Author: Patrick

I Know Who Killed Me Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the final preview in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

I Know Who Killed Me (2007) – BMeTric: 81.5

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(Something happened at the start of ‘08ish. The number of votes just stalls for what appears to be several months. At the same time the rating all of a sudden jumps up and then jumps back down once another archived page is sampled. My guess? Someone was gaming the system trying to get the rating for the movie to jump up, and IMDb got wise to it and locked down the page. After a bit they purged the fake votes and it returned to being one of the worst films of all time. The End.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Hopeless thriller in which a young woman is kidnapped and terrorized by a serial killer. When she wakes up in a hospital, she tries to convince everyone she is not who they think she is. Woefully inept, with an incoherent plot and incompetent cinematography.

(Directly to the point. Basically this movie isn’t just acted poorly, or written poorly, it is technically poorly made and it is crazy inept. Inept filmmaking. This is what we are here for boys.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZgwl7nlP5E

(Wowzer. That trailer looks terrible. The story could be interesting, but the way it is presented is decidedly not interesting. It makes it look unintentionally funny. Almost like 88 minutes actually. Interesting concept but obviously not well made or cared for.)

Directors – Chris Sivertson – (Known For: All Cheerleaders Die; The Lost; BMT: I Know Who Killed Me; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Director for I Know Who Killed Me in 2008; Notes: There is surprisingly little information about this guy. He broke onto the scene doing small horror films, had a flurry of films including this one around 2007, and since they has done relatively minor releases.)

Writers – Jeff Hammond (written by) (as Jeffrey Hammond) – (BMT: I Know Who Killed Me; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Screenplay for I Know Who Killed Me in 2008; Notes: Now this guy … yeah there is nothing about this guy. Literally nothing. I did stumble onto a few weird script review sites … but couldn’t find anything about him. The only article on Variety is the announcement for this film. WHO ARE YOU?!)

Actors – Lindsay Lohan – (Known For: Mean Girls; The Parent Trap; The Holiday; Freaky Friday; Machete; Herbie Fully Loaded; Bobby; A Prairie Home Companion; Future BMT: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen; The Canyons; Just My Luck; InAPPropriate Comedy; Chapter 27; BMT: Scary Movie 5; I Know Who Killed Me; Georgia Rule; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Actress, and Worst Screen Couple for I Know Who Killed Me in 2008; Nominated for Worst Actress in 2007 for Just My Luck; and in 2014 for The Canyons; Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress in 2014 for InAPPropriate Comedy, and Scary Movie 5; Nominated for Worst Screen Combo for Scary Movie 5 in 2014; and Nominated for Worst Actress of the Decade in 2010 for Herbie Fully Loaded, I Know Who Killed Me, and Just My Luck; Notes: This film was meant to catapult her from teenage star to serious actress. But it managed to be a final nail in the coffin for her career at the time. It looks like perhaps she’s making a good move starring in 8 episodes of the Rupert Grint / Nick Frost television series Sick Note. Television could be the place to stage a comeback.)

Julia Ormond – (Known For: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Legends of the Fall; Inland Empire; My Week with Marilyn; First Knight; Sabrina; The East; Che: Part One; Chained; Albatross; Kit Kittredge: An American Girl; Surveillance; Smilla’s Feeling for Snow; The Music Never Stopped; Nostradamus; The Prime Gig; Future BMT: Rememory; BMT: I Know Who Killed Me; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress for I Know Who Killed Me in 2008; Notes: The was the next big thing among British actresses in the mid-90s, and has since then made a fine transition into television primarily. Has a great track record all things considered.)

Neal McDonough – (Known For: Captain America: The First Avenger; Minority Report; 1922; RED 2; Flags of Our Fathers; Star Trek: First Contact; Darkman; Ravenous; Greater; Traitor; Falcon Rising; Little Birds; Future BMT: The Hitcher; Angels in the Outfield; Walking Tall; Telling You; The Last Time; Three Wishes; BMT: I Know Who Killed Me; Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li; Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2; Fire Down Below; Timeline; 88 Minutes; The Guardian; Notes: A true BMT legend. One of the first actors I remember noticing being in an inordinate number of BMT films. People like him make me wonder about the best path to managing a career. He has been in an amazing number of terrible films, but I think he is a great actor, and he not only stars in a multitude of television series (Suits, Legends of Tomorrow, Arrow recently), but has five films coming out next year. How do you do it!?)

Budget/Gross – $12 million / Domestic: $7,498,716 (Worldwide: $9,669,758)

(A complete and utter bomb. It was known to be one of the worst films ever made when it was release, so it is no surprise no one went for it, despite the creepy promise of Lindsay Lohan being in some sort of strip club scene.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 7% (5/75): Distasteful and ludicrously plotted, I Know Who Killed Me is a career nadir for all involved — particularly Lindsay Lohan in a dual role.

(Distasteful, tawdy, vile. Some of the words used to describe this film by critics. And honestly? It rings true. It was all of those things from what I can remember.)

Poster – I Sklog Who Killed Me (B)

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(The pros: I like the color scheme. I like the symmetry. Reminds me of classic 90s thrillers. The cons: The photoshop with the faces looks like crap. The flower looks cheap. The font looks like cheap 90s thrillers and it too easily mimicked. I’m going to bump it up to a B because if I saw this from across the street and I was in the mood for a thriller this immediately gets me curious and interested in seeing the film.)

Tagline(s) – If you think you know the secret…Think twice. (F)

(Boooo. I’m going to give it a bit of a pass because the poster itself is actually tagline-less, so it is less consequential. But this is a terrible tagline even if it does hint at the stigmata twin twist. I assume that is the secret. Also all of the twists in the film are glaringly obvious, so it isn’t even good from that perspective.)

Keyword(s) – stripper; Top Ten by BMeTric: 84.2 Piranha 3DD (2012); 81.5 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 79.8 Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000); 78.7 Striptease (1996); 77.7 Universal Soldier: The Return (1999); 73.2 Showgirls (1995); 71.9 Zombie Strippers (2008); 68.4 Stan Helsing (2009); 67.5 It’s Pat: The Movie (1994); 66.4 The Crow: City of Angels (1996);

(Gross! We’ve seen Striptease, and will have to do a Showgirls viewing at some point as well for the record (at least one of us has definitely seen that one). The rest are kind of throwaway, which is actually weirdly disappointing. You’d think there would be better bad movies with stripping in it.)

Notes – Lindsay Lohan’s legal issues became a problem during filming as there were some days were she would either show up late or not show up at all, it got so out of hand that Chris Sivertson was forced to use a body double and digitally replace her face with Lohan’s while filming the climax of the film for the days she was not on set. (This was I think for drugs? I don’t think this was the stealing one)

Blue objects are dominant throughout the runtime of the picture (as the color represents Aubrey’s personality). In the first 35 minutes alone we see Aubrey’s dark blue shirt, along with her blue dress, blue gloves, a blue pill, blue football uniforms, football fans wearing blue sports shirts and blue body paint, Thomas Tofel’s blue ring, a blue mouth gag, a blue laptop bag, a blue cat collar, Aubrey’s blue Lexus car, Thomas’s blue car, blue tools of torture, a blue solution poured on a hand, blue everything in an operating room, a blue hospital gown, a blue iPod, blue roses, a blue pen with blue ink, a blue photo album, blue walls in a classroom, and blue hospital walls, even some characters have blue eyes. (Yup, it is super in your face, overwhelming, and honestly amateurish)

Lindsay Lohan actually took pole-dancing lessons to prepare for her role as a stripper but because of her strict no-nudity clause in her contract she was not willing to strip nude for the film. (Good for her I say. Don’t do it for some schlock like this at least. Perhaps for something you are proud of with a purpose to it all)

This is the third time Lindsay Lohan played two characters in one film. Her first time was as Hallie Parker and Annie James in The Parent Trap (1998) where she played twins and her second time was in Freaky Friday (2003) where she played mother and daughter Anna Coleman and Tess Coleman, whose bodies were swapped after an unfortunate Chinese curse.

In the first week of production, filming was halted after Lindsay Lohan had her appendix removed, filming was delayed even longer after the incision was infected and the filmmakers were waiting for a doctor’s approval for Lohan to continue working. This occured at the same time Lohan entered rehab for the first time in January 2007. Filming finally resumed in February. (Drugs, the above not was definitely about drugs)

Held the record for the most Razzie Award “wins” by one film in a single year, with 8 awards including Worst Picture of 2007. A record that was previously held by both Battlefield Earth (2000) and Showgirls (1995) and was later broken by the Adam Sandler comedy Jack and Jill (2011) (another movie where the lead actor plays two characters), with an incredible ten awards, including Worst Picture of 2011. The film received 9 nominations and only won 8 of those awards, the only award the film lost was Worst Supporting Actress for Julia Ormond who lost the award to Eddie Murphy for his role in drag in Norbit (2007). (The Jack and Jill “victory” was a crime in my opinion. Bucky Larson was a worse film that year)

Was not screened in advance for critics.

Because of her negative reputation, Lindsay Lohan could not even walk to her trailer without the paparazzi photographing her, sometimes they would even end up in the background of some shots of the film.

The only film that received an “F” CinemaScore from audiences upon its release in 2007. (I assume that is “in 2007” specifically. Mother! this year joined that club if I recall correctly)

Lindsay Lohan’s DUI arrest in late July 2007 prevented her from doing promotion for this movie. She was scheduled to appear as a guest star on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) to promote the film. (DUI! Had to be drugs or alcohol related to involve rehab)

Scenes in the trailer that didn’t appear in the theatrical cut include Jerrod (Brian Geraghty) talking to Aubrey about her story “Dakota” and stating “Aubrey you talk about her like she’s real, it’s a stupid assignment for class” and an unidentified character talking to another character and saying “she looks just like her but it ain’t Aubrey”.

Chris Sivertson took inspiration from the works of David Lynch, Brian De Palma, and Alfred Hitchcock incorporating their use of surrealistic imagery and creative color choices for the film.

Jeff Hammond’s first (and last) film as a screenplay writer. (awwwww, but I can’t really feel that bad. You wrong I Know Who Killed Me, what did you expect?)

Chris Sivertson’s favorite works such as Vertigo (1958), Blue Velvet (1986), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Twin Peaks (1990) all served as inspiration for this film.

Film debut of YouTube celebrity Jessica Lee Rose.

Shay Aster, Leslie Cohen, Dan Walters, and Clint Johnson all played supporting characters in the film though their scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Oddly, while most store-exclusive bonus discs with special features are included in an envelope in the case, the bonus disc with cast and crew interviews for this film was instead included in it’s own case separate from the film. (Very odd … that was sarcastic by the way)

In Aubrey’s bedroom seen throughout the film, if looking closely behind her door, you can spot a familiar purple guitar leaning against the dresser drawer. Not only is purple a color made from combining blue and red, the two dominant colors of the film, it’s also the same guitar that appears on the cover of Lindsay Lohan’s album “Speak.”

When Dakota is about to do a Google search on Aubrey’s laptop, she finds it’s locked with a password and somehow figures out what it was. The password was actually Dakota, named after her story of the same name. Although we don’t see the password on the screen, if looking closely at the keys Dakota is typing, you can see she’s hitting the letters that spell that name. (excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me. She does not do a Google search. This movie takes place in an alternate universe in which Ask.com has won the search engine wars and is a groudbreaking technology)

According to behind the scenes interviews, during the interrogation of Daniel Fleming by detectives searching for a missing Aubrey, a mural containing several paintings and drawings can be seen right behind Daniel as he’s talking to them. This mural’s paintings actually contain several clues and hints towards the twists and turns that will happen in the film.

In her hospital room, after Dakota has been treated, she is interrogated by a psychiatrist. He starts asking Dakota questions and writes her answers down in a notepad divided in half, with various bits of info on Aubrey written in blue while Dakota’s answers are written in red.

The Flemings and Dakota are driven home from the hospital by the police to avoid the reporters, while in the backseat, Dakota’s face is lit up, alternately, in blue and red from the police car sirens. This is supposed to be a motif that plays on the idea on whether or not she is really Aubrey or Dakota. (This shit is just bonkers. Just ridiculous stuff)

The original ending revealed that the characters Aubrey and Dakota were not real and that the entire film was simply an unnamed college student’s script (also played by Lindsay Lohan). This ending was cut after test audiences found it “too predictable” (it is included on the DVD and Blu-ray extras). (Jesus Christ, you gonna Jacob’s Ladder this thing?)

The neon sign above the strip club entrance malfunctions with the arm and the leg fading in and out, a foreshadowing technique for the fact that Aubrey and Dakota have their arms and legs amputated. (Robot arm and robot leg, the best part of this crazy bad film)

Jeff Hammond said his main inspiration for writing the screenplay was to write a story that featured the concept of stigmatic twins, siblings with a psychic connection that lets them feel each other’s pain and experiences. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr. saw this script and helped get it greenlit for production because he was impressed by the original concept. (Stigmata twiiiins. Maybe the best twin film of all time)

Several moments in the film allude to the idea of doubles, or two halves. Aubrey at one point mentions that she feels like half of her soul is missing, a student in the biology class asks if cutting a worm in half will result in two more worms, and the motorist who rescues Dakota off the side of the road talks over the phone about feeling like “half a person”, all of which foreshadowes the revelation that Aubrey and Dakota are psychic twins.

Awards

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture of the Decade

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress of the Decade (Lindsay Lohan)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay Lohan)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Lindsay Lohan, Lindsay Lohan)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Lindsay Lohan)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Rip-Off

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Chris Sivertson)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Jeff Hammond)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Excuse for a Horror Movie

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Julia Ormond)

Marmaduke Preview

I actually did not mind watching our previous film The Women. Unfortunately that means we’ll inevitably turn around and do some film that’s a giant pile of dog poo in our face. Not looking like it’ll be any different here. For the Chain Reaction we are jumping from A Dog’s Purpose through it’s star Josh Gad straight into another dog-centric film. That’s right! We’re watching Marmaduke! What should have been a slam dunk success (what kid doesn’t like talking animals?) turned out to be a critical and financial train wreck (hooray?). In it Josh Gad played *squints at casting sheet* Bandana Dog… huh. Alrighty. This film is of course about the titular great dane from the old comic strip that essentially asks the question: what if you had a dog that might be just a little too big? Presumably big laughs as he gets into all kinds of zany situations… sigh. This is gonna be a tough one. Let’s go!

Marmaduke (2010) – BMeTric: 66.4

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(So sometimes it is hard to tell: is that regression to the mean? Or is it basically people who didn’t watch the movie shitting on it in 2010 and then forgetting about it (allowing people who have watched the film to give it a more appropriate 4/10 review)? A combination of both actually makes the most sense. With regression to the mean you aren’t regressing to the overall mean (although I sometimes use it that way). You are regressing to the film’s mean rating. The early reviewers might be more discriminatory (or more lax) than the general population, but eventually with enough votes it will get to where it is truly meant to be. This suggests the film is bad (a rating of 4 is objectively bad), but that it wasn’t nearly as bad as the initial reactions suggest (a rating of 2 is an all time bad film). Sounds innocuous to be honest, which doesn’t not bode well for the Bad Movie Twins.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars –  Fans of the long-running comic strip by Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming may be surprised to learn that Marmaduke, the humongous Great Dane who often tests the patience of this “two-legger” owners, speaks in a lazy hipster voice (supplied by Wilson) that suggests a California stoner. Unfortunately, that’s one of the very few novelties in this otherwise derivative, unimaginative comedy that relies heavily on the intermingling of human actors in thankless parts and CGI-tweaked live animals voices by familiar actors. Strictly kid stuff.

(Oh no, strictly kid stuff. I want to point out something: this is one of the longest reviews I’ve ever seen in a Leonard Maltin book. In other reviews they will insert abbreviations awkwardly, seemingly just to get them a character or two shorter. Why would Marmaduke be allowed this luxurious review length? No idea.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NerHJqENCvs

(Dance scene alert. That better be during a post-credits bloopie reel. Loving the music, loving the setting (California is basically a character), and loving the Black-Eyed Peas shout with Fergie getting ludicrously high billing. Everything about this suggests I will hate-love this film.)

Directors – Tom Dey – (Known For: Shanghai Noon; Future BMT: Showtime; BMT: Marmaduke; Failure to Launch; Notes: Interesting that he has almost nothing in the pipeline. Did a commercial reel which landed him at Ridley Scott’s production company, which lead to his (almost exclusively) directorial career.)

Writers – Tim Rasmussen and Vince Di Meglio (written by) – (Future BMT: Smother; BMT: Marmaduke; License to Wed; Notes: Interesting. They are writing partners it looks like. But Di Meglio is also a visual artist on a number of films including Miss Congeniality and Hansel & Gretel.)

Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming (comic) – (BMT: Marmaduke; Notes: Brad Anderson and Phil Leeming created the original strip. Anderson created it, and Leeming helped for the first ten or so years of its run.)

Actors – Owen Wilson – (Known For: Wonder; Cars 3; Wedding Crashers; The Grand Budapest Hotel; Cars; Inherent Vice; Midnight in Paris; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; The Royal Tenenbaums; Fantastic Mr. Fox; Zoolander; Night at the Museum; No Escape; The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; Marley & Me; Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian; The Darjeeling Limited; The Cable Guy; Meet the Parents; She’s Funny That Way; Future BMT: Anaconda; Breakfast of Champions; I Spy; Little Fockers; How Do You Know; You, Me and Dupree; Are You Here; Drillbit Taylor; Masterminds; Hall Pass; Free Birds; Cars 2; Meet the Fockers; The Internship; Father Figures; Behind Enemy Lines; Armageddon; BMT: Zoolander 2; The Haunting; Marmaduke; Around the World in 80 Days; Notes: Y’all know Owen Wilson. Has had a working relationship with Wes Anderson throughout both of their careers. Shanghai Dawn with Jackie Chan is currently in the works.)

Judy Greer – (Known For: War for the Planet of the Apes; Jurassic World; Ant-Man; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; The Village; Tomorrowland; 13 Going on 30; 27 Dresses; Love & Other Drugs; Our Souls at Night; The Descendants; Carrie; What Women Want; Three Kings; Wilson; Adaptation.; Lemon; Neko no ongaeshi; Grandma; All We Had; Future BMT: Cursed; The Wedding Planner; Jawbreaker; Love Happens; Kissing a Fool; Peep World; Elizabethtown; Addicted to Fresno; I Love Your Work; Entourage; The Amateurs; Men, Women & Children; BMT: Marmaduke; Playing for Keeps; Notes: If you saw her you’d recognize her, she is a well known comedic character actor. I know her best as Kitty from Arrested Development. She had her directorial debut, A Happening of Monumental Proportions, in early 2017.)

Lee Pace – (Known For: Guardians of the Galaxy; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; Lincoln; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; The Fall; The Good Shepherd; A Single Man; Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day; The Program; Infamous; The White Countess; Ceremony; Future BMT: The Resident; 30 Beats; The Book of Henry; BMT: Marmaduke; When in Rome; Notes: Maybe most well known for his television work, including the lead in Pushing Daisies. He was a dwarf in The Hobbit franchise, and owns a farm.)

Budget/Gross – $50 million / Domestic: $33,644,788 (Worldwide: $83,761,844)

(I wouldn’t say it is a bomb, but they would have wanted to crack $100 I think. Especially considering how well the Chipmunk franchise was doing around this time. These things are so easy to make I can kind of understand why you just dump it and move onto the next one honestly.)

#26 for the Dog genre

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(I’m going to field a guess here: I think the basically seven year gap in Dog movies after 2010 was partially a reaction to Marmaduke and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, partially that films like those ended up going direct-to-VOD after 2010, and partially because big kids’ films started just using cheap animation instead of animals at the time. Fascinating stuff. And A Dog’s Purpose was the first Dog movie we watched for BMT as far as I can tell. And I love dogs.)

#28 for the Family – Talking Animal (Live action) genre

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(Hot to Trot was also our firsts. 2017 really was a year of firsts for BMT. This came right at the peak, like the tippy top before the fall. Again, I think it is because talking animal movies are released to VOD now. Why would you bother going to a theater to watch Garfield 5 when the kids are going to be distracted anyways and your house is quiet and comfortable? Kind of inevitable that big releases like this would eventually die off, not really worth it.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (9/100): Dull and unfunny, Marmaduke offers family filmgoers little more than another round of talking animals and scatological humor.

(Brutalized. Yeah, this is kind of why we shy away from the family friendly affairs here at the BMT Media Empire HQ. Dull, unfunny, kid humor. Almost never a rewarding combination. I’m kind of loving the very matter of fact Reviewer Highlight: Lines like “Get your bark on,” “Who let the dogs out?” and “Cowabarka” abound. Many of the jokes revolve around excretory functions. – Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post)

Poster – Marmasklog (F)

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(I do not like the contrasting blue and red colors there. Jarring and frankly ugly. And don’t pretend Marmaduke is too big for the title to be on the poster, you are just depriving people like me from seeing what garbage font the graphical design intern painstakingly chose during their lunchbreak. No one called him “the Duke”, everything about this makes me angry actually.)

Tagline(s) – Live Large (C-)

(We get it: Marmaduke is a big dog. Then again, wasn’t that the point of the comic strip? Wasn’t it just about a dog that was just too big for the house and family to deal with? So … fine I’ll bump it up to a passing grade … barely.)

Keyword(s) – great dane; Top Ten by BMeTric: 66.8 Scooby-Doo (2002); 66.4 Marmaduke (2010); 62.9 Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004); 33.6 The Other Woman (2014); 32.2 Good Boy! (2003); 29.6 Committed (I) (2000); 24.0 Teenage Cave Man (1958); 16.8 The Heat (I) (2013); 13.3 Oliver & Company (1988); 10.8 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001);

(Huh … well a lot of those don’t qualify, but still a little nuts this is the first Great Dane film we’ve seen. The Scooby-Doos have to happen because they are on the Calendar though.)

Notes – The film has the distinction of featuring two dog farts, three urine gags, two hits to the groin, one animal belch, two record scratch moments and two uses of the phrase “Who let the dogs out?” (This IMDb user is doing the Lord’s work)

Twin dogs were used for the titular character. (Twin film!!!)

Ron Perlman was originally cast as the voice of Chupadogra, but for unknown reasons, Sam Elliott took over the role.

Amanda Seyfried was the first choice for Mazie.

In the original comics, Marmaduke never talked. (uuuuuuugh)

In 2010, George Lopez, who does the voice of Carlos, the cat, was accused of being extremely rude to a fan and refusing to take a picture with her. The fan turned out to be a Mexican radio show personality and she had taken the incident to live radio.Mexican radio show personality, La Vozalona (Marlene Quinto), as part of the Mexican radio show, “El Show de Don Cheto”, said that she had met George Lopez at a Cuban restaurant. When she saw that he had finished eating and was on his way out, she approached him near the exit of the restaurant. While he was taking a picture with a fan, she had asked to take a picture with him, to which she said he became very rude and disrespectful. She had to wait and was told that “even Mexicans have manners and say please”. Confused, La Vozalona said she told Lopez she was a big fan and one of his many followers on Twitter. In response, Lopez told her to shut up and take the picture. La Vozalona said she told Lopez to stop being rude or else she would “burn” him on talk radio. He responded with a, “What, you think I care?”.This was very surprising for many and many considered Lopez a big hypocrite for the incident, considering he had also been criticizing and ridiculing _CHiPs (1977)_ star ‘Erik Estrada’ for many years. This prior incident, like his most recent, was for not shaking his hand and refusing to sign an autograph, while Estrada filmed an episode of CHiPs near Lopez’s neighborhood. (Do I leave this in the preview? It seems so crazy that this long-winded story is on the Marmaduke page, … like it has nothing to do with Marmaduke. Why is it here? It is just so crazy I can’t stop thinking about it … I hope it gives someone else as much confusion-joy)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (George Lopez)

The Women (2008) Recap

Jamie

When her perfect world seems to crumble all at once with the loss of her job, husband, and best friend, Mary Haines has to figure out what it means to be her (what it means to be a woman?) to help put back the pieces. Can she do it before it’s too late? Find out in… The Women.

How?! Mary Haines has the seemingly perfect life. A good job working in fashion for her father, a super successful husband, a wonderful daughter, and a group of supportive best friends. But when this all goes down the tubes with the discovery of her husband’s infidelity with a curvaceous aspiring actress and the loss of her job, she finds herself lost in the woods. Wallowing in self-pity and undecided on how to proceed in her once happy marriage, she eventually discovers that maybe she needs to figure out what she wants out of life before any of these things can be fixed. She starts a new company, rediscovers the meaning of being a mother and best friend, and finds happiness. Only then can she attempt to fix what had fallen apart with her husband. This very simple and straightforward story is of course told over two hours, which seems impossible. Oh and not a single male actor is seen or heard from in the entirety of the film… which is bonkers and actually pretty deftly done.   

Why?! Interesting question. Mary’s motivation throughout the film is her struggle to decide what to do about her husband’s infidelity. She starts out trying to ignore it (the advice given to her by several older women in the film), then she kinda gives up on everything, and finally on the advice of a (randomly and conveniently placed) successful independent women she starts her own company and sets out on her own. In this she realizes that the underlying reason for her husband’s infidelity may not totally be his fault. By not really knowing who she was herself, and thus not being able to give all of herself over to her husband, how could they have built a truly successful marriage? And so she is able to make a decision in the end: give it a shot with him and if he can love her true self then perhaps they can find true happiness in a second chance.

What?! We are on a role in terms of major product placements. This film is a walking advertisement for Saks Fifth Avenue. Almost the entire first half of the film takes place in the store. This all hits a crescendo when a character leans and very seriously tells a child that “no one hates Saks.” Gotta say, that line itself got me mighty close to hating Saks. The film is also heavily sponsored by Dove. We get some noticeably placed hand creams throughout along with a postcredits advertisement for a short film “The Women Behind The Women” which was part of Dove’s Real Beauty campaign.

Who?! While we’ve been on a role in terms of major product placements, I can’t even remember the last Planchet we’ve had. Doesn’t change here. Do want to point out that Mick Jagger apparently was a producer on this film, which seems weird. It’s only made weirder that IMDb also claims he’s a producer on a 2004 short film titled The Women… alright Mick. We get it.

Where?! This is basically as close to being an A+ film without having the title be The New York City Women or like, I don’t know, Sex and the City or something. It’s all about Saks Fifth Avenue and as such is all about living it up in the cit-ay. A.

When?! All times forever really. The story jump from summer to fall to Halloween (which plays an unexpectedly large role in the plot) and finished on Xmas. I hesitate to say that it’s a Secret Holiday Film Alert because this film kinda flows through time as if time is not a concept that it understands, but it’s still pretty solid. B.

Will I do it? Can I say it?… This film is just not that bad (It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad!). I think it suffered through some rough directing by a novice filmmaker that they unfortunately tried to patch over with some weird choices in post, but this film had something to say and had interesting people saying it. It occasionally got lost in some extracurricular screwball elements (looking at you random birth scene at the end), but I did not mind this film and I thought it did a nice job telling a story of the complications of love and marriage in the age of successful women. Here’s hoping our next film is similarly good. Let’s see, that would be… Marmaduke… … … alright. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Bust out that gallon jug of white wine, time for Patrick and Jamie to have a girls night in. With nary a man to be seen, we’re dishing on life, love, work, and play. Ain’t nothing going to stop us from travelling with Meg Ryan and the gang as they teach us what it really means to be …  The Women! Let’s go!

The Good (Sklognalogy) – The first hour or so of this film, I thought, was quite good. I liked all of the characters, I liked the story they were going after: when infidelity strikes a perfect (upper-class …) life, what is the expectations of a modern woman? The film gets lost in the middle, but the conceit of not once showing a male (non-newborn-baby) character works super well in the context of this film. I’m pretty shocked with how this film was treated by the critics, and I can now totally understand Ebert’s review where he gave it three stars. This is a 2.5 / 4 film, just not that bad (it’s not that bad! Except for the whole part in the middle where it was). A natural Sklognalogy is the other ensemble piece that came out that year: Sex and the City. One could forget that the original actually got okay reviews and the show that preceded it was at the time cutting edge. This is more familiar and comfortable than that, but I think both illustrate where we were at with movies directed towards women at this point in time.

The Bad (Sklog-cabulary Quiz) – The film has a sequence that appears to take place over the span of several months where Meg Ryan is going to like a canoeing retreat, and her daughter is dressing up … all of that doesn’t work. The film gets seriously lost in the woods after they blow up the question of how the modern family woman is expected to act in the face of infidelity, an interesting question in the context of a film being a remake of a film/play from the early 20th century. There is also something fascinating about romantic comedies where they almost need to function in a world where monetary problems don’t exist. All of the characters in this film are fabulously wealthy. Thus all of the problems focus solely on their relationships. I’m going to try my best to fashion Sklog-cabulary Quiz about this:

Ab Initio Genre (n.) – A genre reduced to first principles, stripping out all characteristics that distract you from the purpose or function the genre serves

I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a real thing, but it is like how you can have a comedy where the focus is really only on the jokes (not even concerned with making sense), or an action film where the action itself is the focus, no romantic lead, no comedy. Hard Sci-Fi csan fall into the category as well. The Ab Initio Romance film takes every other problem out of the film: no money problems, no personal crises, all relationship, all the time. And for romance the ab initio approach seems quite popular … we’ve seen like three “upper-class Manhattanites falling in love” romance films in the last year. It is pretty amusing. They might as well be called Rich People Problems.

The BMT (Legacy / StreetCreditReport.com) – I don’t think this film is much of anything as far as bad movies go (perhaps something with the large female cast? The issue is it really isn’t that bad!). It could make an appearance in the beginning of 2019 if I remember that I actually liked the film for the Smaddies Baddies film that wasn’t that bad award. Considering how strong of a bad movie year 2008 it isn’t a terrible surprise there isn’t much as far as StreetCreditReport.com, although it did get a small mention in this Vulture poll. The first Sex and the City film came out the same year as The Women which is pretty bizarre.

I ain’t reading a play, and I’ve been too busy to watch the original The Women from the 30s (the films from that era are always like two and a half hours long). I know I’m failing you guys in the adaptations cycle. I promise to be better as the year goes on. I promise. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hall of Fame Speech #9: Texas Rangers

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a second class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly seven years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the five weeks leading up to the fifth (seventh?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the fourth, for the James Van Der Beek tour de force, Texas Rangers. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for Texas Rangers

Probably the smallest and least known film to ever make a HoF induction list. Much like past inductee Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and future inductee Here on Earth (spoiler alert… it’ll obviously make The Hall because it is amazing), this film represents BMT at its purest: us enjoying something that is nearly unwatchable. If a group of people took our recommendation and watched this masterpiece would they find as much joy as we did? Almost certainly not. No, this wasn’t a massive bomb, wasn’t an insane vanity project, and didn’t feature a major actor making impossibly weird choices. Instead it just made no sense at all and featured one of the funniest moments in BMT’s illustrious history.

As will be the case with all the BMT HoF films, it’s been five years since we watched this film. So let’s go through what I remember from that first viewing:

  • James Van Der Beek was… not great, but Ashton Kutcher was a thousand times worse. He’s an underrated stalwart of BMT, particularly in its early years, and this is probably his shining star. I actually forgot that we’ve seen him in an astonishing eight films.
  • I remember uncontrollably laughing when recapping this film with Patrick. Most of the time we are pretty clinical when it comes to breaking down a film, but for some reason a number of things in this film tickled us and I still remember the discussion to this day.
  • We mostly laughed about the ending of the film where James Van Der Beek corners the bad guy in a Mexican standoff of sorts. As the audience you don’t know what is going to happen. How will he get out of this predicament?! Just then our boy James bends his knees and leaps forward in the air and… somehow this allows him to kill the bad guy. It is the single dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen put to film. It’s pretty much in the HoF because of that. I can’t believe it exists.

There is always one little treat that I get to go over in the recap that I didn’t remember from the first viewing. I certainly remembered the acting and that crazy scene at the end, but I did not remember just how little sense this film makes. There are so many moments where things were happening on the screen that had me scratching my head asking simply, “Wait… what?” Right from the jump James Van Der Beek survives a bandit attack by being left for dead… this despite the fact that we as viewers can see him moving around and making noise mere inches from the bandits who meant to kill him. He’s not even trying to play dead. It was so confusing that it made me feel insane. Like the film was gaslighting me. I was like, “Hey movie, you don’t make any sense. Why can’t the bandits see a very obviously alive James Van Der Beek?” and the movie was like “Shhhh, silly Jamie. This in fact does make sense and you just aren’t able to follow the narrative structure of a well written film. I would explain it but you probably wouldn’t be able to follow my explanation.” From there I had more fun pretending that the film was about a gang of spooky ghosts out for revenge and guess what? It made sense. Why can’t they see Van Der Beek? He’s a ghost. How does Ashton Kutcher survive being trapped in a burning building? Ghost. Why does the crazy leaping shot win a Mexican standoff? Ghost. Best ghost movie we’ve ever watched.

Before we discuss that most glorious Mexican standoff, we gotta talk a little about the acting in this film. I had remembered Ashton Kutcher as the main culprit. I can’t say he had the worst southern accent I’ve ever heard (looking at you Jonah Hill in Strange Wilderness), but it’s pretty close. That being said I had totally forgotten that Usher is actually the worst part of the film. I had apparently scrubbed his presence from my memory to the point where I was pleasantly surprised to have him appear on screen. We always appreciate a singer-turned-actor, but even I struggled to pick up what he was putting down. It was actually hard to watch and it seemed like maybe the director agreed because as the film went on his part in it dwindled until he was almost nonexistent. I would say he should use some of his vast fortune to bury this film forever, but I think the film did that OK by itself.

Finally, the crown jewel of the film: the leaping jump shoot. It’s exactly as I remember it… which isn’t surprising since I watch it on YouTube every few months or so just to remember what it’s like to truly live:

It’s almost impossible to describe why it is that it’s so amazing to us. Upon the rewatch I think it has a lot to do with the framing of the scene. Almost everything is done in extreme close-ups of Van Der Beek and Alfred Molina. The director switches back and forth between their faces staring intensely at each other engaged in a life or death duel. Just when the music swells and you know the climactic event is about to occur it quickly switches to a close-up of Van Der Beek’s shoes as they kick up some dust and rise a magnificent inch above the ground. Your brain is confused. Did he jump? Molina also seems baffled by Van Der Beek’s disappearance. Where could he have gone? He was here just a second ago. Too late, for he has fallen majestically to his stomach killing Molina with a single shot. It is absurd and amazing and profoundly confusing. Which basically describes every great thing in BMT: absurd, amazing, and profoundly confusing.

Overall I think this film will go down as one of the many BMT HoFers that really shine with one moment of glory. While one might suspect we were in for something special simply by the statement: Western starring James Van Der Beek, it’s not until that final climactic scene where it all comes together in its BMT HoF glory. Congrats to Texas Rangers and the other hundred or so people that have seen this film or even know what it is. You’ve just jump leaped your way like an idiot into the Hall of Fame.

Texas Rangers Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the fourth in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Texas Rangers (2001) – BMeTric: 35.0

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(I secretly kind of love this graph. So 5.0 is distinctly below average. Not in the 4’s where you’d know that something is truly amiss, but still low. It stays there. Stuck, as more and more people watch and agree: This movie is very much below average but not … like horrible. No regression to the mean because this movie is already at its mean: 5.0 through and through and forever. Solid like a rock.)

Leonard Maltin – 2.5 stars –  Young man joins the recently formed Texas Rangers to avenge the death of his family and becomes an aide to the unit’s enigmatic leader (McDermott). Beautifully mounted widescreen Western isn’t bad, but its story is superficial and derivative. Of the young stars, Van Der Beek fares best, while Molina has fun as a sneering villain. This sat on the shelf for almost two years.

(Right up until the end I was getting a bit scared there. But sitting on the shelf for two years? You think they let a 2.5 / 4 star film sit on the shelf for two years? Luckily we’ve seen this and know Leonard is being forgiving, but still, pretty strong endorsement from Leonard for a genuine stinker here.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTwLLnBbot0

(THE MUSIC. Just amazing. Running through that cast list in the end as well, just making my heart pound. I. Am. Into. It.)

Directors – Steve Miner – (Known For: Warlock; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Lake Placid; House; Forever Young; Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken; Future BMT: Big Bully; Soul Man; My Father the Hero; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Texas Rangers; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Wow… I actually had no idea that one of the directors of Friday the 13th also did Texas Rangers. What’s even funnier is that he directed Soul Man, one of the most obviously racist major film releases in history.)

Writers – George Durham (book) – (BMT: Texas Rangers; Notes: Wait… this is based on a book?)

Scott Busby (written by) – (BMT: Texas Rangers; Notes: Now works as a communications consultant through his company The Busby Group.)

Martin Copeland (written by) – (Future BMT: The Heavenly Kid; BMT: Texas Rangers; Notes: Mostly teaches now. Has a PhD from UCLA and teaches there as part of the Writers’ Program.)

Actors – James Van Der Beek – (Known For: Downsizing; Scary Movie; Castle in the Sky; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Varsity Blues; The Rules of Attraction; Angus; I Love You, I Love You Not; Future BMT: The Big Bang; Stolen; Standing Still; BMT: Texas Rangers; Notes: You know who this guy is. Interesting thing I learned from imdb is that he was apparently paid $3 million for Texas Rangers. It earned one-fifth a Van Der Beek at the box office.)

Rachael Leigh Cook – (Known For: Josie and the Pussycats; Nancy Drew; The Baby-Sitters Club; 11:14; All I Wanna Do; The House of Yes; Living Out Loud; The Big Empty; Bookies; The Hi-Line; Future BMT: Blonde Ambition; She’s All That; Carpool; Tom and Huck; Descent; Antitrust; 29 Palms; The Lodger; Scorched; The Family Tree; My First Wedding; Blow Dry; Stateside; BMT: Get Carter; Texas Rangers; Notes: Married to future BMT actor Daniel Gillies who has a starring role in Captivity, one of the worst reviewed films in the torture porn subgenre.)

Ashton Kutcher – (Known For: No Strings Attached; A Lot Like Love; Open Season; Guess Who; Bobby; Future BMT: My Boss’s Daughter; Annie; Dude, Where’s My Car?; Just Married; Reindeer Games; Spread; What Happens in Vegas; Coming Soon; BMT: Down to You; Killers; Valentine’s Day; New Year’s Eve; Cheaper by the Dozen; Jobs; Texas Rangers; The Guardian; Notes: Underrated BMT talent and all around bad actor. Now married to Mila Kunis and living the life.)

Budget/Gross – $38 million / Domestic: $623,374 (Worldwide: $623,374)

(Yeah, so they essentially pulled this from release. Despite being made for so much they only put it out in 402 theaters for 17 days. Smacks of a contractual requirement.)

#66 for the Western genre

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(Kind of a messy plot, but you can kind of see the genre surge back to life in the early 90s (e.g. Dances with Wolves), and not it is having a bit of a 2010s surge as well. People like westerns, and I want to like them more, but I often find them plodding. I need to put in the work though. Do the homework. I’ll get there.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 2% (1/49): As far as westerns go, Texas Rangers is strictly mediocre stuff.

(I feel like RT is underselling a 2% scoring film. There has to be something profoundly wrong with a film to score that low. Certainly the case here.)

Poster – Texas Sklogs (A-)

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(I actually think this poster is great. Nice symmetry and color (including the shading of the actors). Slight negative on font, which is OK but not perfect.)

Tagline(s) – Count Your Bullets. (D)

(Uh………………. Wot? I know I’m the boy who cried nonsense with a lot of this BMT stuff but this is nonsense.)

Keyword(s) – texas; Top Ten by BMeTric: 87.2 Crossroads (I) (2002); 83.3 Rollerball (2002); 81.7 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005); 68.5 Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013); 64.1 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 63.1 North (1994); 62.4 Ghost Rider (2007); 61.3 Ishtar (1987); 54.0 The Return (I) (2006); 53.0 View from the Top (2003);

(Crossroads! We’ll watch that (again … for the third or fourth time in our lives). Dr. T comes up in a lot of these lists somehow, but alas, it does not qualify. Maybe someday we’ll have an also rans section where we can watch high BMeTric films outside of the scope of BMT.)

Notes – James Van Der Beek had never ridden a horse prior to this movie. (You don’t say)

The film was in development for many, many years. In its earliest stages, it was planned as a directorial project for Sam Peckinpah.

Unused score composed by Marco Beltrami

Joshua Jackson was considered for the role of Lincoln Rogers Dunnison. (They should just remake this movie with all the actors from Dawson’s Creek taking turns in the leading role. An avant garde artistic masterpiece.)

The Women (2008) Preview

Usually I start off the preview for a film by talking about how excited I am to watch it. Not this time! For the Girls Night Out section we jumped to an adaptation of a play. While we had a number of terrible musicals to choose from we at the BMT Media Empire HQ are always looking to buck trends. That’s right! We’re watching The Women… you know, that dramedy you definitely know came out starring Meg Ryan and an ensemble of women living it up in the Greater New York City Area. It’s based on the 1936 play by Clare Booth Luce, which ran on Broadway for a number of years and has been revived and adapted for the screen many times over. This is the latest such adaptation and the critics were less than thrilled. I’m less than thrilled to watch it. Thank god it’s only… 2 hours long! Gah! Let’s go!

The Women (2008) – BMeTric: 58.9

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(This movie actually has a bit more votes than I would expect, and the number seems to just keep on growing. That initial rise is somewhat interesting, why would the early viewers hate on this movie so? Especially when the thousands of viewers that voted subsequently seem to agree with is about a ~5/10 film. I’m going to go ahead a assume it is a case of Early Viewers Are Fans syndrome, and that they tend towards hating what fails to meet expectations. But … who would have expectations about The Women? God … I hope this isn’t a The Internet Hates Things Aimed At Women thing. I really do.)

Roger Ebert – 3 stars –  “The Women” isn’t a great movie, but how could it be? Too many characters and too much melodrama for that, and the comedy has to be somewhat muted to make the characters semi-believable. But as a well-crafted, well-written and well-acted entertainment, it drew me in and got its job done.

(Wowza, is that two in a row? Very interesting take ultimately. I think he admired the actresses so much (as almost pitch perfect for the movie they were creating) he got a little blinded that the movie was in fact (as he even admits) just not good. We’ll see though. Maybe we’ve discovered a hidden gem.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlxwcwESDkQ

(I have to say… that didn’t look like the most boring thing in the world for one reason: literally everyone in the trailer is a woman. Even the extras and shit. It’s actually amazing and might make the film at least visually interesting to look at.)

Directors – Diane English – (BMT: The Women; Notes: Effectively her one-and-done directorial project. There is another movie called Timbuktu but it seems like it was never released.)

Writers – Diane English (screenplay) – (BMT: The Women; Notes: Well known as a writer for Murphy Brown. The Women was her only writing gig after that series went off the air. But guess what? There is going to be a new season of Murphy Brown (with Candice Bergen) this year, 20 years after its last season!)

Clare Boothe Luce (play) – (Known For: The Women; BMT: The Women; Notes: Was the U.S. Ambassador to Italy under Dwight D. Eisenhower.)

Anita Loos (1939 screenplay) – (Known For: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; The Women; San Francisco; Babes in Arms; Strange Cargo; BMT: The Women; Notes: An early screenwriter in Hollywood (her first screenplay was for a Griffith film in 1912). Her brother created the Blue Cross health insurance company.)

Jane Murfin (1939 screenplay) – (Known For: Pride and Prejudice; The Women; Come and Get It; BMT: The Women; Notes: She brought Strongheart the dog, Hollywood’s first canine film star, to the U.S. in the 20s.)

Actors – Meg Ryan – (Known For: Top Gun; You’ve Got Mail; Anastasia; When Harry Met Sally…; Sleepless in Seattle; Innerspace; The Doors; In the Land of Women; Kate & Leopold; Addicted to Love; City of Angels; Proof of Life; Courage Under Fire; French Kiss; When a Man Loves a Woman; Restoration; Joe Versus the Volcano; The Presidio; I.Q.; Flesh and Bone; Future BMT: Hanging Up; Amityville 3-D; In the Cut; Against the Ropes; Serious Moonlight; Armed and Dangerous; Ithaca; BMT: The Women; Notes: Mostly known for co-starring with Tom Hanks as love interests in three separate movies: Sleepless in Seattle, Joe Versus the Volcano, and You’ve Got Mail. She was married to Dennis Quaid for about 10 years.)

Eva Mendes – (Known For: Training Day; The Place Beyond the Pines; Fast & Furious 5; The Other Guys; Hitch; Once Upon a Time in Mexico; Stuck on You; Last Night; Out of Time; We Own the Night; Holy Motors; Bad Lieutenant; The Wendell Baker Story; Live!; Future BMT: The Spirit; Urban Legends: Final Cut; Exit Wounds; Lost River; Trust the Man; All About the Benjamins; Girl in Progress; Cleaner; A Night at the Roxbury; BMT: Ghost Rider; The Women; 2 Fast 2 Furious; Notes: Cuban-American, she’s the only one in her family to have been born in the U.S., her three siblings were born in Cuba.)

Annette Bening – (Known For: American Beauty; 20th Century Women; Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool; Mars Attacks!; Open Range; Rules Don’t Apply; The American President; The Great Outdoors; Ruby Sparks; The Kids Are All Right; Danny Collins; The Grifters; Bugsy; The Siege; Valmont; Regarding Henry; Postcards from the Edge; Ginger & Rosa; Richard III; What Planet Are You From?; Future BMT: In Dreams; Girl Most Likely; Running with Scissors; Love Affair; BMT: The Women; Notes: She was the original choice for Catwoman in Batman Returns, but had to drop out when she became pregnant. She’s been married to Warren Beatty for nearly 30 years.)

Budget/Gross – $16 million / $26,902,075 ($50,007,546 Worldwide)

(Eh, below what it probably expected. For a film like this you’d kind of want to double those numbers I would think. Not a bomb, but not really raking in much cash … unless The Women talk over their problems with a refreshing ice-cold Bud Light at one point that is.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 13% (19/146): The Women is a toothless remake of the 1939 classic, lacking the charm, wit and compelling protagonists of the original.

(Again, thank you RT. I guess this consensus is old enough to actually be useful. This is a brutal score for a film like this. I can only assume it is disastrously boring, which doesn’t bode well for me staying awake watching it on a plane. Reviewer Highlight: One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.” – Richard Schickel, Time Magazine)

Poster – The Sklogettes (F)

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(Nooooooooooooooooo. Why does this keep happening. Look at all the people! Look at the basic white color of it. Dear god, look at the spacing. Even the font is shit.)

Tagline(s) – It’s all about… (F)

(Lol. Wot? I mean I get it… it’s all about The Women but still… lol. Wot?)

Keyword(s) – divorce; Top Ten by BMeTric: 81.9 Kazaam (1996); 78.8 Striptease (1996); 77.7 Bratz (2007); 64.2 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 63.1 North (1994); 63.1 Beethoven’s 2nd (1993); 63.1 Ben & Arthur (2002); 62.1 Sliver (1993); 58.9 Mr. Woodcock (2007); 58.9 The Women (I) (2008);

(Oh shit, Kazaam. I’ve seen this movie (well, the first half of it …) so many times. Dr. T weirdly doesn’t qualify for BMT actually, so looks like we’ll never complete this list. My favorite movie with divorce? Why not Mrs. Doubtfire, great stuff.)

Notes – Tanya the manicurist (Debi Mazar) talks about meeting Madonna. Mazar and Madonna are long-time friends; Mazar appeared in four Madonna music videos: “True Blue” and “Papa Don’t Preach” (1986), “Deeper and Deeper” (1992) and “Music” (2000).

Like the 1939 version, the film has an all-female cast. (noice)

While the project was being put together in Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan were set to star. The production stalled because Roberts and Ryan ended up wanting the same role.

The painting in the restaurant scene features Courtney Love and Anna Nicole Smith.

In The Women (1939) the only scene in color was the fashion show sequence. In this version the fashion show begins with all-black and white clothes, and the scene before it takes place in a black-and-white room.

In the late 1970’s a remake of the 1939 classic was proposed to star Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, and Faye Dunaway, but it was not made. (That sounds like this could have been fun)

Blythe Danner, Marisa Tomei, Queen Latifah, Whitney Houston, Ashley Judd and Sandra Bullock were all in the running for various parts in the film.

For scenes planned on being shot in the Boston Public Library, it was suggested that all the portraits and busts of men to be replaced with those of women. However, the scene was never shot. (Excuuuuuuse me? You talking ‘bout the Boston Public Library? Why would you not shoot that?)

There is an abundance of the use of the color green, from the color of the sets, props, costumes, in almost every scene throughout the movie. In the final fashion show, except for the models, almost every guest is wearing green.

Candice Bergen previously played Meg Ryan’s mother in Rich and Famous (1981).

Edie’s (Debra Messing) daughters are called January, April, May and June. The last three are the names of Daisy Duck’s nieces (counterparts to Donald Duck’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie).

Before development was put on hold in 2006, Annette Bening and Uma Thurman were rumored to have been considered for the roles of Mary Haines and Crystal Allen respectively. Also Lisa Kudrow and Anne Hathaway were in talks for the roles of Mirian Aarons and Peggy Day, but the roles were cut out of the final script.

According to Diane English, the project was in development, from the first draft to the final green light, for fifteen years. (Jesus. No wonder it ended up being a mess)

The original Broadway production opened on 7 September 1937 and had 666 performances at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York. (666? How does that happen I wonder. I would think with how superstitious theater operators are that they would have avoided it)

“The Women’s” screenwriter Anita Loos who wrote this film’s original 1939 screenplay, started her writing career in 1912 with her first full film screenplay The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) starring Lillian Gish for the American Mutoscope & Biograph Co. which is still in existence today. After writing many scripts for Biograph, Loos went on to write such other films such as Saratoga (1937), Another Thin Man (1939), San Francisco (1936), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

Except for the newly-born baby boy in the final scene, there are no male characters in the entire film, not even the extras in wide shots. (That is actually quite cool)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Meg Ryan)

Ouija Recap

Jamie

Laine Morris is struggling with the apparent suicide of her closest friend and ropes a group of teens into attempting to contact her through a mysterious ouija board. Instead they unintentionally awaken an evil spirit. Can they subdue the spooky ghost before it’s too late? Find out in… Ouija.

How?! When Laine Morris’ BFF forever Debbie dies in an apparent suicide she is shocked. Laine is tormented by the fact that she didn’t get to say goodbye, so when a mysterious Ouija board shows up she decides to communicate with Debbie one last time. Her friends and her gather together in Debbie’s house and think they’ve contacted her, only to realize too late that they’ve instead communicated with an evil spirit (Disclaimer: Hasbro does not support the use of its board games for communicating with evil spirits). Oh no! While the spirit kills them off one by one and grows stronger they race to solve the mystery. The find out that the spirit was a little girl murdered by her mother and they need to find her body and free her spirit to put her to rest. In a totally original twist that we definitely didn’t just see in the Ring franchise, it turns out that this was all a trick and they actually make the spirit even stronger. Double oh no! In a final confrontation Laine does battle with the spirit over a rousing game of Ouija while her sister is able to destroy the body. Phew. They did it… or did they? Bum bum bum. THE END.

Why?! The impetus for a bunch of high schoolers to gather together and play a little Ouija is entirely due to Laine wanting to have one last goodbye with her best pal Debbie. All the other teens are basically like “We’re only doing this because you are clearly struggling to process this tragedy and we’re here to help you.” Unfortunately this empathy gets them all killed. The spirit is just evil, having been driven mad through being used as a medium in seances. The spirits she communicated with told her to do terrible things and boy howdy does she.

What?! You mean besides the lame board game that this is a (really bad) advertisement for? Doesn’t seem like a super fun addition to game night. That is unless you awaken a spooky ghost who’s tormented only by its own enthusiasm for board games.

Who?! The editor Ken Blackwell makes an appearance in the film as Internet Expert… whatever that is. I don’t remember why there would have been an Internet Expert in the film. It also seems unnecessarily cruel that he had to show up on set and do a scene when they were also giving him a pile of useless film and making him edit it over and over with different stories and reshoots added in. Almost like the film was created as a form of torture for Ken Blackwell.

Where?! This film is set in California. It just obviously is. However I couldn’t make out the license plate clearly on my burn of the film so technically unknown. My theory is bolstered by the fact that the prequel, set in the same house as this film, is very explicitly set in Los Angeles. D.

When?! With how closely they seemed to keep the setting hidden (or more likely just didn’t care much about it), I thought for sure I would have to do without any inkling of when this took place. Not the case! In the age of cell phones you can always count on the possibility that a character looks at a spooky text and the date and time are in full view. That is the case here where we are informed that it is in fact March 8th. The cell phone date is the temporal setting equivalent to a license plate. Weak but precise. B-

You can tell by how little I wrote for the recap that the film is very basic. Pretty much as basic a ghost story as you can get. Take The Ring and strip away everything of substance and you might end up with something like this. It is also incredibly poorly made. Clearly taken apart, reshot, and put back together you can see where characters were inserted or changed throughout the story. It is actually so bad that it makes The Bye Bye Man look like a masterpiece in comparison. And that’s quite the feat since Bye Bye Man was hilarious. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Hasbro wants those Marvel bucks (who doesn’t?) but their big greed is now your big problem. They need a hit to start their board game universe off right! Well … horror films are easy peasy and cheap as shit. Call up the cheapest director available, what could possibly go wrong? Let’s get into it!

The Good (Sequel / Prequel / Remake) – Uh … the movie is better than you would expect of a cut-to-shit horror film based on a board game. That is really really really it. For the good version of Sequel / Prequel / Remake I kind of want to highlight Ouija: Origin of Evil. So, the entire underlying story of Ouija (a mother dabbles in channelling ghosts, but her daughter succumbs to the evil they find in their dark magic) was completely invented during reshoots. You can kind of tell the movie knows that the background story is interesting, but they can’t really do much with it because they just didn’t have the material to fill the space. So, after the modest success of the film, they just made the obviously more interesting prequel. And it worked! The movie got 82% on Rotten Tomatoes and is apparently great! That’s crazy impressive stuff. I cannot wait to watch that film and see what they did with it, I’ll try and report back when I do.

The Bad (Tril-Oh-Jeez) – The acting is quite bad, all the way down to bad horror film all-star Douglas Smith from recent BMT The Bye Bye Man. The kills look silly and cheap. There is not a single moment in the film that is scary. The twist is obvious (don’t help the ghost girl idiots, you just got Ringed!), and it is clear it only comes about because the movie was cut to pieces desperately trying to get something other than an F cinemascore. As for the Tril-Oh-Jeez how about the don’t-help-the-little-girl-ghost trilogy with Rings, One Missed Call, and Ouija. Can we talk about these dummies and how they deal with ghosts. For reals … don’t help the ghosts. Oh, you have to help the child! You have to help her stop the mother! No. No you don’t. The mother hasn’t done shit for the last like 60 years. Why do you think all of a sudden it is your job to solve all this anyways? Obviously, helping the girl is what it wants. Obviously she is going to ouija your ass the instant you help her out. Y’all dumb. Don’t help the ghosts! … don’t help the ghosts!!

The BMT (StreetCreditReport.com) – Paired with The Bye Bye Man in close proximity the film has that Douglas Smith one-two punch. The brand of so-not-scary-it-is-actually-funny horror film would have probably bored me a year ago, but I find them somewhat fascinating now. Like … how do you manufacture a scare from a disparate set of not-scary shots I wonder. It has to be just impossible. Like … a loud sound and shake the camera a bit? Brutal. As for StreetCreditReport.com … amazingly there is nothing. You have a bunch of horror nerds complaining about how terrible the film is, but there is a somewhat surprising lack of acknowledgement in the media. I remember even we balked at bothering with the film at the time. Our mistake.

As far as the Adaptation is concerned? I mean … Ouija isn’t a board game. It is barely a board. So what can you really do with that? Honestly, if I were to give one decent compliment to the film, I would say they did a pretty good job making Ouija seem like a thing people do and think about. I could have done with a bit more ghost conjuring perhaps, a few more potent Ouija scenes, but otherwise as far as adapting Ouija is concerned … this was a good start. And they ended up making a very good sequel apparently! So I’ll give it a B. Solid prep for what ended up being a surprisingly adept adaptation in the prequel all for something that had no business being adapted into a movie in the first place.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hall of Fame Speech #8: 88 Minutes

Brief note before we start: last July we got together and worked out a second class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. It has been nearly seven years since we started BMT and the films we had seen more than five years ago, in some cases, deserved a rewatch and reassessment. Over the five weeks leading up to the fifth (seventh?) Smaddies Baddies we’ll bring you previews and Hall of Fame Speeches for the five films chosen. This is the thrid, for the un-thrilling psychological thriller 88 Minutes. The intention is to reminisce a bit about what we remember about the film, what we think of it now, and why it deserved a special place in BMT history. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for 88 Minutes

88 Minutes? Sounds like 87 minutes too much! In our second year with the BMT Hall of Fame we had a lot more of our lower-key BMT success stories. Does anyone remember 88 Minutes? Is it a famously terribly movie in its time? Coming off of the first Hall of Fame year, with its Battlefield Earths and Norbits, considered some of the worst films ever made, it would be understandable to scoff at what amounts to a one-man thriller starring a distinctly non-thrilled Al Pacino. But in a way this film captured our hearts long before BMT came along. Let’s get into what I remembered about this legend before the rewatch:

  • The main thing is that it is Al Pacino all day all the time. And. He. Does. Not. Give. A. Shit.
  • Ben McKenzie from The O.C. is in it, and as usual he is looking glorious.
  • Al Pacino’s hair looks like a bird’s nest. Some costume designer was like “yes, it looks very good Al, we need to get to set. We’re about to hit overtime for the guild members”.
  • My favorite part of the entire movie is when Pacino walks up to a cab driver and gives him some money to allow him to drive the cab. For the rest of the movie (effectively) Al Pacino is driving a cab while the cab driver visibly sits in the back of the car. It is bonkers and makes no sense, in addition to being supremely distracting.
  • When we were kids my brother would say “he got a guuuuuuuuun” in a funny voice. It is a line from the trailer (and movie), and it is the number one reason this film was on our radar from day one of BMT.
  • It stars Leelee Sobieski and Neal McDonough. If you know anything about the Bad Movie Twins, you know that we love us some Leelee and McDonough, and to have both of them in the same movie always made it a legendary choice.

The first and last are the most important from an overarching BMT perspective. This movie is a great example of a one-man-show. They designed the entire film around a strong protagonist, landed him (Al-fucking-Pacino!!), and then didn’t bother to do much of anything else. And it has maybe the best supporting cast in the history of a BMT film. I didn’t even remember if it is a good thriller, or just boring.

But in the end a huge part of it is the small moments that just stick with you. Him driving the cab, the fact that we’d know of this terrible film for years prior to actually watching it, the extreme setting of Seattle. It’s got it all, the large and small scale BMT successes. It was time for a rewatch.

Let’s get into how that rewatch went. First, unlike the first class of the Hall of Fame, it shouldn’t be surprising that some films in the second year is … less than. I love this film as a BMT film, but re-watching it I couldn’t help but wonder what people would say if I showed it to them. It isn’t very thrilling and tends to kind of sag in the middle while Al Pacino runs around like an idiot in a rainy Seattle. Norbit, Battlefield Earth, and The Wicker Man you kind of stare aghast at. They shock you. This just kind of makes you wonder aloud what it might look like if Al Pacino gave a shit. It didn’t lessen my opinion of it, all of the above points still stand. It is just the first Hall of Fame where the re-watch so starkly displayed how over time all of the other fluff falls away leaving a rosy pictures of the best-worst parts of a film.

Second, there was one aspect of the film that is still absolutely legendary which I didn’t quite remember: the direction. The entire movie has a weird story of Pacino’s little sister having been murdered by a serial killer when he was a young psychoanalyst. This is told exclusively through slow motion (washed out) flashbacks and (BMT trope alert) audio flashbacks! Here at BMT Media Empire HQ we love audio flashbacks. They signal so heavily the disdain for the audience’s ability to understand even basic storytelling elements, and always seem like a tacked on thing after some producer was like “wait, why does Al Pacino hate serial killers so much though …?” There are dutch angles, weird crane shots, and an airplane taking off that is laid over a shot in such a way that it (technically) takes place in both the past (nine years ago) and present, an event I specifically remember making the same joke about: “That plane took off for nine years”. The movie doesn’t really make much sense, and the root of that is because of the trick they tried to pull (88 minutes real time) and the fact that the director wasn’t up for it. Would the direction alone make it Hall of Fame? Naw, but …

The still stellar cast it puts it over the top. Al Pacino, Neal McDonough, and Leelee Sobieski combine to form a super team which makes it all worth it. Neal is ever present on television throughout and has an amazing meltdown at the end when he realizes the jig is up. Leelee as the ultimate vessel of the twist is just so obviously the bad guy it is almost mind-blowing when it happens. And Al Pacino … wanted another house I guess. Because he doesn’t care. And it is amazing.

Overall, I think this guy stands tall as a great example of the one-man-thriller. And while the film sags, it is saved by the direction and cast. It is probably the height of the low-to-mid-budget thriller for BMT at the time, and for a serial killer film I think it stands tall as a counter weight to its HoF inductee twin I Know Who Killed Me (which tends much more towards horror). Oh, and the part where he drives the taxi? I thought I had maybe imagined  it all. That you couldn’t see the driver in the back seat at all, but … nope, the driver is just sitting there like an idiot. It is awesome. He got a gun indeed. Welcome to the club 88 Minutes.

88 Minutes Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the third in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

88 Minutes (2007) – BMeTric: 37.1

88Minutes_BMeT

88Minutes_RV

(Wow, I think this is a first. It regressed down from what appears to be roughly above-average rating on IMDb. No wonder its BMeTric is so low. I cannot believe it has over fifty thousand votes and a rating of around 6.0, that is truly mind-boggling.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Dreadful thriller about a forensic psychiatrist (and professor) who’s received an all-too-palpable death threat from a man he helped send to Death Row (McDonough). Lumbering, heavyhanded theatrics and clumsy attempts at suspense make this a total waste of time.

(aaaaaaaaaye I see what you did there Leonard. 88 minutes … a waste of time. I got you. This is what I live for though. Heavyhanded theatrics. If anything says good-bad thriller or drama it is heavyhanded theatrics. I want dolly zooms all over my film, I want rending of clothes, chewing of scenery. You’ve given me everything I need to know Leonard … this is why 88 minutes is great (from what I recall).)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUCd805JDJk

(The bird’s nest they tricked Al Pacino into wearing on his head is absurd. Tick tock doc. Tick tock! Getting me amped. He got a guuuuuuuun ….)

Directors – Jon Avnet – (Known For: Fried Green Tomatoes; Future BMT: Righteous Kill; Up Close & Personal; Red Corner; The War; BMT: 88 Minutes; Notes: Not sure if this ended his feature directing career, but it was the last film he directed. He produces and directs a lot of television. His filmography is tripping me out, he does a lot of scripted television for his own channel WIGS previously funded by YouTube and digital exclusive, so a lot of his credits are shows I’ve legit never heard of with giant stars in them. Like this.)

Writers – Gary Scott Thompson (written by) – (Known For: Fast & Furious 8; Furious 6; Fast & Furious 7; Fast 5; Future BMT: Hollow Man; BMT: The Fast and the Furious; 2 Fast 2 Furious; 88 Minutes; Fast & Furious; Notes: If you can’t tell he wrote the original Fast and The Furious (the rest are character credits). He also created the show Las Vegas, and wrote the show Taxi Brooklyn (the American show based on the French film Taxi which was remade into the Fallon and BMT classic Taxi!))

Actors – Al Pacino – (Known For: The Godfather; Heat; The Godfather: Part II; Scarface; The Devil’s Advocate; The Godfather: Part III; Insomnia; Ocean’s Thirteen; Donnie Brasco; Scent of a Woman; Glengarry Glen Ross; Dog Day Afternoon; Danny Collins; Dick Tracy; Carlito’s Way; The Insider; Any Given Sunday; Serpico; Cruising; Dabka; Future BMT: The Son of No One; Misconduct; Revolution; Righteous Kill; Two for the Money; Stand Up Guys; Bobby Deerfield; BMT: Jack and Jill; Gigli; 88 Minutes; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Supporting Actor, and Worst Screen Couple for Jack and Jill in 2012; Nominated for Worst Actor in 1986 for Revolution; and in 2009 for 88 Minutes, and Righteous Kill; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Gigli in 2004; Notes: Y’all know Al Pacino. Let’s go with a nice BMT themed fun fact for him: for a bit he was in both the best rated film on IMDb (The Godfather) and the worst rated film on IMDb (Gigli).)

Alicia Witt – (Known For: Dune; Two Weeks Notice; Mr. Holland’s Opus; Last Holiday; The Upside of Anger; Cecil B. DeMented; Citizen Ruth; Liebestraum; Bodies, Rest & Motion; Fun; Playing Mona Lisa; Future BMT: Urban Legend; Peep World; Bongwater; Four Rooms; BMT: Vanilla Sky; A Madea Christmas; 88 Minutes; Notes: Born in Worcester, MA. She is also a rather accomplished pianist and has gone on tour with Ben Folds and others.)

Leelee Sobieski – (Known For: Eyes Wide Shut; Public Enemies; Deep Impact; Never Been Kissed; Roadkill; Max; Walk All Over Me; My First Mister; A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries; Future BMT: Jungle 2 Jungle; Branded; The Glass House; Finding Bliss; BMT: The Wicker Man (HoF); In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (HoF); Here on Earth; 88 Minutes (HoF); Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress in 2009 for 88 Minutes, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: Her filmography is a lot more impressive that I would imagine considering she will have been in four of the first fifteen BMT Hall of Fame films. I think she’s taken a bit of time off from acting as she is now a mother of two. Was previously married to Matthew Davis who is best known as the jerk boyfriend of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde)

Budget/Gross – $30 million / Domestic: $17,213,467 (Worldwide: $32,593,385)

(Bombtastic. Stunning that they’d spend $30 million on a weird thriller starring Pacino, but he had a bit more … clout at the time I think. Just not good.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (6/122): 88 Minutes is a shockingly inept psychological thriller that expertly squanders the talent at hand.

(“Talent” … Pacino. You are referring to Pacino. I love Leelee and McDonough, but they are BMT all stars. To put in another way: This will be, along with In the Name of the King A Dungeon Siege Tale, Leelee Sobieski’s third Hall of Fame BMT film (Wicker Man is the other). And along with I Know Who Killed Me this is also McDonough’s third (Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li is the other). That is amazing. So the cast might not be the tops … all I’m saying.)

Poster – Eighty-Sklog Minutes (C-)

eighty_eight_minutes_ver3

(I actually kind of hate this poster. The stylization comes across as cheap and half-assed. The red letters are kind of embossed in a weird way as well. We’ve had posters similar to this before and we came to the same conclusion: it looks cheap.)

Tagline(s) – Jack Gramm has 88 minutes to solve a murder. His own. (D)

(I also kind of hate this. It repeats the title (strike one). It is kind of expectedly inevitable, in that of course the “twist” on the tagline is that it is his own murder (strike two). And I don’t even like the name of the main character. I can’t even figure out why I hate all those things so much. I gave a little bump from an F because it at least tells me something about the movie.)

Keyword(s) – serial killer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 81.0 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 78.9 Basic Instinct 2 (2006); 78.8 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 78.2 Feardotcom (2002); 76.8 The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994); 76.2 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 74.1 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005); 73.9 Species II (1998); 73.5 Psycho (1998); 72.9 Zoolander 2 (2016);

(I wonder if the Deuce Bigalow 2 note is a spoiler … is that part of the storyline or a one off joke. I’m intrigued. Otherwise we’ll likely watch all of those .. maybe not Psycho unless we are rolling through a remake cycle of something. Nice list though, those are some real bad horror / thriller films. Shout out to fellow Hall of Fame inductee I Know Who Killed Me.)

Notes – The film runs in “real time” meaning that at the moment Jack Gramm is first told he has only 88 minutes to live, the remaining running time of the motion picture until the identity of the person who set Gramm up is exactly 88 minutes. (yiiiiiiissssss. From what I recall they don’t make a big deal out of this, it was just kind of a fun trick)

The movie trailer of the film reveals parts of scenes that failed to reach the final cut, most obvious of which were flashbacks of the trial convicting Jon Foster. (I wish this movie was called 888 minutes so I could just live inside of it. Let’s get a tv series going, call me Netflix)

Was scheduled for release in 2005 but the release date was pushed back numerous times. (awesome)

Jon Avnet replaced James Foley as director. (Probably at the last minutes, and I thank him for it)

Filmed on campus at the University of British Columbia and in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Al Pacino)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Leelee Sobieski)

Ouija Preview

Oh boy. I am pretty excited for this week’s film. It’s not just because Horror/Thriller has turned into my favorite section of the cycle, but also because this film in particular looked so misguided and awful when it was released that it piqued my curiosity. That’s right! We are watching Ouija, the horror film based on the Hasbro spirit board game and one of the many horror films produced by Michael Bay over the years (he’s a noted enthusiast). Seems like an obvious choice to make an adaptation out of. It’s already about spirits and spooky ghosts so as long as it’s not totally unoriginal and terrible you should be fine. Easy, right? Wrong. Let’s go!

Ouija (2014) – BMeTric: 75.7

Ouija_BMeT

Ouija_RV

(Pretty good. A film in the 4.0’s staying strong and not rising as votes are added is a very very good sign. This is a case of what I will call Arrested Regression. The film should be regressing to the mean (the mean being that of films with around the same number of votes), but it isn’t. This is because it is in actuality as terrible as it initially seemed, so people seemingly are choosing to see the film despite knowing that it is terrible.)

RogerEbert.com – 3 stars –  Though I admit 16-year old me enjoyed the hell out of “Witchboard,” I didn’t think I’d have fun at “Ouija.” But I did, and assisting me were actors who gave their paper thin teenage types a little humor and character, and the film’s look. Shot by veteran camera operator, David Emmerichs, “Ouija” is a glossy hoot, showing more flair than a throwback to the 80’s horror movie should. As a lifelong horror movie viewer, I wasn’t scared by the film, but I dug the many ways it tried to goose me.

(Wowza! Three stars?! The review reads a little oddly, admitting he basically had a soft spot for the nostalgia the film evoked, but it is an interesting take I suppose. Not very many people agree to say the least.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBLmBdn2QF8

(Classic case where the less you show the better. Definitely parts that make me think it’ll be spooky scary. But then all the parts that they actually show the ghost or have someone flossing with their mouth stitched shut is just… not.)

Directors – Stiles White – (BMT: Ouija; Notes: Started in the industry in special effects before launching his career in screenwriting with his writing partner/wife Juliet Snowden.)

Writers – Juliet Snowden (written by) – (Known For: Ouija: Origin of Evil; The Possession; Future BMT: Boogeyman; Knowing; BMT: Ouija; Notes: Married to Stiles White. Also executive producer on the film.)

Stiles White (written by) – (Known For: Ouija: Origin of Evil; The Possession; Future BMT: Boogeyman; Knowing; BMT: Ouija; Notes: Apparently they are both attached to a remake of a German film called Du Hast Es Versprochen. Hoping it works out as well as this one did.)

Actors – Olivia Cooke – (Known For: The Limehouse Golem; Thoroughbreds; Me and Earl and the Dying Girl; The Signal; Katie Says Goodbye; Future BMT: The Quiet Ones; BMT: Ouija; Notes: Notably starring in the upcoming blockbuster release Ready Player One. Also in the new Amazon adaptation of Vanity Fair.)

Ana Coto – (BMT: Ouija; Notes: Really hasn’t done anything much since Ouija. Weirdly was just in a Logan Paul film released exclusively to Shudder called Can’t Take It Back which is coincidentally about putting something on the internet that you can’t take back… must not have been much of an acting stretch for Logan.)

Daren Kagasoff – (BMT: Ouija; Notes: Probably best known as one of the leads of the show The Secret Life of the American Teenager.)

Budget/Gross – $5 million / Domestic: $50,856,010 (Worldwide: $103,590,271)

(Obviously a colossal hit. They all are aren’t they? These small budget horror films. It is quite the phenomenon that they can effectively print money with these types of movies.)

#39 for the Horror – Supernatural genre

ouija_supernaturalhorror

(Comes is right around The Devil Inside which isn’t a good look. Being a major money-maker for cheap horror means it has been growing in power throughout the 2000s, although it looks like maybe it is reaching its saturation point now. BMT: The Ring Series, The Devil Inside, Silent Hill, Thirteen Ghosts, Ghost Ship, The Fog, Bless the Child, The Forest, The Gallows, and  The Bye Bye Man)

#13 for the Toy Adaptation genre

ouija_toyadaptation

(They are desperately trying to make this a thing. It looks like it has so far resisted moving beyond a few big budget franchises into faller fair. I feel like this is going to stay in the realm on animated films for the most part though, they’re all adapted from cartoons basically, so Transformers is really the odd-man out, no the other way around. BMT: The Transformer series, GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Bratz)

Rotten Tomatoes – 6% (5/79): Slowly, steadily, although no one seems to be moving it in that direction, the Ouija planchette points to NO.

(I wish someone at RT would tell them that no one wants a joke consensus. Just tell me the actual consensus of the critics, which is kinda the point of your website. This tells me nothing other than you spent too much time trying to think up something clever.)

Poster – Sklog-ja (B-)

ouija

(I can dig this. Bold choice with some interesting font. Decidedly not scary though. Literally just a ouija board… why would I be scared of that?)

Tagline(s) – Keep telling yourself it’s just a game (B)

(I think this is good. Sometimes I have to say it a few times to make sure it isn’t nonsense. But this is short enough and gives a hint of the spooky scary concept. Wish it was a bit more clever.)

Keyword(s) – ghost; Top Ten by BMeTric: 84.8 The Fog (2005); 80.2 One Missed Call (2008); 78.9 Feardotcom (2002); 76.9 Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977); 75.7 Ouija (II) (2014); 73.2 Zoolander 2 (2016); 72.8 The Apparition (2012); 70.7 The Gallows (2015); 68.7 The Haunting (1999); 67.5 Pulse (I) (2006);

(We are killing this list. The Fog is by far the best one there. Although The Haunting is a pretty special viewing experience as well.)

Notes – The name can either be pronounced ‘wee-ja’ or ‘wee-gee’. Charles Kennard, founder of the company manufacturing the boards, claimed he learned the name “Ouija” from asking the board what it wanted to be called. (My god)

Far from being ancient, the Ouija Board was patented on May 28, 1890. (Well … yeah, that isn’t a surprise)

Hasbro Studios first horror film. (Probably last? Oh wait, they made (a pretty good) sequel to this film.)

According to costume designer Mary Jane Fort, the cast and crew would often take breaks between shooting and use the Ouija board to jokingly predict the box office opening weekend numbers. (Z-E-R-O D-O-L-L-A-R-S … you know what this is stupid)

The film’s tagline, “Keep telling yourself it’s just a game,” was used for several years as the advertising slogan for the Ouija board game.

Though there are many other horror movies about Ouija boards – some with the same title – this film is not officially a remake of any of them and tells its own story revolving around the titular game. (Well yeah, it is a Hasbro production)

None of the actors portraying teenagers in the film were actually in their teens. The youngest actor was Olivia Cooke who was 21 at the time of filming.

When re-shoots went underway, in the process of drastically changing Doris Zander’s backstory, two new characters were created including her sister and mother. Lin Shaye, who plays Paulina Zander, was not in the original version of the film and was cast for the re-shot footage.

The location where Laine goes to visit Paulina Zander is also known as Eichen House in MTV’s hit TV show, Teen Wolf (2011), where Shelley Hennig, who plays Debbie, stars as Malia Tate/Hale.

Although this is the first film theatrically released starring Shelley Hennig, she filmed this after completing her work on Unfriended (2014) which was previously released as Cybernatural making it her proper film debut (technically). It would be theatrically released about 6 months after the release of this film.

Some cast members are said to have experienced supernatural occurrences since the production of the film Ouija ended. It is said to be influenced by the making of the film.

In the original unaltered version of the film, Doris Zander had a much different look to her. In the original cut she took the appearance of a young girl with half of her face burnt while always carrying a doll. The re-shoots version is a rotting girl with sewn lips. (What? Changing the fundamental look, and thus backstory, of a character like that seems like an odd decision)

Erin Moriarty was cast in the film in an undisclosed role though she does not appear in the finished project. Her scenes were deleted when the film was reshot.

Another theory of where the name of the Ouija Board comes from is that it is the French and German for “Yes”: Oui-ja. The Board has Yes and No answers as well as the alphabet. (No that seems much more plausible)

Film debut of actors Ana Coto, Darren Kagasoff, Bianca A. Santos, and (technically) Shelley Hennig.

Directorial debut of Stiles White.

Although Sarah Morris is supposed to be Laine’s younger sister in the film, in real-life the actress Ana Coto is actually 3 years older than Olivia Cooke, who plays Laine.

The first trailer for the film was released with the theatrical release of The Fault in our Stars (2014) containing alternate footage. A new trailer was released in the summer containing new scenes. In an interview, Olivia Cooke stated that about 50% of the film was reshot due to a negative reaction from test audiences, as a result Universal ordered a week’s worth of re-shoots during the summer 4 months before its theatrical release which drastically altered the original plot. The original cut contained a different assortment of footage including an alternate death scene for Debbie where she instead falls to her death instead of hanging herself (which is why the chandelier is swinging when Pete sees it because she struck it while falling) along with the most advertised scene where Sarah’s eyes roll back and she says “it’s not even real okay? It’s just a game”. Nona was also supposed to have a more prominent role in the film as it implied she becomes possessed in the promotional material. (Wow … this is going to be a mess)