Under The Cherry Moon [1986]

Another Razzie winner, this film is both starring and directed by Prince. In some ways, this makes sense. The movie is heavily based on vibes and there is definitely interest in the visuals. The film is in black-and-white and set in Nice with some distinct Casablanca ambiance in the opening scene. The costumes are all really interesting to look at and, with the exception of a lot of Prince's clothes specifically, surprisingly stylish for the 80s, a notoriously horrifying fashion decade. The sets are very beautiful and meant to evoke old money wealth. The problem is the actual substance of the film. 

The film revolves around Prince's character, Christopher, and his friend Tricky who are basically on a quest to marry rich women to get money out of them in the divorce. They set their sights on a rich girl who just turned 21 and is supposed to get a $50,000,000 trust. Over the course of the film she and Prince supposedly fall in love. I say supposedly because they have no chemistry and spend a lot of the film arguing. In the end, he gets shot for kidnapping her and she funds Tricky's desire to own an apartment complex in Miami while Prince plays music in heaven.

The film is just odd. A lot of plot explanation is dropped in conversation long after we needed it, and the dialogue is hard to follow anyway because the sound mixing is atrocious. The film is scored by Prince and the Revolution, of course, but the balance is so bad we can't hear the actors a lot of the time. And then there's just the plot in general, which is thin and unconvincing. There were some comedic music stings (which maybe weren't supposed to be funny) and some really bad acting moments, but overall it was only okay. Definitely an interesting curiosity, but you don't have to add it to your list unless you really need to hear those 80s jams.

Spoon Rating: 4

The Lonely Lady [1983]

This film was a Razzie winner in its time and it deserves that title for being so bad in such a hard to articulate way. This movie was never quite what we thought it was going to be, and those surprises got a strong reaction. Let me try to explain.

The film starts with an award show (basically the Oscars but not) where a woman is entering alone and because of this she is assumed to be no one. Flashback to her high school days when she won an award for writing and later that night is raped by a hose. Yeah, we were shocked too. The owner of the house where this happened is a famous screenwriter who goes to talk to her and this sparks up a connection. They marry. He's at minimum 35 years older than her. The marriage goes sour after a while due mainly to him being jealous of her ability after giving her a chance at writing on one of his films. She then has an affair with an actor and tries to get a script she wrote looked at. She doesn't get a deal but she does get an abortion. Then she gets a job working at a club where the club owner, who she eventually screws, offers to send out her script. He doesn't but she does get duped into having sex with a couple who she thinks will help her. Finally she gets "help" from a producer and his wife, but it seems to be a lavender marriage where she has to screw the wife to get her movie made. It does get made and she wins her Noscar for it and she uses her speech to basically admit she fucked her way to the top and it wasn't worth it. 

This film was wild. Aside from the plot, there were some incredible moments of melodrama and the surprise of her speech at the end was honestly pretty satisfying. The thing we really can't figure out though is the title. She's metaphorically lonely in the sense that she is left out to dry by everyone, but she doesn't seem to be at a loss for companionship at all. 

Also the lead actress was apparently Little Miss Muffet in Adam's childhood favorite of Mother Goose Rock n' Rhyme. Glad to know she did something else even if it was this.

Spoon Rating: 5

Madame Web [2024]

A Razzie award winner and much discussed as one of the worst movies of the year, this one was bound to be a solid one and it definitely was. Between the fact that this is a by-the-numbers superhero origin story that is so clearly a sequel or television set up, the weird directing full of Dutch angles and camera flips, the excessive spiderweb motifs and Pepsi shilling, the Cassandra-the-prophet connection, the mid-2000s styling that is always slightly off, and the stiff acting, this film was a . . . marvel.

The film starts with a very pregnant spider scientist in the Amazon getting nearly murdered by her spider stealing colleague before she gives birth and dies. That daughter in 2003 is an EMT and lone wolf who nearly drowns, awakening her ability to see the future. This leads her to three teenage girls with absent parents who are being hunted down by the aforementioned stealing colleague who has used the spider to become some kind of evil spiderman. Most of the movie is her trying to protect them with a little detour to Peru to learn what really happened with her mom. Insert a lot of action that should really have killed the villain and the shoehorning in of the birth of Peter Parker.

Aside from everything I mentioned in the first paragraph, it's most hilarious how because this film was a complete bomb that also means that it is extremely pointless. The whole film is a setup to something that will never be made. At least we have the unintentional comedy of this film to live on. We will however keep wondering if the 2003 setting was meant to tap into the current Y2K nostalgia and if the fact that the fashions were all not quite right was on purpose to try to appeal to current trends. It certainly was an attempt as this film appealed to no one.

Spoon Rating: 5

The Roommates [1973]

This movie is best described as a series of pornos but only the very beginning before anyone starts having sex. No exaggeration. Every scene is an interaction between two characters, talking about sex, and the implication that they might immediately bone right after. Then suddenly, someone gets killed at the summer camp where the film is set. We genuinely didn't expect it to be a horror film to the point that Adam made a joke about Freddy suddenly appearing and offing someone. 

Is it worth explaining the plot? Or should I say plots? One girl decides to sleep with a divorced rich guy and gets sad but rebounds with some blonde dude she was presumably screwing earlier. One girl has her younger cousin come over and the creepy dude who screwed her at 16 decides to go after her cousin. There's also a guy living in her woods. They don't screw but they do have a moment. There's a girl who works at the library and starts hitting it off with the town sheriff. Then there's a girl who is a camp counselor and ends up screwing one of the campers. Also all these girls might be college students? And the film started with an orgy? This is the most sexless sex movie ever, but the male gaze camera work is cranked up to 11. You will see boobs and so, so much midriff that it's basically the 2004 Teen Choice Awards.

Honestly, this movie was hilarious. We got a lot of joy out of it. What's not to laugh about when everything is a porn set up? It has a real Psycho ripoff of a conclusion to the killer subplot, but that doesn't stop the girls from joyously riding off after a crazy summer, hahaha! 

People died.

Spoon Rating: 6

Fatal Deviation [1998]

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In honor of the holiday Adam cooked up some Irish farm stew and found a low budget Irish martial arts film for us that was a vehicle for a Van Damme fanboy to really show his American Kenpo skills. If the title doesn't sound familiar, there's a famous soundbite that may as it seems to have entered the meme world for its quality: "You made me look bad . . . and that's not good." Incredible writing there from the land of Swift, Wilde, and Joyce. Really makes us proud to be of Irish heritage, and not in any way question why our ancestors left.

James Bennett leaves his reform school (in his 30s seemingly) to venture out and learn martial arts like his murdered dad. Along the way he saves a girl from some goons, but mostly just picks fights with whoever is around to show off his skills. Sometimes he punches a bag and does splits. This catches the attention of the man who murdered his father who makes the bold decision to try to get him into his squad. I think they do crime? It's unclear. There's also a tournament coming up for Beltane (martial arts has literally nothing to do with this holiday) and Bennett is invited to attend. He goes on some dates, has a bar fight, shoots guys while standing on a motorcycle, and then has a long sequence where he learns to fight from a Franciscan monk, who are known for their fighting, right? The movie takes a turn for the Bloodsport ripoff, which is just an Enter The Dragon ripoff, to have the tournament, which Bennett wins. Later, at his second picnic with the girl, he finally gets to shoot his father's murderer with a shotgun. Blooper reel!

This movie is quality. Aside from the painfully obvious nods to other martial arts film, it's got insane lines with insane reads, a plot that doesn't do anything, highly realistic sound effects, and incongruous light 90s pop music. It's also only an hour and ten minutes, a perfect length for it to not drag on too long and with very few dull moments. A definite recommend.

Spoon Rating: 6

Joshua And The Promised Land [2003]

Always an interesting night when it starts with the question, "Where did you find this?" And the answer is, some YouTube video but I genuinely don't remember which one; just that I got two minutes it and paused it because we needed to watch it for ourselves.

As you can see from the image on the left, this one is a real winner with its eye-searing animation. But bonus: it's also religious. An anthropomorphic lion child named Joshua hears his parents fighting and is whisked away to the Bible story of Moses and, uh, Joshua by an angel who's also an Italian-American stereotype. The film is narrated by a purple creature in a bow tie, very Chippendale style. After all these adventures, he goes home for dinner and at the sight of him his parents immediately stop fighting and everything is solved, I guess.

This is a short one at 50 minutes and while it's pretty incredible to behold, the joke does wear a little thin after a while. Somehow a movie of this length still has padding. Overall, it's worth one watch if you are drunk or just feeling a little silly.

Spoon Rating: 5

Since it was a short one we followed it up with two shorts: "Red Asphalt IV" from 1998 that was a shockumentary about car accidents that they would show in a driver's ed class and emphatically not fun, and "Soapy the Germ Fighter" from 1951 where a boy learns that bathing isn't for sissies from a giant bar of soap with arms and legs. We gave that one a spoon rating of 6. It was delightful.

Megalopolis [2024]

Having watched a review or two about this movie, I knew that it was insane but I somehow still didn't know what it was about. I knew it was a decades long passion project by Francis Ford Coppola. I knew it was based on this idea of America as an allegory for Ancient Rome based on an actual part of Roman history. I knew who was in it. But I figured in order to actually understand it, I would need to watch it. That did not help.

I don't know how to explain the plot to someone else, but I can tell you the themes are everywhere: written on buildings and in title cards spoken by Lawrence Fishburne so you kind of feel like Morpheus is explaining the purpose to you. That being said, the movie doesn't seem to actually convey these themes, which is why they are explained to you. There's references up the wazoo that are maybe meant to service these ideas but just don't: Hamlet, Henry II's Bishop of Canterbury thing, Marcus Aurelius, Nazi Germany. I mean, I like history and literature too, Frank. The film also has a lot of visual language. A lot. Too much you might say. It's a lot of film styles mixed together that lead to us comparing certain shots to Sin City and others to The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. It was futuristic in a cheap CGI meets Art Deco way, while also looking like Ancient Rome circa 1950s epics: gladiator heels with square diamonds. In a way, I liked the aesthetic. In a way, I hated it terribly.

Here's my best attempt at explaining the plot of film, but you have to imagine it more like a bunch of vignettes in the same universe. Caesar Catalina is an architect/scientist/guy-who-can-stop-time who wants to create a permanent city of the future that will be a utopia for all. His rival is Mayor Cicero who likes the status quo and focusing on the now and also hates Caesar because he was the DA when Caesar was accused of killing his wife. Cicero's daughter, Julia, falls for Caesar's vision and him and they eventually get married and have a kid so Cicero gets over his hatred.. The Megalopolis utopia is funded by Caesar's rich uncle Crassus who ends up marrying Caesar's ex named, I kid you not, Wow Platinum, who just wants money. She seduces Crassus' grandson Clodio, who becomes something of a Trump allegory but is taken down by supporters of Caesar's utopia. Everyone is happy. The future is secured. You would not believe how much filler I left out in this explanation. This movie is over two hours long.

Because of it's length, this is a hard movie to recommend, but it has some genuinely funny acting moments (bless Aubrey Plaza who is just here to have fun) and so much nonsense that you are consistently mesmerized and confused. Possibly a good one if you're on drugs? 

With all its on-the-nose themes it really feels like the true meaning of this film is, if you have been trying to make something work for over 30 years and it still isn't coming together, maybe just stop.

Spoon Rating: 4