Monday, December 28, 2020

Mommie Dearest [1981]

After seeing a bunch of clips of "Mommie Dearest" in "You Don't Nomi" we decided we had to watch it. This movie is famous for its level of melodrama and this did provide a fair amount of laughs. The downside of this movie is that in between the wild moments, the movie is a little flat. There's pretty consistent strange acting that is probably best described as "soap opera acting", but it doesn't always keep you engaged and laughing.

The movie is about Joan Crawford, specifically through the lens of her adopted daughter Christina, and their tumultuous relationship. When the cameras are rolling Joan is a loving mother and Christina is as alarmingly obedient as a child in a horror movie. Outside of that Joan routinely flies off the handle and often takes it out on her daughter. She loses her contract with MGM and hacks up the garden in a way that made us wonder if she was going to hack her kids next. She goes into Christina's closet and flips out when she finds a wire hanger that she then uses as a switch it whip her with. Her son Christopher is mostly shown tied to a bed without further explanation during the childhood years and then disappears from the film until the very end. Even when Christina gets older, she gets shipped off to boarding school (seemingly for interrupting her mother flirting with a guy), then taken out of boarding school by her mother for making out with a guy and sent to a convent school. As an adult, Joan chokes her out at one point for not doing an interview perfectly, and when Christina is in the hospital with cancer, Joan decides to replace her on the soap opera she's on in a wild move. The film ends with Joan dying and her children getting nothing in the will but the last word, implying the biography that Christina will write. Overall, the relationship is really hard to draw conclusions about other than it's really really unhealthy.

With this movie it's tempting to say just to watch a highlight reel, but the problem with a highlight reel is that it would likely take away from how absolutely random the really insane parts are. Even parts that aren't about Joan flipping out sometimes get elevated in a comical way just because of her tendency to bellow things rather than say them. It's worth it to watch the movie once, but you have to be prepared for parts of it to feel a bit drawn out.

Spoon Rating: 5

Monday, December 21, 2020

Wabuu: The Cheeky Raccoon [1996] & The Secret Of The Hunchback [1996] & A Recipe For Seduction [2020]

In a surely desired sequel to the Dingo Pictures Pocahontas, we started the evening with Wabuu: The Cheeky Raccoon, about Pocahontas' raccoon friend who hops and laughs by shaking alarmingly. The German-singing raccoon wants to capture the sun to save it for a rainy day but then instead goes on some puckish Tom Sawyer hijinks. In the end, he makes a nice picnic for all the animals but put sneezing powder or something on it. We've decided he's a primordial chaos god. The movie has all the Dingo Pictures staples like bad animation, bad acting with strange pronunciations*, poorly timed voiceover, thin plot, and an eerie twanging circus background music that repeats throughout the entire thing. The bonuses from this one are that it's shorter at 30 minutes and has such inclusions as Wabuu getting accused of child murder and a character saying, "Shit."
*Someone said they had to get their shuffle (shovel) from their gay rahge (garage).
Spoon Rating:  7

The Secret of the Hunchback
, our latest entry in the ongoing Hunchbackening (Hunchback's back, all right), has a similar formula to one we saw before: a clear Beauty And The Beast design retrofitted into a Hunchback movie. Esmerelda looks like Belle and sings a song about "wanting something more than this." Frollo is a high sheriff Gaston ripoff with a Jafar voice and a LaFou-esque sidekick. Instead of Frollo, Quasi has two gay priest dads. Uncomfortably buff gargoyles come to life and sing him an inspiration jazz song about how what counts is on the inside. Instead of Phoebus, we have Pierre, which honestly feels like less of a stretch for a romantic lead and I don't know why we don't see more Hunchback adaptions making this choice instead. Pierre saves her from her captivity under the gypsies who gave her to Frollo and they sing a lame love song in the forest that was a ripoff of "Once Upon A Dream" from Sleeping Beauty. Frollo kidnaps Quasi's archdeacon dad to make him marry Frollo to Esmerelda. Frollo also fights with a belt in addition to a sword. He dies by knocking over a gargoyle with it that crushes him to death. Quasi falls to his death but wings sprout out of his hump and he flies away. It was insane but Sarah predicted it. For some fun inaccuracies, we have a joke about Protestantism, a pronunciation of Notre Dame like the college, and cowboys hats. Remember: this is meant to be the 15th century.
It has higher production values than a couples of the ones we've seen but where it really shines is in how wildly odd the story is and how much it borrows from Disney movies.
Quote: I've got a HUNCH we won't be seeing him anymore.
Spoon Rating: 7

We made Hunchback Bingo for our next one:

Lastly, we watched the already well known A Recipe For Seduction, a short Lifetime movie funded by Kentucky Fried Chicken with a sexy Colonel Sanders. It's only 15 minutes, which is kind of the ideal length since you get all the exciting parts without any of the drag. A rich girl falls for her family chef who wants to change the world with his special chicken recipe. Her jilted fiancé and her mom who's banging him decide to take out the chicken man, but he's rescued by the rich girl's gay best friend. Mom and fiancé go to a mental institution while rich girl and Sexy Sanders get married.
Spoon Rating: No spoons. Too corporate. Eat with your hands.

SPECIAL: Doombox Commercial

 This commercial for a better mousetrap ominously but appropriately called Doombox is one of the most unselfaware, morbid, and fascinating we've ever seen. This kind of tonal strangeness is often the essence of a truly enjoyable bad movie and this commercial viewed 33 times as of this post (three of those being Adam) is an experience you must have.



Monday, December 14, 2020

Pocahontas (Dingo Pictures) [1995]

Because Dingo Pictures has been an absolute joy the last two times we watched movies from them. This time they ripped off "Pocahontas." It is both the 1600s and the 1800s as they reference Queen Victoria and have cowboys and old west towns. It's also Virginia but also the plains since the Native Americans have teepees but also the southwest as Monument Valley and cacti are there. 

The plot is basically the same as the Disney movie but replace Grandmother Willow with a disturbing bush and fill the imperialist ship with an Italian chef, his very racist caricature Asian sous chef, Aladdin, and a cat who has an alarmingly sensual voice. As usually, the animation is ugly and bad, the voice acting is sometimes unintelligible and always weird, and the editing is slap dash.

We'll be watching more next week.

Spoon Rating: 7.5

Monday, December 7, 2020

Stayin' Alive [1983]


So we're never watching another John Travolta movie at Bad Movie Night. After "Urban Cowboy," it was unlikely anyway, but now we know to avoid. The only reason we watched this today anyway was because we didn't realize "Mommie Dearest" was almost three hours long. The regret is strong but at least now every time we see this on a bad movie list, we can check it off and tell you it's not worth it.

Did this movie have a plot? Hard to say since most of the time we couldn't tell where we were in a narrative arc. John Travolta is not a good person, sleeps with some lead dancer chick in spite of his girlfriend, gets the lead in a ballet/play/thing called Satan's Alley and the last fourth of the movie or so is just the performance. There are a LOT of montages and terrible 80s costumes and a whole lot of nothing for nearly two hours. You don't need to see "Saturday Night Fever" for this to make sense. Just don't watch it. Problem solved.

Spoon Rating: 2

Sunday, December 6, 2020

SPECIAL: You Don't Nomi [2020]

Last Monday we watched the documentary "You Don't Nomi," about one of our favorites "Showgirls." The documentary highlights the legacy of the movie, gives a lot of background on the players and creators, and also features the variety of critical opinions on the film both from the time and in the years since it has attained even greater cult status. In a way, the film shows how people get completely different things from a piece of media, while also giving us different lenses through which to see the film. 

If you're also a fan, we're recommend it.