[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
This movie came from a random guy at a party Kay went to who was also a movie enthusiast, both bad and good. After checking his credentials and finding that he was well versed in the bad movie canon, he fervently recommended this movie: "Roar." It wasn't so much that he held it up as a paragon of bad movies, but he and his wife insisted that it was an experience that needed to be watched. And they were so right.
"Roar" is a movie that was made over an eleven year period where the actors were forced to interact with dozens of untrained lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and panthers. Noel Marshall, who directed and starred in the film, and Tippi Hedren, of "The Birds" fame and Marshall's wife, apparently discovered an abandoned plantation house full big cats while in Africa and decided to make the movie with them and their kids in it in the name with the goal of supposedly showing that they are not that dangerous. The movie ended up doing the opposite. According to the Blu-Ray box 70 cast and crew members were injured and a lot of those injuries appear on screen.
The plot of the movie is pretty thin. A guy living in a house full of big cats in the middle of nowhere in Africa has his family come to visit him. The beginning of the movie involves a visit from the guy's friend, who doesn't understand why this crazy man lives amongst the big cats. We see the crazy man break up a fight between two lions that ends in a lot of blood loss. Then a bunch of guys who think the big cats are dangerous come to his house and tigers climb into their boats and sink them. Also, everyone gets brutalized as they leave. There isn't even continuity between scenes because there was so much violence. Suddenly the crazy man has a bandaged hand or a torn shirt and we don't know why until later on we see the attack that caused it.
The guy's family goes to the house while he goes to meet them at the airport. His journey to the airport takes forever because he brings along two tigers who sink his boat. Meanwhile, his family is attacked by the cats for at least 40 minutes and they have to hide in cabinets and get chased off the roof of the house multiple times. Eventually the guy realizes he made a mistake and goes back to his house just in time for the big cats who were attacking his family to suddenly decide they are friendly. Even when they're friendly, they still gnaw arms and the actors play it off like it's no big deal.
This movie needs to be seen to be believed. In spite of not being a good movie or a bad movie necessarily, it will hold your attention for the whole time because you are nervously waiting for someone to get scalped.
Spoon Rating: 5 Forks
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
This is a weird one to write about. As consumers of the previous two "God's Not Dead" movies, there should be a lot to say about the third movie in the trilogy, "God's Not Dead: A Light In Darkness." But there kind of isn't. This movie had far fewer wild moments, and while it was still full of misunderstandings of how the world works and still seems to exist in the same universe where Christians are persecuted in America, this movie felt tired. This is the oddest film in the trilogy because it lacks that big victory for the Christians that the other two movies have. They didn't even have a scene where all the atheists and agnostics get converted. And all the people who are lapsed in their faith have really good reasons for it and no one tries to argue them. I think the franchise has given up.
The plot of this movie picks up where the last one left off, with the "cool" reverend getting arrested for refusing to turn over his sermons. He returns to the church only to have it vandalized when someone throws a brick through the basement window and this somehow leads to the death of Jude, the token black guy who only seems to say, "God is good." Those are even his last words in his mother tongue. The backstory behind the brick is that the boyfriend of a girl who is having a crisis of faith blames the church for her dumping him. Really. Then the university that the church is on the campus of decides to use eminent domain to seize the church and destory it because of the bad PR. This is the traditional "God'd Not Dead" nonsense part of the plot. Obviously, this is not a thing that can be done and churches are not only allowed but necessary on college campuses. The Reverend calls his estranged lawyer brother to help him and we get a long journey to a conclusion where they try to repair their relationship. It's more dull than anything else. The kid who threw the brick goes to jail and gets released with seemingly no involuntary manslaughter conviction. In the end there's a big protest at the church with people on both sides and the reverend appears basically to give a sermon about how it doesn't matter that they will take the church from him because peace and everyone is moved.
It's safe to say this isn't worth your time unless you saw the other two and are a passionate completionist like we are.
Spoon Rating: 2
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
Adam missed his first Bad Movie Night ever so we did a rewatch of "Mac And Me", the ET ripoff that seemed to be primarily funded by product placement. The week before Kay was in London so we watched "I Am Here . . . Now", the Neil Breen movie where he's most blatantly Jesus.
Next week we will return with something new.
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
We started off our Christmas Eve Bad Movie Night by watching a lawyer talk about the failures and successes in the representation of a courtroom in "Miracle on 34th Street" and by rewatching "Rapsittie Kids Believe In Santa." This was a bad idea because both of these things were vastly more enjoyable than our main feature, a family movie with a sneaky Christian undertone called "Quigley." On paper this movie seems like a win. It stars Gary Busey's teeth as a Pomeranian. It was made in 2003 but looks like it was made in 1993. It has conflicting morals that ultimately have all roads leading to Jesus. But also, it went on forever in the name of being a full hour and a half. Whether or not it's worth your time is heavily dependent on how much joy you get from Gary Busey so the opinions of the movie varied slightly among the BMN members.
"Quigley" starts off by introducing Gary Busey's character who hates dogs and the feelings of others and basically everything except making money at his video game company, weird antiquity influenced art, and the "virtual reality CD ROM." He dies in a car crash when he swerves around a dog and a bunch of angels in cheap curtains tell him he has the option of going to heaven if he returns to Earth in the body of the dog and does some good deeds. He reluctantly agrees and is assigned a guardian angel who falls down a lot and changes his outfit to something new and eccentric every five minutes (most frequently he looks like a really out of touch youth pastor). First Garigley returns to his company to destory an incriminating disk and somehow causes the guy who has taken over the company to fall in love with his secretary. Then Garigley must go to the home of his estranged brother and fix his family's lives somehow. It turns out his brother also develops video games, of the kid friendly variety, but has never sold them anywhere so Garigley steals the disk of one and brings it to his former company where they offer the brother a half a million dollars to work for them. Everyone is happy! But the angels tell Gary Busey that his good deeds don't matter because he doesn't have faith. Then he wakes up in the hospital and it turns out the whole thing was a dream. His life changed, he sets out to make amends with his brother and sell his video game concept again.
The best parts of this movie were any time Gary Busey was on screen. Since only the guardian angel could see that he was really a human, it was only through his eyes that we saw Gary and not the dog but oh, every time he looked like he had just eaten the entire medicine cabinet and it was great. Otherwise, the film dragged a lot. There were a ton of kid hijinks like Garigley getting thrown in the pound, an odd German janitor ranting, and Garigley's niece disappearing and him having to find her, but you would get a good laugh interspersed between these moments.
I can't say I'd recommend watching it, but it wouldn't be the worst night ever. Either way, you're better off with "Rapsittie Kids Believe in Santa," a genuine Christmas classic.
Spoon Rating: 4
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
For our first Lifetime movie, we have a meeting of two worlds: a shark movie and a stalker movie. This film, "Stalker's Prey," came into our lives on the recommendation of a chorus of Kay's students who have all seen the film. Why has a whole room of high school seniors seen a specific Lifetime movie? It was filmed in their part of the woods, or I should say the sea. The police station is a local community college, a featured restaurant is a place she has actually heard of, and the school's distinct facade is shown with an obvious CGI name change. Although the town is supposed to be Hunter's Grove, they don't even try to change the sign on the back of one person's EMT jacket that says "Niantic."
Putting aside our connection to the film, let's get into the plot. The mumbliest teen in southeastern New England, Laura, gets rescued from a shark attack that left her boyfriend dead in the water. The guy who rescued her is none other than a politician's son who everyone in town immediately reveres. He checks up on Laura a lot and gives her gifts and while nothing seems amiss to Laura's family, the doom music warns the audience that his intentions are not the purest. Although the film seems to try to put forth this idea that he's a catch (fame, looks, volunteering with kids with cancer; also no pun intended), every action he takes seems a little off. He invites Laura to the marina (red flag) to be his date for a campaign fundraiser and suspiciously gives her a dress to wear (how did he know her size?). There's a blackout moment that may imply drunkenness or roofies. He lingers a bit too long with every interaction.
After that Laura is weary of him but he keeps showing up everywhere: babysitting her sister, subbing at her school, and using the spare key her mom gave him to come inside and watch her sleep. He also starts attacking her friends who she fights with, beating one with a bat and hitting the other with his car. Laura finally decides to investigate his ex and discovers that although he said he talks to her all the time, she's been dead for years. Note: he wasn't lying but Norman Bates-ing it. Laura tries to get him to implicate himself for hitting her friend with his car and he responds by kidnapping her and taking her out on his boat to feed her to the shark he saved her from. They fight. She wins.
Aside from the amusing genre mixture and the ominous music, this movie has some great acting. The actress playing Laura is mostly unintelligible compared to everyone else while the guy playing the stalker is full of the drama. His freak-outs and crazed mutterings stand out as the highlight of the film. More unintentional comedy comes from the bad CGI shark, the car accident scene effect, and other miscellaneous odd choices.
Give it a try, chum.
Quote: "The TV movie writes itself!" [Thanks for the lampshading.]
Spoon Rating: 5.5
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
For our first ABC Family movie, we decided on "Cyberbully." We have watched a Hallmark film and many Disney originals so it was about time for ABC Family to show us what they have to offer. Next week we are going to shoot for a Lifetime movie, of which Kay has actually seen a lot.
The title tells you most of what you need to know. A teen girl named Taylor gets an account on Cliquesters, which is totally not Facebook or Instagram or whatever was most popular with kids in 2011, and initially only has light bullying from the mean girls who bully her in school anyway. She starts flirting online with Scott, this guy in her classes who she likes, and soon gets a message from James, a guy from a nearby school who really liked a poem she had posted. It was shortly after this that Kay claimed that Taylor's best friend with the strong crush vibes towards Taylor, Samantha, is actually James. Taylor's brother hacks her account and writes some inappropriate stuff, which causes an uptick in Taylor's online bullying but everything really escalates after Scott asks her to the dance. Right after James claims online that he slept with Taylor and she gave him the clap, which prompts everyone in the school to turn on her including her friends, and she starts to be ostracized. Keith claimed she was going to try to kill herself and he was right too. The suicide attempt ended up being the funniest part of the movie because after some somber wallowing to Sia's "Breathe Me" Samantha finds Taylor in the bathroom complaining and struggling to open a pill bottle cap. The scene is super reminiscent of the scene in "Heathers" where Heather McNamara attempts suicide in the school bathroom while muttering, "Stupid child safety caps" or whatever the line is. We couldn't stop laughing. Note to screenwriters: if you ever want to write a serious moment, make sure you are not mimicking a scene from a comedy.
This was actually only the end of act two even though it felt like a climax. Taylor stays home for a week after going to the hospital and seeing a psychiatrist. She starts attending support meetings for other kids with internet-based depression. Then of course Samantha reveals that she's James while Taylor is home after the suicide thing, which is ridiculous timing. The rest of the movie just has Taylor's mom trying to get a law passed and eventually Taylor and Sam getting interviewed for the local paper about their story. The whole thing ends on a triumphant "telling off the mean girl" scene with Taylor and friends. Taylor and Samantha did not end up together in spite of the gay vibes; instead Scott kind of comes back to Taylor and eats lunch with them.
Aside from the hilarity of the pill scene, this movie did have a fair amount of laughs. The plot was predictable and had nice melodrama and a clear lack of understanding of teens and bullying both online and in person. It's definitely worth one watch.
Quotes: [random filler dialogue without context] ". . . the seedy underbelly of the Underworld."
Spoon Rating: 6
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
Because Sarah had to work and it's been a while since we did a rewatch, we decided to watch "Battlefield Earth." As before we got to enjoy all the curtain wipes, hammy acting, Dutch angles that give you neck pain (this post is in italics to mimic that suffering), the absolute dumbest imperialists ever, and a second half of the film that was just way too boring to compete with the ridiculous first half. Just know that you are a crap-lousy man animal who likes raw rats and is constantly upsetting the gods.
I tried writing down some quotes below but it's impossible to convey John Travolta's specific inflection through the medium of text.
You can read my original review here.
Quotes:
"While you were learning how to SPELL YOUR NAME, I was being trained to conquer galaxies."
"DO YOU WANT LUNCH?!"
"YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BARTENDER."
"I'm going to make you as happy as a baby psychlo on a straight diet of kerbango!"
Spoon Rating: 7
This movie came from a random guy at a party Kay went to who was also a movie enthusiast, both bad and good. After checking his credentials and finding that he was well versed in the bad movie canon, he fervently recommended this movie: "Roar." It wasn't so much that he held it up as a paragon of bad movies, but he and his wife insisted that it was an experience that needed to be watched. And they were so right. 
