Category: Chain Reaction

Eye for an Eye Recap

Jamie

It took me just about two chapters of Eye for an Eye to be like “ah, alright. I think I’m good.” The book is insane. Just a pure injection of Death Wish fanaticism. Now you aren’t even safe in the suburbs. And when the teen nogoodniks come a-knockin’, guess what? You aren’t even gonna get justice because the system will just let them go. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Jamie, this is just what the books were like back then. The movies followed. What’s the big whoop?’ You don’t understand. Not only do these nogoodniks kill the main character’s daughter (sparing her granddaughter), but then her surviving son-in-law kills himself and the baby right after that. He is so jaded by the world and the only way he knows to protect his daughter is to kill her. At that point I threw the book out a window. No thank you. As my own child would say, “Pee-yew.” Maybe this is just a product of the book coming out in 1993… kind of the tail of the urban crime hysteria of the 80’s and 90’s… you gotta step it up. Does she really need so much motivation to take up vigilante justice? I guess the author thought so.

To recap, Karen is a housewife with two great daughters and a loving husband. One day, chatting with her daughter on the way back from work, she is horrified to hear a man break into her house and kill her! My word! Horrible. Karen is shocked and has trouble grieving. It seems like things are turning around when the clear culprit, a horrible delivery man named Robert Doob, is apprehended with DNA evidence in spades. However, things go from bad to worse when he is released on a technicality. Karen begins to attend a survivor’s group and catches wind of a group that helps people like her get justice. They will set the plan in motion, get her a weapon and the rest is up to her. She starts preparing, all the while also following Robert Doob around. She even catches him scoping his next victim, but the police, who are sympathetic, still can’t do anything. When it’s revealed that a friend from the group is an undercover FBI agent (and kind of sort of knows what she’s up to) and Doob starts following her surviving child around school, she decides to drop it all. That is until Doob strikes again. Plan back in motion! She tricks her family into leaving town without her and breaks into Doob’s apartment. Doob knows it’s her and goes to her house that night for the big climactic confrontation. Well you know how that goes. Doob is donzo and the police and her family arrive only in time to reluctantly agree that they will chalk it all up to self defense and let it lie. THE END.

It’s a little hard to be jokey with this type of material, but let’s just be clear that this film does in fact have one of the funniest scenes ever put to film. Our boy Kiefer Sutherland has a scene that focuses on his drumming along intensely to a music video, becoming bored, throwing his drumsticks to the side in favor of some ice cream (or ‘scream as the kids call it), which he eats from his apartment’s balcony. The purpose of the scene? I guess to make us laugh. Not sure. Anyway, this actually is exploitative garbage riding on the high of the OJ Simpson trial. They even show footage of the trial as part of the film. It’s really brazen and bad. I usually kind of brush off critics getting all stuffy about this stuff, but really… this is no bueno. Belongs on the paperback book stands and not really in a big theatrical release (at least not one that doesn’t at least hedge a little on the ethics of it all… things turn out pretty great for her). Anyway, thank god for the absolutely stacked cast of this garbage film. The acting is actually at times out of this world. Too bad it’s in service of Death Wish 6.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *gif of me drumming manically while watching a music video in my flophouse.* Let’s go!

The Good? The cast is pretty incredible. That is maybe the only good thing you can really say about the film which was (1) late to the game to harp on super criminals and indulge in vigilante justice garbage, (2) not even particularly interesting while doing it.

The Bad? Everything else, but honestly mostly Kiefer. Kiefer is not fun. Kiefer is gross and upsetting in this film. And I get that that is the point, but you really should just channel Lithgow in Ricochet when you are doing stuff like this. More phone book prison gladiators, and less extremely graphic rape scenes please.

The BMT? This is a bad movie. I never want to watch it again. It is a relic of the time it was made, which I suppose makes it of interest when I start my Media Studies PhD on the evolution of the Super Criminal phenomenon as seen through newspaper, film, and television. Otherwise I have no interest in this weirdness. Ebert said it best: one star, “Eye for an Eye is a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation”.

The Rewatchables? What’s aged the worst? I think, as usual with films like this, the entire “super criminal” vibe the film has going. By the time this film comes out crime would have already started falling in the US. The “That Guy” Award for Angela Paton who leads the support group in this film, but is also the innkeeper in Groundhog Day. The Overacting Award has to go to Kiefer … seriously go watch the drumming scene. It is insane. And we get a wild Needle Drop in the middle of the film for the Macarena, which I suppose is appropriate given when the movie was released (January, 1996).

I’m going to start recording some great giffable moments. Cliche Gif – Ed Harris is sitting in the dark and turns on the light when she walks in the room. Best Gif – I think for like a celebratory thing at around 28 minutes the detective says “we got him” which I would change to “we got it”. A muted celebration, but it works. Craziest gif – at 48 minutes Kiefer says “pull the fucking trigger”, although the gif truly could not do justice to how weird he says it.

Love a Cameo (Who?) for Cynthia Rothrock as the self-defence instructor. And a true blue Product Placement (What?) for I think maybe like 14 times where someone drinks a Pepsi, or has a Pepsi at a party, or you see a Pepsi machine. A Setting as a Character (Where?) for Los Angeles. And Crazy Setting (When?) for the Macarena blasting during a scene setting this almost certainly 1995 or 1996. This movie is straight unpleasant and Bad.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Eye for an Eye Preview

“I don’t understand, how have I not heard of this till now?” Jamie asks, absolutely baffled by the mock up poster adorning the cover of Patrick’s advance copy of Fresh Horses. Instead of Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwald (as we all know and love), the poster now featured… Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy. “And now they’re older?” Jamie asks, even more baffled. “Sure, I mean I think the movie is more like a legacy sequel, but obviously the original play is unchanged. I’ll explain it all in the introduction. Boy, Dick Computer is really gonna hate that we’re working on this,” Patrick explains with delight. First up, research. Kyle pops some popping corn. Jamie grabs their well worn DVD copy of Fresh Horses (the Funky is implied). Patrick distributes the cable knit sweaters, although they all know that’s a mistake. Things are gonna heat up once they get their Funk on. Turns out that’s an understatement. By the time Matt watches Jewel walk away, tears in his eyes, they are fully funkified. Jamie asks what they’re all thinking. “Why aren’t we doing this movie?” His words are soft, but the weight they carry is heavy. Here they were thinking they were pulling a fast one on Dick Computer and turns out they pulled a fast one on themselves. “You’re right,” Patrick says resolutely, “We have to do this. Put the Platonic Solids on ice cubes. We’re directing a movie.” Turns out that’s easier said than done. When Patrick gets off the phone with the producer he’s got a strange look on his face. “Unbelievable.” Patrick explains. “He says they already have their director. Marty is all in on it. He says Marty will only let us have it for a little quid pro quo. A little eye for an eye.” That’s right! We’re watching the Sally Field classic Eye for an Eye. The one annoyance here is that the book actually just says “Now a Major Motion Picture” on it, but doesn’t have the dignity to put Sally Field on the cover or the credits on the back. For shame. Let’s go!

Eye for an Eye (1996) – BMeTric: 23.5; Notability: 20

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 22.8%; Notability: top 8.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 2.1%; Higher BMeT: Barb Wire, Kazaam, Bio-Dome, Striptease, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, The Crow: City of Angels, Ed, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Spy Hard, Poison Ivy 2: Lily, The Glimmer Man, Eddie, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Bordello of Blood, First Kid, Celtic Pride, Dunston Checks In, The Quest, Chain Reaction, and 37 more; Higher Notability: Bed of Roses, Chain Reaction, Spy Hard, The Fan, The Associate, Down Periscope, Jingle All the Way, Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, Bordello of Blood, Before and After, Up Close & Personal, Barb Wire, Space Truckers, The Sunchaser, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Glimmer Man, Daylight, Maximum Risk, and 1 more; Lower RT: The Dentist, Bio-Dome, Kazaam, Ed, Spy Hard; Notes: Wow, we’ve seen 13 of the top 20 BMeTs for 1996. For a while we were really not doing ‘90s films, but in the past few years we’ve managed to claw our way to decent coverage.

RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – “Eye for an Eye” is a particularly nasty little example of audience manipulation leading to a conclusion that, had I accepted it, would have left me feeling unclean. It’s about an ordinary woman who is led to seek blood revenge, in a plot where the deck is stacked so blatantly it’s shameless. It’s ironic that this movie is being released at the same time as “Dead Man Walking.” Both are about killers and their victims, and both are, in a way, about the death penalty. “Dead Man Walking” challenges us to deal with a wide range of ethical and moral issues. “Eye for an Eye” cynically blinkers us, excluding morality as much as it can, to service an exploitation plot.

(Yuuuuup. I wonder, if I gathered together all of the vigilante justice films together, how many Ebert would have panned. I just checked the very weird film The Star Chamber. He gave it two stars, but mainly because it just became a routine thriller in the end. It is an intriguing question.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY56N6irNCk/

(Jesus, they kind of go for it with this trailer. They put Kiefer’s weirdo performance front and center and dare you to go and see this ridiculous film. For me this is a terrible trailer for the exact reason Ebert suggests: it is manipulative.)

Directors – John Schlesinger – ( Known For: Pacific Heights; Marathon Man; Midnight Cowboy; Far from the Madding Crowd; Yanks; The Day of the Locust; Darling; A Kind of Loving; Cold Comfort Farm; Billy Liar; The Falcon and the Snowman; Sunday Bloody Sunday; Terminus; Honky Tonk Freeway; Visions of Eight; The Innocent; An Englishman Abroad; A Question of Attribution; Madame Sousatzka; The Tale of Sweeney Todd; Future BMT: The Believers; BMT: The Next Best Thing; Eye for an Eye; Notes: won and Oscar for Midnight Cowboy, and was nominated for Darling and Sunday Bloody Sunday. We already saw his last ever feature film (The Next Best Thing). He died in 2003.)

Writers – Erika Holzer – ( BMT: Eye for an Eye; Notes: Wrote the book.)

Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver – ( Known For: Rise of the Planet of the Apes; Jurassic World; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes; Jurassic World; In the Heart of the Sea; Avatar: The Way of Water; Avatar: The Way of Water; Avatar: Fire and Ash; Avatar: Fire and Ash; War for the Planet of the Apes; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Mulan; Avatar 4; Avatar 5; Future BMT: The Relic; BMT: Eye for an Eye; Notes: They’re like … huge writers. Wrote Jurassic World, and the second and third Avatar films, a bunch of the Planet of the Apes films. What the heck? Basically, hugely commercially and critically successful after their first two films qualified.)

Actors – Sally Field – ( Known For: Forrest Gump; Spoiler Alert; 80 for Brady; Mrs. Doubtfire; Steel Magnolias; Stay Hungry; Smokey and the Bandit; Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey; Home for the Holidays; Beyond the Poseidon Adventure; Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco; Soapdish; Not Without My Daughter; Murphy’s Romance; The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning; Places in the Heart; Punchline; Norma Rae; The End; The Way West; Future BMT: Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde; Surrender; Where the Heart Is; BMT: Say It Isn’t So; Smokey and the Bandit II; Eye for an Eye; Notes: Won two Oscars for Norma Rae and Places in the Heart (which had the famous “You really like me!” speech). Was also nominated for Lincoln. She’s unbelievably attractive in the Smokey and the Bandit series.)

Kiefer Sutherland – ( Known For: Paradise Found; Stand by Me; A Few Good Men; Desert Saints; The Lost Boys; Flatliners; The Vanishing; A Time to Kill; To End All Wars; Max Dugan Returns; Phone Booth; Beat; Dark City; Dead Heat; The Last Days of Frankie the Fly; Freeway; Truth or Consequences, N.M.; River Queen; Young Guns; The Killing Time; Future BMT: Renegades; Taking Lives; The Sentinel; Mirrors; The Nutcracker Prince; The Cowboy Way; The Wild; BMT: The Three Musketeers; Young Guns II; Eye for an Eye; Pompeii; Marmaduke; Zoolander 2; Flatliners; Notes: Won two Emmy for 24. It is genuinely the one and only time people watched him act and were like … this guy is good at acting. There is something insanely magnetic about his performances though. Like movies warp around him.)

Ed Harris – ( Known For: A History of Violence; Absolute Power; Enemy at the Gates; A Beautiful Mind; Apollo 13; The Hours; Copying Beethoven; State of Grace; The Abyss; The Human Stain; Gone Baby Gone; Nixon; Knightriders; Long Day’s Journey into Night; Masked and Anonymous; Borderline; Stepmom; China Moon; Glengarry Glen Ross; Buffalo Soldiers; Future BMT: Needful Things; National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Milk Money; Just Cause; Radio; Man on a Ledge; Phantom; BMT: Eye for an Eye; Geostorm; Notes: Nominated for four Oscars (Apollo 13, The Truman Show, Pollock, and The Hours). Kind of crazy he won’t get it in the end. As much as a wish I could believe it, he’s 75 now, and the last few performances I saw him do he was looking a little old to go for an awards play.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $26,877,589 (Worldwide: $26,877,589)

(That’s a disaster, but also I’m not sure I really believe the budget. In 1996 we were giving rote thrillers $20 million? Maybe because of the cast.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 7% (3/41): Overwrought, thinly written, and all-around unpleasant, Eye for an Eye crudely exploits every parent’s nightmare with deeply offensive results.

(Whoa! That’s low. Like … real low. Like lower than Paranoia which we chose because it was so poorly received. All-around unpleasant just about describes it.)

Reviewer Highlight: A B movie that somehow won the lottery and got an A-movie cast and director. – Joe Leydon, Variety

Poster – Sklog for a Sklog

(It’s amazing that there was a time where this poster made sense. That you could see it in a theater and be like ‘oh, sure.’ It’s like a joke poster now. What if justice fails? Obviously you have to blow away the perps, you middle-aged housewife, you. Anyway, it’s not even all that interesting. But at least it’s blue. C-.)

Tagline(s) – What do you do when justice fails? (C)

(Insane. Certainly I can see why this is considered the kind of grabby statement that would be the tagline for your movie. But it’s still insane.)

Keyword(s) – imdb-keyword-based-on-novel;based-on-book

Top 10: Fight Club (1999), Forrest Gump (1994), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Shutter Island (2010), Schindler’s List (1993), The Prestige (2006)

Future BMT: 74.9 The Turning (2020), 72.6 Zoom (2006), 70.2 London Fields (2018), 69.6 Gulliver’s Travels (2010), 67.3 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), 66.3 102 Dalmatians (2000), 65.4 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul (2017), 64.2 Valentine (2001), 59.5 The Big Bounce (2004), 58.1 Best Defense (1984), 57.9 The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), 55.5 Hanging Up (2000), 55.4 Eye of the Beholder (1999), 55.2 Snow Dogs (2002), 54.3 The Divorce (2003), 53.9 Abandon (2002), 53.3 The Stepford Wives (2004), 52.5 Addicted (2014), 50.8 Freedomland (2006), 50.0 Kull: The Conqueror (1997)

BMT: Battlefield Earth (2000), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Cats (2019), Left Behind (2014), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Jaws 3-D (1983), One Missed Call (2008), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), The Bye Bye Man (2017), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Striptease (1996), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Firestarter (2022), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), Tarot (2024), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), The Haunting (1999), Fair Game (1995), Eragon (2006), After We Fell (2021), North (1994), Monkeybone (2001), The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), Conan the Barbarian (2011), After Ever Happy (2022), Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), An American Haunting (2005), The Snowman (2017), The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007), Sliver (1993), Pinocchio (2002), The Musketeer (2001), Shanghai Surprise (1986), Get Carter (2000), Exit to Eden (1994), After (2019), Alex Cross (2012), Queen of the Damned (2002), Congo (1995), …

Best Options (Sneaks): 50.8 Freedomland (2006), 42.2 What’s the Worst That Could Happen? (2001), 37.3 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), 30.0 What’s Your Number? (2011)

(David  Keith plays O.G. in Sneaks and is in Eye for an Eye, but the TMDB ordering is wonky on weirdo films like Sneaks so he’s very low billed. The other solid option was What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, but I think it ended up as a blind spot since it was originally the comedy option. Possibly you couldn’t get to cycle #2 as well, but I can’t remember.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 8) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Sally Field is No. 1 billed in Eye for an Eye and No. 4 billed in Say It Isn’t So, which also stars Chris Klein (No. 1 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 2 billed) => (1 + 4) + (1 + 2) = 8. There is no shorter path at the moment.

The Back-up Plan Recap

Jamie

There are a whole bunch of rom-coms that came out in the 2000’s (the real peak of the genre) that really left you scratching your head at what in the world they were thinking. I’m not talking something like The Ugly Truth, which is bad, but the recipe itself is a classic. I mean cases where the recipe literally went bad. The Back-up plan is probably on the tamer end of that. In the middle is probably the Madonna film where she has a baby with her gay best friend and then falls in love. Probably the crown jewel is the Kate Hudson film A Little Bit of Heaven where she has terminal cancer… what a rom-com concept! And what a trilogy I just came up with. Three powerhouses of the genre in films that define logic. Officially this is the first leg of that journey.

To recap, JLo is a lady on the move. She’s got a great job, but she has given up on finding the man of her dreams. Right after getting (successfully) artificially inseminated she bumps into Stan who turns out to be *gulp* the man of her dreams. Oh no! They keep bumping into each other and soon he’s doing more than just bumping into her as he tells her he wants to see where things might go. They start casually dating. Unfortunately, during a trip to his farm she makes the mistake of not telling him she’s pregnant before they sleep together and he reacts poorly. They briefly break up, but Stan comes back and tries to make it work. Even when he finds out she’s having twins, he ends up making a dad friend at a playground and trying to work through all the overwhelming feelings he’s having. Comedy ensues as JLo has a bunch of goofy gags with a single mother’s group including a scene where she and Stan have to witness and participate in the birth of one of the member’s babies. It’s very funny and cool. The breaking point is when he makes a point to tell his ex-gf that the babies aren’t his in front of JLo and the break-up is official. But after a new specialty stroller arrives and her grandmother gives her some grandmotherly advice, JLo realizes that Stan has grown up. Just then her water breaks and they rush to the farmer’s market to pick him up for the birth. They end up getting engaged and probably pregnant again. THE END.

I just had a realization that this is essentially Look Who’s Talking but without the talking baby. The beats are the same. A working woman bumps into a guy who she’s somewhat put off by, he slowly ingratiates himself through devotion despite not being the baby’s father, ends with them finally together and the promise of a very special delivery. The problem? Bruce Willis had a funny voice for a baby, John Travolta has 1000x the charisma of the cardboard cutout of a man in this film, and they throw all the actually interesting drama from Look Who’s Talking out in exchange for an absolute catastrophe of a birthing scene. That Melissa McCarthy performance evokes Robin Williams in 9 Months (you all know what I’m talking about). I have no idea why this exists. I did not like it. Now if it had a talking baby in it I could at least understand the existence part.

Hot Take Clam Bake! I’m coming in scorching on this one. I think… Stan is actually the father of JLo’s kids. That’s the sequel. It turns out this sneaky cheesemonger has in fact been donating sperm for ages. He’s also been skulking around waiting for an unsuspecting woman to accept his donation and stages an elaborate meet-cute with her. Sure it seems like he’s nervous about being in a relationship with her, but he’s playing hard to get. Wouldn’t come off very convincing if he didn’t show some trepidation. His craziness when he finds out she’s having twins? Obviously that’ll cut into his skulking time, he’s gotta think it over. What’s JLo going to do when she finds out the truth?… Did I mention the sequel is a horror film? Hot Take Temperature: Fondue.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *gif of me finding a penny on the ground heads up and looking up and J-Lo is there and winks at me and then I look confused* Let’s go!

The Good? I’ve said this before, and I don’t want to get in trouble with my wife, but J-Lo man … from 1995-2010 or so J-Lo was probably the most attractive woman in Hollywood. Money Train. This. Just incredibly attractive. It boggles the mind.

The Bad? Everything else. The guy is a weird actor and doesn’t seem attractive (at least not attractive enough). The film has several insane sequences (especially the entire bit where the guy gets jealous of his pregnant girlfriend’s body pillow … WTF mate?). And overall the experience is the unpleasantness that was prevalent in mid-2000s comedies. Specifically things like The Break Up (2006, four years prior, this might be the death nell for this particular sub-genre).

The BMT? No, the film is just Bad. As far as J-Lo films are concerned there are three in my personal hall of fame: Money Train, Gigli, and, of course, The Boy Next Door. Man … The Boy Next Door. Remember that one?

And a final look at the potential use of AI to get Rotten Tomatoes scores. I did wonder if I was very very insistent and proclaimed null values as completely invalid would that “fix” the “problem” … kind of. In that it does maybe seem to get some more values filled in. The concern is that an unknowable number still end up being wrong for no real reason (e.g. Blue Lagoon being reported as 95% which is far too high), and then several (e.g. The Long Good Friday) are very consistently still reported as well. I only tested for the first 30, and I’m confident if I expanded it to the top 100 it would only get worse as you got to more and more unpopular films. Which basically means it isn’t really using the search as I had hoped or expected. Too bad. Would have been fun.

A genuine Twin Film (Who?) in this one, since J-Lo does specifically have twins in the film. It is a whole thing, they have to get a huge stroller, like with everything it melts Stan’s mind and makes him spiral into a crisis. Definitely a very funny Product Placement (What?) for an actual McFlurry sighting. Setting as a Character (Where?) for NYC. I think that is it. I think this film is just Bad unfortunately.

Learn all about childbirth? It’ll be in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Back-up Plan Quiz

What was that live action Disney film with the robot and Robert Forster? The Black Hole? Are you sure it wasn’t The Back-up Plan? Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Let’s start with one you should know. Jennifer Lopez was a “Fly Girl” on what 90s sketch comedy show?

2) Alex O’Loughlin is the main actor in the reboot of Hawaii Five-O alongside Scott Caan and Taylor Wily (among others). Taylor Wily was a sumo wrestler who has a 0-1 record in what fighting competition when it was started, apparently, to figure out what the best martial arts discipline is?

3) On the soundtrack J-Lo contributed What Is Love? It didn’t chart. The most recent number one single J-Lo had was All I Have featuring which NCIS: Los Angeles star?

4) One of the random times this movie is referenced elsewhere was when Gus mentioned that Shawn watched The Back-up Plan on the plane to Canada. What USA original series was this in?

5) Anthony Anderson is merely credited as “dad” in this film. And indeed, he is a dad who seems to give Stan terrible advice (and hates body pillows for some reason?). Regardless, six years prior he was in another (bad) film as a newly minted dad. What was that film?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: To really understand J-Lo I think you have to watch Money Train which premiered on HBO at 8PM on November 9, 1996. Primetime on ABC was this film:

They both were featured movies that day, what is this competing film?

Answers

The Back-up Plan Preview

After the sword trick, Jamie had two jury members on his side. But as Wrestlemania continued to point out, that was hardly the only piece of evidence. “What about the hideous and distinctive body scar that the young man had?” One of the other jury members asks, now intrigued by the discussion. “Luckily he wasn’t wearing a shirt… er… because it helped identify him,” a lady chimes in, blushing as they all chuckle. “But seriously,” Wrestlemania needles, turning from the window, “it’s not every day you glance out the window and see a man shirtless with a large, distinctive scar on his chest.” The rest of the jury murmurs their agreement. “Not every day, I give you that,” Jamie says with a solemn look on his face, “But would you be so kind as to open the curtains there.” Wrestlemania freezes. He gets the sense that he’s not going to like what he sees on the other side of that curtain. As he pulls them back, an audible gasp arises from the group. There, in Hallston Town Square, is Patrick. Like clockwork he is practicing his blade art at one in the afternoon, shirtless, his previously mentioned torso scar visible to them all. “What thuuuuu…” Wrestlemania says dumbly. Before anyone even challenges this as merely circumstantial, Jamie proceeds to remove his own shirt. It reveals a well-toned dancer’s body, it is true. It also reveals a previously unmentioned large, distinctive torso scar identical to the one that both Patrick and the accused possess. A proceeding vote finds the vote now split. This shocks Jamie, who knew Wrestlemania would hold out, but was sure that he’d now have a strong majority on his side. This is going to be harder than he thought. He’d have to move to his back-up plan. That’s right! We’re also moving on to our back-up plan: The Back-up Plan starring JLo and equally famous Alex O’Loughlin. Let’s go!

The Back-up Plan (2010) – BMeTric: 55.5; Notability: 54

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 7.2%; Notability: top 7.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 13.3%; Higher BMeT: The Last Airbender, Vampires Suck, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, Skyline, Sex and the City 2, Furry Vengeance, Jonah Hex, Marmaduke, Gulliver’s Travels, Yogi Bear, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Tekken, Tooth Fairy, My Soul to Take, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Legion, Why Did I Get Married Too?, Passion Play; Higher Notability: Clash of the Titans, The Wolfman, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Sex and the City 2, The Tourist, Valentine’s Day, Gulliver’s Travels, Marmaduke, The Last Airbender, Little Fockers, All Good Things, Tooth Fairy, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Shanghai, Eat Pray Love, Burlesque, Jonah Hex, Takers, London Boulevard; Lower RT: Tekken, Father of Invention, Passion Play, Twelve, 6 Souls, Shanghai, Vampires Suck, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, The Last Airbender, Waiting for Forever, The Tortured, 13, Furry Vengeance, Crazy on the Outside, Saw 3D, Marmaduke, Little Fockers, Grown Ups, Killers, My Soul to Take, and 13 more; Notes: Amazingly, we’ve seen 7 of the top 10 BMeT films, but then only 8 of the top 18. As usual, we have the natural tendency of hitting up the worst of the worst, but then basically totally ignoring the 11-20 spots. Do we really have to do Vampires Suck though? Or like … Yogi Bear?

RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – Some movies are no better than second-rate sitcoms. Other movies are no better than third-rate sitcoms. “The Back-up Plan” doesn’t deserve comparison with sitcoms. It plays like an unendurable TV commercial about beautiful people with great lifestyles and not a thought in their empty little heads. So timid is this film that when it finally arrives at its inevitable childbirth scene, it bails out after two “pushes”!

(Ha! I do like the idea of like: if you are going to go for it, at least give us a good birth scene, but they couldn’t even do that. They just bail without even bothering.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cut4IW0oz1w/

(She is like … the most attractive person in the world, and he’s …. Fine. The movie looks aggressively dumb. A throwback to a 90s idea for a movie where they just add more mean spirited and lewd humor and go “is this good? Is this comedy?”)

Directors – Alan Poul – ( BMT: The Back-up Plan; Notes: Is a television director through and through. I guess the sitcom comparison above makes sense. Directed all the big HBO series for a bit.)

Writers – Kate Angelo – ( Known For: Easter Sunday; Future BMT: Sex Tape; BMT: The Back-up Plan; Notes: Single writer! It feels like Sex Tape destroyed her career for a while. Was story editor for a chunk of Becker.)

Actors – Jennifer Lopez – ( Known For: Antz; Parker; Home; The Cell; Hustlers; Out of Sight; Jersey Girl; U Turn; Atlas; Shall We Dance?; The Mother; Marry Me; Shotgun Wedding; An Unfinished Life; Selena; Second Act; Bordertown; Blood and Wine; Lila & Eve; This Is Me… Now; Future BMT: Ice Age: Continental Drift; Maid in Manhattan; Ice Age: Collision Course; Monster-in-Law; Jack; Enough; Angel Eyes; Feel the Noise; BMT: Anaconda; The Wedding Planner; What to Expect When You’re Expecting; The Back-up Plan; Gigli; The Boy Next Door; Money Train; Notes: Weird career which seemed to be going in the toilet for a bit (Atlas anyone?). But rumor is she’s incredible in the upcoming Kiss of the Spider Woman film and people are tipping her as a potential Best Actress nominee. She was nominated for an Emmy for her Super Bowl Halftime Show.)

Alex O’Loughlin – ( Known For: The Holiday; Man-Thing; Feed; Oyster Farmer; Future BMT: August Rush; The Invisible; BMT: The Back-up Plan; Whiteout; Notes: He is genuinely mostly well known for Hawaii Five-0 which he starred in for 240 episodes. He started the series right when this film came out and hasn’t done a feature since.)

Michaela Watkins – ( Known For: Good Boys; Wanderlust; Enough Said; The Way Back; In a World…; Thanks for Sharing; Werewolves Within; They Came Together; Brittany Runs a Marathon; Ibiza; How to Be a Latin Lover; Brigsby Bear; You Hurt My Feelings; Heart Eyes; Afternoon Delight; Dude; Sword of Trust; The House of Tomorrow; Lazy Eye; Person to Person; Future BMT: The House; Paint; BMT: The Back-up Plan; The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: She was very briefly on SNL it seems. She is all over television, I think I remember her recently from The Unicorn, but she was also in one of the Wet Hot American Summer television shows.)

Budget/Gross – $35,000,000 / Domestic: $37,490,007 (Worldwide: $77,477,008)

(That is pretty okay for Worldwide … I wonder why this would be reasonably popular overseas. I suppose it is because of J-Lo. I recall from the Wicked stuff that pop stars are huge in Europe as far as Box Office prospects.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 17% (26/149): Jennifer Lopez is as appealing as ever, but The Back-Up Plan smothers its star with unrelatable characters and a predictable plot.

(It is true. Much like with Money Train there is something crazy about how attractive J-Lo was between the mid-90s to around this film, 2010. It like … boggles the mind.)

Reviewer Highlight: Someone involved in the making of The Back-Up Plan, a not very good and yet painless waste of time, has certainly thought through some life and love questions. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Poster – The Snack-up Plan

(I don’t really understand the layout of this poster. Is there a reason that the words are going down like that separating them? Or did they just need something to do with the two stars of a rom-com that needs to sell purely on the stars? Not great but not catastrophic. C-.)

Tagline(s) – Fall in love.* Get married. Have a baby. *Not necessarily in that order. (B+)

(The tagline in words actually is better than on the poster. They shouldn’t have drawn the arrows. This is long, but in a necessary way. I like it. Nice little subversion. I would have put the star after “baby” on the poster, though. Having it after the first one doesn’t make sense.)

Keyword(s) – top BMeT

Top 10: Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Green Lantern (2011), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Forever (1995), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), Ghost Rider (2007), The Happening (2008), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), The Mummy (2017)

Future BMT: 96.3 Disaster Movie (2008), 93.6 Date Movie (2006), 90.7 Vampires Suck (2010), 90.1 House of the Dead (2003), 89.0 BloodRayne (2005), 87.9 Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 86.9 Street Fighter (1994), 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 84.1 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 83.1 Inspector Gadget (1999), 81.5 You Got Served (2004), 80.0 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (2009), 80.0 Jeepers Creepers III (2017), 79.5 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 79.4 Home Alone 3 (1997), 79.3 Boogeyman (2005), 78.7 Shark Night (2011), 78.2 The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure (2012), 78.1 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 78.0 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Meet the Spartans (2008), Battlefield Earth (2000), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Catwoman (2004), Jack and Jill (2011), Batman & Robin (1997), Son of the Mask (2005), The Room (2003), The Emoji Movie (2017), Cats (2019), Gigli (2003), Scary Movie V (2013), Alone in the Dark (2005), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), The Last Airbender (2010), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), The Wicker Man (2006), Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966), Madame Web (2024), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Slender Man (2018), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), Jaws 3-D (1983), Troll 2 (1990), The Love Guru (2008), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), The Cat in the Hat (2003), The Avengers (1998), Crossroads (2002), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), The Fog (2005), Fantastic Four (2015), Rollerball (2002), Baby Geniuses (1999), Spice World (1997), From Justin to Kelly (2003), Dungeons & Dragons (2000), Norbit (2007), …

Best Options (TASoMN): 72.4 Bewitched (2005), 72.4 Dance Flick (2009), 65.3 An American Carol (2008), 61.3 Madea Goes to Jail (2009), 60.5 Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil (2011), 59.7 Deck the Halls (2006), 55.5 The Back-up Plan (2010), 55.1 Evan Almighty (2007), 51.7 McHale’s Navy (1997), 50.4 The Last Legion (2007)

(This one just seemed like the most “how haven’t we done this?!” film of the bunch. It is kind of nuts that we haven’t watched all of the J-Lo films. Oh, and a lot of these are also precluded because we went to The American Society for Magical Negroes via David Alan Greer so we are technically not allowed to do a third in a row.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 11) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Jennifer Lopez is No. 1 billed in The Back-up Plan and No. 2 billed in Gigli, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 11. If we were to watch Jack, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 11.

Notes – Jennifer Lopez was first attracted to the script as she had just gone through her twins’ pregnancy. Screenwriter Kate Angelo too had just been pregnant. The two had actually met at a post-birth aerobics class.

Three different dogs played Nuts.

Tom Bosley’s final performance.

Jennifer Lopez’s character Zoe is seen reading the book, What to Expect When You’re Expecting. She later played the role of Holly in the film adaptation of the same name.

Jennifer Lopez’s first major role in five years.

The American Society of Magical Negroes Recap

Jamie

The American Society of Magical [Shut your mouth!]. You could see this movie coming a mile away. It feels a lot like a Black List script. These are scripts that circulate Hollywood and get high marks but for whatever reason don’t get produced. They used to have a podcast where they would act them out and I have to say… it was usually pretty clear why they didn’t get made. As I recall one of them prominently featured Tom Cruise playing himself in a kind of Nic Cage style action-comedy (note: can we use Nic Cage instead?). Another was a rude-crude comedy that seemed like it was written when Porky’s was all the rage (note: do you have a time machine?). Another was a lesbian romance set in the Hasidic Jewish community of NYC (note: how good are you at marketing?). This… well, I think you can see why I might think that would fit the mold.

To recap, Aren is an artist. More specifically he is a struggling artist. He’s struggling with his voice and standing up for his art. Roger, a bartender at one of his shows, takes a liking to him and lets him in on a little secret. He’s part of the American Society of Magical Negroes. Like the trope from film they are tasked with saving the world from sad white people. Sad white people do terrible things and make terrible mistakes. The happier the white people are, the safer the world is. Ultimately, Aren takes on the task of making Jason, a tech bro, happy by helping him get together with his work crush, Lizzie. Easier said than done when Aren realizes that Lizzie is pretty cool and maybe he kind of likes her. Also Jason, while affable and well-meaning, is also selfish and self-centered. He idolizes the idiotic boss of their tech company and is prone to taking credit for things that he didn’t do. It becomes harder and harder for Aren to justify helping this dope get with this super cool, smart and talented girl of his dreams. However, Aren is reminded that they are saving the world. But when Aren is invited to co-present a new diversity program with Jason, an off-hand offensive remark by Jason emboldens him to set the record straight on their companies bad policies. Before he is kicked out of the Society, he ends up revealing the secret to Lizzie by using his powers to teleport her. Ultimately, after Lizzie is able to return to LA following the teleportation, they get together and smooch hard… also she’s part of her own society or whatever. THE END.

I actually think this movie is better than fine. It’s bordering on good, even. I read a lot of reviews that were like “really pulled the punch. Should have gone further.” I mean, I guess if you mean it should have been 100% biting satire and not be a romantic comedy. Sure… but I liked the two leads well enough and as a rom com it was perfectly serviceable. I don’t know. I was unexpectedly taken with this film and actually thought they went pretty far with the idea. I mean, their meter for whether they are doing a good job measures white tears. It’s a bit of a fluffy movie. Definitely feels like a streaming movie. But I actually thought it was fun enough, the acting was fine, and they took the concept where it needed to go. My primary critique would be that the girl almost certainly should have been part of the American Society for Manic Pixie Dream Girls. If there was one pulled punch, I think it might be that. It’s so obvious and the character fits the stereotype. But given how the term has fallen out of favor it feels like it was  abandoned for something else that made no sense. So why even do it?

Hot Take Clam Bake! So like… now the guy he was supposed to help becomes a mass murderer or something? He failed, right? The dude is super sad because he was called a racist on a public live stream… fine, he wasn’t exactly called racist, but it was implied. The white tears were a-flowin. That’s not good. Or at least that’s what I was led to believe. So pretty sad movie in the end. Hot Take Temperature: Warm wool sweater art.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me definitely, totally watching this film. I definitely totally watched it* Let’s go!

Fun fact: I didn’t watch this movie until March 2025. For real. Just never really felt like or of felt the need to as we ended up very far behind on the emails. So there it sat, burned onto my phone, waiting for me to watch it.

The Good? I mean, the movie? It is wild that this is considered (by most metrics) one of the worst films of the year. It’s fun. I suppose it depends a bit on how much mileage you get out of all the Justice Smith of it all, but for real: the movie is fun and kind of good. If you are up for it and go into it with a clear mind.

The Bad? The movie isn’t funny per se. It is a comedy that is clever. It makes you go “that’s funny.” Or maybe smirk a bit and think “that’s funny.” And even those moments are few and far between. The two main characters I think are very good though and I think both are going to end up doing things in the future. Well, Justice Smith already is, he’s quietly one of the biggest young movie stars we got.

The BMT? Hell naw. I’m never watching this film again. I’m never thinking about this film again. This film was a checkbox for 2024 and that is all. Good luck to everyone involved. Personally I think your movie was pretty funny and good.

So if you are following the recaps you’ll know the saga of the batch image processing. Well, I’m almost there … maybe, kind of. Anyways, the current issue is that the models don’t seem to be able to accurately bring back indices. So let’s help them along:

Besides the one instance where it was probably like “I’m busy” or something, this worked flawlessly. As in the example, all I did was add the index to the top of the posters. There is a slight concern still (what if the title is quite near the top and also has a number?), but that feels quite fixable (which I’ll explore next). I am quite close to getting this to work.

In a way there is Product Placement (What?) for VR stuff in general, so I’m going to count it. A very Setting as a Character (Where?) L.A. film. I do think the whole movie has a MacGuffin (Why?) of the dream girl in general, which they play off of in the end. And in the vein I liked the twist actually, I thought it was clever, although it was a bit too little too late. The movie is Good, don’t at me.

Read all about uh … secret societies? Probably, in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The American Society of Magical Negroes Quiz

What is the oldest Secret Society in America? The Flat Hat Club of the College of William & Mary? Hell naw, it’s the American Society of Magical Negroes! Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Now, you should be able to get that The Skull and Bones are one of the big three Secret Societies at Yale. Name either of the other two that are considered the Big Three.

2) Played by Will Smith, what is the name of probably the most well known example of the Magical Negro trope in modern films?

3) And not to spoil the ending (but spoilers), but in the end we also learn the love interest is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for the primary fragile white male character. What movie involves a subversion of this trope by Zooey Deschanel towards Joseph Gorden-Levitt?

4) Besides the answer to Number 2 they also explicitly show another example of the Magical Negro trope, in particular where a death row prisoner fixes a white guard’s dick. This is quite explicitly the storyline for The Green Mile. Who wrote the original novel?

5) Now, the main character loves his yarn art. What does yarn remind me of? Spinning yarn. What does that remind me of? Rumplestilskin. What does Rumplestiltskin remind me of? Shrek obviously. Which Shrek film is Rumplestiltskin the villain?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: Someone once claimed Whoopi in Ghost was a Magical Negress. I don’t know if I believe it, but that did play Primetime on HBO on October 6, 1991 up against:

What is this Rewatchables movie?

Answers

The American Society of Magical Negroes Preview

You could always count on the librarians to have the answers. After listening to Black to Black over and over for a week, Jamie finally agreed to come with Patrick to the ‘brary to return it. “Maybe you can pick up some more death metal… or really anything,” Patrick says brimming with excitement as they neared the library. “Anything?” Jamie says skeptically, but Patrick is already speed walking to the door. He waves hello to Denise and Denise as he enters and points in excitement at Jamie. “You wanna look at some old newspapers? The library even has those. They’ve got all kinds of cool things in them like TV listings and… mostly that really.” Jamie nods. That is kind of cool. But looking around he gets a crackerjack idea. “What about a VHS copy of Crackerjack?” He says, suddenly hopeful. Patrick nods hesitantly and looks at Nathaniel. Nathaniel shakes his beak quickly. “Uh, let’s ask Denise,” Patrick says approaching the front desk, his eyes pleading with either of the Denises to think of something. “Well, unfortunately back in 2003, around the time that a fun, but quite bad, Celtics team was getting swept by the Pacers,” Jamie and Patrick wince, “we actually discontinued and disposed of all…” but just as she’s about to destroy everything Patrick has worked for, she’s interrupted by a loud creaking of a nearby door. “Ahem…” a small, wizened old man coughs, “Perhaps I can be of assistance, Denise.” The Denises look at each other in confusion. They’d never seen this man in their life… in fact, they’ve never seen the door he’s come out of before and they’ve been working the ‘brary scene for nigh 25 years. A small placard on the door says that it leads to The American Society of… That’s right! We’re watching The American Society of Magical Negroes. You’re probably thinking “That sounds like a bad idea.” You’d probably be right. Let’s go!

The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) – BMeTric: 68.9; Notability: 18

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.8%; Notability: top 12.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 12.4%; Higher BMeT: Madame Web, Borderlands; Higher Notability: Joker: Folie à Deux, Reagan, Borderlands, The Garfield Movie, Madame Web, Back to Black, Here, Argylle, Kraven the Hunter, Lift, Red One, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, Jackpot!, Atlas, The Union, The Crow, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two, My Spy The Eternal City, Harold and the Purple Crayon, A Family Affair, and 10 more; Lower RT: Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate, Borderlands, Madame Web, Mother of the Bride, Kraven the Hunter, Breathe, Uglies, Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths – Part Two, Tarot, Reagan, Killer Heat, Canary Black, Mea Culpa, Atlas, Night Swim, Dear Santa, Trigger Warning, The Strangers: Chapter 1, and 8 more; Notes: The BMeTric is not surprisingly off the chain. Fun fact: not that bad of a movie, just a bit tepid and boring.

Variety – “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” a comedy of racial images that’s every bit as witty and scandalous as “American Fiction” (it almost feels like a kind of cousin to Cord Jefferson’s film), only this one follows through on the outrage. The writer-director, Kobi Libii, wants to make us laugh and twist our heads at the same time. He brings it off. “The American Society of Magical Negroes” is a deftly observant fantasy comedy that stays true to its own irreverence.

(Nice. I kind of genuinely agree. The film is satire. Whether it bites is really up to whether you find any of it even remotely amusing.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gizIbhk5Eu4/

(This trailer looks dumb except when it goes real extreme. The White Tears meter is objectively funny. But mostly it looks dumb and like a generic romantic comedy.)

Directors – Kobi Libii – ( BMT: The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: He was actually an actor in real television shows, like Madam Secretary and Alpha House.)

Writers – Kobi Libii – ( BMT: The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: He wrote a V show with Jordan Klepper on Comedy Central which I’ve never heard of.)

Actors – Justice Smith – ( Known For: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; Pokémon: Detective Pikachu; Paper Towns; Ron’s Gone Wrong; All the Bright Places; The Voyeurs; Sharper; I Saw the TV Glow; Every Day; BMT: Jurassic World Dominion; The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: To have this and then I Saw the TV Glow in the same year is something. I really like him, although I can understand why someone might not. He has a flat affectation. Works for me.)

Zachary Barton – ( Known For: Kajillionaire; BMT: The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: Oh yeah … these are fake. This is the first time in a long time where they did the actual credits order (which is by appearance).)

Anthony Coons – ( BMT: The American Society of Magical Negroes; Notes: The last time this happened was, I believe, Barb Wire. I’m choosing not to alter it.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $2,480,645 (Worldwide: $2,496,248)

(This certainly lost quite a bit of money. Justice Smith probably got paid enough to put this in the red.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 25% (20/79): The American Society of Magical Negroes has a promising premise, but is too timid to fully engage with its most provocative ideas.

(Yeah, I can actually see that. It is a little quiet and timid, but that is kind of what you get from Justice Smith. I would have thought somewhere between 30-50% though, that is low.)

Reviewer Highlight: It’s not only utterly bereft of magic, but what it lacks it’s that sense of anarchic strangeness or weirdness… – Mark Kermode

Poster – American Society of Movie Nerds

(Did they not have a budget? Don’t mind the font and at least a little artistic. C+.)

Tagline(s) – Saving the damn world. (B-)

(I get what they’re up to here. I won’t say it’s good. But it’s subtle and I can appreciate that.)

Keyword(s) – 2024-2024

Top 10: Dune: Part Two (2024), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Civil War (2024), Inside Out 2 (2024), The Fall Guy (2024), Alien: Romulus (2024), Road House (2024), The Substance (2024), The Beekeeper (2024)

Future BMT: 62.3 The Exorcism (2024), 61.6 Imaginary (2024), 61.6 Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), 36.0 Singham Again (2024), 27.4 Slingshot (2024), 27.2 Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024), 25.9 Fighter (2024), 24.8 Devara Part 1 (2024), 19.0 Reagan (2024), 16.7 Here (2024), 11.6 Red One (2024)

BMT: Madame Web (2024), Borderlands (2024), The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024), The Crow (2024), Night Swim (2024), The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), Tarot (2024), Argylle (2024), The Watchers (2024), The Garfield Movie (2024), Back to Black (2024)

Best Options (From the Hip): 69.1 The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024)

(Yup, we really painted ourselves in a corner with this one. I remember having to very specifically work backwards and forwards a ton to eventually get the full chain to even work out. Thank god for David Alan Greer.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 22) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: David Alan Grier is No. 2 billed in The American Society of Magical Negroes and No. 8 billed in Tiptoes, which also stars Kate Beckinsale (No. 4 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 2 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (2 + 8) + (4 + 2) + (3 + 3) = 22. If we were to watch Blankman we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – The film was pulled from theaters after three weeks.

Spike Lee coined the term “magical negro” around 2000. It refers to a stereotypical Black supporting character who exists solely to aid a white protagonist. Examples include Forrest Gump (1994), The Green Mile (1999), and The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000).

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

This is Kobi Libii’s feature film directorial and screenwriting debut.

From the Hip Recap

Jamie

Let’s discuss the poster. Judd Nelson has a bone in his mouth and it says that “Getting to the top means working like a dog.” Actually there’s not much to discuss. That’s essentially all I have to say about it. It’s not 1980 anymore, From the Hip. Have some respect. Before watching, I was only vaguely aware of the movie and it was entirely poster based, so I presumed it was about some kind of dog lawyer. Not the case. Despite this disappointment and despite our past experiences with Blue City, Funky Fresh Horses has made me more intrigued by the Brat Pack adjacent projects, so we are diving right back into the Judd Nelson pool. And after this we still have a film called Relentless to complete our non-Brat Pack Judd Nelson trilogy. What a trilogy!

To recap, Judd Nelson is a HUMAN lawyer. He is tired of relentlessly trying to grind his way to the top so he concocts a plan to hide that a shitty trial is about to begin. His boss is miffed, but since he’s the only one who knows the case, he is allowed to try it. It should be an easy settlement, but his client, who is obviously guilty of assault, wants it stretched out to make the plaintiff squirm a little. Nelson obliges and creates a media frenzy over his theatrical antics. Everyone is loving it. Boy, this asshole is amazing! Through his antics he is actually able to sway the jury. His client is thrilled and the media is loving it. Turns out he was in leagues with the plaintiff’s lawyer to gin up all the media for their mutual benefit, so things need to be real hush hush or Judd’ll be in deep shit. These antics bring all kinds of big names to the firm and he is immediately rocketed to partner. The other lawyers at the firm hate him, so they give him a real stinker of a murder trial as his first case. He ends up defending John Hurt, who is a creepy professor who is almost certainly guilty of killing a prostitute with a hammer (fun!). Nelson is a bit perturbed by this, but not enough to stop him from putting on a show that seems to actually be swaying the jury. The ethics of it all starts to catch up with him and a breaking point is hit when Hurt basically confesses to Nelson all while refusing to take a Manslaughter plea deal. Nelson is torn, but ultimately risks disbarment by letting Hurt go on the witness stand. He uses Hurt’s ego against him to pull a confession out of him under oath. THE END.

Gotta love a courtroom comedy. This one has a little bit of a twist as well, since ultimately the lawyer is trying to sink his own client, and the whole film seems to be unusually accurate in how it talks about certain points of the law. Particularly the ethics of the final twist. It would seem that this likely didn’t start as a comedy. It was written by David E. Kelley and he used it as an in to get on the writing staff of L.A. Law. After that, it left his hands and I presume turned into a comedy. Definitely has that feel of a film that is a bit sure what it is about. Is it about a zany lawyer who looks like he’s a gimmick, but in fact knows his stuff? Or is it a story of the collision between ethics and ambition? This ends up not entirely working as either. I also found Nelson’s character to be one step too far past obnoxious and stopped buying that juries would be loving his antics enough to let obviously guilty people walk. I much preferred the parts of the film where he was seriously considering the shit he got himself into.

Hot Take Clam Bake! He didn’t have to risk disbarment. There is no way a creepy creepster who almost certainly killed a prostitute would have walked free just because the lawyer made the murder trial a whole barrel of laughs. Sure, I might feel some relief that the murder trial was a little less boring than expected, but I’d probably still say the obviously guilty person was guilty in the end. You know why? Because, and this is the hot take, I prefer the people I might potentially run into on the street or in a coffee shot to have NOT MURDERED A PROSTITUTE WITH A HAMMER. But maybe that’s just me and he really did need to risk disbarment. Hot Take Temperature: That cool feeling of a wet dog bone in your mouth.

Patrick? 

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! *Gif of me being all clever and being annoying to a judge, but you know … the media loves it, right?* Let’s go!

The Good? The movie is a lot more fun than it has any right to be. At the time Judd Nelson was pitching a perfect game. He was incredibly charismatic. Same goes for Elizabeth Perkins. And the story is a funny story, from a courtroom drama perspective, although the “media driven fame” doesn’t work as much now I think.

The Bad? This movie is very derivative of …And Justice For All. The lawyer defending a big pile of shit who is definitely guilty and then doing a whole twist ‘em up right at the last second to save his soul. Well, that isn’t exactly …And Justice For All, but it is close enough that I found it a little weird. That movie is much much much much better.

The BMT? This film is too good. It is genuinely kind of good. I liked it. I would even watch it again.

So Surf Nazis Must Die is a classic of the past which I watched partly when I was a kid when our brother briefly ran a bad movie night himself. The movie is much more interesting and much more weird than I expected. It is kind of a surreal take on Nazis … almost literal. But then all in California with a strange side story involving an old woman seeking vengeance. Some of the silly gore is fun, and there are flashes of brilliance, but overall it ends up not being as fun as I would hope. Straight average C I think.

Wowza, that was a saga. So here I was curious, the poster for From the Hip is odd, it has Judd Nelson with a dog bone in his mouth. Is there a dog in this film? Why the dog bone? But it mostly made me wonder: are there other posters with dog bones in them? Turns out … no, not really. As a matter of fact it is the only wide release film released since 1980 in which the IMDb poster appears to have a physical (non-cartoon) dog bone. That … is insane. But I guess I solved it. More importantly I think I figured out a way to submit batch images to Google Gemini, so hopefully I can do some of these analyses pretty quickly in the future.

A great Setting as a Character (Where?) for Boston, which is always fun to see, there aren’t enough Boston movies I think. The MacGuffin (Why?) of the whole thing is fame and fortune of course. And the Worst Twist (How?) in the way in which Judd Nelson manages to twist the bad guy up to incriminate himself. This movie is Good, I liked it, and it was interesting, but also you should just watch …And Justice For All.

Learn about lawyers I think in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

From the Hip Quiz

Lawyers. Boston. Talk to me, people! Let’s go!

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Judd Nelson was part of the Brat Pack. The common members of the crew include Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, and Rob Lowe among others. What two movies are commonly associated with members of the Brat Pack?

2) The film is directed by Bob Clark. He is somewhat notable for writing and directing what 1981 T&A comedy about rowdy high schoolers in Florida? He allegedly wrote the script as a stream of conscience into a tape recorder.

3) Judd Nelson was nominated for a Razzie for the film. He would ultimately lose to Bill Cosby for what Sci Fi stinker?

4) We just watched Elizabeth Perkins in The Flintstones. But what ensemble film, starring Alan Arkin, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Pollak among others, did she film prior to that, which was notably lampooned by the film Wet Hot American Summer?

5) John Hurt plays the murderer in the film. He’s been nominated for two Academy Awards, although he’s never won. One was for Midnight Express, which I’ve read the book of but never seen. The other was for the lead role in a very early David Lynch film. What film?

Bonus NYTimes Listing Question: On April 4, 1992, From the Hip played primetime on channel 11. A little bit before though on HBO was:

This is an easy one right? What is the film?

Answers