Category: Action

Navy Seals Preview

“What up, Gutes? You watch Citizen Kane yet?” Jamie asks, as he and The Gutes do their top secret handshake. They briefly reminisce about their wild times living in Miami Beach before Steve starts a classic Gutes riff on the Dudikoff Center. “Pfff, this place is a joke. They can’t never make me watch Citizen Kane. Bad movies 4 life.” Sensing the tension rise in Jamie and Patrick he quickly adds, “but, you know, to each their own.” Seeing the dismay in Kyle’s eyes at their lives in Delaware really put things in perspective for them. Maybe this center was their best chance to turn things around. “So what is it, Gutes?” Patrick says seriously. Gutes coughs and hands over a scroll, “Uh, you know much about this place?” Jamie and Patrick shake their heads and Gutes starts to explain, “it’s all very mysterious. Lots of money. Lots of jewels. Drake Dudikoff was just a front, the real man behind the money was his brother Charlie.” Jamie and Patrick crinkle their brow looking over the scroll that Gutes has handed them. It looks like a cryptic map of the Center. “So this is a map to some gold, I assume,” Patrick sighs, “and you need us to help you find it. Gutes…” The Gutes puts up his hands innocently and tries to quickly explain, “No, no. Not help, really, just get me started. You guys were always the brains to my muscles… and let’s be real, the muscles to my ineffable charm, right?” Jamie and Patrick are flattered. They look back at the map. “What’s this?” Jamie says pointing at the Center’s harbor/aquatic fitness center where one word stands out “TESTAROSSA.” The Gutes is smiling. “Exactly, that’s the only word in Charlie’s handwriting. So will you take the mission?” That’s right! We are indeed taking on a very serious mission by watching the Biehn/Sheen classic Navy SEALs. Well… classic might be a strong word, but it’s a classic on our hearts. Let’s go!

Navy Seals (1990) – BMeTric: 41.8; Notability: 34

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 5.2%; Notability: top 14.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 11.9%; Higher BMeT: Captain America, Look Who’s Talking Too, Rocky V, The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter, Ghost Dad, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Graveyard Shift, Repossessed, Soultaker, Problem Child, Fire Birds, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, Navy Seals; Higher Notability: RoboCop 2, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Predator 2, Days of Thunder, Jetsons: The Movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Air America, Captain America, Young Guns II, Marked for Death, The Rookie, Rocky V, Stella, Bird on a Wire, Revenge, Ghost Dad, Another 48 Hrs., Mr. Destiny, Funny About Love, Loose Cannons, and 17 more; Lower RT: Problem Child, Graveyard Shift, Death Warrant, Repossessed, Madhouse, Loose Cannons, Soultaker, Funny About Love, The End of Innocence, Ghost Dad, Spaced Invaders, Fire Birds, Meet the Applegates, Where the Heart Is, Heart Condition, Ernest Goes to Jail, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection, Opportunity Knocks, Captain America, Air America, and 8 more; Notes: Kind of a funny movie in that I feel like I vaguely knew about this film, but I was always surprised when I stumbled onto it. Interestingly low scale for a big military looking film.

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  Middle Eastern terrorists are mere putty in the hands of U.S. Navy’s elite commando unit (SEa, Air, Land); “inspired” by the actual team formed under J.F.K.’s administration. G.I. Joe-level action is the name of the game here. Sheen’s character operates at the maturity level of Dennis the Menace.

(Semi-colon, add it to the spreadsheet boys. Nice zing at the end on Sheen, but really indeed stunts are the name of the game for this guy.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhIvjL3pccY/

(MF-ing Orion. Basically looks like Stunts: The Movie. Impressive stuff though. “America’s Designated Hitters against terrorism”?!?! I love that. Was baseball / the designated hitter in the news around then? It did come out in mid-July, so I wonder if this was a trailer that would have been playing around the All-Star Game or something.)

Directors – Lewis Teague – ( Known For: Cujo; Death Race 2000; Alligator; The Jewel of the Nile; Cat’s Eye; The Big Red One; Collision Course; The Lady in Red; Dirty O’Neil; Wedlock; Fast Charlie… the Moonbeam Rider; Future BMT: Fighting Back; BMT: Navy Seals; Notes: Apparently was an apprentice of Sydney Pollack. His IMDb has a few funny stories as he was second unit director for things like Death Race 2000.)

Writers – Chuck Pfarrer – ( Known For: Hard Target; Darkman; Future BMT: The Jackal; Red Planet; BMT: Barb Wire; Virus; Navy Seals; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Barb Wire in 1997; Notes: He was a former SEAL. I have to assume this was his screenplay he was shopping around when he broke into the business in the 90s.)

Gary Goldman – ( Known For: Total Recall; Big Trouble in Little China; Future BMT: Next; BMT: Navy Seals; Notes: Not much about him, seems to have done a bunch of action basically and adaptations when called upon.)

Actors – Charlie Sheen – ( Known For: Major League; Platoon; Ferris Bueller’s Day Off; Red Dawn; Being John Malkovich; Young Guns; Wall Street; Hot Shots!; Badlands; Lucas; The Wraith; The Arrival; Hot Shots! Part Deux; Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps; The Boys Next Door; Foodfight!; The Big Bounce; Catchfire; Grizzly II: Revenge; 9/11; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; The Three Musketeers; Scary Movie 4; Due Date; Machete Kills; Loaded Weapon 1; Major League II; Money Talks; The Rookie; Men at Work; Madea’s Witness Protection; All Dogs Go to Heaven 2; Shadow Conspiracy; BMT: Scary Movie V; Navy Seals; Terminal Velocity; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screen Combo for Scary Movie 5 in 2014; Notes: Part of the extended Estevez/Sheen family tree of acting. A little bit of a rough go lately, but he was nominated for four Emmy for Two and a Half Men back in the day.)

Michael Biehn – ( Known For: Grease; The Rock; The Terminator; Aliens; Tombstone; Planet Terror; The Abyss; Grindhouse; Havoc; Bereavement; The Divide; Cherry Falls; Sushi Girl; Puncture; Stiletto; Deadfall; K2; The Fan; The Victim; Rampage; Future BMT: Take Me Home Tonight; Clockstoppers; The Seventh Sign; The Art of War; The Lords of Discipline; BMT: Jade; Navy Seals; Notes: One of those cult favorite actors for people. Probably because he appeared in both the Alien and Terminator franchises and so was one of those “that guys” of the 90s. Was a voice actor in a podcast series about Alien III? Looks to be maybe a table read of the original script.)

Joanne Whalley – ( Known For: Willow; Pink Floyd: The Wall; Twixt; Scandal; Paul, Apostle of Christ; Kill Me Again; Flood; Mother’s Boys; The Guilty; 44 Inch Chest; Crossing the Line; Muse; Dance with a Stranger; Love Is Love Is Love; Storyville; The Good Father; Played; Birth of the Beatles; Before You Go; No Surrender; Future BMT: The Man Who Knew Too Little; A Good Man in Africa; Trial by Jury; BMT: Navy Seals; Notes: I’ve seen her in a bunch of stuff recently. But she’s notably Sorsha in Willow which she reprised in the television series. Was married to Val Kilmer for a time, and is the mother of Jack Kilmer.)

Budget/Gross – $21 million / Domestic: $25,069,101 (Worldwide: $25,069,101)

(Atrocious. I’m a bit surprised though. I would have imagined a summer action film doing at least reasonable business.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 18% (6/33): A non-winning military recruitment progaganda movie that happens to star Charlie Sheen and Michael Biehn.

(Ha! That happens to star them. Pretty good. I mean, a bunch of them die, but I guess I could see the argument that it is high testosterone “only we can fix this problem!” stuff that is kind of annoying.)

NY Times Short Review: Hostages.

Poster – Navy SEALs: The Movie

(I love this poster. Check out that submarine on the bottom and the burning city on top. It’s telling a story, my friends, a real story. Check out the title! The only thing you could say is that it’s a little busy. I got one word for that: No. A.)

Tagline(s) – America’s top secret weapon. (C-)

(I probably should give this a D, but it’s not like it’s totally uninteresting. I think you’re supposed to think “What are they talking about? A big ol’ tank?” then you see that it’s people and you’re like “Woah, I better check this out.” But nah, too generic.)

Keyword(s) – Citizen Kane

Top 10: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), The Terminator (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Aliens (1986), Groundhog Day (1993)

Future BMT: 75.0 Look Who’s Talking Now (1993), 71.9 Teen Wolf Too (1987), 64.2 Poltergeist III (1988), 61.0 Pet Sematary II (1992), 59.6 Suburban Commando (1991), 58.5 Rocky V (1990), 56.4 The Karate Kid Part III (1989), 55.6 Ringmaster (1998), 54.1 Who’s That Girl (1987), 53.2 Made in America (1993), 52.4 Blank Check (1994), 51.5 The Pest (1997), 50.5 Getting Even with Dad (1994), 50.0 Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), 49.9 3 Ninjas (1992), 49.1 My Girl 2 (1994), 48.3 My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), 47.9 Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), 46.7 House Party 3 (1994), 46.3 Zapped! (1982)

BMT: Batman & Robin (1997), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Troll 2 (1990), Super Mario Bros. (1993), RoboCop 3 (1993), Grease 2 (1982), Caddyshack II (1988), Bio-Dome (1996), Mac and Me (1988), Anaconda (1997), Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace (1996), Double Team (1997), Fair Game (1995), Leprechaun (1993), Body of Evidence (1992), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Cool World (1992), Wild Orchid (1989), Sliver (1993), Chairman of the Board (1997), Red Sonja (1985), Nothing But Trouble (1991), Ishtar (1987), Toys (1992), Weekend at Bernie’s II (1993), Shanghai Surprise (1986), Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988), Exit to Eden (1994), Fire Down Below (1997), Color of Night (1994), Graveyard Shift (1990), No Holds Barred (1989), The Lawnmower Man (1992), Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), Maximum Overdrive (1986), Fire Birds (1990), Cocoon: The Return (1988), Jingle All the Way (1996), Raw Deal (1986), Crocodile Dundee II (1988), Hudson Hawk (1991), Navy Seals (1990), Critters 2: The Main Course (1988), Rambo III (1988), Hot to Trot (1988), Terminal Velocity (1994), Meatballs Part II (1984), Cobra (1986), Ernest Goes to Jail (1990), Hard to Kill (1990), Conan the Destroyer (1984), The Golden Child (1986), Another 48 Hrs. (1990), Hard Rain (1998), Under the Cherry Moon (1986), Mannequin (1987), K-9 (1989), Days of Thunder (1990), Blame It on Rio (1984), No Mercy (1986), Senseless (1998), The Wizard (1989), The Marrying Man (1991), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), The Cannonball Run (1981), Stone Cold (1991), Tango & Cash (1989), Lock Up (1989), The Good Son (1993), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), Dangerous Minds (1995), Young Guns II (1990), Event Horizon (1997), Dutch (1991), Police Academy (1984), Road House (1989)

Best Options (Action): 59.6 Suburban Commando (1991), 56.4 The Karate Kid Part III (1989), 50.0 Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), 49.9 3 Ninjas (1992), 45.7 Sidekicks (1992), 45.4 Excess Baggage (1997), 44.8 Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), 44.3 DeepStar Six (1989), 43.8 Pink Cadillac (1989), 41.9 Navy Seals (1990), 41.6 V.I. Warshawski (1991), 40.8 Iron Eagle (1986), 40.4 Loose Cannons (1990), 40.4 The Delta Force (1986), 39.7 Invasion U.S.A. (1985), 38.3 Action Jackson (1988), … (and many more)

(Again, we are hitting up maybe not the top guy, but this was a fun one without too much flotsam floating around. I should mention that the odd films from like 2021 in there? Those are mistakes. I’m still cleaning the data a bit.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 19) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Dennis Haysbert is No. 7 billed in Navy Seals and No. 5 billed in Random Hearts, which also stars Harrison Ford (No. 1 billed) who is in Hollywood Homicide (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (7 + 5) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 3) = 19. If we were to watch Shadow Conspiracy, The Art of War, Murder at 1600, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 14.

Notes – The actors spent two weeks in an intensive SEAL-style “boot camp.” In the end, it was actors versus SEALs in a final “war game” showdown. The SEALs are reported to have graciously said that the actors made a good showing for themselves.

Originally, the men were going to play touch-football. But Bill Paxton felt the scene was too similar to the volleyball scene in Top Gun (1986). So he suggested that they play golf instead. Most of the golf sequence was directed by Paxton with a second unit crew.

In an interview, Michael Biehn stated that working on this film was “probably the worst experience of my life”.

Several events in this movie are inspired by Chuck Pfarrer’s real SEAL career.

‘Chief Dave’ one of several real-life SEALs who would later play themselves in the film ‘Act of Valor’ cites this film as his first introduction to the world of SEALs and inspired him to join them.

Despite those named in the credits, the film went through many different drafts by several writers. In one draft, Hawkins (Charlie Sheen) sacrifices himself to rescue Curran (Michael Biehn), who ends up with the love interest. In another version, Curran is killed off rescuing some kids, and Hawkins and Claire Varrens (Joanne Whalley) are left to mourn his passing. Also in one of those drafts, Curran is an accomplished boxer who squares off in a fight with Hawkins, who’s into karate. The golf sequence in the film was a concession when the film’s leads objected to a Top Gun (1986)-style scene with knife-throwing contests and bikini bimbos.

Chuck Pfarrer, the film’s co-screenwriter and a former Navy Seal, plays an uncredited part as an officer on the aircraft carrier who debriefs the Seal team after their first mission, his character being the one getting into a heated discussion with Lt. Curran (Michael Biehn) regarding the Stinger missiles. Many of the missions seen in the film are based on real top secret missions that Pfarrer had himself taken part in.

Much of the filming took place in and around Norfolk, Virginia, home to world’s largest Naval fleet. The production crew was able to shoot key scenes in such restricted areas as the Norfolk base and its training grounds.

When discovered by a terrorist who tries to speak to him, Hawkins shoots him without answering, then says, “Boring conversation. Leader, we’re gonna have company!” imitating a similar line by Han Solo in Star Wars (1977).

In the warehouse scenes with the missiles, the containers have markings that refer to the “Redeye” M41 missile system, a predecessor to the “Stinger” that is referred to in the film.

During the segment at the golf course, Leary (Rick Rossovich) is seen wearing a Martini Ranch t-shirt. Bill Paxton, who plays Dane, was a member of the ’80s rock band Martini Ranch.

The character of Dane, callsign “God”, played by Bill Paxton, is the Seal Team sniper and uses a Barrett M82A1. It is a recoil-operated, semi-automatic sniper system capable of firing high powered .50 caliber rounds at military equipment and enemy personnel. The weapon in the film is outfitted with a combination Thermal Imaging Sight and Star Light Scope.

The film was partly shot in Spain. The submarines, warships, helicopters, and planes that are seen in the film mostly belong to the Spanish Navy/Air Force, which gave the production full co-operation. In one scene, set on an aircraft carrier, you can actually see a Spanish flag flying in the background while the Seals are on the ship’s elevator being raised from the hangar up to the deck, ready to set off on their final mission.

Former SEAL Chuck Pfarrer was the film’s co-writer and technical advisor. To help ensure the film’s accuracy, Pfarrer enlisted eight additional former Navy SEALs to train the actors in their roles and, occasionally, perform specialized stunts. The producer Bernard Williams explains: “A lot more than stunt work was involved, however. Each actor had a SEAL double to whom he could turn for help in handling weapons or perfecting SEAL techniques. They were an on-the-spot source of vital research, to make the movie as much like the real thing as possible”.

The Ready Room Bar and Pizza is still open although a fire destroyed many of the memorabilia items signed by the cast.

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Money Train Recap

Jamie

Money Train! Now this… this is a movie. It’s a Wonderful Life? Bah! That ain’t nothing. When it’s Xmas I wan’t one thing and one thing only: Money Train. The Train is filled with money. Are you following me? It’s especially filled with money on New Year’s Eve… get it? Our boys are one half karate master and one half dopey gambling addict. Guess what happens next? It’s Money Train. More like BMT Train choo choo. All aboard.

Let’s recap, it’s Money Train choo choo all aboard. Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson are brothers. Both are transit cops in NYC running sting operations to take down muggers. When one of the operations go south and the special force used to protect the “money train” blows away a kid, they get in hot water with the captain who just wants to protect dat money. We learn that Harrelson is a fuck-up, always getting bailed out by Snipes. His latest fuck-up is going deep in debt to the mob, but Snipes promises they’ll get paid back. Meanwhile, they get assigned a new partner, JLo, who is looking hot and steamy. Through the holidays there are all kinds of shenanigans. Harrelson gets and promptly loses all the money needed to pay off the mob. Snipes and JLo have a steamy tryst which makes Harrelson sad. They learn a bunch about the money train and how one might steal from it (which is helpful to the audience who will, spoiler alert, have to follow such a heist later in the film). Finally they track down and explode a serial arsonist called The Torch (word). That last part, particularly the part where they explode a criminal, gets Harrelson and Snipes fired. Harrelson decides to rob the money train but just can’t help but tip off Snipes who runs to his rescue. Just when things are looking real bad for Harrelson, Snipes shows up and they are off and running trying to escape. It’s a big time climax where the captain does a bunch of illegal stuff that can get people killed while Snipes and Harrelson figure a way to prevent their money train from destroying everything in its path like a glorious money torpedo. They finally are able to trip up the train and just as it derails they jump to another train and make their escape. We finish with them arguing about the money gearing up for Money Train 2: It’s a Boat Now (sadly, not the case). THE END.

I LOVED THE MOVIE. It is crazy bonkers. Robert Blake is the craziest antagonist this side of the Mississippi and yet everyone pretends all the crazy stuff that is happening is no big deal… just a normal day in Money Train land. It’s perfect. Even the parts that aren’t perfect are perfect. Like Harrelson looks like a crazy person and the idea that he would look at JLo and be like “Yo, Snipes, clear out,” is glorious. Snipes learning that his brother fucked up with the mob so his solution is to go into their strip club and beat them all up with kung fu (a skill never used before or after by the character) is glorious. Did I mention JLo looking so good that they should have stopped the movie and been like “uh, she’s the star, right? Like what are we doing? Get everyone out of here, JLo is now the star.” Glorious. BMT perfection and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Speaking of JLo, what is she doing with these bozos? Sure, Snipes is looking great in this film. I would guess this might even be peak Snipes. But still, you’re a NYC transit cop. What are you doing rooting for Snipes and his fuck-up brother to rob the money train? Arrest those fools, get a much cooler boyfriend, and keep being a great cop. This is the big problem with the film. I don’t root for bad guys. This is why Money Train 2 would have to be JLo going undercover with the FBI to nab Snipes and Harrelson. But then at the very end she lets them go, only to have Money Train 3 be a twist-em-up where the FBI comes to her and is like “there is this terrorist group transporting guns on their gun train, do you know anyone who could stop them? Any train robbers?” and JLo is like “uh, cha… I just might know a couple people.” And then in the end they are all about fambly and shit… wait, what was I talking about? Hot Take Temperature: Banana Pepper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Chooooooo choooooooo you sound like a big ol’ Money Train. Let’s go!

  • Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllls yeah.
  • Money train baby! Let’s see.
  • Christmas movie. CHECK. This is an incredible Christmas movie. The entire movie takes place almost in the week between Christmas and New Years complete with Christmas decorations and gifts and a white Christmas in New York.
  • New Years movie. CHECK. This is also amazingly an incredible New Years movie. Dare I say it? It is the BEST New Years movie. The movie pretty much ends right at the New Year. The New Year plays a huge role in the plot. The movie ends in Times Square itself! I think this is it. I think I will watch this movie every New Years and time it so that our heroes pop out of the subway and into Times Square at precisely midnight.
  • Train movie. CHECK. Choo choo mother f-er, that’s the sound of a ludicrous looking NYC money train. It’s got beefy guards. It’s got bars on the windows. And it’s got millions of dollars ready to be robbed by our no good gambling addict hero. Choo choo!
  • Sorry boys, but that’s the triple threat. We have a leader in the best BMT of the year in the club house. And I honestly would be a little shocked to see it supplanted.
  • I didn’t like Woody Harrelson very much in this. There was something a little off with him. Maybe he isn’t a very believable New Yorker? Maybe. I kept on thinking you needed someone who was more of a fuck up due to being an addict you know? Harrelson was channeling his Cheers character and seemed like a fuck up because he was a moron. All the way down to his terrible heist plan.
  • Wesley Snipes was a bit of a revelation on the other hand. I didn’t much like him in Rising Sun. It felt like instead of giving him a character they just expected Snipes to act as himself mostly. In this though I thought he was great. Very charismatic and his chemistry with J-Lo was also great. Also he’s a really good martial artist and they knew how to showcase that.
  • And J-Lo was great. It isn’t a wonder that she was one of the main strong points that critics pointed to even in the bad reviews.
  • The entire plot is ludicrous, but that’s what you want. You want it to basically be The Rock. Don’t overthink these things.
  • The major flaw in the film I think was the entire arsonist storyline. There is a tighter script here where the person they are chasing is instead a guy they think is going to rob the Money Train. And the entire time Harrelson is talking about how easy it would be to rob it, so this guy isn’t going to be some mastermind. He’s going to be an idiot with nothing to lose … and then they end up finding the guy dead or something. And Harrelson gets fired and realizes he can basically pull off the heist himself since no one knows the real culprit is dead. Suddenly the B-plot and the A-plot converge and that’s the beauty of a heist film right? I think it’s better at least. The arsonist storyline is just stupid.
  • A decent Product Placement (What?) for some very conspicuous Budweiser placement. A very very Setting as a Character (Where?) for New York City, all the way down to the very real (apparently) money train. A double dose of Secret Holiday Film (When?) for both Christmas and New Years. Wait, is this an A+ MacGuffin (Why?) for the titular Money Train? Borderline but I’ll give it to them. And this is so BMT it came around and because even more BMT!

Check out the sequel Money Train 2: Offline in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Money Train Quiz

Oh man, so get this. I was robbing the Money Train (natch), but then my plan blew up in my face, I crashed yada yada yada. Regardless, I now can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Money Train?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) John and Charlie explain a few times that they are, in fact, brothers. But what is the whole story?

2) Why does Charlie owe a club owner a bunch of money, and how much? Also what happens to the original payment he received from John?

3) Why are John and Charlie fired (as ludicrous as it seems)?

4) What is the original heist plan?

5) How does it go wrong, and how do they ultimately get outta that jam?

Bonus Question: Years later Charlie is happily retired in Brooklyn, when he receives a knock at his door. Who is it?

Answers

Money Train Preview

Jamie and Patrick wait by the train tracks whistling a jaunty tune. Their bags are packed for Delaware and they are feeling good. Real good. Good Movie Twins is up and running and they even have their first movie picked out. Jamie stares down at their mint DVD copy of Citizen Kane. “What’s this one about again? I hope it’s a biopic of Carol Kane,” Jamie says hopefully before starting to get antsy. “Where is this train? When are we gonna get to Delllaawwwaarreeeee?” he whines and Patrick sighs. He pulls out their Good Movie Twins Rulez are Coolz card. “Rule #3 – Trains, Planes, and Cranes,” he mutters and Jamie perks up. “All those are great… is there a train, plane or crane in Citizen Kane?” he asks, but before Patrick can respond he feels a tap on his shoulder. “Hello, you young whippersnappers, I was hoping that perhaps you were a couple of good boys who could help an old man with his luggage.” Jamie and Patrick look at each other and then at the old man. He has a mass of frizzy white hair, tiny bifocals and a newsboy hat… in fact everything about him screams OLD… suspiciously so. But before Patrick can voice his skepticism the old man takes note of Jamie’s DVD. “Oh, boy Citizen Kane. That one is my favorite. No trains, planes or cranes. Although trains and planes are a big part of a lot of good films.” Suddenly Patrick sees an opportunity for GMT research. Instead of brushing off this suspicious old man he instead crosses off Cranes from Rule #3 and agrees to help him just as their train pulls in. With their moods only further enhanced, Patrick and Jamie put on their sunglasses. “This train is gonna be money.” That’s right! We’re watching the moniest of trains in Money Train. No it’s not a train made of money, it’s just an armored subway train that contains boatloads of money… specifically on New Years Eve. You ready for a countdown? Let’s go!

Money Train (1995) – BMeTric: 41.1; Notability: 54

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 9.6%; Notability: top 4.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.7%; Higher BMeT: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Vampire in Brooklyn, Showgirls, Fair Game, Jury Duty, Batman Forever, Congo, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Theodore Rex, The Babysitter, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Judge Dredd, Nine Months, The Scarlet Letter, Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity, Jade, and 4 more; Higher Notability: Batman Forever, Congo, Judge Dredd, Cutthroat Island, Virtuosity, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Showgirls, Stuart Saves His Family, Four Rooms, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; Lower RT: National Lampoon’s Senior Trip, Delta of Venus, The Big Green, Jury Duty, Theodore Rex, The Walking Dead, Born to Be Wild, Top Dog, A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, The Hunted, It Takes Two, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Bushwhacked, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Fair Game, Vampire in Brooklyn, Canadian Bacon, The Scarlet Letter, Four Rooms, Jade, and 19 more; Notes: Loving that notability for a 90s film. How we haven’t seen Under Siege 2: Dark Territory yet is beyond me. Same goes for Jury Duty.

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  The costars of White Men Can’t Jump try to reignite their chemistry as randy N.Y.C. transit cops – and brothers (!) – who fight over the same woman, argue over Woody’s gambling fever, and get involved in the theft of a money-laden subway car. Violent, overly contrived buddy flick with some big subterranean action scenes. The stars are funny together, but Blake is way over the top as the boys’ megalomaniac supervisor. All in all, “token” entertainment.

(Token, get it? Like subway tokens. Blake is indeed insane, and gambling fever? Woody should get that checked out. I give this review 3 Maltins. That’s out of four. Needed mor esemi-colons.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Odo80-WFgM/

(I remember this trailer so well! I remember the explanation of them being brothers being on constantly. Have to say … this trailer is rocking. I’m amped to watch this movie now.)

Directors – Joseph Ruben – ( Known For: The Stepfather; Dreamscape; The Ottoman Lieutenant; Return to Paradise; Blindsided; The Pom Pom Girls; True Believer; The Sister in Law; Gorp; Joyride; Our Winning Season; Future BMT: The Good Son; The Forgotten; BMT: Sleeping with the Enemy; Money Train; Notes: This basically ended his major motion picture run he was one from 1987 to 1995. Wrote Dreamscape.)

Writers – Doug Richardson – ( Known For: Bad Boys; Die Hard 2; Future BMT: Hostage; BMT: Welcome to Mooseport; Money Train; Notes: His one-two punch of Money Train and Bad Boys in 1995 is something else. I assume he’s a script doctor, otherwise his credits make no sense.)

David Loughery – ( Known For: Shattered; Fatale; End of the Road; Lakeview Terrace; Nurse; Dreamscape; Blindsided; Flashback; Future BMT: The Three Musketeers; Obsessed; Passenger 57; Tom and Huck; BMT: Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; The Intruder; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier in 1990; Notes: Tom and Huck and The Three Musketeers. He’s like a case study in adapting classic literature poorly.)

Actors – Wesley Snipes – ( Known For: Blade; Coming 2 America; Blade II; To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; King of New York; Major League; New Jack City; White Men Can’t Jump; Dolemite Is My Name; Waiting to Exhale; Chaos; Jungle Fever; Brooklyn’s Finest; Undisputed; Cut Throat City; Gallowwalkers; Mo’ Better Blues; One Night Stand; Chi-Raq; The Recall; Future BMT: U.S. Marshals; Blade: Trinity; Passenger 57; Wildcats; Murder at 1600; The Fan; Drop Zone; The Art of War; Sugar Hill; Play It to the Bone; Boiling Point; Streets of Gold; BMT: The Expendables 3; Rising Sun; Demolition Man; Money Train; Notes: Back doing movies like Coming 2 America and was just in the mini series True Story. Spent a shade over two years in prison for tax evasion.)

Woody Harrelson – ( Known For: Triangle of Sadness; The Hunger Games; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; No Country for Old Men; Out of the Furnace; Seven Psychopaths; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire; Solo: A Star Wars Story; Friends with Benefits; Zombieland; The Man from Toronto; Venom: Let There Be Carnage; Now You See Me; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2; Midway; Natural Born Killers; The Edge of Seventeen; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1; The Thin Red Line; Zombieland: Double Tap; Future BMT: Venom; Indecent Proposal; Now You See Me 2; Seven Pounds; Wildcats; Semi-Pro; After the Sunset; Free Birds; The Cowboy Way; Palmetto; Play It to the Bone; BMT: 2012; Money Train; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Supporting Actor for Indecent Proposal in 1994; Notes: Made famous as Woody on Cheers. Nominated three times for Oscars for Three Billboards, The Messenger, and The People vs. Larry Flynt. Nominated 8 times for Emmys, five times for Cheers (he won once), and for Frasier, Game Change, and True Detective.)

Jennifer Lopez – ( Known For: Shotgun Wedding; Marry Me; Hustlers; Out of Sight; The Cell; Home; Second Act; Antz; U Turn; Parker; Selena; Jersey Girl; Shall We Dance; An Unfinished Life; My Family; Lila & Eve; Bordertown; Blood and Wine; El cantante; My Little Girl; Future BMT: Maid in Manhattan; Ice Age: Collision Course; Enough; Jack; Ice Age: Continental Drift; The Wedding Planner; The Back-up Plan; Monster-in-Law; Angel Eyes; Feel the Noise; BMT: The Boy Next Door; Anaconda; What to Expect When You’re Expecting; Gigli; Money Train; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actress, and Worst Screen Couple for Gigli in 2004; Nominee for Worst Actress in 2002 for Angel Eyes, and The Wedding Planner; in 2003 for Enough, and Maid in Manhattan; in 2006 for Monster-in-Law; and in 2016 for The Boy Next Door; Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress in 2005 for Jersey Girl; and in 2013 for What to Expect When You’re Expecting; Nominee for Worst Actress of the Decade in 2010 for Angel Eyes, Enough, Gigli, Jersey Girl, Maid in Manhattan, Monster-in-Law, and The Wedding Planner; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for Jersey Girl in 2005; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for her Super Bowl Halftime Show in 2020. Notably started as a fly girl on In Living Color.)

Budget/Gross – $68 million / Domestic: $35,431,113 (Worldwide: $35,431,113)

(Whoops, that’s terrible! I can see why it didn’t click with people though now that I’ve seen it, it is a bit too self-serious to work on the level of Con Air and others of that ilk.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 22% (7/32): Loud, incoherent, and aimless, Money Train reunites Snipes and Harrelson — and proves that starring duos are far from immune to the law of diminishing returns.

(It is incoherent. I can give it that. You know? I completely forgot these two starred in White Men Can’t Jump. They don’t work as well here as a duo.)

Reviewer Highlight: It’s stupid, but also breezier than the year’s other 12-score releases not worth a second look. – Mike Clark, USA Today

Poster – The Great Train Robbery

(If I could induct a film in the BMT HoF purely off a poster it would be this one. My word! This shit is off the rails (pun very much intended). Look at the majesty of two actors running from a fake train with a look on their faces like “What is this picture for?” The orange glow of the poster hurt my eyes and yet I’m drawn to it like a moth to a money train. Even the font is like “I’m gonna barely try but still be a little unique… just like Money Train.” I hate it… and yet I love it. Starts at a D and then comes all the way around to an A.)

Tagline(s) – Get on the fast track! (D)

(Ha! No! Sorry, that’s horrible. At least it’s short, I guess.)

Keyword(s) – good

Top 10: Good Will Hunting (1997), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), The Great Gatsby (2013), Hot Fuzz (2007), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Man on Fire (2004), The Nice Guys (2016)

Future BMT: 67.3 Phat Girlz (2006), 63.2 Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), 60.6 Like a Boss (2020), 56.2 The Fly II (1989), 51.7 Playing with Fire (2019), 51.6 The Boss (2016), 51.0 Johnny Be Good (1988), 50.6 The Hot Chick (2002), 49.9 Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), 48.4 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), 47.1 Barney’s Great Adventure (1998), 45.1 Fly Me to the Moon 3D (2007), 44.9 Fantastic Four (2005), 40.4 No Good Deed (2014), 39.4 Good Burger (1997), 37.2 The Great Wall (2016), 37.0 Stroker Ace (1983), 36.3 Milk Money (1994), 34.6 Mad Money (2008), 34.3 Mo’ Money (1992)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Fantastic Four (2015), The Ridiculous 6 (2015), Cool as Ice (1991), Cool World (1992), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), Hot Pursuit (2015), One for the Money (2012), Fire Down Below (1997), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Fire Birds (1990), Good Luck Chuck (2007), Be Cool (2005), Chill Factor (1999), Money Train (1995), Hot to Trot (1988), The Golden Child (1986), Righteous Kill (2008), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Wizard (1989), Hunter Killer (2018)

Best Options (Action): 48.4 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), 44.9 Fantastic Four (2005), 41.0 Money Train (1995), 37.2 The Great Wall (2016), 37.0 Stroker Ace (1983), 34.3 Mo’ Money (1992), 31.3 The Nude Bomb (1980), 24.5 Money Talks (1997), 21.7 One Good Cop (1991), 21.7 Killer Elite (2011), 14.4 The Great Raid (2005), 2.5 Man on Fire (2004)

(Spoilees, we are doing the Fantastic Fours later on, so this was actually the best option. And honestly, it’s by a long shot, there was no way I was watching The Great Wall.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 12) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Wesley Snipes is No. 1 billed in Money Train and No. 2 billed in Demolition Man, which also stars Sylvester Stallone (No. 1 billed) who is in The Expendables 3 (No. 1 billed) which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 12. If we were to watch Murder at 1600, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 8.

Notes – Two days after the film opened, two men poured gasoline over a ticket booth on the Brooklyn subway and set it alight in an incident similar to the one depicted in the film. The booth attendant was burned and later died of his injuries. Consequently, New York City subway workers called for a boycott of the film and the removal of all the posters from every station. Senator Bob Dole quickly came out in support of them. Columbia Pictures refused to bow to their demands.

This boasts the distinction of having one of the longest sets ever constructed for a film. At over three thousand feet long, twenty feet high, and four railway tracks wide, the set was roughly the same size as two Empire State buildings lying side by side. The original plan was to film in the real New York City subway, but the logistics proved to be too problematic.

Twelve New York City subway cars were shipped over to Los Angeles to the film set. They were converted to run on propane so that the rails on the film set did not need to be electrified, a potential health hazard for all of the crew.

The prop train used for the money train was an actual retired New York City subway train that was destined to be scrapped. After the film was completed, it was donated to the New York City Transit Authority, and currently resides in the Coney Island Rapid Transit Yard.

Most of the subway scenes were filmed on a four thousand-foot-long set built to resemble a typical four-track New York City subway trunkline. It included three stations, all of which were built as local stops with the platforms on the outside of the outer tracks. Included were I-beams between each track, spaced five feet apart just as they are in New York City. The ceiling, however, was much higher than on any actual New York City subway line.

While there are scenes that show R30 class subway trains running on the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, this would be physically impossible in reality. Due to New York City’s subway having been constructed by competing companies, trains for the lettered lines would not fit on the numbered lines, as they are too wide. IRT trains are narrower and shorter than BMT/IND trains.

Robert Blake claims that his first meeting with Producer Jon Peters consisted of Peters wrestling Blake to the ground. At the premiere, Blake said Peters told him he wrestled with Blake to see if Blake would lose his temper.

Originally, the movie was developed by Director Tony Scott and Screenwriter Doug Richardson. After some time, Scott left the project and was replaced by Joseph Ruben, who fired Richardson and had the script re-written.

The sex scene between Wesley Snipes and Jennifer Lopez was not in the original script, but was added after filming had begun.

The Wall Street station scenes were filmed at the Union Square station on the IRT Lexington Avenue line. The 33rd Street station is the real one, on the same line. All scenes filmed on the subway set featured retired carbon steel R-30 subway cars, painted red. Scenes filmed on the actual New York City subway featured stainless steel R-62 cars.

The subway car used as the money train in the film is a modified R21 subway car. The car was modified by the Metropolitan Transit Authority and film crew in a way that looks absolutely nothing like the actual revenue collection trains used in the system.

Blacklight Recap

Jamie

You guys ever seen Murphy’s Law starring Charles Bronson? I’ll disregard the obvious “No” answer to that question and bulldozer my way to my point. Liam Neeson is Charles Bronson. Charles Bronson is Liam Neeson. Ever seen them in the same room? Didn’t think so. Waaaaayyyy back in the yesteryears of the 80’s our boy Bronson had ridden his Death Wish franchise fame to what wikipedia refers to as his Cannon Films era. We are sitting in the Cannon Films era of Liam Neeson (having ridden the Taken franchise to this point). More often the Cannon Films era films of Bronson were things like Assassination, which is pretty terrible as it meanders its way through a cookie cutter plot with an aging star (and I mean actively aging before your eyes). Then there are things like Murphy’s Law which is batshit crazy and I loved every second of it. So this is where we are with Neeson. Every time we watch one I’ll be asking myself, “Is this Neeson’s Murphy’s Law?” and then hope we haven’t yet turned the corner to the Final Years era of Neeson with whatever ends up being his Family of Cops trilogy.

To recap, Liam Neeson is a fixer. But that’s not exciting enough for a film. Let’s try that again, Liam Neeson is a fixer who also has OCD and wants to retire to spend more time with his granddaughter. Ah, much better. But there is something afoot in D.C. that he has to take care of first. After a congressional candidate is murdered in an intentional hit and run, an undercover agent attempts to leak it to a reporter. Neeson is tasked with bringing him in. On the way to doing so, Neeson stops by his granddaughter’s school to hang out a bit and ends up losing the agent. Oops. Later on, after the agent attempts to contact the reporter again, he is shot and killed by government agents in front of Neeson. Neeson is a bit peeved at this and confronts the FBI director about what the agent was leaking to the reporter. Namely, that the director has an operation that kills civilians who interfere with the government. The director is like “don’t worry about it” and brushes him off. Neeson is pissed and becomes even more pissed after his family goes missing and the reporter’s boss is killed for publishing the story. He breaks into the directors house and forces him to hand over evidence of the operation. This goes south from there, but Neeson is able to escape with the evidence. Using this evidence he is able to get the director arrested and get his family back (who turns out were just in witness protection, oops). THE END.

On a scale of Not Murphy’s Law to Murphy’s Law I declare Blacklight… drumroll… Not Murphy’s Law. Really not even all that close. Very much an Assassination type vehicle. Cookie cutter plot spiced up a bit with some mild OCD for our boy Neeson. Overall feels closer to a television pilot than a feature film. Honestly, there isn’t even all that much good to say about it other than they blessedly abstained from giving rickety crickets Old Man Neeson a love interest in the film. He’s just an old man who wants to spend more time with his granddaughter. Phew.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Neeson’s daughter is kind of right. He’s not a great presence in his granddaughter’s life. His OCD does seem in control, and I don’t really see so much harm in him helping her understand self-defense and staying safe. But… like… he’s also kind of an assassin. He killed a bunch of people in the movie and also ended up getting them dropped into witness protection. Just not really feeling that part of it. But you do you, guys. Go fly that kite and keep having some sleepovers. I’m sure your part in taking down one of the most important people in D.C. won’t come back and bite you. This is actually why they can’t make Blacklight 2. Just too sad when Neeson’s daughter has to be like “Told yah so. I’m going to have to ask you to stay away for a while… at least until you totally murder everyone trying to murder you at the moment… who’s that again? The President? Cool cool cool.” Hot Take Temperature: Sweet BBQ.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Blacklight? More like Why Are They Making this Old Man Run Around and Pretend to Be an Action Star? Oh Wait, That’s Liam Neeson?! Amirite? It is actually a bit distressing watching Liam Neeson run, but more on that later. Let’s go!

  • Oh boy, Liam Neeson cannot run. And not like, Liam Neeson looks like he runs slow. Or like Liam Neeson runs funny. But like did Liam Neeson blow out both knees right before filming? That is the level. He’s actually not as old as I thought he was. But then again, my perception of his age was 100% based on how he looks like when he runs so I was figuring he must be 103 or something.
  • Zing, sorry Liam, still love you, but put your feet up for a year, or maybe go to Germany for experimental stem cell treatment. Something. You need some cartilage in those knees brother.
  • Enough about Liam Neeson, let’s talk about this movie. This movie represents everything wrong with films in 2022. I will take no questions on this matter, thank you.
  • Fine, I’ll explain. Way back when when someone wanted to make something on the cheap they called Roger Corman or Dino De Laurentiis up, who called up a director who could work on the cheap, and they slapped something together with cheap effects. But those effects? They had charm. They were real, visceral things cobbled together by special effects artists (emphasis on “artist”). And sure, they looked cheesy, but there is an undeniable charm to something like Conan the Destroyer where it sometimes looks like crap, but also is just wild crazy shit and undeniably fun.
  • This? Slow moving cars moving around empty streets. Fake explosions, fake fights, and fake gunshots. And a storyline might as well be a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of a Dick Wolf television show. The construction of this film makes me sad. Because this is precisely the type of film that AI is going to generate in 10 years. And no one will really be able to tell the difference. Except Liam Neeson will run like a 20 year old when the AI makes it (zing).
  • I liked a few of the actors in it though, although add Taylor John Smith to the list of actors who might as well not have a face, that’s how interchangeable he is as a leading man.
  • Also this might be the worst third act of a film I’ve ever seen, it is nonsensical garbage.
  • I’ll leave you with my two favorite moments from the film. First, and I mentioned this in the preview, but there is something special about a little girl calling the action hero of the film “grandpa” right to his face. It probably speaks to the dire situation Hollywood is in that 60-year-old Tom Cruise and 70-year-old Liam Neeson are still starring in action blockbusters in 2022. The second one is that one of the side characters is a British person, and in his introductory scene he’s watching some footy (soccer to you Yanks). He is quite frustrated with the game, and at one moment bursts out “no no no no!” and throws a pen at the screen remarking “I lost a few quid on that one.” The intense moment portrayed on that screen? Stock footage of a soccer player passing a ball into the backfield. That’s it. Some poor intern was asked to add football to the screen and didn’t really think about what should actually go there, or (more likely) was given $0 and 15 minutes to do this task and winged it. Regardless, incredibly entertaining stuff.
  • Definitely a Setting as a Character (Where?) for DC. And I’m going to give it a MacGuffin (Why?) for the little zip drive with all of the “evidence” on it that the bad guys are really really concerned about. I think this is a tried and true BMT film because there are just enough weird shit in it to work for me.

Make sure to check out the sequel Blacklight 2: Ultraviolet in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Blacklight Quiz

Oh man, so get this. I’m a 70 year old man, but I have the bod of a 70 year old action star. NBD. But you see, they asked me to run about five feet and I blew out my knee (the usual), stumbled, hit my head, and now I can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Blacklight?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) We meet Ancient Methuselah Action Star Liam Neeson as he gets ready for yet another job (“I’m getting too old for this shit” he mutters inaudibly I assume). What is his job?

2) Huh, but … like, how does one get into that kind of business? Probably not something extremely ethically questionable, right?

3) Well, good thing Liam Neeson is a totally normal person otherwise, right? … Right? Oh wait, nope, he has a bit of a quirk. What is it?

4) Meanwhile, the actual plot of the film! Turns out there’s a turn coat in Liam’s three letter organization. What does he know that the government doesn’t want everyone else to know?

5) A big part of the film was the disappearance of Liam Neeson’s family including his precocious granddaughter. Where did they go?

Bonus Question: Flashforward, and Liam Neeson is relaxing at home when he hears a knock at the door. There is a young woman there, who is she?

Answers

Blacklight Preview

Jamie and Patrick find themselves back in their apartment. The door to Kyle’s room opens and he stops short, his eyes widening. “Did you decide not to leave?” he asks, hope in his voice, “Lou gave me the Dongle and this note and said I wouldn’t see you for a while.” He looks at the note, already covered in chocolate. “I guess I won’t have to follow you after all,” he concludes and attempts to give them back the Dongle. But Jamie and Patrick stop him and shake their heads. “You did follow us,” Patrick says solemnly, tears brimming in his eyes, “And you saved us.” They explain how Kyle is the key to the Dongle’s destruction. “We were going about it all wrong,” Jamie says, a little embarrassed, “we spent years trying to destroy the Dongle. We could never do that. But you can… just by keeping it.” Kyle bites his lip in trepidation. He looks back at his room. Having got up the courage to invite Rachel over, she now was waiting in his room ready to watch Ghost starring Patrick Swayze as their first date. They can see the concern in his eyes. If he has the Dongle will it put Rachel in danger? Does this mean he will never know love? “Don’t worry,” Jamie says smiling, “she’s also the key to all of this. And as a gift for all that you did we’d also like you two to take over BMT. It’s time for us to move on.” Kyle’s mouth falls open in surprise. “But what are you going to do now?” he asks, prompting Jamie and Patrick to look at each other. “We don’t know,” Patrick says, “something good… time to move out of the darkness and into the light.” That’s right! We’re moving away from the ironic and into the serious 2022 choices with one of two Liam Neeson action films that critically flopped this year. First up is Blacklight, which is about… an old person beating people up, I think. Let’s go!

Blacklight (2022) – BMeTric: 61.1; Notability: 27

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.2%; Notability: top 5.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 2.3%; Higher BMeT: Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Brazen, The Bubble, Moonfall, They/Them, Firestarter, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn, Morbius; Higher Notability: Jurassic World: Dominion, Black Adam, Pinocchio, Amsterdam, Morbius, The School for Good and Evil, The Bubble, Moonfall, Deep Water, The Man from Toronto, The King’s Daughter, Spiderhead, Don’t Worry Darling, The 355; Lower RT: After Ever Happy, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn, Me Time, On the Line; Notes: Kind of amazing that Moonfall of all things has a higher BMeT. Maybe because more people saw it? That would make sense. Still, I feel like Moonfall is one of those films which ten years from now will have a 6.3 on IMDb and confuse anyone who watches it.

RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – Another season, another “Liam Neeson Has Skills” movie. Some of the variants of his popular “Taken” movies (the last one, “Taken 3,” was all the way back in 2014, how times flies) have been reasonably clever and even cinematically worthwhile on a surprising level (see for instance 2019’s “Cold Pursuit”). Mark Williams’ “Blacklight,” alas, is not among them.

(So … basically this is just a basic Liam Neeson snoozefest of an action film. Jokes on you RogerEbert.com. I watched The Ice Road. I’m immune to Liam-Neeson-omnia.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_N9pU4FMOs/

(Is … Liam Neeson trying to do something like an American accent? Or is supposed to be an Irish person who works for the U.S. government and has been in the country for so long he’s vaguely lost his accent? Anyways, I unironically love that we’ve reached the point where Liam Neeson explicitly has a granddaughter who calls the action hero in the film “grandpa” in the trailer. A perfect encapsulation of the current state of Liam Neeson’s career.)

Directors – Mark Williams – ( Known For: A Family Man; Future BMT: Honest Thief; BMT: Blacklight; Notes: Kind of amazing we never watched Honest Thief. Executive Produced Ozark for which he was nominated for three Emmys.)

Writers – Nick May – (BMT: Blacklight; Notes: Nothing on IMDb, but if you search the trades you can find articles about this specific film. Kind of funny, but it looks like the update was right, May ultimately did get a writing credit on the film.)

Mark Williams – ( Known For: Copshop; Future BMT: Honest Thief; BMT: Blacklight; Notes: If the article above is to be believed him getting a writing credit is nuts, but then again, he did write some of it, probably re-wrote a bunch on set, and him not him getting a credit was probably unlikely.)

Brandon Reavis – (BMT: Blacklight; Notes: Nothing about this guy at all. Given he has a story credit I would imagine he is the writing partner of May in some capacity.)

Actors – Liam Neeson – ( Known For: Schindler’s List; Love Actually; The Dark Knight Rises; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker; Batman Begins; Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; Taken; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Widows; The Lego Movie; Gangs of New York; Excalibur; Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones; The A-Team; The Commuter; Marlowe; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; Ted 2; Silence; Future BMT: Memory; Kingdom of Heaven; A Million Ways to Die in the West; Clash of the Titans; The Huntsman: Winter’s War; Daddy’s Home 2; The Marksman; Men in Black: International; Taken 2; Wrath of the Titans; Krull; Taken 3; Entourage; Honest Thief; High Spirits; Before and After; The Nut Job; BMT: Blacklight; Battleship; The Haunting; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor in 2013 for Battleship, and Wrath of the Titans; Notes: Y’all know Liam Neeson. Nominated for an Oscar for Schindler’s List. He was just announced as the main character in a Naked Gun remake that is happening.)

Aidan Quinn – ( Known For: Legends of the Fall; The Handmaid’s Tale; Flipped; Frankenstein; The Mission; Unknown; Benny & Joon; Wild Child; Desperately Seeking Susan; Michael Collins; Stakeout; Song for a Raggy Boy; Avalon; Haunted; Music of the Heart; At Play in the Fields of the Lord; If I Were You; Songcatcher; The Assignment; Elle s’appelait Sarah; Future BMT: Practical Magic; Reckless; In Dreams; Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius; BMT: Blacklight; Jonah Hex; Notes: Nominated for two Emmys for An Early Frost and Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (both miniseries). He’s a classic “that guy”. He’s married to Elizabeth Bracco.)

Taylor John Smith – ( Known For: The Outpost; Shadow in the Cloud; Insidious: Chapter 3; You Get Me; Martyrs; Some Kind of Beautiful; Almost Friends; Wolves; Future BMT: Where the Crawdads Sing; BMT: Blacklight; Hunter Killer; Notes: We’ll see him again in Where the Crawdads Sing. There is shockingly little about him. Probably most notable for being in Sharp Objects.)

Budget/Gross – $43 million / Domestic: $9,591,094 (Worldwide: $15,902,207)

(Disastrous, but that’s what happens when you have a bad action film. Could be a bit of Hollywood accounting here as well though since according to the article above there were pretty specific commitments about compensation tied to the profit this film made. But who knows. $43 million seems absurd for a 2022 Liam Neeson film. It feels fake.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 10% (10/102): Turn it off.

(I actually genuinely hate the consensus. It makes little sense beyond that the word “light” is in the title. Anyways, actually a rare <10% Rotten Tomatoes film, although barely.)

Reviewer Highlight: One could even argue that it’s not a movie at all, only a rusted-out recycling bin of ill-fitting themes, notions, poses, conventions, affectations, tropes, tropelets and inert snippets of dialogue from other movies. – Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal

Poster – Skloglight

(I like the colors, but that’s about it. Tells me nothing about what I’m going to see, which is probably the point. Anyone who sees this poster and is intrigued is going to get exactly what they want: Old Man Neeson. C.)

Tagline(s) – They’re gonna need more men (C-)

(Meeehhhhhh. I guess it’s short in a somewhat pleasing way, but it’s far too generic to warrant any real credit. As a joke someone should take the last five Neeson films and photoshop the posters so they all have this tagline.)

Keyword(s) – year 2022

Top 10: The Batman (2022), The Kashmir Files (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022), Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Uncharted (2022), The Adam Project (2022), The Northman (2022), The Gray Man (2022)

Future BMT: 63.3 Firestarter (2022), 62.6 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022), 52.1 Radhe Shyam (2022), 49.8 Umma (2022), 47.6 The Invitation (2022), 45.7 The 355 (2022), 44.2 Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), 37.7 Memory (2022), 24.7 Amsterdam (2022), 7.7 Black Adam (2022), 7.3 Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

BMT: Moonfall (2022), Morbius (2022), Blacklight (2022), After Ever Happy (2022), The King’s Daughter (2022), Prey for the Devil (2022), Don’t Worry Darling (2022)

Best Options (Action): 60.8 Blacklight (2022), 45.7 The 355 (2022), 44.2 Jurassic World: Dominion (2022), 37.7 Memory (2022), 7.7 Black Adam (2022)

(Yup, the best of the bunch. But no worries. Jurassic World 3 and Memory are both currently on the docket, so we will be hitting up a good number of bangers from the year.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 22) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Liam Neeson is No. 1 billed in Blacklight and No. 2 billed in The Haunting, which also stars Virginia Madsen (No. 9 billed) who is in Firewall (No. 3 billed) which also stars Harrison Ford (No. 1 billed) who is in Hollywood Homicide (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 2 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (1 + 2) + (9 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 3) = 22. If we were to watch The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – The lowest rated Liam Neeson action film on Rotten Tomatoes

Principal photography of the film started in November 2020 in Melbourne, Australia. In January 2021 it was announced that a car chase scene would be filmed in Canberra.

A cinematic technique of fast zoom in, out and in again (or the opposite) are used to increase the suspense of the story and symbolize Block’s obsessional compulsive disorder.

Ben-Hur (2016) Recap

Jamie

Even when you first saw the trailers for Ben-Hur (2016) you couldn’t help but think “that seems like a mistake.” The 1959 film version was the Titanic of its time and has mostly endured unscathed. So imagine the year is 2050 and you see a trailer for Titanic starring ZDawg (the biggest star on ZippyZapp, the only way people watch TV in the future). It’s 69 minutes long and was created using an AI system they’ve dubbed Camera-On. It took four and a half hours to make and ZDawg never shot a scene, he just said the Gettysburg Address into a microphone and they generated his performance from that. Would you go see it? The answer is of course, yes. That sounds amazing. Besides, I’ve heard ZDawg’s performance is transcendent. He’s a front runner for the Zoscar (the new name for the Oscars) and I can’t wait for his next film ZDawg Presents: ZDawg: The Story of ZDawg.

Alright, let’s get into it. Ben-Hur is the classic story of Ben-Hur, a prince in Jerusalem, and his adopted Roman brother Messala. Messala has got the hots for Ben-Hur’s sister and Ben-Hur’s mom is not into that idea at all. Messala decides the best course of action is to join the Roman army and become so hot that they’ll have to say yes. Flash forward years later and Messala returns as the head of the army in Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate is coming to town so Messala asks Ben-Hur to tell everyone to cool it so that he doesn’t look like a dope. Ben-Hur is kinda like whatever, but that doesn’t work out so well when a zealot attempts to assassinate Pilate from his house. Oops. Messala is quite peeved and sentences his family to death and Messala to salvery on a Roman ship. During a battle his ship ends up crashing and Ben-Hur is able to make it to land. There he encounters a chariot racer, Ilderim, who recognizes that Ben-Hur is the best he’s ever seen. Like the Michael Jordan of chariot racing. They head off to Jerusalem where Ilderim sets up a race between Mesalla and Ben-Hur. In the big climactic race, Ben-Hur is a master of disaster and crushes Mesalla, both figuratively and literally. Afterwards, Ben-Hur is still a big ol’ saddo cause he life kinda sucks but then he sees Jesus and witnesses his death on the cross and his family turns out not to be dead (and also are miraculously healed of leprosy) and he reconciles with Mesalla and they all leave Jerusalem together as a fambly. THE END.

Uhhhh, I mean, what can you say about a wholly unnecessary film? At no point was this ever going to get good reviews. Impossible. You can’t remake a classic film as a CGI centric action film and get rewarded. You must be punished and BMT is your ultimate punishment. All that being said, it’s not like this is the worst thing in the world. I didn’t mind 90% of the film and they didn’t botch the chariot race, which is the most important bit. I didn’t love that they chose to change how Ben-Hur gets in trouble with Messala. Rather than have it truly be an accident (a tile from his roof falls off at such a moment to foster a false accusation of attempted assassination) they switched it to where Ben-Hur harbors a fugitive zealot who ends up trying to assassinate Pilate for real. Messes a little with the plot. Also they had to condense the plot down to two hours, which really makes for a rushed middle act about Ben-Hur’s time at sea. Otherwise I think it got dinged more for what it represented than what it actually was. As for The New Gladiators, it’s important that we watch some of the foreign films that dominated low budget action films of the time. This included Filipino and, like The New Gladiators, Italian films. But we might have to give it another college try, cause I didn’t think The New Gladiators was all that good. It’s just too low budget. Really looks super duper cheap. Some of the acting was fun, but when a 1984 film looks like it’s from the 60’s my brain starts to tune out. I want some visual invention with my low budget film and this had literally zero.

Hot Take Clam Bake! You would come away from this film thinking, ‘boy, Ben-Hur’s natural athleticism clearly shows him to be the superior chariot racer.’ I wouldn’t blame you for being totally wrong like a dumb wrong person. That’s cause they never let us see Messala cook. It’s one race! Messala has clearly won thousands (perhaps millions?) of chariot races. He is the undisputed champ. You might be like, ‘but surely now Ben-Hur is going to go on a championship run that Messala could only dream of.” You wish! First of all, Ben-Hur was driven almost entirely by revenge. You think he’s going to have the competitive fire burning after that? Hardly. He’s going let things loose, put on a few pounds and his career will be done in a couple years. Messala was fueled by imagined slights. All he needed was a tile falling near him to be like “if you die, you die.” He’ll be back. Sure he’s been catastrophically injured, but he’s been through wars before and come back full strength. In total his career will far outstrip Ben-Hur. Hot Take Temperature: Spicy Garlic. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Ben-Hur? More like Ben-Huh?! Amirite? A remake of a four hour epic in a svelte 120 minutes? It’s a choice. Let’s go!

  • I’ve seen the 1959 Ben-Hur but not the original or read the book. I don’t think that matters ultimately though. This isn’t the 1959 film. That film is an oddly beautiful epic with a whole subplot that is, effectively, just Sunday School: The Movie. It is weird, but also, again, incredible in its scale.
  • This film is small potatoes. It is no wonder critics seemed to be perplexed. When comparing it to the epic scale of the 1959 film what are you supposed to think? This film is garbage when you consider that!
  • On the other hand I liked the acting well enough, and I think there were a lot of interesting ideas, specifically the idea of forgiveness between the antagonist and protagonist in the end. It necessitated the odd decision to make Pontius Pilate the bad guy … I’m pretty sure he’s not even in the original film, so that was either invented whole cloth or is from the book or something.
  • Morgan Freeman sleep walks through this though. Didn’t care for his part too much.
  • And I could have used a bit more chariot racing given that they were already cutting a huge amount of the Jesus stuff. Flesh out Ben-Hur’s natural elite athleticism a bit!
  • Oh, I should also mention that in this they show Jesus’ face which is a pretty big let down. One of the cool things from the 1959 film is that they never do, almost like the glory of his image is too much to film. Here he’s just some goober.
  • You like that very non-epic review of this very non-epic film? Sorry, not sorry.
  • I wish there was some sweet chariot product placement, but alas. Solid Setting as a Character (Where?) for Israel. How about this for a Secret Holiday Film (When?) for the original Easter baby! I think this is BMT, it is an amusing bomb of a film, but also eminently watchable given its runtime.
  • This week we also watched The New Gladiators, a weirdo Italian film about … well, new Gladiators. After their television show about people on motorcycles killing each other ends, the television executives at Murder TV think up a new awesome show: “people on motorcycle kill each other, but this time in the newly renovated dystopian Colosseum.” There are some very fun Clockwork Orange-like scenes, and a lot of Italian actors dubbed over in English. Overall it is mostly just cool to finally watch one of these films, a film that was made for video release in a foreign country with mostly foreign actors (and one or two token Americans of intermediate fame) and then dubbed over. Wouldn’t recommend it though, just a little too much of a nothing film. D.

Check out the sequel idea in the Quiz: Ben-Hur: Back to the Minors. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Ben-Hur (2016) Quiz

So get this. I’m a pretty good chariot racing, NBD. And I was expecting to get like second or third in the big chariot race. But then this chariot savant Ben-Hurd (or something) comes in and crashes me the fuck out! Needless to say I was trampled by my horses (again) and now I can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Ben-Hur (2016)?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Ben-Hur and his bestie Messala are living it up in Rome. Well, that is, until Messala enlists in the Roman army. Why does he enlist?

2) Now Messala’s back, Jack! And he just, you know … needs some info from Ben-Hur for his buddy Pontius Pilate. Do a guy a solid, right, Ben-Hur? What does Messala want to know?

3) Whoops, Ben-Hur kind of maybe almost got the like … president of Jerusalem killed or whatever. You’re a slave now Ben-Hur, you done fucked up! After escaping during a battle though, Morgan Freeman finds him. What convinces Freeman to allow Ben-Hur to stick with his gang of elite chariot racers?

4) And now Ben-Hur is back, Jack! But, huh, rumor is his mother and love might just still be alive. Where are they and in … uh, what condition are they?

5) Time for the chariot race. What is the result?

Bonus Question: In the mid-credits scene a messenger interrupts the Ben-Hur fambly dinner to deliver an urgent message. What is it?

Answers

Ben-Hur (2016) Preview

Patrick walks through campus deep in thought. Where do you go when you are Sly Stallone in 1989? He said ‘school’ so that’s where he went. People point and gawk at the sad lonely walk of a Sly Stallone. A crowd forms and soon he’s surrounded by looky loos. “Sly! Flex for us,” one shouts. “Yo, Adrian! Where’s Adrian?” another chides playfully. In a sudden panic he tries to escape the taunts, but he can’t break through. He cocks back his arm, ready to use his age-appropriate muscles crafted from years of exercise and eating well. Before he can pulverize an innocent fan he feels a tiny hand on his arm and a quiet voice asking “Sly, sir, may I get an autograph?” He looks down to see a child, no more than three or four. He’s dressed in the colors of the college, ready to root on his favorite team, “Gladiators” splashed across his chest. Patrick’s eyes widen. “Kyle?” he gasps.

Jamie walks through campus deep in thought. Frankie Jr. is popping b-gum (as the kids now call it) and strutting around the school. “Yo, pops, you’re cramping my style.” Jamie just murmurs sorry and continues to think. If he’s here, where is Patrick? Who is Patrick? He looks around in panic, suddenly gripped by paranoia. Who is anyone? He grabs a nearby student and screams, “Who are you?” much to the horror of Frankie Jr. He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around, his arm cocked back, old skin drooping down from years of hard living. The principal stands in front of him, an old man with gray hair and beard. He’s dressed in the colors of the school, “The New Gladiators” splashes across his chest. Jamie’s eyes widen. “Kyle?” he gasps.

That’s right! It’s a double gladiator week as we catch the 2016 remake of Ben-Hur and pair it with an Italian sci-fi picture, The New Gladiators. Remaking Ben-Hur was always a mistake. It’s also appropriate we catch at least one Italian film in this cycle as they played such a big role in the type of future/action genre of the times. Let’s go!

Ben-Hur (2016) – BMeTric: 41.2; Notability: 61

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 16.4%; Notability: top 4.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 20.4%; Higher BMeT: Fifty Shades of Black, Zoolander 2, Cell, The Forest, Exposed, Yoga Hosers, Meet the Blacks, Cabin Fever, Max Steel, The Darkness, Dark Crimes, Blair Witch, Independence Day: Resurgence, The 5th Wave, Urge, Shut In, Boo! A Madea Halloween, Gods of Egypt, Get a Job, The Assignment, and 21 more; Higher Notability: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Zoolander 2, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Brothers Grimsby, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Warcraft, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Allegiant, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Ice Age: Collision Course; Lower RT: Cabin Fever, Dark Crimes, Term Life, Urge, Max Steel, Amateur Night, The Darkness, Fifty Shades of Black, Shut In, Misconduct, Mother’s Day, Exposed, The Do-Over, Get a Job, I.T., Dirty Grandpa, The Forest, Cell, Allegiant, The Choice, and 30 more; Notes: The notability is off the hook here. It’s 2016, so obviously there are going to be huge ones coming out around then, but it is near The Huntsman sequel? That’s big.

RogerEbert.com – 3.0 stars – Does the movie radically re-arrange both its source material and that material’s most famous adaptation? It sure as hell does. But I doubt that many contemporary viewers consider either of those as holy writ. This is a “Ben-Hur” of and for its time, but also a little better than its time, it turns out. I’m not qualified to say whether it’s an effective delivery system for its Christian message, but I think I can credibly pronounce it a good popcorn movie.

(My God. One of the big pluses for this film according to this review is: it’s shorter than the previous 4 hour epic. Alright. For the record I liked the previous adaptation. It is long, but has some really interesting stuff in it. Somehow I still doubt this stands up.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLJdzky63BA/

(Wow, the hard rock soundtrack is an interesting take. Also, absolutely nothing about Jesus in the whole trailer? Just hard core chariot action? I would be down if that were the case. Unfortunately, it is not.)

Directors – Timur Bekmambetov – ( Known For: Wanted; Profile; Night Watch; Day Watch; V2. Escape from Hell; The Arena; The Irony of Fate 2; Yolki 5; Six Degrees of Celebration; Yolki 1914; Peshawar Waltz; Future BMT: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; BMT: Ben-Hur; Notes: He was born in what is now Kazakhstan. Night Watch and Day Watch are a series about vampires that made him famous.)

Writers – Lew Wallace – ( Known For: Ben-Hur; Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ; BMT: Ben-Hur; Notes: He’s the author of the original book. He died in 1905. He was also the governor of the New Mexico Territory and later minister to Turkey besides being an author.)

Keith R. Clarke – ( Known For: The Way Back; BMT: Ben-Hur; Notes: Not much about him. He has an upcoming movie which sounds like Catch-22 but concerning redeployment to Afghanistan.)

John Ridley – ( Known For: 12 Years a Slave; Three Kings; U Turn; Needle in a Timestack; Red Tails; Undercover Brother; Jimi: All Is by My Side; Cold Around the Heart; BMT: Ben-Hur; Notes: He won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave. He wrote a draft for Beverly Hills Cop 4 which apparently was rejected.)

Actors – Jack Huston – ( Known For: House of Gucci; The Irishman; American Hustle; Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; Hail, Caesar!; Their Finest; Antebellum; Above Suspicion; Kill Your Darlings; Outlander; Factory Girl; Earthquake Bird; Shrink; Night Train to Lisbon; Shrooms; The Yellow Birds; Boogie Woogie; Not Fade Away; Mr. Nice; Future BMT: The Longest Ride; BMT: Ben-Hur; Notes: For a while I was convinced this was Jack Heston, as in a stunt cast to cast Charlton Heston’s son. Nope, this is Anjelica Huston’s nephew and thus John Huston’s grandson. Heston does have a son, he directed the box office bomb Alaska.)

Toby Kebbell – ( Known For: RocknRolla; Kong: Skull Island; War for the Planet of the Apes; Match Point; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Gold; Dead Man’s Shoes; A Monster Calls; War Horse; The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; Destroyer; Control; The East; The Conspirator; Chéri; The Angel; The Hurricane Heist; Held for Ransom; Wilderness; Becoming; Future BMT: Alexander; Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time; The Counselor; Wrath of the Titans; BMT: Fantastic Four; Warcraft; Bloodshot; Ben-Hur; Notes: He’s English and was nominated as a Rising Star at the BAFTAs.)

Rodrigo Santoro – ( Known For: 300; Love Actually; Focus; 300: Rise of an Empire; Rio; Project Power; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle; 7 Prisoners; The Last Stand; Rio 2; I Love You Phillip Morris; The 33; Jane Got a Gun; Pele: Birth of a Legend; Redbelt; Carandiru; There Be Dragons; Rio, I Love You; Last Call; Monica and Friends: Bonds; Future BMT: Post Grad; BMT: What to Expect When You’re Expecting; Ben-Hur; Notes: From Brazil, and most notable for his role in Westworld. He also was the voice of Stuart Little in the Brazilian dubbed version of both movies.)

Budget/Gross – $100,000,000 / Domestic: $26,410,477 (Worldwide: $94,061,311)

(My god, what a bomb. I’m telling you, they should have got James Cameron to do it. That would have been the way to make a Ben-Hur film.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 25% (47/191): How do you fight an idea? By filming a remake that has too few of its own, and tries to cover it up with choppy editing and CGI.

(Jamie had to point out to me that “how do you fight an idea” is a big part of the previous Ben-Hur film. I’ve seen that film. But I didn’t remember the quote. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus hitting that up hard in a tongue in cheek manner is weird, but at least now it makes sense to my brain instead of sounding like actual gibberish.)

Reviewer Highlight: Very rarely does it try to impress us, or overwhelm us, shock us, move us. – K. Austin Collins, The Ringer

Poster – Jesus: The Movie

(It’s an exciting picture from the film, but not exactly poster material. Nice font, though. Comes out just about even. C.)

Tagline(s) – Brother against brother. Slave against empire. (B)

(I can’t fault it for passing up the rule of three. Would have gotten pretty long if you tried to add another one. But needs something more to get to the next level. “Crime against God” doesn’t work, but that’s the kind of clever third entry they could have tried. Just merely good as it is.)

Keyword(s) – past

Top 10: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Forrest Gump (1994), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Django Unchained (2012), Gladiator (2000), Inglourious Basterds (2009), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Schindler’s List (1993), The Prestige (2006), Shutter Island (2010)

Future BMT: 88.6 BloodRayne (2005), 72.9 The Unborn (2009), 70.3 Texas Chainsaw (2013), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 69.7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), 65.8 The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death (2014), 64.5 The Final Destination (2009), 62.1 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), 59.7 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), 59.0 Apollo 18 (2011)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), The Fog (2005), Movie 43 (2013), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Glitter (2001), Holmes & Watson (2018), The Master of Disguise (2002), The Legend of Hercules (2014), Grease 2 (1982), The Bye Bye Man (2017), Jonah Hex (2010), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Wild Wild West (1999), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), The Ridiculous 6 (2015), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Black Knight (2001), Chernobyl Diaries (2012), A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989), Cool World (1992), The Musketeer (2001), An American Haunting (2005), Ishtar (1987), The Nun (2018), The Curse of La Llorona (2019), Pinocchio (2002), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Bones (2001), Shanghai Surprise (1986), House of Wax (2005), Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), Season of the Witch (2011), The Tuxedo (2002), Mannequin: On the Move (1991), Pompeii (2014), Ghost Ship (2002), Assassin’s Creed (2016), The Scarlet Letter (1995), Timeline (2003), Dolittle (2020), The Quest (1996), X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019), Wagons East (1994), The Three Musketeers (2011), Diana (2013), Ben-Hur (2016), Rambo III (1988), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006), The Blue Lagoon (1980), Cutthroat Island (1995), Texas Rangers (2001), Sucker Punch (2011), Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001), Jobs (2013), Universal Soldier (1992), Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004), Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Original Sin (2001), Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013), American Outlaws (2001), Winter’s Tale (2014), Harlem Nights (1989), The Identical (2014), I Dreamed of Africa (2000), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), The Chamber (1996), The Marrying Man (1991), Wild Bill (1995), In Love and War (1996), Sleepaway Camp (1983), Gods and Generals (2003), The Lone Ranger (2013), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Halloween II (1981), September Dawn (2007), Young Guns II (1990), Oscar (1991), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Evening (2007), The 13th Warrior (1999), White Comanche (1968), Gangster Squad (2013), Now and Then (1995), A Dog’s Purpose (2017)

Best Options (Action): 88.6 BloodRayne (2005), 69.7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), 64.5 The Final Destination (2009), 62.1 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008), 56.7 Robin Hood (2018), 53.7 Spy Hard (1996), 50.1 The Last Legion (2007), 48.2 You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (2008), 48.0 Alexander (2004), 47.9 King Solomon’s Mines (1985), 47.7 The Dark Tower (2017), 47.1 Bad Girls (1994), 45.9 Samson (2018), 45.5 Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), 45.3 Red Scorpion (1988), 44.6 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), 43.6 Top Dog (1995), 43.5 Missing in Action (1984), 43.3 The Kitchen (2019), 43.2 Iron Eagle (1986), 42.5 Pan (2015), 41.3 Ben-Hur (2016), 40.9 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), 40.3 End of Days (1999), 40.2 The Delta Force (1986), (and many more)

(We went far down here, but actually really like … look at the options. The only other one I could have maybe went for was the other notorious bomb, Alexander. There are just so many films sent in the past that are terrible.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 18) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Morgan Freeman is No. 4 billed in Ben-Hur and No. 1 billed in Kiss the Girls, which also stars Ashley Judd (No. 2 billed) who is in The Identical (No. 2 billed) which also stars Ray Liotta (No. 3 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 2 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (4 + 1) + (2 + 2) + (3 + 2) + (3 + 1) = 18. If we were to watch Just Getting Started we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – Director Timur Bekmambetov insisted that the chariot circus be built for real, and be realized with as little computer graphics imagery as possible. He felt it was absolutely necessary to make the chariot race look and feel realistic.

This version of the story is 87 minutes shorter than the previous version, Ben-Hur (1959).

Timur Bekmambetov explained the film’s adaptation in an interview with “Collider”: “When we say ‘original “Ben-Hur”,’ we have to be very concrete about which original version we are talking about. There were two big-screen versions made, in 1925 [Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)] and 1959 [Ben-Hur (1959)]. These are the two most famous ones. There was also a Broadway stage version at the beginning of the 20th century. There have been a lot of television versions. The Ben-Hur story reminds me of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Hamlet’ and any story written by [Anton Chekhov]. It is timeless, so every new generation wants to go back to it in order to adapt it for the new world. The screen version made in 1959 runs for four hours, and there [are] only a small number of people who can actually stay through the whole movie. It is about people different from us. And it’s normal, because people used to be different. The audience was different, too, as well as the cinema language the film was made in. The 1959 movie was about revenge, not about forgiveness. For me that was the main problem, as I think that the novel is mainly about forgiveness, about the fact that a human being learned how to forgive. I got so excited about the project when I read John Ridley’s script. I understood that John’s vision of the story has so much light to it, and that he shares the same thoughts about certain morals as I do. We talked with him about our modern world, which actually reminds me very much of a huge Roman Empire. In the Roman Empire the most important values were pride, rivalry, power, strength, the dictatorship of power and self-love. This kind of world does not have any prospects today. Humanity has to learn how to love and forgive. This would be our only solution.”

The film was originally set for release on February 26, 2016. In October 2015 it was pushed back to August 12, 2016.