Popstar [2005]

When Erik brought this film to our attention last week, we were a little skeptical. While this Aaron Carter vehicle is not a Disney Channel original movie, its marketing definitely feels like it, and we've had mixed results with DCOMs in the past. Honestly though, because this movie isn't confined by the standards of a DCOM, it had full invitation to be a lot weirder, a little less formulaic, and also slightly horny in an appropriately PG-rated way. Erik also invited his sister Kat who, in spite of being born in 2003, apparently has a lot of feelings about Aaron Carter. Since Adam has always culturally lived under a rock, we started the evening with a viewing of "Aaron's Party (Come Get It)" and a brief Wikipediaing of him to realize that 1.) he is still making music and 2.) he's only 33. Adam, Kay, and Sarah were shook to realize he's our age, but also to realize that he was 18 when he made this movie. Why is that surprising? Partially because he was past his prime at this point but mostly because his costar, seen on the movie cover looking like his mother, is 25 and it's really obvious and distracting. 

As you could probably surmise, the film is about Aaron Carter being a famous popstar who has to go to a normal high school because he's failing his homeschooling. Our geriatric love interest there is the "smart girl" since she got a perfect score on her SATs, but hey, that must be pretty easy when you've been in high school for ten years. I keep emphasizing this point because it was consistently distracting throughout the film. While Aaron Carter may look a little haggard, he still looks like an 18-year-old. Our girl Jane here, is not a young-looking 25 and it is uncomfortable. They also clearly cast the other high school girls with actresses in their 20s to try to make it not so distracting, but even then she still looks incredibly old. Anyway, Aaron, called J.D. in the film, flirts with Jane when he finds out she's smart and then gets calculus tutoring from her. It helps that she's a mega-fan and he has absolutely no problem with her room being covered in pictures of him because he's an egotist. The movie doesn't have much of a plot but instead has a bunch of scenes. Jane gets upset that J.D. won't say they're dating to magazines. The popular girl who always has her entire midriff out tries to blackmail J.D. into going to prom with her (prom never happens in the film by the way). There's a magical janitor played by former pop star Leif Garrett who gets shoehorned into a relationship at the last second with Jane's sister who got left at the alter. A stereotypical nerd keeps asking out popular girls to no success. J.D.'s manager keeps dating young girls but ends up with Jane's mom in the end. J.D. has test anxiety so he takes his calc final alone on a stage. I'm not really putting these events in order, but it also doesn't really matter. The film is more about the vibe.

So how's the vibe? Excellent. The acting is terrible whether it's Aaron Carter's unconvincing reads to the lead actress trying SO hard to seem younger than she is with muffled dialogue and awkward walking. The plot, as you can see, is kind of a mess with too many characters doing too many things and everything wrapped up far too neatly in the last scene. The editing is clearly meant to be creative, but it renders a lot of things ambiguous or incoherent. And I didn't really even get into the vague horniness, particularly of the adult men in the film towards "teen" girls. The early-2000s were a different time. 

This one was definitely worth it. 

Spoon Rating: 7

REWATCH: Birdemic [2008]

It's been five years since we last watched "Birdemic" so it was about time for a rewatch and that was definitely a good amount of time to wait. We got out our hangers again in preparation, and got ready to hang out with the family (and have ourselves a party). It was enough time that all the weird moments were fun again, and we had managed to forget some of the intricacies of the meandering plot. Tom joined us for this one, which was appropriate given that he is an audio person and an amateur ornithologist and we apparently wanted him to suffer. If you want to actually hear about the movie, here's the original post

REWATCH: The Roller Blade Seven [1991]

For this Monday's movie we decided to return to the Zen Road Warrior: The Roller Blade Seven. It seemed appropriate for a rewatch since Erik couldn't come because of college student things and Tom was actually able to come in person for the first time because of spring break (so, teacher things). 

I've already written tons about this movie so if you want to read my previous posts the original is here and the last time we rewatched it is here.

Afterwards, we went down a little spiral of watching shorts which lead us to the YouTube channel where we found DoomBox, Scales Advertising. We watched all the little bits of advertising they had made with one of them (for lead wipes) actually funny enough to watch again.

Basket Case [1982]

This one came as a recommendation from Tom, Kay's friend and coworker (and possible new member if he decides to keep returning). "Basket Case" is an unparalleled work of art, and I do not say that lightly. The film was preserved by the Museum of Modern Art. Supposedly that was because of its depiction of New York during the sleazy Times Square times and the fact that it was uniquely made in a hotel using a bunch of the residents as actors, but that explanation merely conceals the true artistry of this film.

Our protagonist is a largely mulleted young man with a locked picnic basket. Despite prompting from a slew of colorful characters about what's in the basket and his innocuous answers, the basket feeds like Death Bed and appears to communicate with him telepathically. Mullet, more commonly known as Duane, has a particular fixation on tracking down doctors, which leads him to a date with a receptionist who is wildly offended by his lack of sight seeing. It is then that we are gifted with a look inside the basket at the deformed, screaming goblin-mass that resides within and wishes to kill. You should really just watch this film to see the man itself, but when I tell you it never stopped being hilarious, I am not exaggerating. During a drunken hangout with one of the women in the hotel, Duane spills his backstory about how the fanged-tumor is his brother who he was forcibly separated from, spawning their crusade to get revenge on the doctors who did this. Unfortunately, brother-lump has reached sexual maturity and preys first on Duane's hotel friend (whose room is entirely decorated with smiley faces for some reason) and then on Duane's receptionist love interest in a scene that is not quite as bad as "Black Devil Doll From Hell" but still taints an otherwise perfect bad movie. Be warned. Duane is rightfully horrified and both brothers are united in death after a brawl sends them falling out an open window, leaving unanswered the question of which one is the real basket case.

This one was an instant classic the second we laid eyes on the sentient pound of flesh within. Aside from the ridiculous design and execution of its movements, the film also benefits from strange acting by basically everyone, whiplash tone shifts, and a lot of little oddities that might lose their magic by trying to put them into words. The only thing holding this movie back is the disturbing scene I mentioned, but I would advise you to not let that hold you back. Skip the scene, but make sure you add this one to your list.

Spoon Rating: 9

Gun Self-Defense For Ladies [2019]

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

In our effort to explore to the whole Derek Savage filmography, we obviously had to watch the latest "Gun Self-Defense For Ladies." Steeped in Savage's political rhetoric, which mostly consists of claims that crime is on the rise (it's not) and that the liberal media is lying, the film is a disjointed series of interviews and inaccurate demonstrations that are meant to convince the viewers that guns are fun and you should totally get a concealed carry permit to beat the bad guys. Oh, and he occasionally shoehorns in Cool Cat clips and music because he's Derek Savage and he needs to cross promote at every step of the way.

Because the film doesn't really have a plot, it's kind of hard to explain so I will just list some of the types of scenes we get:

• Many scenes of Derek interviewing women who managed to fight off attackers without a gun but who would "feel better" with a gun
• Scenes of Derek in the Nevada desert (why are all these crazy people in Nevada? Actually, I've been there. That tracks) shooting off guns for fun.
• More scenes in the desert with a young girl who's a first time shooter and the guy who acts as the attacker shooting for the first time and clearly hating it.
• Scenes in Derek's house where he incorrectly teaches you the parts of the guns and how to use them in front of a poster for the film.
• A sequence where he goes to a martial arts studio and you can see the pain on the instructor's face whenever Savage talks
• A bunch more interviews where people continue to perpetuate the narrative that violence is getting more common and the solution is MOAR GUNS.

It wasn't his best film. Adam as a former Marine seemed to be in genuine pain the whole film because of the inaccuracies and Kay started drifting off more than once, but it is worth a watch if you could get your hands on it for less than the $15 Adam paid. 

Spoon Rating: 6

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.

Gorgo [1961]

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

Have you ever thought to yourself that there really aren't enough "Godzilla" rip-offs in the world even with Japan making a new one pretty much every year since the 50s? Well, I've got a film for you then! It's a British production but trust me when I say that this does not make it any better than the numerous American faliures to adapt this same monster movie format. Can we, as a people, just stop? I mean, let Japan keep doing it over and over because they invented it but there is no reason to have this many prehistoric-dinosaurish-animal-attacks-city movies. The movie this week was selected by Paul, our special guest, and Keith had already seen it but he had been a child at the time and couldn't really remember it. We ended our evening by showing each other the weirdest music videos we know of which were more exciting than this film.

While fishing off the coast of Ireland, a bunch of dudes in a ship stumble upon a mysterious being in the water. They go to a tiny island nearby where they encounter a very questionable "scientist" and his orphened child slave who aggressively doesn't think they should try to catch the monster. They do and sell it into the circus in London where they name it Gorgo (I guess they didn't really consider that there's an "n" at the end of the Greek mythical being), parade it around the streets, and put it in a pit in the ground at Battersea Park so they can sell tickets to see it. The orphaned Irish child stowed away on the fishermen's ship and constantly looks sadly at Gorgo in confinement but doesn't ever actually mess things up even though we really thought he was going to. Everything is going okayish aside from the moral questions, until a scientist discovers that Gorgo is actually a small child and not a fully grown adult and that mommy is coming to collect. The end result is the destruction of London landmarks like Tower Bridge, Big Ben, and the entire West End because we built these models and Goddammit we're going to use them. People die. Beasts go home. Irish child still curiously homeless.

This movie was pretty generic overall. We had a couple laughs and actually found the special effects to be pretty good compared to a lot of the films we watch, but it wasn't strange or interesting enough to warrant much attention.

Quote:

"All hands on net!"

Spoon Rating: 3

Paul's Review:

"My emotions:

"

Saving Christmas [2014]

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

By no hyperbole, this movie is probably the most highly anticipated movie that we have ever watched. We have been looking for a way to watch it since last December after hearing such glowing facts like that it has a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, that it's a crazy religious movie that a lot of religious people didn't like, and that it stars one of the leaders of the totally illogical Christianity nonsense squad, TV's Kirk Cameron. And it did not disappoint. In fact, it's a new Christmas tradition.

I know I can't cover every ounce of bonkers this movie has to offer but I'm going to try to hit up the major points. The film starts with Kirk chilling in the most Christmas room to ever Christmas and talking about everything in the room that he loves especially the hot chocolate which he talks about a lot throughout the film. We wonder with mild horror if the whole movie is going to be him talking at us from an armchair but we are soon treated to one of three intro screens that tells us the movie has been funded by Liberty University, of course, and then we find ourselves following a very slow Games of Thrones character while Cameron waxes poetic on the nature of stories.

 Needs more Christmas, honestly.

 What is this contraption?

 HOLY HOT CHOCOLATE.

Get me seven more of these.

Now we're at a Christmas party thrown by Cameron's sister (but not his real sister) and the so-called plot can really begin. See, Cameron's brother-in-law, hilariously named Christian, hates Christmas so much that he sees it through rave-vision, but not for the reasons godless heathens hate Christmas (rampant consumerism, bad music, etc.). He hates Christmas because it's full of pagan traditions and doesn't nearly have enough Jesus. So he hides in his car and Cameron joins him to tell him why he's all wrong and that actually all the pagan stuff is Christian stuff. It's a hoot.

"Where's the Jesus?"

"Oh, jeepers. He makes a lot of good points. What do I do?"

"Oh, I know! Lie!"

First he butchers the nativity story and talks a lot about the swaddling cloth. He mostly just says swaddling cloth a lot. Then he draws the Christmas tree back to Genesis because, you know, God made trees and also the solstice so you're totally honoring the Jesus with your pagan symbol, duh. He also literally draws a connection between the tree and the cross by saying that Jesus' crucifixion is just Adam symbolically returning the fruit he ate from the tree in the garden of Eden (we all had assumed when Cameron said that Adam needed to give back the fruit that Adam was supposed to return his poo to God). And what about Santa Claus? Santa Claus is not Jesus, Kirk! But you know who he is? A bar-fighting metalhead, GoT extra named Saint Nicholas who pummels heathens to dub-step and then gives toys to kids.

Santa needs his weekly protection money.

"I heard you had some of that sweet Ghanaese hot chocolate."

Finally, Kirk Cameron's brother-in-law realizes Christmas IS THE BOMB and literally penguin belly slides into the presents while his wife watches dubiously. Then, in what can only be the logical conclusion after being subjected to so many sanitized hip-hop versions of Christmas music (or as Adam calls it, "Santa-tized"), we have a bunch of white people try to dance to a hip-hop "Angels We Have Heard On High" which has the line, "put your wings in the air" in it.

 Kirk Cameron is the devil on our shoulder.

 "I feel something coming on!"

 "Perhaps it's time for some white guy dancing?"

 I think Kirk is controling him with his damn magic.

 "OMG PRESENTS!"

X-TREME CHRISTMAS

In the epilogue of slow motion eating, Cameron justifies materialism and again brings up the nature of stories but now it makes more sense when he really insists that we need to create our own meanings for things. Kirk Cameron wants you to lie because history is not Christian enough.

"Buy things!"

For this viewing party we were joined by Adam's sister and Keith's daughter, Leah, and her fiance, Matt. They assimilated quite well into our crew for the night and I think we all learned a lot about the value of bullshitting. So happy birthday to Adam and Grandma who were both born on December 21st which also happens to be Yule, that pagan holiday that Cameron has stolen all the traditions from. Happy Yule to all (except Kirk Cameron) and to all a good night!

Quotes:
"You're wrong."
"About what?"
"Everything you just said."
". . . I said a lot."

"I saw it on Fox News so I know it's true."

"This Christmas I'm gonna give you something you've been wanting for a long time."
"What is it, Big Papa?"

"Sure, don't max out your credit cards or use presents to buy friends, but remember this is a celebration of the eternal god taking on a MATERIAL body so it is right that our holiday is marked with material things."

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

Adam's Review: "This is the whitest Christmas ever."

Kirk Cameron: He's basically God himself.