Surfing For Seniors [1997], How To Be Cool At Parties [1986], & It Ain't Worth It [1986]

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

It was a triple feature last night courtesy of our favorite YouTube channel, Occult Demon Cassette. It has been a while since we filled our evening with instructional video nonsense of the VHS era. We went through a few rounds of voting to determine what we should waste our time with and ended up with three very different selections: "Surfing For Seniors," a late-90s guide to using the internet for the elderly, "How To Be Cool At Parties," a children's video about how to be the most annoying person at a party, and "It Ain't Worth It," an abstinence-only video that uses athletes and a rap video to try to convince you to stay celibate.

"Surfing For Seniors" took an approach of teaching that assumed the elderly person watching has never used a computer in any way and made many bizarre analogies to try to explain how to navigate the hardware including referring to the mouse as a hot potato to indicate that you need to use a light touch. It also compared email to the pony express instead of, you know, the mail. We had some fun reading the weird icons on the desktop and laughing at the narration but overall we gave it a Spoon Rating of 4.

"How To Be Cool At Parties" is a video explicitly designed to teach you had to do the exact opposite. Perhaps the real indicator in the title is the fact that it starts with the phrase "show off" which is what you will actually become, and not the impressive kind. In the video, a bunch of people in their 30s and 40s (and Malcolm Jamal-Warner) show you how to do really basic magic tricks, make annoying noises with your nose, and act like you are walking down stairs or slamming your face in a door. They will frequently do the unimpressive thing and then stop to let you know how they did it. There was also a dash of cultural insensitivity on top of that, which reminded us that we as a society have gotten better. The whole thing was incredibly awkward and we got a lot of laughs so we gave it a Spoon Rating of 7.

"It Ain't Worth It" actually looks like something the millennials in the group might have watched in middle school health class, but only because our school frequently showed us 15 year old videos that we found hilarious. The main appeal of the video appears to be the fact that there are athletes in the video, but they are each in the video for a second to deliver a short message. Mostly it's a tall man in a chair that's too small for him talking about waiting until marriage in between teens talking about why they're celibate and a doctor who provides blatantly false facts about STDs, pregnancy, and the effectiveness of condoms, debunked by Sarah, our medical professional. There was also a really bad rap music video because this film was down with the youths. The Spoon Rating on this was a point of contention among the crew. Kay and Erik both thought it was worth watching and gave it a 5, while Adam thought it was more of a 4. We settled on a 4.5.

Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior [2006]

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

We've had overall mixed results when it comes to Disney Channel Original Movies. "High School Musical 2" and "Descendants 2" were both rewatch quality but for every one of those we have something like "Starstruck," not very good and ultimately forgettable. Adam, in spite of being so amused by the concept of the movie that he put it on his watch list, was sure this one would be of the latter sort but he got out-voted by Kay, Sarah, and Erik so it was our feature for the evening. We were all pleasantly surprised.

The film follows Wendy Wu, a girl who only cares about being elected homecoming queen and knows absolutely nothing about her Chinese heritage. All of that changes when a monk comes looking for her because she is the reincarnation of some female warrior who is destined to defeat a demon that was being contained in an artifact Wendy's mom acquired for a museum exhibit. Wendy's mom, in spite of the fact that she works for a museum, also knows nothing about China. The demon inhabits random people while the monk, Shen, and Wendy go on adventures like shopping for Shen's new wardrobe and training montages. Eventually, the family all gets in touch with their heritage and eats a lot of moon cakes. In the final showdown, the demon infests Wendy's homecoming rival who gets an amazingly silly demon voice and they fight to the death. Shen, who was destined to die in the final battle, is saved by Wendy, proving that you can change your destiny. Wendy abdicates the homecoming crown to her rival even though that's not how high school royalty works.

Most of the joy in this movie comes from the demon girl but there are some decent laughs throughout. The over-the-top Disney acting is really quality in this one. Have a night of it. Eat a moon cake.

Spoon Rating: 6

REWATCH: The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah [2014]

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

Last night we watched the classic antisemitic Christian film about Messianic Jews (I know, it's a stiff competition) called "The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah." It's been a few years since we watched it, but, it was just as over-the-top, offensive, and queer-coded as we remembered.

Read the original review here.