Surfing For Seniors [1997], How To Be Cool At Parties [1986], & It Ain't Worth It [1986]

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

It was a triple feature last night courtesy of our favorite YouTube channel, Occult Demon Cassette. It has been a while since we filled our evening with instructional video nonsense of the VHS era. We went through a few rounds of voting to determine what we should waste our time with and ended up with three very different selections: "Surfing For Seniors," a late-90s guide to using the internet for the elderly, "How To Be Cool At Parties," a children's video about how to be the most annoying person at a party, and "It Ain't Worth It," an abstinence-only video that uses athletes and a rap video to try to convince you to stay celibate.

"Surfing For Seniors" took an approach of teaching that assumed the elderly person watching has never used a computer in any way and made many bizarre analogies to try to explain how to navigate the hardware including referring to the mouse as a hot potato to indicate that you need to use a light touch. It also compared email to the pony express instead of, you know, the mail. We had some fun reading the weird icons on the desktop and laughing at the narration but overall we gave it a Spoon Rating of 4.

"How To Be Cool At Parties" is a video explicitly designed to teach you had to do the exact opposite. Perhaps the real indicator in the title is the fact that it starts with the phrase "show off" which is what you will actually become, and not the impressive kind. In the video, a bunch of people in their 30s and 40s (and Malcolm Jamal-Warner) show you how to do really basic magic tricks, make annoying noises with your nose, and act like you are walking down stairs or slamming your face in a door. They will frequently do the unimpressive thing and then stop to let you know how they did it. There was also a dash of cultural insensitivity on top of that, which reminded us that we as a society have gotten better. The whole thing was incredibly awkward and we got a lot of laughs so we gave it a Spoon Rating of 7.

"It Ain't Worth It" actually looks like something the millennials in the group might have watched in middle school health class, but only because our school frequently showed us 15 year old videos that we found hilarious. The main appeal of the video appears to be the fact that there are athletes in the video, but they are each in the video for a second to deliver a short message. Mostly it's a tall man in a chair that's too small for him talking about waiting until marriage in between teens talking about why they're celibate and a doctor who provides blatantly false facts about STDs, pregnancy, and the effectiveness of condoms, debunked by Sarah, our medical professional. There was also a really bad rap music video because this film was down with the youths. The Spoon Rating on this was a point of contention among the crew. Kay and Erik both thought it was worth watching and gave it a 5, while Adam thought it was more of a 4. We settled on a 4.5.

Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior [2006]

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

We've had overall mixed results when it comes to Disney Channel Original Movies. "High School Musical 2" and "Descendants 2" were both rewatch quality but for every one of those we have something like "Starstruck," not very good and ultimately forgettable. Adam, in spite of being so amused by the concept of the movie that he put it on his watch list, was sure this one would be of the latter sort but he got out-voted by Kay, Sarah, and Erik so it was our feature for the evening. We were all pleasantly surprised.

The film follows Wendy Wu, a girl who only cares about being elected homecoming queen and knows absolutely nothing about her Chinese heritage. All of that changes when a monk comes looking for her because she is the reincarnation of some female warrior who is destined to defeat a demon that was being contained in an artifact Wendy's mom acquired for a museum exhibit. Wendy's mom, in spite of the fact that she works for a museum, also knows nothing about China. The demon inhabits random people while the monk, Shen, and Wendy go on adventures like shopping for Shen's new wardrobe and training montages. Eventually, the family all gets in touch with their heritage and eats a lot of moon cakes. In the final showdown, the demon infests Wendy's homecoming rival who gets an amazingly silly demon voice and they fight to the death. Shen, who was destined to die in the final battle, is saved by Wendy, proving that you can change your destiny. Wendy abdicates the homecoming crown to her rival even though that's not how high school royalty works.

Most of the joy in this movie comes from the demon girl but there are some decent laughs throughout. The over-the-top Disney acting is really quality in this one. Have a night of it. Eat a moon cake.

Spoon Rating: 6

REWATCH: The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah [2014]

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

Last night we watched the classic antisemitic Christian film about Messianic Jews (I know, it's a stiff competition) called "The Unexpected Bar Mitzvah." It's been a few years since we watched it, but, it was just as over-the-top, offensive, and queer-coded as we remembered.

Read the original review here.

Honey [2003]

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

Due to work and weather conditions, there was no Sarah or Erik at Bad Movie Night so we decided to watch something that would be mediocre. After Adam pulled out six 50 packs of movies, we just decided to settle on "Honey," Jessica Alba's breakout dancing film. We figured it wouldn't be good but hoped that it wouldn't be painful and we were right.

Plot wise, the film felt unfinished. It had themes about achieving your dreams and doing what you love even if it doesn't make you money but only vague notions of plot. It doesn't lack a plot so much as every scene feels just a little bit random. Some scenes convey themes. Some have a linear quality, but ultimately there's a lot of details missing to make the scenes connect. Honey is a bartender/record shop worker/community center dance instructor. She gets her big break because some music video producer sees a security cam of her dancing at the club she works at (how did he get that? Do you see what I mean by missing details?) and offers her a job dancing in a music video. She manages to become a choreographer nearly immediately. These scenes are interspersed with scenes of Honey hanging out with local kids and starting a romance with a barber shop owner. Honey is very concerned with being real and down with the street in spite of the fact that her parents clearly pay her rent. The movie has a kind of midpoint when the music video producer tries to sleep with her and she says no so he ruins her career. She then refocuses her efforts on opening a new dance studio in between a plot about Lil Romeo getting arrested and released from jail. The end has Honey holding a dance performance to raise money for the studio while Missy Elliot gets out of a limo in front of the building, looking for her to choreograph her next video. Her success is shown over the credits with the implication that she choreographed a music video for a girl group called Blaque that only existed in the early 2000s.

This movie was an interesting time capsule of the early 2000s in terms of music and fashion, but it didn't really give us many laughs. We poked some fun at it and got a bit of a chuckle out of the video producer's very mature reaction to rejection, but it wasn't really worth your time.

Spoon Rating: 2

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 [1987]

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

We started our holiday-themed Bad Movie Night with a rewatch of "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe In Santa" which we have actually watched every year since our first viewing two years ago. It never really stops being an unnerving experience. After that we had a presumed winner with "Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2." This film is most famous for the "garbage day!" scene that was a huge meme about ten years ago but none of us realized that at the beginning of the film. It's worth noting that as amazing as the "garbage day" scene is in isolation, it actually isn't the only highlight of the film and watching it will in no way ruin your viewing experience as long as you commit to it.

The first 40 minutes or so are a framing narrative of Ricky, the most dramatic man in prison, explaining his brother's back story and then 30 minutes or so of his own back story. Their parents were killed by a crazy man in a Santa costume and this gave them both a complex that followed them into an orphanage with an S&M obsessed Mother Superior (I exaggerate slightly but aren't all Catholics just kind of Like That; don't come at me; half of us were raised Catholic). Billy, the older brother, was not treated like someone who has very specific triggers and instead he was frequently exposed to Christmas things, which led to him becoming a killing Santa himself. Billy is actually mostly triggered by witnessing sexual encounters. He kills all his coworkers at a shop after he stumbles on two of them fooling around and then a random couple he finds. The deaths are comically violent like impaling someone on a deer head. The police suspect he will go back to the orphanage for revenge and they accidentally kill the deaf janitor dressed as Santa who we never met. They get Billy in the end though and the plot shifts to Ricky. 

Ricky was adopted by a Jewish family so clearly that was an improvement, but still his triggers were never dealt with. He has a freakout as a child when he sees nuns followed by a velvety red fabric reminiscent of Santa's coat. Later after the death of his foster father, Ricky kills an attempted rapist he finds in the forest by running him over with a car. Things may be turning around for him when he meets a girl named Jennifer and has his first awkward sexual encounter. All this really does is refocus his trigger from sex to the color red. He kills some New Wave guy who is his girlfriend's ex by electrocuting him with his car and then offs his girlfriend who is dressed somewhat nun-like at the time. This leads to the killing spree (and garbage day) that lands him in prison. We realize he has killed the therapist with the recorder tape and goes out to get revenge on the Mother Superior in the final act. He decapitates her but dies himself dressed as Santa.

This movie is excellent. It is held up almost entirely by the over-the-top performance of the actor playing Ricky, but his work is so perfect that it is a must watch. There are some silly deaths and a evil nun but it all comes back to Ricky's eyebrows and inflection. I could list a bunch of quotes from him but text would never really convey why those lines are so amazing unless you watch it. It's a rewatch for sure.

Quote:
Ricky: I've never told anyone this before.
Therapist: Let it out.
Ricky: HERE IT COMES!

Spoon Rating: 8

Broken Arrow [1996]

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

Because of the weather, Erik couldn't make it to movie night this time so we all had it in our minds to watch something that probably wouldn't be a hall-of-famer. Our instinct was right to delve into Sarah's childhood for this action movie nonsense: "Broken Arrow." It was likely another favorite of her father's (the man who brought us "Baby's Day Out" and "Undercover Blues") but we can't confirm that one. Already there was trepidation at the John Travolta-Christian Slater casting combo pack but the moment we knew we were in trouble was when we saw "A John Woo Film" right at the beginning and Adam and Kay let out primal groans of people who know what to expect.

Writing up the plot of this movie is ultimately not a very useful endeavour since it's nearly two hours of running around and explosions in southern Utah without any real depth or intrigue. John Travolta plays a crazy man with no character development who steals a nuclear bomb so he can blackmail the government and then, "invest 5% in Volvo, the safest automobile in the world." His one rule as a chaotic neutral is to endorse products. Christian Slater is trying to stop him with the help of a female park ranger who doesn't do anything of substance. We get a lot of nice shots of Glen Canyon and Lake Powell and some really hammy acting from Travolta who never met a piece of scenery he didn't wish to consume whole like a snake, but otherwise the film is a little boring (unless you're Sarah, who loved it; bless her nostalgia goggles).

The one thing that probably could have improved our experience was playing John Woo bingo, but we had no idea it was one of his movies until we were too far in. I can tell you though that there were no shots of doves flying, likely a byproduct of the location. Next week as long as everyone is present we will probably be doing a rewatch of something we know will be good as a palate cleanser.

Spoon Rating: 3.5

Hawk: Warrior Of The Wheelzone [1991]

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

Let me point out first of all that the picture to the right is not a picture of the cover of "Hawk: Warrior of the Wheelzone." That doesn't appear to exist. Instead it is a picture of the cover of "The Legend of the Roller Blade Seven" because the history of the "Roller Blade Seven" movies is long and nonsensical. Donald G. Jackson and Scott Shaw used the footage they shot from their zen, script-less movie to make "The Roller Blade Seven" and "Return of the Roller Blade Seven." They then merged the two into a presumably more coherent film called "The Legend of the Roller Blade Seven." "Hawk: Warrior of the Wheelzone" is seemingly a remake of that merged film. The result is that it's a lot more coherent than the two original movies, but that makes it only really interesting to a "Roller Blade" completionist.

The beginning of the plot is identical to that of "The Roller Blade Seven." Sister Sparrow of the Light Institute is kidnapped by Saint O'ffender and Hawk must skate the path of righteousness to rescue her. Along the way he meets Stella Speed, wiffle bat clown girl, and a bunch of S&M themed gangs. In this version of the story, Stella gets captured by Frank Stallone, a disabled veteran, and adorned with a wedding veil and snakes. Hawk gets captured too, saves Stella, and they get married at the end.

Overall, this film makes a lot more sense but that doesn't make it better. Part of the charm of the "Roller Blade Seven" movies is their absolute absurdity. That's what makes this film in particular so hard to review. If you can only watch one, "Return of the Roller Blade Seven" is the most ridiculous. Watching both of the originals is probably ideal, but if you watch both of the original movies, "Hawk" is really unnecessary.

Spoon Rating: 5*

*But this one is only worth watching in the same way that the previous two are, and they're better.