Nick Fury: Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. [1998]

If you think Sam Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury in the Marvel movies is too restrained and subtle, have I got a movie for you. Hilariously, even though Hasselhoff is the lead and he isn't known for chill, they definitely tried to balance out the cast with a bunch of scenery-munchers that are here for a good time, if not a long time. This film was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a television that never got off the ground, but at least we'll always have this.

The plot is a pretty standard good versus evil situation, specifically SHIELD versus Hydra. On the SHIELD side we have The Hoff, a woman with the most 90s makeup you could imagine and is also his love interest, a British man who speaks mostly in stereotypical slang, and another woman who can read minds but like, not well. On the Hydra side we have a psychotic blonde lady with an extensive wardrobe budget so she can dress like the villain she is, her brother she's a smidge too close to, and the frozen corpse of her dad.  Hydra wants to unite the terrorists (I'm sure there will be no ideological issues here) and release a dangerous toxin on all of New York City. SHIELD gotta stop it. They do.

While the plot is thin, the acting is aces. It's no surprise why this didn't make for a compelling potential show, but it'll make for a fun evening.

Spoon Rating: 5

REWATCH: Samurai Cop [1991]

Last Monday we rewatched the legendary Samurai Cop with Adam's nibling, Ash, and three-year-old Jade who actually did a good job of watching quietly. It's a film for kids and adults, I guess.

Read my original review here.

Da Hip Hop Witch [2000]

You can tell from the title that this is going to be something special. This parody of The Blair Witch Project was made on a budget of a couple blunts and features a bunch of musicians most famously Eminem, Ja Rule (known for good films), and the "Graduation" singer Vitamin C. It does have a slight semblance of plot but mostly it consists of interviews with famous rappers who supposedly encountered The Black Witch or Hip Hop Witch. Apparently she is a beautiful woman naked under a trenchcoat but she's also evil and as Eminem tells us many times, she will stick things in your butt. The two "plots" include a group of five white kids from Framingham, MA who want to find the witch and a woman in a news office who is getting sexually harassed by the big boss while her requests to do a story on the Witch are ignored by her direct supervisor. Neither of these really goes anywhere. The real joy is in the random shots. Eminem is acting his extremely high ass off while the editor tries unsuccessfully to blur the blunt and the Bud Light. A guy on a bicycle drives around ominously shouting "she's coming!" and bringing me great joy. The camera angles are all up in people's business, probably to hide the lack of shooting permits. This movie is trying so hard to be funny, and it succeeds incorrectly: a perfect bad movie. And in spite of a track record of films about musicians having terrible sound editing, you actually could hear most of the film. Win!

Honestly, we laughed a lot. It's a solid recommend from us.

Spoon Rating: 7