Category: BMT Live!

Keeping Up With the Joneses Preview

This week was supposed to be the end of the 1986 cycle but it has been extended a week. Why? Because it’s time for the final BMT Live of the year! Looking ahead to November and December we became panicked at the weak BMT prospects on the horizon. We felt like the time was now. Of course you’re probably all thinking that we just have to be watching Boo! A Madea Halloween. I wish. Unfortunately our cousins across the pond have yet to discover Tyler Perry (shame!). Once again defeated by the lackluster UK release schedule we instead turned our attention to the other comedy released last week to even worse reviews. That’s right, the Jon Hamm, Zach Galifianakis, and Isla Fisher comedy Keeping up with the Joneses. By all accounts it’s supposed to be pretty boring. Great. Thanks UK. We could have been having fun watching Madea say “Hellur” to some ghosts. And now we have NOTHING. Boo on you!… A Madea Halloween. Let’s go!

Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016) – BMeTric: 9.0

(There is no plot this week! This movie is small enough that the archive hasn’t taken a snapshot since the 14th when the movie was not open to reviews. Interesting that this hasn’t happened yet, but we’ve mostly done larger movies than this for BMT Live! And those tend to get earlier premieres outside of the United States.)

RogerEbert.com – 2 stars –  “Keeping Up with the Joneses” has a few mild laughs here and there … and I have the feeling that it might wind up playing better on television, where all the sitcom trappings might seem more at home. As a prospect for going out one night and paying money for tickets and parking and popcorn in order to see it, however, it comes up decidedly short.

(The reviews I found for this film are kind of surprisingly okay. Basically like … don’t spend money on this film but if you’ve stumbled into the theater you won’t demand your money back at the end. Indiewire gave is a similarly middling review. Promising in general, but will only make me wish I was watching Boo! A Madea Halloween all the more.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPfYXXg65qA

(I feel like this trailer must give away the entire film. There are some OK gags in there (like the cobra wine), but I’m afraid we’ll just watch these mildly entertaining scene cut between fluff.)

Directors – Greg Mottola – (Known For: Superbad; Paul; Adventureland; The Daytrippers; BMT: Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Directed a number of episodes of the short-lived TV show Undeclared. Probably how he ended up getting the Superbad gig.)

Writers – Michael LeSieur (written by) – (BMT: You, Me and Dupree; Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Writing the upcoming new adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.)

Actors – Zach Galifianakis – (Known For: Into the Wild; The Hangover; Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Up in the Air; It’s Kind of a Funny Story; Due Date; The Campaign; The Muppets; Puss in Boots; Dinner for Schmucks; Youth in Revolt; Muppets Most Wanted; BMT: G-Force; Corky Romano; Are You Here; Bubble Boy; The Hangover Part III; Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie; What Happens in Vegas; Gigantic; The Hangover Part II; Out Cold; Masterminds; Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Has won two primetime Emmys for his online talk show Between Two Ferns.)

Isla Fisher – (Known For: Nocturnal Animals; Now You See Me; The Great Gatsby; Wedding Crashers; Definitely, Maybe; Rise of the Guardians; Bachelorette; Rango; Hot Rod; Horton Hears a Who!; Life of Crime; I Heart Huckabees; The Lookout; BMT: Scooby-Doo; Confessions of a Shopaholic; Visions; The Pool; Wedding Daze; The Brothers Grimsby; Burke and Hare; London; Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Always found it interesting that she was born in Oman. Married to Sacha Baron Cohen and has three children.)

Jon Hamm – (Known For: The Town; Bridesmaids; The A-Team; Minions; A Single Man; We Were Soldiers; Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie; Shrek Forever After; Space Cowboys; Million Dollar Arm; Friends with Kids; BMT: The Day the Earth Stood Still; The Ten; Sucker Punch; Stolen; Keeping Up with the Joneses; Notes: Obviously best known for Mad Men for which he won two Golden Globes and an Emmy.)

Budget/Gross – $40 million / Domestic: $5,875,943 (Worldwide: $8,348,744)

(Weird that this bombed so badly. There were a number of big new films that week though and it’s a weird time for a comedy to come out, so maybe not. Third worst opening of this year for a 3000+ theater film behind Burnt and Hardcore Henry… forgot about those films.)

#8 on the Worst Openings – Super Saturated chart

(Crazy how few of these we’ve seen. One other one in the top 10 (Seeker the Dark is Rising) and two others in the top 20 (New York Minute, although I’ve seen Astro Boy outside of BMT). The decision to move the release to October probably has something to do with the performance, it is competing with much better films than it should be. And this week won’t be any different, at least in the UK almost all screens are being devoted to Doctor Strange starting Friday.)

#33 for the Comedy – Spy genre

spycomedy_33

#98 for the Spy genre

spy_98

(Interesting graphs. As far as spy-comedy is concerned there are three main peaks. Early 2000s, around 2010 and a recent resurgence. The first seems to have been kicked off by Austin Powers and quickly burned out after that series failed. The second coincides with Casino Royale and the return of Bond. I think that died with Killer and Knight & Day, but then Spy, Central Intelligence, The Brothers Grimsby and this offers a return of the genre. But then looking at the Spy genre you see the graphs basically overlie each other … which made me wonder)

Spy – Not Comedy

spynotcomedy

(Very interesting. Indeed it looks like, strangely, non-comedy spy movies lag a bit behind spy comedy films. How strange … I guess we should expect a bunch of spy films in the next few years. I wonder if it is a financing / speed of production thing. Spy movies in general become of interest. Comedies are cheaper and quicker to make so they come out faster. Then they both burn out and the cycle repeats. I like this theory. I’m going to accept it as truth)

Rotten Tomatoes – 19% (17/90): Keeping Up with the Joneses squanders a decent premise — and a talented cast full of funny people — on a witless and largely laugh-free suburban spy adventure.

(So Tammy. Like … Tammy but with Zach Galifianakis? I sure hope not, because Tammy was awful. I see this as like a The Killers thing. Which makes sense given the subject matter. But just that you think the spy genre is ripe for lampooning, but then the goofy guy or everyman stuck in a secret world aspect of things sustains humor for about 10 minutes and then you get tired. As long as Galifianakis isn’t horribly irritating this movie could be a win by default.)

Poster – Keeping Up with the Sklogses (B-)

keeping_up_with_the_joneses

(This is the poster in the theaters, but not on imdb for whatever reason. I like the yellow… underused as a primary color of posters and gives it something bold to catch the eye. The symmetry isn’t bad, though the stagger of the tagline is weird. Could use a better font. OK all things considered.)

Tagline(s) – License to kill. License to chill. (C)

(Not clever enough. Repeat of the front of the tagline messes with the cadence. Short and sweet though and at least sounds like a tagline. Mediocre.)

Keyword(s) – tied feet; Top Ten by BMeTric: 58.0 The Phantom (1996); 57.9 Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009); 49.7 Bride of Chucky (1998); 49.1 Charlie’s Angels (2000); 49.1 Knock Off (1998); 48.8 Glen or Glenda (1953); 47.7 Turistas (2006); 46.4 Sinister 2 (2015); 41.7 House at the End of the Street (2012); 39.6 Excess Baggage (1997);

(You shitting me? … weirdly good list though. Like we should legit have seen the top 4 and then Excess Baggage. Glen and Glenda is kind of an old school by-reputation-only entry as well but … touche weird keyword, you managed a solid list.)

Notes – The home brew shop scenes were filmed at Red Brick Brewing Company, the oldest craft brewery in Georgia. (Can we assume this movie is actually set in Georgia. Let’s get an intertitle, haven’t seen that in a while I feel like)

The movie was initially slated to premiere during early April 2016 but the release date was deferred for about six months until late October 2016. (but … why? October doesn’t really feel like comedy season. It is bad horror and borderline oscar season)

First cinema movie directed by Greg Mottola in around five years with his last theatrical feature film being Paul (2011). (Really, you’re going to bait us with that and just leave it. I assume there is a reason. And there it is, he co-executive produced The Newsroom. Presumably this took up a bunch of time in 2012 and 2013. Took me five seconds).

Mechanic: Resurrection Recap

Jamie

This week we watched Mechanic: Resurrection in theaters for BMT: Live! A tradition whereby the bad movie twins attempt to find movies that have even remotely similar US and UK release dates. I’m going to take it upon myself to put this film into context with the original Mechanic and the 2011 remake. I’ll let Patrick do most (but not all) of the talking about Mechanic: Resurrection. The original film starring Charles Bronson was very similar to Get Carter. He is an old school gangster that gets a little caught up with some personal feelings, which puts him on the wrong side of his boss (in this case he takes a shine to his hitman mentor’s son and decides he wants to train him to be his replacement, which doesn’t make his boss very happy). In the end they decide to take him out and he is killed (but not before killing everyone that got in his way). That’s almost exactly Get Carter, but not quite as good. With the 2011 remake they shifted from a subdued thriller to a straight action. As a result, Statham and Ben Foster had to bumble and stumble their way through every job. They botch everything. Of course this is what happens when you want to make a hitman thriller into a straight action. They have to fuck up every job so that their only escape is through massive stunts and violence. It was shit. It’s actually super surprising that it got >50% on RT. I would have pegged it at high 30’s. Almost every change made from the original was a mistake and there was some rididididiculous writing on display (I could write a whole blog post on the medical jargon employed in the film, for it was absurd). So nowhere to go but up, right? Wrong. I feel like it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to say that a film we’ve watched is truly awful. Mechanic: Resurrection is truly awful. It’s like the makers watched last year’s horrendous Hitman: Agent 47 and looked around and said, “Shit… they’ve cracked the code. Perfection,” and browsed through whatever properties they owned so they could create the exact same film for this year. It was nonsense. The funniest thing about all this: the remake actually got the plot right this time! Instead of just having the hitman screw up in order to create action they had him cajoled into doing sloppy and near-impossible mission in order to save a loved one. That actually makes more sense, and yet it was still a pile of trash.

God damn do I love Settings 101. Once again we got a great settings film in Mechanic: Resurrection. It also was one of the more difficult films to assess of our recent fare. On the face of it Mechanic: Resurrection is a classic B settings film. Everywhere you go you are told explicitly through intertitle where exactly you are in the world. So you are never confused as we jump from Brazil to Thailand to Malaysia to Australia to Bulgaria. But as you can see from that list this is essentially a roadtrip film (what Patrick termed the globetrotter film). Do I consider it set in Australia? Thailand? Bulgaria? If we were making a mapl.de.map is this penalized because it doesn’t spend a lot of time in a singular location? After much gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes we came to the conclusion that this would not be a penalty. Here they are clear enough and the locations used well enough that this earns a solid B+ in Settings 101. It’s all about how clear the location is and how much it factors into the plot. For the record I would push for the film to count towards Bulgaria. I feel like it was the most solid location of the five. Australia has an argument as does Thailand, but that would be my vote (I’m sure you all were wondering).

Patrick

‘Ello everyone? Mechanic: Resurrection? I’m going a little NYPost back splash on you: The Mechanic Should Have Stayed Dead! Buuuuurned. It was BMT Live! So far I would say we’ve been remarkably successful with our in theater choices, did the streak continue? Let me put it this way … I have OPINIONS! Let’s hear them.

  • The Good – Who can’t resist a little Statham charm, and a little gratuitous Jessica Alba butt that makes you feel a bit dirty, you know? Considering the overall quality of the film some of the shots they managed to get are impressive. One more word: globetrotting. C’mon, everyone loves some great views.
  • The Bad – Nearly everything. I’ll speak a bit more on the theater experience below, but this is as close as I’ve ever come to walking out of a film. Five minutes in I thought “seriously … what the fuck is this?”. Usually bad movies are skilled people with good intentions when everything goes wrong. This, somehow, came across as watching people bad at their job do it badly. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and say the budget just didn’t match the aspirations. Amateurish is the word to describe the film. Expository would describe the script. Literally, there is a whole thirty minutes with pure monologues which sound like this: “Crain and I grew up as child soldiers trained in the East End. I escaped, and he’s never forgiven me for it.” First, seriously, c’mon, my workmates got a kick out of the mere idea of child soldiers trained in the East End, it is ludicrous. Second, how didn’t this come up in the first movie? This mysterious past didn’t come across in the slightest until literally right now. Alba’s backstory was equally ridiculous and is just deadpanned to the camera for a minute straight. Tommy Lee Jones is a gunrunner with a heart of gold! While mind you, still controlling the entirety of the European and South American arms trades, as if only “the little guy” needs guns in those parts of the world. I could go on for days, and I have. I literally whispered to myself “is this the worst movie I’ve ever seen?” Of course it isn’t, it isn’t even the worst movie I’ve seen in theaters, but while watching it it certainly seemed like the nadir of something.
  • The BMT – I would watch this movie a thousand times over. If there is any good in the world this movie will ultimately break 50 on the BMeTric and enter the pantheon. But I fear it will go the way of Hitman: Agent 47, forgotten and forgiven for all the hurt and pain it had caused. For shame.

As promised a little note on the Theater Sklog-sperience: This was my first venture to the Westfield mall in Shepherd’s Bush and the Vue there is fantastic. Great seat, courteous audience, awful awful (awful) movie. As I walked there I reflected on the fact that Hitman films just … kind of suck. You have a superman of a “good” guy, and the only way the kills are action-y in reality is if the person screws them up. The original Mechanic did a good job combatting both of those pitfalls and yet still was kind of boring (it’s like Get Carter, but I liked Get Carter more). The remake has Ben Foster literally screw everything up twice just so we could get some action. Not a good look. Even walking there I knew I wasn’t going to have a great time.

I’ll leave it there because I’ve written a lot. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Mechanic: Resurrection Preview

Big week here at BMTHQ. That’s because we are finally doing the third of four In Theaters Now interludes! This week we saw the release of Mechanic: Ressurection. The film is a sequel to 2011’s The Mechanic, which is in turn a remake of the Charles Bronson original. Considering how much we love homework for BMT, we jumped at the chance to catch up on the series (which is presumably now finished). The film had a crazy embargo on reviews, garnering less than 20 even after the weekend during which it premiered in 2300 theaters). Now it’s up in the 30’s, but still that’s remarkable. Consider this: Suicide Squad has 287 tallied reviews. Even the boxing movie Hands of Stone (released in 1/4 as many theaters on the same weekend) has double the reviews! It goes to show how much control a studio really has. If they want reviewers to see a film that can get it seen. If not? It makes its money and disappears. I’m actually pretty excited for this. I’m glad we were able to fit this in live. Let’s go!

Mechanic: Resurrection (2016) – BMeTric: 13.6

MechanicResurrection_BMeT

MechanicResurrection_RV

(Huh. That BMeTric is actually pretty high for having literally just come out. Nothing really to see since it is so early in its run, although its vote numbers look … small. I would guess maybe 6 thousand for the theatrical and 12K initially after VOD release? Won’t be a BMeTric barn burner, but if that rating keeps a tumblin’ then it will make like 20-30.)

RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars –  How bad could it be? Not good, is the answer, learned at an early Thursday evening screening. Despite some of the most picturesque locations money can buy, and some not unimpressive looking movable props (yachts with helipads and such) and so on, “Mechanic: Resurrection” suffers from a storyline and script that strains credulity and insults intelligence even by the low bar set by the majority of contemporary action movies.

(Noice. Terrible scripts are my bag. You telling me we are getting Expendables level picturesque locales? Yes please! Count me in. Purposefully withholding the movie from reviewers is almost always a great sign. This ain’t Star Wars 8, they probably did this because it is straight hot garbage and they want Statham-heads to get out to the theater before they’ve realized their horrible mistake. They didn’t count on the bad movie twins though, I’m going to almost literally run to the theater to see this piece of trash)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-P3f_wDXvs

(That looks like garbage. Having seen the original and remake of the Mechanic it also doesn’t really fall in line with the movie at all. And, spoiler alert, Tommy Lee Jones is barely in this movie so him getting third billing and a strong presence in the trailer is hilarious. The music doesn’t even get me jazzed up, sigh.)

Directors – Dennis Gansel – (Known For: Die Welle; Before the Fall; Wir sind die Nacht; BMT: Mechanic: Resurrection; Notes: German director who also does some commercial work. I’ve heard of a few of his features, specifically Die Welle (The Wave). This could mark his attempt to transition to America, he has at least one smaller American film in pre-production. One of ten directors included in Berlin, I Love You, the counterpart to Paris je t’aime)

Writers – Philip Shelby (screenplay & story) – (BMT: Survivor; Mechanic: Resurrection; Notes: Was primarily a writer from 1988 to 2002, with his most notable work being a Covert-One book written with the ideas of Robert Ludlum, the creator of Jason Bourne, in mind. This is his first writing credit of any kind in nearly 15 years.)

Tony Mosher (screenplay) – (BMT: Mechanic: Resurrection; Notes: There is very little about this guy, although you can find his twitter and other information saying that he is, indeed, a screenwriter in LA. He seems to be tabbed for an upcoming project and a screenplay rewrite, but nothing major I don’t think.)

Lewis John Carlino (based upon the characters created by) – (Known For: The Mechanic; The Mechanic (2011); The Great Santini; Seconds; Resurrection; The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea; The Fox; The Brotherhood; BMT: Mechanic: Resurrection; Notes: Probably best known as the writer-director of the Oscar nominated film The Great Santini. He was himself nominated for an Oscar for Adapted Screenplay for I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1978). A veteran of the stage it would seem that was his preferred medium more recently, although I have to assume his is retired since he is in his eighties.)

Rachel Long and Brian Pittman (screenplay) – (BMT: Mechanic: Resurrection; Stranded; Notes: Young screenwriters who just had their new script The Civilian bought by Millenium in the hopes to turn it into a “franchise … in the vein of The Bourne Identity” which makes sense. This is one of the projects listed for Tony Mosher above as well. The connections to spy movies and Bourne in particular in this writing team is very very interesting to me.)

Actors – Jason Statham – (Known For: The Mechanic; Spy; Fast & Furious 7; Snatch; Furious 6; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; The Transporter; The Expendables; The Italian Job; The Expendables 2; Transporter 2; The Bank Job; Collateral; Death Race; Homefront; Crank; Hummingbird; Parker; Crank: High Voltage; Safe; Blitz; Gnomeo & Juliet; Cellular; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (BMT); Ghosts of Mars (BMT); The Pink Panther; Wild Card; The One; The Expendables 3 (BMT); Transporter 3; 13; War; Turn It Up; Killer Elite; Revolver; Mechanic: Resurrection; Notes:  A martial artist and accomplished diver Statham was discovered by Guy Ritchie while sports modelling. He is well known for a somewhat tongue in cheek approach to action bordering on comedy in places. Having a bit of a moment with Furious 7 and Spy.)

Jessica Alba – (Known For: Sin City; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; Machete; Stretch; Never Been Kissed; The Killer Inside Me; A.C.O.D.; BMT: The Love Guru (BMT); Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D; Honey; The Ten; Little Fockers; The Eye; Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Good Luck Chuck (BMT); Fantastic Four; Machete Kills (BMT); Valentine’s Day (BMT); Barely Lethal; Into the Blue; Escape from Planet Earth (BMT); Razzie Notes:  Won the Razzie Award in 2011 for Worst Supporting Actress for The Killer Inside Me, Little Fockers, Machete, and Valentine’s Day; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2009 for Worst Actress for The Eye, and The Love Guru; in 2008 for Awake, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and Good Luck Chuck; and in 2006 for Fantastic Four, and Into the Blue; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screen Couple for Awake, Good Luck Chuck, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Notes: Somewhat of a BMT superstar. She is very involved with charity and occasionally has gotten into some controversy because of it (particularly in animal rights). Not much else to say really, her previous turn in Good Luck Chuck wasn’t a good look for her and I don’t think this movie is going to help much.)

Also stars Tommy Lee Jones – (Who I think we’ve never seen in a BMT film? Shocking)

Budget/Gross – $40 million / N/A (N/A)

(This is almost guaranteed to be a massive box office flop. No way it touches $40 million. But I guess blowing up boats and helicopters costs a bunch? Hopefully I see every penny of that $40 million on screen, that is at least usually fun.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 23% (7/31): No consensus yet.

(I’m going to make a consensus: This movie literally makes you dumber. Bam. I am shocked it has seven good reviews, but I guess when you set the bar at “Does Jason Statham punch someone in the face and have a British accent? Yes? Two and a half out of four! Good for what it is!” I can kind of see how it ends up like that.)

Poster – Sklog-chanic Resurrection (F) 

mechanic_resurrection

(I really hate this poster. This is version one. There is a version two which is in the vein of the second version poster of the 2011 Mechanic which is in turn so inferior to the primary poster that it is laughable. Basically the second poster for the film is better in that it improves on the brown-ish banality of the 2011 poster, but that 2011 primary poster is so good that it makes me angry. In this one … the weird windowed nonsense, the kind of skewness of the entire thing, Statham looks weird in the poster, it tells you nothing about the film (except that there are babes, guns, and old man Tommy Lee Jones). Boo.)

Tagline(s) – Four continents. Three kills… Or the love of his life is dead. (D)

They hired him. They betrayed him. They’ll pay. (B-)

(The first one is like a Statham film, first two acts are great, but it drops the ball in the last third (boom, I don’t know if that is even true, I just thought I was so goddamned clever I had to throw it out there). But seriously, the last bit makes it too long and doesn’t carry over the theme. Four continents, three kills, two lovers, one mechanic, something like that maybe. The second is the same, but much better. The hired him, they betrayed him, they [blank] him, would have worked, although nothing comes to mind at the moment. Adequate though. I can see why they went with the first though, definitely tells you more and gets you jazzed up for the movie. The second is kind of blah in the end.)

Keyword(s) – hitman; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.4 The Avengers (1998); 70.0 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009); 66.0 Kangaroo Jack (2003); 62.8 Abduction (I) (2011); 60.1 Vampire in Brooklyn (1995); 58.8 The Crow: City of Angels (1996); 57.9 Tekken (2010); 57.3 Daredevil (2003); 52.8 Jupiter Ascending (2015); 52.7 Alex Cross (2012);

(BTW 132 films have the keyword “hitman” and a BMeTric of 20+! That is incredible. I’m willing to bet we are doing pretty well with those. I’m not sure Tekken is a real movie, but it does often come up on lists like this. I do not anticipate this movie even getting close to this list. Like … 30 tops I think, it is practically out of theaters in the UK already.)

Notes – Borrows heavily from the plot of Killer Elite (2011) wherein Statham’s character must complete 3 elaborate assassinations and make them look like accidents. (Or so this random IMDb user claims)

This will be Dennis Gansel’s first film not to star Max Riemelt in 14 years. (Makes a bit of sense. He seems like a young upcoming German director so I would assume he would work with young upcoming German actors a lot)

Jason Statham and John Cenatiempo both starred in Fast & Furious 7 (2015). (Ha! “Starring” in Furious 7 I guess means going uncredited as “Korpi”. Cenatiempo appears to be a big stunt guy, so that’s cool)

This will be Michelle Yeoh’s second action movie in 2016. The first is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016).

John Cenatiempo has appeared in 2 films with Statham. The first was in Safe (2012) as the guy he stabs with a fork at the bar. (3 films including Furious 7 no? Jesus Christ, get your shit together random IMDb user)

The final line delivered by Tommy Lee Jones’s character in which he say “Bang! You’re dead” to the security cam footage is the same line used in Arthur Bishop’s (played by Charles Bronson) final letter to his apprentice Steve McKenna (played by Jan-Michael Vincent).

Warcraft Recap

Jamie

Before Patrick gets his say on this I’m going to go ahead and address the odd dichotomy between fan and critic reactions to Warcraft. I honestly think they’re both kinda wrong about this. The critics are being a bit harsh in criticizing the fact that straight gobbledegook is sprayed at your face for over two hours and you’re expected to understand what is happening. Welcome to fantasy. They are playing at a disadvantage and trying to establish something for future entries in the series. Besides it looked great, so sit back and relax and don’t worry so much. But I’m not one to buy into the whole “the film did what it set out to do.” That’s bullshit, a bad film is a bad film. So at the same time the fans need to understand that at some point you have to stop forgiving bad films for being bad just because they never set out to be particularly good. Just because Warcraft didn’t want to have a real plot (you know, one with a beginning, middle, and end rather than just a long middle) and its pacing problem were not their fault, doesn’t mean it’s better than it actually is. It’s a mediocre film. BMT? I’m not so sure, but it was pretty fun to watch for BMT.

For my game I think I’ll Sklogify the cast. I think the most obvious recasting would have been Nic Cage as the wizard Medivh. I would also consider Ray Liotta, but he already did evil wizard in In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale. I think Kellen Lutz would play our main action star Anduin Lothar, Selena Gomez as the orc(ish) warrior (although I would also love to see Fergie in the role), and Neal McDonough as the King (LudaChris Klein is a good option here too, but Neal is a little more regal with his striking ice blue eyes. Billy Zane is on line 8 if everyone else turns us down). For the main Orc, Durotan, I think I’ll go with Alex Pettyfer, but besides that the orcs can be played by unknowns since you don’t really see who they are. We just really need that main orc to be as wooden as possible and we know Pettyfer can deliver. Finally for the already woefully miscast young wizard you have to go with Taylor Lautner (make a bad thing worse). God, Taylor Lautner and Selena Gomez in the same movie. Be still my heart. I think that film is properly Sklogified.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Warcraft?! More like Warcrap! We went live for this one, let’s get into it!

  • The Good – The first 30 minutes of this movie had me thinking I was seeing a true blue amazing fantasy tale. The 3D and CGI was pretty stunning throughout. The main plotline has been making me think “hey, I could watch a few more of these movies, this is kind of fun”. It really is a beautiful film.
  • The Bad – The plot is also completely scattershot. They jump from place to place and confuse the viewer consistently for the entire middle part of the film. I could never see myself sitting down and watching the film again, it would be too boring. The wizard character is a complete miscast, it is as if I dressed up for a Renaissance fair and ended up in the movie, that is how ridiculously misplaced he seemed at all times. The final third is a complete incomprehensible mess.
  • The BMT – It won’t ever be BMT and that’s because its IMDb rating will never drop below 7.0, that is a fact. I loved it as a Live! because it is really divisive, but it shall remain around the worst BMT we’ve ever done (and likely the highest rated BMT film on IMDb forever more). I would think this would be a 25 though, average. It is honestly around where critics should have rated this, 30-40, slightly more forgiving. The sub-30 this movie got is kind of absurd, but so is the IMDb score. It is an enigma.

Let’s see. I’m having a hell of a time trying to figure out a good game for this one actually. So I’m going special BMT Live: Theater Experience edition. I viewed this movie at the Fulham Road Cineworld in London. At the time the showings were already getting a bit sparse, usually one per day per theater, and exclusively 3D. I grabbed the earliest showing I could find (9:10PM blah) and bought an absurdly priced ticket (you also buy the glasses here, 16 pounds). There were more people than normal in my BMT Live showing, around a dozen or so. And the couple behind me decided to talk throughout the previews in French (?, couldn’t tell) and were (I think) cracking open beers as well. But everything quieted down for the movie and I had an unusually pleasant viewing experience. I was pretty proud of myself: despite not really knowing what was happening at times I remained awake and alert throughout. This was also the fourth movie in a row where no one was in the theater when I arrived five minutes before it started, which I guess is common when you book specific seats? I don’t know. I rate the experience a B+, there was a weird overhead light that bothered me throughout, but otherwise a delightful time.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Warcraft Preview

It’s the time you’ve all been waiting for! BMT Live. It’s the break in the cycle where Patrick and I take valuable time out of our busy schedule to head to the theater, plunk down our hard earned cash, and watch the worst that Hollywood has to offer (that is playing concurrently in London). If you follow the movie scene at all you might have already realized that Hollywood has provided a golden BMT opportunity in Warcraft. Not only did it get largely negative reviews, but is also far and away the most lopsided domestic/foreign grossing film in history. While it literally broke records overseas, it straight bombed here. A true curiosity. Additionally, because of the solid reception by fans it will almost certainly be the lowest BMeTric scoring film we’ve ever watched. It really couldn’t be missed by us. Almost a BMysTery in and of itself. Let’s go!

Warcraft: The Beginning (2016) – BMeTric: 1.1

Warcraft_BMeT

Warcraft_RV

(Ha. Obviously not much here at the moment. Although fun to see a film like this in action. Sitting at a 7.6 on IMDb Warcraft is an objectively good movie according to that metric, and so obviously the BMeTric is depressed. I liked this movie for Live! Because of how divisive it is. At one point it was under 20% on rotten tomatoes and internet brains were melting. So we’ll see how the BMeTric develops over time. I have a feeling though this will be a sub 15 BMeT for a long time, and yet I’m somewhat confident it will make the Razzie longlist for consideration. We’ll see.)

Rogerebert.com (Christie Lemire) – 1/2 stars –  It is brutal. It is repetitive. It is numbing. And just as it’s ending, “Warcraft” leaves all kinds of plot threads dangling for the ambitious possibility of a sequel. But you’ll be likely to cry “Game Over” because this first one is easily a contender for the worst movie of the year.

(Wow. I wasn’t expecting this review to be quite this brutal. This movie seemed ripe for the classic Leonard Maltin 2 stars “Terrible movie, fun visuals” type of review where you can’t quite figure out where the extra stars are coming from. But rogerebert.com went for the jugular and took this thing down. Gaining confidence in our choice)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rxoz13Bthc

(I believe this is the second trailer. The first trailer was an absolute catastrophe and was when I had a slight inkling this movie probably wouldn’t break the video game adaptation streak. This looks slightly better than that, but still. Leans heavily on the visuals with a somewhat trite seeming story, pretty standard for high fantasy actually.)

Directors – Duncan Jones – (Known For: Moon; Source Code; BMT: Warcraft; Notes: David Bowie’s son, Jones became somewhat of an indie darling with Moon. Subsequently Moon, due to how much of a “little known gem” it is on the internet, has become a meme related to high school aged male cinephiles. Which is unfortunate because Moon is a pretty nice little Sci Fi film, just don’t ever tell anyone you saw it because we all know … it is a hidden gem of a movie.)

Writers – Duncan Jones (screenplay) – (Known For: Moon; BMT: Warcraft; Notes: His middle name is Zowie.)

Charles Leavitt (screenplay) – (Known For: In the Heart of the Sea; Blood Diamond; K-PAX; The Express; The Mighty; BMT: Seventh Son; The Sunchaser; Warcraft; Notes:  A prolific re-writer, his two main bad movie credits (Seventh Son and Warcraft) are rewrites of others works. Born in Pittsburgh, PA.)

Chris Metzen (story and characters) – (BMT: Warcraft; Notes: Well known game designer for Blizzard covering Diablo, Starcraft, all of the iterations of Warcraft, and most recently Overwatch.)

Actors – Travis Fimmel – (Known For: Maggie’s Plan; BMT: Surfer, Dude; The Baytown Outlaws; Warcraft; Notes: A former Australian model discovered working out in a gym in Melbourne. He eventually turned to acting as a career over modelling. Well known for his leading role in the show Vikings.)

Paula Patton – (Known For: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol; Deja Vu; 2 Guns; Precious; Hitch; About Last Night; Disconnect; Just Wright; Jumping the Broom; Idlewild; BMT: Baggage Claim; Mirrors; Warcraft; Notes: At one point she provided background vocals for Usher. Former wife of Robin Thicke, he has promised to win her back through the power of song, mmmhmmmm)

Ben Foster – (Known For: The Finest Hours; X-Men: The Last Stand; Lone Survivor; The Program; 3:10 to Yuma; Alpha Dog; Hell or High Water; 30 Days of Night; Phone Booth; Big Trouble; Kill Your Darlings; Contraband; The Mechanic; 11:14; The Messenger; Rampart; Get Over It; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints; The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things; Liberty Heights; BMT: 360; The Punisher; Hostage; Pandorum; Warcraft; Notes: Best known to me as the kid in Flash Forward. He’s put together a pretty impressive resume of smaller films since then in his transition from a child actor. Born in Boston.)

Budget/Gross – $160 million / Domestic: $24,356,000 (Worldwide: $286,100,000)

(Will be a resounding financial success internationally, but is going to be an absurd Pacific Rim level catastrophe domestically. Like Pacific Rim I fully expect Legendary, which was just bought out by a Chinese company, to pump out sequels geared toward Chinese audiences going forward (see: Transformers 4 which focuses heavily on Chinese product placement in the back half of the film which was set in Hong Kong I believe).)

#190 for the 3D genre

3dAnalysis

(Again, I like these because there is just so much data it makes a pretty plot. 3D has been going down a bit (I would guess because tentpoles have been sucking up IMAX showings with or without 3D and so there are marginally less theaters available for 3D releases). I will, sadly, likely see this film in 3D, so that makes me sad. Not that I hate 3D, I just don’t want to pay for 3D for this movie).

#64 for the Fantasy – Live Action genre

liveactionfantasyAnalysis

(Will probably end up near Hansel and Gretel and between the two recent bombs in Huntsman and Alice Through the Looking Glass. This genre saw quite the surge after Lord of the Rings I would guess and seems to be a pretty consistent genre since then.)

#15 for the Sword and Sorcery genre

swordandsorceryAnalysis

(It is kind of useless to compare Warcraft to these now, but it looks like it is going to take somewhere in the 50-60 million range domestic … which is absurd. That will most likely be less that fucking Willow! Anyways, I think people were putting too much stock into this movie anyways. Look at these last three plots and realize something: All of these genres aren’t really “surging”, but rather have kind of been consistent in production and performance since 2000. Nothing is really hinging on Warcraft’s success beyond maybe video game adaptations (and they still got their best shot coming, Assassin’s Creed).)

#21 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

videogameadaptationAnalysis

(The good news is Warcraft should make the top ten in the genre. The bad news is that domestically it will now probably be at best the third highest grossing video game adaptation of the year. The genre is surprisingly consistently produced considering literally no video game adaptation has ever reached even the modest benchmark of 50% on rotten tomatoes. The best ever reviewed? Final Fantasy Spirits Within (I saw that in theaters, go me) at 44%. The best on metacritic was Mortal Kombat btw. It really is quite dire, over 15 years that RT record has stood).

Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (34/127): Warcraft has visual thrills to spare, but they — and director Duncan Jones’ distinctive gifts — are wasted on a sluggish and derivative adaptation of a bestselling game with little evident cinematic value.

(See above for some commentary on the RT score. Basically this did nothing to help the cause in getting video game adaptations taken more seriously by critics. This film is incredibly divisive. On the internet there is much debate about the stark contrast between critic reviews and audience reviews. And yet people openly admit that the movie is in fact derivative and possessing little cinematic value. The question you have to ask yourself is: is merely being entertaining the benchmark for success for a movie like this? And this is why I’m actually genuinely interested in seeing this film)

Poster – Sklogcraft (C-)

warcraft_ver8_xlg

(I don’t like it, but I feel like I should. Like I’m an old man and behind the times and that I should somehow understand that this poster is good. But I don’t. I think it is terrible. I think it looks old, and is silly, and I hate the colors, and it is busy, and blah. I don’t like it. [Jamie’s Note: Check out The Avengers poster that is graded an F- for being the worst thing I have ever seen? Look familiar? Wow.])

Tagline(s) – Two worlds. One destiny. (B+)

(I like it. Good cadence. Short. Does a little to get across the basic plot. It is still a little vague. Like, if I was staring at the poster what does that sentence mean? But after watching the trailer it makes sense, so only a bit of a minus there.)

Keywords – based on video game Top 10 BMeTric examples: 82.4 Street Fighter (1994), 81.2 Alone in the Dark (2005), 79.1 House of the Dead (2003), 78.7 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), 78.6 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), 78.3 BloodRayne (2005), 77.1 Super Mario Bros. (1993), 69.9 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), 63.8 DOA: Dead or Alive (2006), 62.4 Wing Commander (1999)

(Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne and House of the Dead are all Uwe Boll. DOA will be watched for BMT as some point. Other landmark movies above 20 BMeTric are Max Payne, the entire Resident Evil series, and both Lara Croft movies. Unfortunately a cycle really can’t be made out of it, but it sounds like it is ripe for the Sequel Cycle we are planning. We have seen 12 of 34 20+ BMeTric movies based on a video game, although I would argue that maybe 26 actually qualify. I mean, I’m going to watch all of the Pokemon movies, just not in the context of BMT)

Notes – Director Uwe Boll contacted Blizzard about directing the film, but Blizzard refused. As quoted by MTV news Uwe Boll stated: “I got in contact with Paul Sams of Blizzard, and he said, ‘We will not sell the movie rights, not to you… especially not to you. Because it’s such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it.” (Good fucking choice considering he directed 6 of the top 12 BMeTric video game adaptations)

The source for the movie adaptation is being taken from the books “Rise of the Horde”, which tells how the Orcish Horde was formed; as well as “The Last Guardian”, which shows the human side and reaction to Orcish invasion. (Oh well I guess I should have read this book… but nope. I did not.)

The film was going to be released in December 2015 but was pushed back to May 2016 to avoid the release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015). (Again solid choice)

Duncan Jones said that the original script was very one sided in terms of the two factions (Horde and Alliance). after signing on to direct, he made major edits to the story, as well as the script, so both factions could tell their side of the story. (ehhhhhh, probably not a great choice)

Bill Westenhofer, the lead visual effects supervisor for the film, is a long time World of Warcraft player and has mentioned getting up at 2 AM to raid with his guild while on film sets. Robert Kazinsky is also a die hard Warcraft player and recalls producers telling him to turn the game off while on the set of Pacific Rim (2013). (uh oh, you mean you intentionally signed someone who worked on the other gigantic domestic catastrophe for Legendary, Pacific Rim? Yikes)

An Orcish dialect was created specifically for the movie. (And people will undoubtedly learn it. I look forward to it. Let’s leave it there).

Zoolander 2 Recap

Jamie

I come here with somber news my friends. Patrick and I made a terrible mistake. Once the Great Gods of Egypt Disaster of 2016 was realized, we panicked and decided we had to (had to!) watch a BMT Live! film before it was too late. After all, the Stallonian Calender was fresh out of the box and still had that new BMT game smell. We couldn’t have it go off the rails in the first two months. So we ran into the open arms of Zoolander 2. Well I’m here to report that not only was the film not that bad (Not that bad! Not that bad! Not that bad!), we also watched it the week before London Has Fallen totally tanked with reviewers. God help us. Can we do nothing right? We may as well give up this whole endeavor and shut down the site now. But no! We will persevere! We will not let our loyal reader down! And with that we move ever forward.

In terms of Zoolander 2, I found it oddly absurdist considering the first film had absurd elements, but was at least seemingly rooted in reality. This type of shift in tone isn’t unusual. We’ve seen it with the Anchorman sequel and the Wet Hot American Summer series. Seems like with such a long time between the first film and the follow-up, the world is just in a different space comedy-wise. Necessarily you’re going to end up with a sequel that feels very different than the original. This can turn out well or not and I think Zoolander 2 came out on the slightly underwhelming side of things. Was it as good as the original? No. Was it totally not worth watching? No. At least I found myself laughing at several points (looking at you Kyle Mooney)… I just know that I probably would have laughed harder and longer if we had been able to watch Gods of Egypt.

For my BMTsolution this year, I will try to read the source material for all the films that we watch. Zoolander 2 is not based on a book, but if it were it would be a 1950s spy thriller series detailing the adventures of male model/international spy Zander (nicknamed Agent Z by MI6). Embroiled in the world of espionage he uses his perceived lack of intelligence to infiltrate the most dangerous of criminal organizations. Joined in the first novel by brother and sister folk singers Hansel and Gretel (curiously combined into the single character of Hansel in the film adaptation), he continues his adventures in the sequel in Rome attempting once again to foil the dastardly plans of Malaysian crime lord Mukashi. I found the book offensive due to the excessive number of ethnic stereotypes employed, but otherwise exciting and engaging.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Zoolander 2? More like It’s Not That Bad! It’s Not That Bad! Woooooooooooooo. This was pretty expected honestly.

  • The Good – The third act had some serious laughs. I still enjoyed the characters and they played the 15 years later thing pretty well. Once Will Ferrell arrives the movie picks up and it ends before his character (which had less non-stop exposure in the first film) got on your nerves.
  • The Bad – The cameos. But it wasn’t just the cameos, a lot of them were good and made sense. It was a specific moment. I get into it more below, but basically a two minute sequence in which Susan Sarandon, Willie Nelson, Katy Perry and (ugh) Neil Degrasse Tyson appear in an absurdly grating scene. That ejected me from the film. Also the product placement (Netflix and Uber in the beginning) in particular was pretty rough.
  • The BMT – Nope. Not only too good, but just didn’t feel BMT. Gods of Egypt? I would have been rolling down the aisles Pompeii style with that movie. Oh what could have been. This though? I enjoyed it reasonably. Laughed a bunch. I have no issue with Zoolander 2.

For this week’s game I would like to go with Tril-Oh-Geez myself. In this case it is, as of now, incomplete. The first leg is missing, but here goes. Basically, the aforementioned cameo immediately dropped the movie from Good to Okay-Kind-Of-Shitty. So here we go.

Movies Ruined by a Single Scene (Beginning-Middle-End edition)

  • Beginning – [Missing] (Jamie’s note: Conan the Destroyer? Opens with a lot lot lot of callbacks and unnecessary comedy bits, but then picks it up a bit in the middle and up to the end. That’s the most recent one where I felt like the critics probably were out from the beginning, but it wasn’t the worst and I didn’t totally understand the reviews. They seemed ready to pan it and took their chance with the beginning.)
  • Middle – Zoolander 2 – The cameo scene really knocks the movie down a notch and comes completely out of nowhere. Until that point I was thinking to myself “these cameos aren’t that bad! What are the reviewers talking about?”
  • End – The Call – The immediate ending (literally the last 5 seconds) of the film changed my opinion of the movie from “Wow, that was a legit good thriller!” to “Nevermind, that movie is literal garbage and I’m angry now”.

I’m not sure about Conan the Destroyer, but hey, it is always nice to have a complete trilogy. I’ll have to mull on it.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Zoolander 2 Preview

This week we were preparing for BMT Live! and a BMergenT erupted! A little backstory. We were planning (hoping, dreaming) on Gods of Egypt for the first Live addition to the inaugural Stallonian Calendar. Everything seemed set, it looked like a disaster and the UK and US release dates on IMDb synched perfectly. I was going to prepare the preview and thought “ooooooooo I’m going to pick my showing for the weekend” and then …. there were none. No London showings. But how could this be? Because IMDb was wrong! The Gods of UK releases had pushed the release date to the summer! (or was it always?) I am very disappointed, what a disaster of a country I live in. Backwards. Truly saddening. But as my mentor (Michael Caine in Batman Begins) said: “Why do we fall? So we can pick ourselves back up … and become crazed vigilante Batmen.” And so we are (becoming crazed BMTmen I mean). Not wanting to risk the inevitable 45% London Has Fallen is going to receive upon release next week, we are instead picking up Zoolander 2. Fun fact: Leonard Maltin walked out of this movie. So I got that going for me. Let’s go!

Zoolander 2 (2016) – BMeTric: 33.6

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(For the record, at this point in time this is the highest BMeTric for a 2016 film vaulting over The Forest and 5th Wave. It has helped that this winter has been particularly uninspiring … besides Gods of Egypt *sniff* alright, that’s the last I’ll mention that. The wound is still too new)

Leonard Maltin – ? stars – Ten minutes passed, then twenty, filled with puerile and unfunny gags; along with gratuitous cameo appearances by everyone from Katy Perry to Willie Nelson. … Finally, after almost an hour, I strode out of the theater, proud of myself for taking positive action and sparing myself further insult.

(This was the semi-review from Maltin in which he explains that life is too short to actually watch Zoolander 2 in its entirety. He handled it well, not even reviewing the film ultimately, although his explanation is vicious enough. For the record, rogerebert.com gave the film 3/4 stars with this as the closing line “I laughed so much my wife thought I was going to have a stroke. There’s the blurb for you, Paramount. Thanks, Derek!” And that is after Ebert himself gave Zoolander 1/4 stars in a scathing review starting with “There have been articles lately asking why the United States is so hated in some parts of the world. As this week’s Exhibit A from Hollywood, I offer ‘Zoolander.’” Incredible stuff all around.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CL4LNWHegk

(I like this trailer. The only thing that is disappointing is they should have saved the Mugatu body suit gag for the movie, it is fantastic. Otherwise, while I can see the cameo issue, it also looks really fun. At what point does someone take a chance and cast Bieber into a major role in a feature film?)

Director(s) – Ben Stiller – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Zoolander; The Cable Guy; Reality Bites; The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Amazingly solid record as a director. Really impressive that this is his first major flop.)

Writer(s) – Justin Theroux (written by) – (Known For: Iron Man 2; Tropic Thunder; Rock of Ages; BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Also a prolific actor and married to Jennifer Aniston. Cousin of Louis Theroux, who I know as the person on half of the UK Netflix programs scowling in awkward photos with weirdos (or so it seems).)

Ben Stiller (written by, character Derek Zoolander) – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Zoolander; BMT: Zoolander 2; Notes: Again, pretty good record with his first two Writer-Director-Star gigs. I’m getting very very impressed with Ben Stiller weirdly.)

Nicholas Stoller (written by) – (Known For: Yes Man; Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Dir); Neighbors (Dir); Get Him to the Greek (Dir); The Five-Year Engagement (Dir); The Muppets; Muppets Most Wanted; BMT: Sex Tape; Gulliver’s Travels; Zoolander 2; Fun With Dick and Jane; Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, Sex Tape (2014). Frequent collaborator of Jason Segal he went to Harvard. Impressive directoral record.)

John Hamburg (written by) – (Known For: Meet the Parents; Zoolander; Safe Men (Dir); I Love You Man (Dir); BMT: Meet the Fockers; Along Came Polly (Dir); Little Fockers; Duplex; Zoolander 2; Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, Little Fockers (2010). Attended Brown University.)

Actors – Ben Stiller – (Known For: Tropic Thunder; Night at the Museum; Zoolander; Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa; Meet the Parents; There’s Something About Mary; The Cable Guy; Starsky & Hutch; Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted; Tower Heist; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; Dodgeball – A True Underdog Story; The Royal Tenenbaums; Keeping the Faith; Reality Bites; Greenberg; Megamind; While We’re Young; Mystery Men; Madagascar; Happy Gilmore; Empire of the Sun; Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny; The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty; Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian; BMT: Along Came Polly; Meet the Fockers; The Heartbreak Kid; The Watch; Duplex; Little Fockers; Envy; Zoolander 2; The Suburbans; If Lucy Fell; Black and White; The Marc Pease Experience; School for Scoundrels; Fresh Horses; Being Canadian; Heavyweights (Blasphemy!)); Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor, Along Came Polly (2004), Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004), Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), Envy (2004), Starsky & Hutch (2004). Oh my, that is an impressive year.)

Also stars Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell.

Budget/Gross: $50 million / $24,797,992 ($41,818,769 Worldwide) –

(This is almost definitely a disaster financially. I would guess what? $80 million total worldwide. Not even close. Disaster.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 22% (38/167), Zoolander No. 2 has more celebrity cameos than laughs — and its meager handful of memorable gags outnumbers the few worthwhile ideas discernible in its scattershot rehash of a script.

(I predict this will be fun but ultimately forgettable. But maybe this will be like Anchorman 2. Where a bunch of people hated it and I was sitting there like “but I mean that Ice Castles parody was killer” and everyone I knew was like “what?”. Hopefully there is at the very least a Color of Night gag or something.)

Poster – I don’t hate it (C+)

Zoolander Poster

(I like how clean it is. It gets the point across. I like the play on perfume ads. Five people is close to too many, but I still think it works. Just kind of boring. Nothing about this says that it is funny just that people are in it. But I don’t hate it.)

Tagline(s) – Long time no Z. (C+)

(I’m giving the plus just for the lampshading of the fact that this sequel was released waaaaay too late. Otherwise it is nonsense, a bad pun, and forgettable, probably like this movie will be.)

Notes – Eddie Murphy has expressed interest in being in Zoolander 2. He has even developed his own pose called “Black Iron”. (I feel like this would have been fun. I just watched Coming to America again though so maybe I’m just misremembering how fun Eddie Murphy is. One sec, I’m going to watch Norbit and hate my life again).

Released 15 years after the release of the first movie. (Terrible idea for the record).

Paramount partnered with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to feature Derek Zoolander on their advertising campaign for the Fiat 500X. (This is how you make movies boys and girls. Disregard my earlier comment about this being a financial disaster, they probably made back everything in product placement and then some).

Not the first movie where Penelope Cruz encounters “The Fountain of Youth”. She visits the fabled fountain in “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides”. (Cool story Hansel)

The Last Witch Hunter Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Last Witch Hunter? More like Latest Huge Blunder! We went BMT Live! this week, and I must say, it did not disappoint. I’m just going to get into it since I’ve been so long winded the last few weeks.

  • The Bad – Poorly written dialogue (although I found the fundamental story compelling, surprisingly so). It should be no surprise to people this movie bombed because it had like a million credited writers. Five according to Rotten Tomatoes (although only three make it to IMDB). The reworking of the script is evident.
  • The Worse – Speaking of witch (BAM!), the action scenes were terrible. Mostly that is on the director. But again, the script is the culprit at times. The movie ends with four small battles (Vinny D v. Belail, Ygritte mind melding with the Irish dude, Vinny D v. Chekov’s Jail Monster, and the final Vinny D v. the Witch) which just smacks of three different endings getting smashed together “because they had some good ideas guys”.
  • The Worst – The acting was terrible. Before Michael Caine gets rendered into a corpsy budget sucking wax model he was okay. I always like Elijah Wood, I’m not sure why. But Ygritte and Vinny D were bad. For a while I talked myself into Vinny’s acting, but there is a scene right at the end where Caine just acts circles around him and all of a sudden my brain went “NOPE!” and rejected him as a reasonable leading man. His schtick works for the Fast and Furious franchise, but something about his mumbling about a fantasy movie just doesn’t do it for me. Unless, Netflix signs him. If Netflix signs him I’ll watch all of his movies and enjoy them thoroughly.
  • The Good – So to recap: bad script, bad direction, bad acting from the leads. Terrible movie right? Meh. Really fun movie to watch for BMT. Kind of Pompeii-y in how much I can laugh at myself for paying money to watch this in theaters (the anti-Sabotage). But something about it was just kind of enjoyable. Not sure why really, but I don’t think it gets a personal nod for anything but direction. The action scenes are unforgivable. They could have been so much better and immediately salvaged the film.
  • The BMT – First, the movie was in theaters for a second. I went to a showing five days after the UK opening and I was in the second to last showing in London. Straight up. My showing was so late in the release it was for the hearing impaired (not joking, there were english subtitles. Perhaps someone thought it wasn’t in English after watching a few of Vinny D’s scenes, SLAMMED). I assume this is a legal requirement, but was genuinely unavoidable for me as it was the only showing in London that Tuesday night (!). So yeah … that movie made no money. Poor show. Almost makes me feel bad …. Where was I, oh yeah, I liked this for BMT. Like Pompeii.

Prequel, Sequel, Remake. I think I’m going to go with Prequel. I want some more of these witch hunters. Call it Penultimate Witch Hunter as it follows Vinny D and his BFF Witch Hunter uh … Blinton? Vinny D’s name was Kaulder of all things, I just made something up. This is of course played by The Rock. They are killing it as Witch Hunters. Until (Uh oh!) The Rock falls in love with a witch. Is he bewitched? Can Kaulder save him? What is love? Will Kaulder dreamwalk his way to happiness? Find out in the Penultimate Witch Hunter: A Love Story.

Jamie

Aaaawwwwwwwww shit! Jamie’s back, Jack. Talking smack on time and in rhymes (that was embarrassing). It’s just the freedom that comes with not being behind on the emails. It’s just so… so… freeing. Anywho, last week (and truly it was last week) we watched The Last Witch Hunter IN THEATERS and it was as dark and dreary as a boy could have hoped for. I feel like we’ve already watched this film twice this year. It had a faint whiff of Jupiter Ascending (suffering the Icarus Effect, where the filmmakers fly too close to the sun using their Grav boots only to realize how fucking lame they are) mixed with a little Hitman: Agent 47 (writing so bad that the screenwriters probably watched Jupiter Ascending and were like ‘Grav boots! Damn, wish I thought of that’). My main takeaways from the film were:

  1. It wasn’t quite as bad as the reviewers made it out to be! The overall story was actually a refreshing twist on a really, really overplayed plot (secret underground supernatural war that threatens an unknowing humanity). I liked the entire idea of Vinny D’s character and his immortality and why as long as he exists the witch queen can never be truly defeated. Also hard to fault a film for trying too hard to make something interesting.
  2. But it was still really bad! In particular it was just extremely wordy. Like I think they spent so much time coming up with a plot that wasn’t I, Frankenstein level horseshit that they then had to fill the film up with explanations of the plot. It seemed like everywhere they went they were just talking, talking, talking like nerd alerts. Made it a bit boring.
  3. Didn’t help that the action scenes were trash! Really horrible choreography and blocking, really short with no suspense, and mixed with very odd dream fights that bordered on bad abstract art. The dream sequences in particular were rough. Almost seemed like they were added because they didn’t know how to make actual fight scenes… so why not have a bearded Vinny D just run through fields for a while with a shaky cam? That works, right?

Overall, I wasn’t a fan of the film, but at the same time I can understand why there are people out there defending it. It is probably better than Jupiter Ascending (which is the best comparison for the film), but barely. A little surprising how low it got on RT (16%)… I would give it like a 28%.

BTW I like that name for Patrick’s prequel. And anything with The Rock will be… solid (PUN INTENDED). Also reminds me of a little story from last week. My wife was recovering from a cold and just wanted to watch some films for the day so I convinced her to finally see Gravity (which I love). By the end she was like “boring artsy film, whatever” and I was shocked. Gravity? Too artsy? It didn’t occur to me when I watched it in theaters. Later that night we settled in for another film and I had to think to myself, “What film might she like if she just rejected Gravity because it was too artsy?” So obviously we selected San Andreas and she fucking loved it. She was like “Yup, I like this, whatever.” So that’s my wife. Gravity? Too artsy. San Andreas? Yes, please. I’ll take seconds if you have it. Probably just cause of The Rock. I bet if Gravity had The Rock floating around, busting heads, and taking names then she would have been way into it.

Anywho, since The Last Witch Hunter was in theaters we don’t have a MonoSklog (I bet there was one, though. Even inadvertently. They just talked so God damn much). Instead I’ll just make up a new game. I call it BMT Mash-up and it’s where I combine two BMT films to make an ultra BMT film. I’ll call this one The 2 Fast 2 Furious Witch Hunter. Obviously the sequel to The Last Witch Hunter we find our hero a bit suspicious of some heists going on in the Czech Republic. Could it be a new harem of witches who got a need for speed? Looks like Vinny D’s gotta strap into his mean witch-hunting machine and take out some fools. In a clever reversal of The Fast and the Furious, Vinny D goes undercover with the gang (and under covers with the gang leader’s sister, ayo!) in order to find what sinister black magic they are using in their elaborate, stunt-filled heists. When it comes time to take them out for good, will Vinny D have the heart to break his own heart?

Funny enough this actually kinda works cause Vinny D’s character in The Last Witch Hunter also loves fast cars. You’re welcome, writers of the next installment in the Witch Hunter series. Patrick and I just gave you the plots to the prequel and sequel. NBD.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Last Witch Hunter Preview

Alright, well this week we have a very special interlude in our Razzie cycle. While normally we would be watching something that came out earlier in the year in one of our genres, this week we are watching an IN-THEATERS BMT SPECIAL!!!! That’s right, every once in a while a movie comes out that is just too crazy/beautiful to resist. The last one we were so fortunate to catch was Hitman: Agent 47, this time it’s a little Vin Diesel doozy that we’ve been waiting for with great anticipation. It’s finally here! The Last Witch Hunter! And just in time for Halloween! I love it. I can’t remember a film I would have been more disappointed to find that it didn’t end up qualifying for BMT. But it did. And it’s here. Hooorrraaayyyy! Let’s go!

The Last Witch Hunter (2015) – BMeTric: 25.0 (February 24, 2016)

LastWitchHunter_BMeT

(Ooooooo pretty stuff. Obviously generated after the fact, this is a very nice plot. First, you can seem to make out different release dates in the initial fast increase, but you can definitely see the VOD/DVD release near the end of January beginning of February. Beautiful stuff. A BMeTric of 25 feels right, right there on the cusp of being a BMT shoe in.)

RogerEbert.com – 3 stars – Many films try and fail to pull off the kind of densely over-plotted action-fantasy that director Breck Eisner (“The Crazies,” “Sahara“) nails in “The Last Witch Hunter.” The secrets to Eisner’s success are confidence and patience, both of which compensate for the film’s script whenever it becomes embarrassingly thin (especially during its rushed finale).

(I’m glad to know that a densely-plotted film with a (paradoxically) embarrassingly thin script can still make it in this world. It does kind of hit an idea that Patrick and I have stood by since the beginning of BMT, though: plot is just plot is just plot. As long as the film looks good, is acted well, and the script is well written then pretty much anything can be forgiven about how ridiculous the plot of a film is. So maybe we’ll like this.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsuG2JUgs_8

(“Do you know what I’m afraid of?… nothing” Just perfectly sums up how much garbage this looks to me. Just bad writing that somehow Vinny D has to try and sell. The entire plot is so trite and overplayed. Haven’t we seen this is Blade? Underworld? I, Frankenstein? Men in Black? Even Juptier Ascending, which we just watched! Maybe we won’t like this after all.)

Director(s) – Breck Eisner – (Known For: The Crazies. BMT: Sahara; The Last Witch Hunter. Notes: He’s the son of Michael Eisner, the much criticized Disney executive who kinda fucked up the company in the late mid-late 90s. Wow.)

Writer(s) – Cory Goodman (written by) – (BMT: The Last Witch Hunter; Priest. Notes: Apparently co-wrote Apollo 18 but didn’t get credit for it… or didn’t want credit for it.)

Matt Sazama (written by) – (BMT: Dracula Untold; The Last Witch Hunter; Notes: Writing partners with Burk Sharpless. I like that this exists. Also says that plot data is not available without IMDBPro, except they don’t block the IMDBPro from google bots. Dumbos. It’s apparently ‘Described as a futuristic “Jungle Book.”‘ Hahahahahaha.)

Burk Sharpless (written by) – (Known For: ; BMT: Dracula Untold; The Last Witch Hunter; Notes: Son of John Sharpless a history professor at U of Wisconsin. Fun.)

(Murderers row right there).

Actors – Vin Diesel – (Known For: Pitch Black; The Fast and the Furious; Riddick; Saving Private Ryan; The Iron Giant; Guardians of the Galaxy; Find Me Guilty; Boiler Room; XxX; Furious 7; Fast Five; Fast & Furious 6. BMT: Fast & Furious; The Chronicles of Riddick; Babylon A.D.; The Pacifier; A Man Apart; Knockaround Guys; The Last Witch Hunter. Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). Bullshit. Actually discovered as a writer-director. Willing to bet he’ll return to that role as some point.)

Also stars Michael Caine, Elijah Wood and Rose Leslie

Budget/Gross: $70 million / $19 million ($57 million) – (Editor’s Note: Ultimately $27 million / $140 million worldwide)

(Hard to say where this will land. Hasn’t been out too long, but did terribly opening weekend. Ended up as the 54th worst opening by a supersaturated film (3000+ theaters). Just ahead of… wait for it… Abduction staring Taylor Lautner. The company you keep. Editor’s Note: The $27 million domestic is bad, but if you squint then doubling the budget overall might be construed as a modest …. push. But probably not, no incentive to make a sequel at least.)

Rotten Tomatoes: 14% (11/74), Critics Consensus: Grim, plodding, and an overall ill fit for Vin Diesel’s particular charms, The Last Witch Hunter will bore and/or confuse all but the least demanding action-fantasy fans.

(I think Patrick and I are becoming experts at decrypting even the most boring and/or confusing films that Hollywood has to offer. After watching Jupiter Ascending nothing can phase me. This will probably be as clear as a mountain lake in comparison.)

Poster – The Cheap Witch Hunter (C+)

last_witch_hunter_ver10

(Even though I think the poster is too dark, at least it’s consistent. Don’t like the car headlights. Too bright. Looks a little cheap too. Otherwise hits the right marks. Symmetry. Simplicity. Editor’s Note: I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is a terrible poster.)

Tagline(s) – Live forever. Hunt forever. (B)

(I can only give it so much positive. I like the symmetry. I like the brevity. It just doesn’t do it for me in terms of providing insight into the film. Not clever enough either. Just good.)

Notes – The screenplay for this film was featured in the 2010 Blacklist; a list of the “most liked” unmade scripts of the year. (Take this with a grain of salt. A lot of stuff ends up on the blacklist. Case in point? The Last Witch Hunter earned seven votes from executives contributing to the list. Another film that earned seven votes? The aforementioned Abduction).

Vin Diesel had been a Dungeons and Dragons player for many years. The main character in this movie was partly based on his old D&D character (Melkor) who was a Witch Hunter. He used one of the 3rd party D&D books to create the character class as he loved being a Ranger type but also like to use a few spells too. (N-n-n-n-n-n-erd alert. Get out of here nerd with your nerd books).

Plans to film The Last Witch Hunter (2015) were announced in 2012 and initially Timur Bekmambetov was to direct the film based on a script written by Cory Goodman. Bekmambetov was later replaced by Breck Eisner and Goodman’s script was re-written by Dante Harper before Melisa Wallack was brought on work on the film’s script. (Neither of those writers ended up with a credit on the film).

Hitman: Agent 47 Recap

Jamie

Through our time doing BMT, Patrick and I have done several in-theater BMT’s. They have ranged from packed-houses (Grown Ups 2) to empty theaters (Pompeii). From the crowd loving it (us not included) to a number of people walking out. Through all that, I’m not sure I’ve quite experienced something like Hitman: Agent 47. In most every movie, no matter the genre, there are generally jokes. Sometimes the theater laughs uproariously, sometime they don’t, but almost always people laugh (cause they’re jokes and characters are saying them). Hitman: Agent 47’s script was so bad (and continued to get worse throughout the film) that the number of jokes increased to unbelievable levels. And yet, nothing was funny. Nothing was a real joke. And no one laughed. Still the characters continued to say phrases that sounded like jokes (but I assure you, they were not) at an ever increasing clip. Presumably this was to fill the void left by the black hole that was the rest of the film. It was very confusing and combined with a plot that was paper-thin and yet incomprehensible, made for a near abstract art experience where these character walked around doing things and saying things and yet did nothing and said nothing. It’s hard to describe what it was like. If only we had a go-to phrase for something like this…. oh yes! It was dog poo in my face.

Love the new format and since we could get any MonoSklog from the film seeing as it was in theaters (and no one actually said anything of significance) I’m going to go for a nice new game that I thought up while reading Transporter Refueled reviews. It’s where I try to think of a punny one-liner about the film for my RT review caption so people know how clever I am (e.g. “The Transporter Refueled should be put up on blocks.” – New York Daily News. Guffaw). For the first Hitman I would say: “Let’s address the Olyphant in the room: this film is firing blanks.” For Hitman: Agent 47 I would start my review with “Bach hits all the wrong notes with this Hitman adaptation that misses the mark.” Ooof, those puns are killer. Both play on the name of someone involved with the film and yet has nothing to do with the film and then strikes fast with a second pun about the film itself. The punsters on RT should watch out. I’m coming for yah. Double puns are the new single puns.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone, this week was Hitman: Agent 47 (too easy, Shitman). More like 4 out of 7 people walked out of Jamie’s showing (true story, not even making up those numbers). Welp, it seemed like the UK audience liked it a bit more as there were probably 12 other people sitting in stony silence enduring this complete pile of garbage with me. Is it? Wait for it …. dog poo right in my face? yes it was! Right in my face (and wallet). I’m going to change things up a bit at this point (for fun), so here is a Brief Two Point BMT Recap (BTPBMTR):

  • The movie was incomprehensible, the acting was terrible, and the dialogue was horrible. Triple threat. I’m going to refer to such adaptations as “aggressively adapted”. If fans of the Hitman series think the Olyphant version was incompetent with regards to the video game, then this can only be described as intentionally antagonistic.
  • Add unpleasant to the bunch. This movie could be called Human Bodies Falling Several Stories Onto Banisters. Or maybe People Getting Killed By A Horrible Person In Terrible Ways. Or in a meta way A Movie Where You Hate Everyone. In other words: Instant BMT Classic (IBMTC).

See, short and sweet. Now, in the vein of Patrick’s Rules I wanted to look at some of the things from the Hitman news / advertising campaign that should have made Jamie and I very suspicious that this movie was BMT bound. I will call you BMT:CSI:SVU (the special victims are me and Jamie):

So all the way back nearly a year ago we should have immediately penciled this guy right on into the BMT calendar. The trailer companion (and reception, whoa nelly, the response by fans was vitriolic, I remember) was just a final confirmation. Ahhhh, a little BMT Forensics (BMTF) going on. This is all building to the application of statistical techniques to sniff out bad movies, and then ultimately the BMT Awards which will be like the BCS: a computer generated set of the worst movies of the year that everyone hates. I literally cannot wait.

Cheerios ,

The Sklogs