slasher movie that was the first to use the "the call is coming from inside the house" plot twist. We haven't made the mistake of watching a good movie at bad movie night since "Inhuman Resources" so it was about time. We even checked to see if there is a blaxsplotation movie with the same title and there wasn't. There was a remake of "Black Christmas" in 2006 that is probably garbage though so maybe we will watch that at some point.

Oh well. Happy holidays!

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

REWATCH: The Room [2003]

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

Adam's sister Leah and future brother-in-law Matt were at Bad Movie Night and we were horrified to find that they had never seen "The Room." Obviously we had to fix this problem so we got a football and ordered a pizza that was half Canadian bacon and pineapple, half artichoke and pesto light on the cheese and gave them the best movie going experience ever. 

You can read many other "The Room" related things by clicking on the "the room" tag below this post.

I'm completed serious about the pizza:
We were a house divided on opinions. Keith and Kay both thought the artichoke and pesto side was pretty good. Adam thought it was awful but liked the bacon and pineapple. Also, they wouldn't put the pesto on for us because it would mix with the tomato sauce on the other half so we had to put it on manually. This explains why in the movie they just have a plain cheese.

There was no scotchka involved.

Friday, December 15, 2017

SPECIAL: The Disaster Artist [2017]

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


Bad Movie Night went to the movies! It has been a while since we have gone to an actual theater to see a movie, but this time it wasn't a bad one. "The Disaster Artist" is a film based on the book written by Greg Sestero about the making of "The Room." I did a review of the book three years ago that you can read here. Like the book, the film was really worth your time, especially if you are a fan of "The Room."

The film centers around the friendship between two struggling actors: Greg Sestero, who is seen as young and with potential, and Tommy Wiseau, a man of indeterminate age, origin, and sanity level, and seemingly bottomless wealth. In their joint attempt at finding success in L.A., Tommy gets the idea to write, direct, and star in a film with Greg, which ends up being "The Room." The shooting of the film is fraught with issues from arguments between Tommy and the crew, to scheduling problems, to a lack of air conditioning that leads to one of the actresses passing out. All the while, Tommy and Greg's relationship is strained as Greg gets acting jobs and wants to move in with his girlfriend, which doesn't jive with the overly clingy Tommy. The film culminates in the premiere of the movie where the actors and crew are appalled to see how bad the film is. Soon shock turns to laughter which brightens the experience for everyone except Tommy, until Greg conveys to him that they really do love it, even if they don't love it in the way Tommy intended.

This film is a great example of a "good story, well told." Sometimes with films based off real events, it can be hard to tell the difference between a "good story" and a "good story, well told" and seemingly any story on "The Room" and Tommy Wiseau would be a decent watch because the real story is so compelling. What helps me to make this distinction is probably the fact that I know so much about the actual history from reading the book. Things were changed from Greg's original account, but each change was cleverly made in the name of making a more coherent film. For example, the acceptance of "The Room" as a delightful bad movie was not something that started at the premiere but something that happened gradually over time. Making this change for a visual medium creates more narrative coherency for an unfamiliar audience.

In addition to the script, the acting was startling. James Franco's Tommy impression is spot on and kind of outshines all the other amazing actors but everyone deserves props. As a special bonus at the end of the film, they showed scenes from "The Room" side by side with the actors from "The Disaster Artist" performing the same scenes and they were practically indistinguishable.

So go see it. If you are a fan of "The Room" or bad movies, it is a must. If you just like good movies, go watch it. But if you are unfamiliar with "The Room," do yourself a favor and watch the original masterpiece first.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Suburban Sasquatch [2004]

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

This movie has a combo pack of things that will immediately make us laugh: terrible monster costume + terrible computer generated images. This movie is basically a blend of "Birdemic" and "Zaat" in terms of those features, but it also has that made-in-someone's-suburb-with-a-cheap-handheld quality that is verified at the end of the movie by a sea of credits featuring the same three names over and over again with the rest of the crew made up of people in the director's immediate family. Add in some bad lighting effects and some cultural ignorance and you have "Suburban Sasquatch," a movie whose title tells you everything you need to know about the quality.

The plot centers around a journalist trying to write a story about this sasquatch (who looks nothing like the movie cover; he's more a man in a gorilla suit that has genitalia??) that is terrorizing a town in Pennsylvania. He teams up with a "Native American warrior" girl whose destiny is to kill the sasquatch as her tribe has been keeping the 'squatch population under control for centuries.  She lives in a tent in the woods and seems to be able to see through the eyes of a eagle because it's her spirit animal. The film spends a lot of time introducing random people to become victims. At one point squatchy tears a dog in two that is a stuffed animal that looks nothing like the original dog. There's a lot of utilization of fake limbs and CGI. There are CGI arrows, blood, birds (of "Birdemic" quality), and night time. Most of the movie is the two mains running through the woods, which is better than the victims who mostly just stay where they are and scream until they die. I can't remember the ending and the internet can't help me here either unless I want to watch a video about it. I'm gonna guess the squatchster is dead.

This one is worth your time.

Quotes:

"This game is going to get us killed and I don't know if I can live with that."

"This isn't your run-of-the-mill sasquatch."

Spoon Rating: 8