Heartburn [1986]

This movie was selected mostly based on the horror of the idea of Jack Nicholson in a romantic comedy and with Meryl Streep of all people. There are a bunch of other famous people in this movie too like Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, and Stockard Channing. So how's the film? Honestly, this is the most weirdly bland film. It feels like it has almost no tension, no climax, and no real theme (unless the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" song at the end was a hint). 

The plot is this: couple meets at a wedding, has a date and sex, gets married in what is a second marriage for both of them, they buy a crappy house, she gets pregnant and gives birth, she gets pregnant again, he cheats on her, she leaves him, her wedding ring gets stolen in a stick-up, they get back together, they break up again. Roll credits. That's it.

Maybe the world's most boring script, needed the famous names. Either way, we only laughed at the absurdity of this film, particularly the sudden rolling of credits and the idea that anyone would be immediately into Jack Nicholson.

Spoon Rating: 2

Above The Law [1988]

This Seagel movie has been sitting on the shelf forever because it was purchased as part of a double feature with Hard to Kill, a Val Kilmer movie that Adam maybe owns just out of some weird loyalty to Val Kilmer. I'm going to tell you right now: don't waste your time. 

The plot is honestly hard to follow for all of us, including Sarah, and that was partially due to bad writing and partially due to bad sound. Basically Seagal is trying to stop a drug ring and an assassination of a senator or something. He's married to Sharon Stone who both survives the movie but also only has two lines and he's partners with Pam Grier and you can't convince me that it's a platonic relationship given all the weird things they say. So much of the film involves Seagal doing to a location for some reason with little information gained. The only good part of the film is when he hits someone with a car and continues drives through a wall, causing the dummy to then fall off the front of the car to the ground below. The rest is just boring.

Spoon Rating: 1

The Divine Enforcer [1992]

While Kay was away on Spring Break, Adam, Sarah, and Erik watched and enjoyed The Divine Enforcer, a Christian Batman movie. Apparently it was worth the time.

Spoon Rating: 7

Fight Of Fury [2020]

This post is far too late, but this film was aces. This film is a vanity project for a Nepalese martial artist named Shuny Bee. It's shot in his own studio, it's full of bad ADR and acting in general, shots are reused, there's an uncomfortable relationship between Shuny and a much younger woman who he saves from human trafficking. Some other special features include a dead wife subplot (even though initially it seemed she may have just left him with their son but left her daughter with him so he could train her to fight or something), a bad guy named Brutal and his crew of Eastern European assistants who have both trafficked prostitutes and trafficked(?) MMA fighter women, and the fact that the film ends on a cliffhanger after Shuny a.k.a. Brandon defeats the sub-boss. Unfortunately because I saw this so long ago, the specifics have faded from memory but it was excellent and will be watched again.

Spoon Rating: 9

Death Machines [1976]

Unable to resist a bad martial arts movie, Adam offered up this one for the night and it's kind of hard to place it. 

First of all, this movie kind of lacks a central character, or at least it does until a bit too far into the movie. It may be tempting to say the film is based around the "death machines" a trio of three men who are supposed to be great hitmen and never speak, but they don't take up much screen time aside from when the white one has a fight in a religious diner for no reason. The "death machines" are under the control of a man with a giant beard who is only in the very beginning and sort of directed by a different guy and a woman with a terrible wig who seems to be struggling with English. Whenever we are in the woman's house, the audio violence of the soundtrack is real. The machines are given an assignment and some killing happens. Then they take out a martial arts instructor and his whole class with one survivor who kind of become the POV character although we're already halfway through the movie. He doesn't actually do anything aside from be sad and date his nurse. This film is so hard to parse. 

Aside from the vaguely nonsense plot, the acting is bad, the soundtrack is absurd, and the fight scenes can get comical. We got a good amount of laughs from all this, but the plot did start to really drag towards the end. At least we had baby Jade to amuse us during the boring parts.

Spoon Rating: 3.5

Hollow Man II [2006]

I have not seen the original Hollow Man but apparently it doesn't matter. This movie was clearly made as a quick cash grab that only required Christian Slater to be on set for one day. 

Basically, he's invisible and out for revenge against the doctor who did this to him, but we don't even really learn the backstory until more than halfway through the film. We spent the whole first half not really sure why anything was happening at all. The lead is Peter Facinelli a.k.a. not Tom Cruise a.k.a. the doctor dad from Twilight. Both his character and the doctor character are incredibly dumb and make consistently stupid decisions throughout the film while having the barest amount of romantic tension. They do manage against the odds to take down ghost!Slater but with our lead having to become invisible in the process. It feels sort of like a sequel set up but that clearly wasn't going to happen. In the end, we got a few laughs from the invisible prank-like behavior but it was a lot of groaning.

Spoon Rating: 2.5

In Gramps' Shoes [2014]

From the director of The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah, we have this complete narcissism-fest. Written and starring (but only co-directed) by Donald James Parker, a Christian who wants to really spread his anti-LGBT, anti-Semitic, and many other anti themed branded of Christianity, tells a story about a family with the best grandfather ever (him, obviously). 

The film starts with a woman called her estranged father and asking for money because even though she lives in a very clean, bland middle class house, she's apparently in deep trouble. Gramps moves into the house and bonds quickly with the 13 (but definitely played by at least a 16) year old daughter. However, the 16-year-old son hates him, especially after he beats him and his friends in a race and tells him to get a job. Gramps starts bringing them to church and teaching them about the evils of Harry Potter and oh, god this movie is so boring for so much of it. It's shot so poorly and paced so slowly that you can space out for a while and not miss anything. But then you black back in during the last twenty minutes or so and stuff gets weird. The daughter's ex-husband shows up drunk and Gramps beats him up, getting shot and dying in the process like the good martyr he is. The family all talks about him and the son wins a track meet and gets the good Christian girl love interest to go to prom with him. End of Gramps' running shoes.

This movie would have been a lot more tolerable if it wasn't nearly two hours. It had a few laughs, but it isn't quite as worth your time as the other things we've watched from him.

Spoon Rating: 3