You Only Live Twice [1967]

I am by no means a connoisseur of James Bond movies, but I've seen a few in my day. I know the earlier ones are more silly while the later ones are more serious. I know that while the movies never had great representation of women, they definitely start bad and get better. I've heard that depictions of racial groups could be really cringe at best and outright racist at worst. This movie has all those bad qualities, while also just being kind of odd in harder to define ways. There are some unique [derogatory] editing moments, a plot that only starts to make sense later, the origins of many an Austin Powers joke, and on top of all that, the script is written by Roald Dahl. You'd hardly guess considering the lack of traumatized children.

The film starts with an unidentified spaceship eating another spaceship and crashing to Earth. The Americans think it's the Russians. The British don't give a fuck. Apparently it landed in the sea of Japan so it's off to Japan. But first, James Bond fakes his death in the most convoluted and unreal way that involves a sea burial. Hence the title of the film: YOLT.

The first 40 minutes of the movie are kind of random and not too weird outside of a scene where a mini-helicopter is constructed with quick cuts and then there's a heli fight that feels like the film's equivalent of pod racing. Bond meets with a bunch of people in quirky offices and pretends to be someone else, easily now as everyone thinks he's dead, and sleeps with some women who will eventually all get killed. After he finds his Japanese hook-up though, we get women in bikinis doing rubdowns, the reveal of ninjas, the goal of turning James Bond Japanese (he just looks like a different white guy), marrying him off to a Japanese agent who spends most of the movie in a white bikini after she's out of her kimono, and hiding him in a remote fishing village. The location of the village means he sees helicopters flying into a volcano and goes to investigate.

It turns out that the evil spaceship was launched by Spectre, the head of which is the character Dr. Evil was based off of, stroking cat and all. This man has a lair in a volcano with a shitty monorail and a flesh-eating piranha pit. This movie is not serious, and outside of wanting to start a war between the US and Russia, the motivations are unclear.

Bond escapes the lair and solves the mystery. At least the cat is okay.

Spoon Rating: 5

Ax 'Em [1992]

This film may have some of the worst sound we've had at least for a while. Probably a by-product of the home movie quality. The plot was very similar in vibe to Sledgehammer from a few weeks ago: a bunch of college kids rent a cabin and a ghost-zombie of the murderer who lived there comes for them. At one point we got a subplot where two guys enter a house to look for help when their car breaks down and the black friend correctly nopes out of there immediately while the white friend becomes a target. No one really dies, including the murderer.

While the specifics of the plot were basically impossible to follow because we couldn't hear anything, we did get a lot of laughs from scenes that we genuinely didn't know if they were supposed to be funny or not. Even Jade, who is afraid of basically everything being four years old, was laughing.

Spoon Rating: 3

Slipstream [2005]

Not to be confused with any other films of the same name as this is actually the third most searched film called Slipstream. This film is apparently the worst time travel movie and it doesn't come by that title lightly. At an hour and half run time, this film manages to feel like it's going nowhere slowly and then it literally goes nowhere. Amazing. 

The film is centered around a theoretical physicist who has invented a time machine that only works in ten minute increments. The FBI wants to get him for it so they attempt to at a bank where he is extremely unsuccessfully hitting on the teller and using the machine to try again. In the process, the bank is robbed by a bunch of British robbers. One of the FBI agents is shot and his partner/lover cuffs herself to the physicist so they can go after the bad guys. Hi-jinks kind of ensue as the lead robber's girlfriend is shot and the three mains end up in disguise on a plane where the lead robber is trying to escape and using them as collateral or something. The plane is about to crash, killing everyone, when the physicist manages to make the machine go beyond ten minutes and we literally go back to the start so everything can go right: physicist gets a date with the teller, the FBI agents cement their love for each other, and the robbers decide not to rob because lead robber knows it will end badly. Completely pointless.

The weak plot is actually well supplemented by some terrible acting that ranges from bland to "my, this scenery is delicious," dumb looking special effects (particular shout out to the mannequin who blew up), and a director who is trying so hard to make the movie artistic and deep but only has a few tricks up his sleeve and they are mostly rotating shots and slow motion. Get wrecked people with motion sickness! We were a bit divided on whether this one is worth watching, but we ultimately decided to give it that little push. Third is popularity but first in our hearts. 

Spoon Rating: 5 

John Henry [2020]

This movie is a real unicorn of bad movies. A lot of the time with bad movies we can find something to like about it outside of the unintentionally funny parts, but rarely do we ever walk away from a bad movie talking about how the cinematography and direction were actually really nice. That's the case here however. With such interesting use of color and angle I assumed the director had a history in making music videos but at least according to IMDb, nope. He just has a good eye. Unfortunately, he also wrote the script and he does not have a way with plots or dialogue in the way that he does with camera work.

The movie is called John Henry but it has almost nothing to do with the folk legend. In fact, it has about as much to do with the folk legend as the Shaq movie we watched a few weeks ago, Steel. Henry is a strong black guy with a big hammer. That's it. The whole theme about technology versus man? Absent completely. In fact, this movie feels most like a Tarantino film and that really seems to be the inspiration. The plot revolves around a gang that dresses in white. A Honduran woman is rescued from the gang by her half brother who is American and who she got kidnapped from when she came to the US to meet him. This woman, Berta, ends up at John's house and hangs out with him and his dad. John already has beef with this gang because the film starts with one of the gang members running over his dog, but it is then way too slowly reveled that John used to be in the gang himself and that the current leader is his cousin played by Ludacris. Ludacris has a metal jaw because John accidentally shot him when trying to leave the gang many years ago. The gang member bust into John's house, kills his dad, and rekidnap Berta, and the film ends with a final standoff between the cousins. The music implies that John died, because the folk John Henry died, but it's left ambiguous.

This film's plot is so thin that it could have been a half hour. However, in between the lack of plot we get those aforementioned nice shots and some of the funniest music stings we've seen in a while. Most of the film's music was far too on the nose and that final standoff was scored exactly like a spaghetti Western, really pulling that Tarantino comparison. Probably the best scene in the movie was also rather Tarantino-esque: two guys on a stakeout just start having the most random conversation ever about the movie Human Centipede and black recidivism. A My Dinner With Andre style film about them would have been way better than this. Honestly, you should watch this one at least once.

Spoon Rating: 5 

The Hugga Bunch [1985] & others

We started our evening with a truly confusing film. This movie, in spite of the cover, is not animated. It is actually a tale of a friendless 7-year-old who is scared at the prospect of her grandmother being forced to move out of their house and into a nursing home. One day while playing with her stuffed animals, a horrible "cute" creature falls out of her mirror and talks to her about the joys of hugging. She enters the mirror realm with the goals of finding a way to youthify her grandma so she won't have to leave. This requires an adventure to a castle to get a fruit but the castle is owned by the hammiest iteration of the evil queen from Snow White. They take some of her magic youth fruit but on return to our world, she drops it all and it disappears. Turns out the whole adventure was useless. All she needed to do to keep grandma around was to yell at her older brother to show some appreciation for their grandma. He cries and begs her to stay so she does. Problem solved; movie unnecessary. 

Turns out the whole film was just a cynical attempt at selling toys, like a lot of children's media of the 80s. Either way, this film was delightfully bad. The acting was bad from everyone but especially our lead child and the evil queen who leaves no scenery unchewed. The puppets are terrifying. The hugging thing gets really awkward a lot of the time. The message is muddled. And the kids were pretty committed to watching it actually. Everyone wins.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Afterwards we watched two absolutely wack AI videos - "Harry Potter by Balenciaga" and "Top 5 Steven Hawking AI Videos" - to see if this is a valid route for comedy and they both made us laugh hysterically so this might be a rabbit hole for the future. 

Then we watched as much of the "101 Things to Love About Geissler's" commercial series that we could find, a bunch of short, fairly poor quality videos for a local grocery store. Adam is convinced there is lore there, and we tried to find it. The one of the Sweet Dee dance was particularly good.

The Adventures Of Food Boy [2008]

Were you wondering what the gay brother from High School Musical was doing in between sequels? I have your answer, and you aren't going to like it.

This no-stakes film follows a high school junior who cares more than anything about getting into an Ivy League university so he decides to run for class president in spite of debilitating unpopularity. He gains a bit of notoriety from eating challenges before discovering that he has the power to create food from his hands, a genetic mutation he shares with his grandmother. After winning the vice president title in the middle of the film (and filling a bathroom with lunch meat, bread, and mustard while unable to control his powers), the plot plods along with the mere question of, Will Food Boy maintain his food producing powers or try to give them up on the day they solidify? It is pointless. There's also a side plot with his female friend who has the most obvious crush in the world on him while he's completely oblivious, and there's a teacher who has decided to hate him for being late and he's more a villain than any popular kids. He does "magic tricks" of shooting food at the crowd during a pep rally and of producing food on command at the talent show. He stocks a homeless shelter. He learns about the great history of these food people. And yet, AND YET, he doesn't decide his powers might be useful until he produces some frozen veggies to help out the 35-year-old class president's injury acquired during an ending food fight. Food Boy he shall be forever.

I cannot even imagine the pitch meeting for this film. I cannot even imagine the target demographic for this film. I cannot even imagine an editor trying to plot out this film. I cannot even imagine how these actors who are mostly in their 30s or at least their 20s could have even been cast as high schoolers. And yet, somehow, this film exists. And that counts for something.

Spoon Rating: 5 

Beaks: The Movie [1987]

Somewhere between The Birds and Birdemic, you'll find this. While it has pretty darn good special effects and doesn't have a nearly 10 minute driving scene, there's nothing too much to say here. Birds attack Spain and a journalist who wants better jobs and her cameraman boyfriend investigate. The birds are mostly getting revenge on hunters, bird shooters, and chicken farmers, which we are all for. They suspect it's anger at the humans for climate change. Also, good. Caw caw, motherfucker.

Spoon Rating: 3