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,
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?
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.)
(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.)
(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
(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.
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,
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:
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.)
(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.)
(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
(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.
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,
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:
“In my dream (a rather small dream now that I recall it) we are running through a forest. It’s a forest of lies, but also those lies/trees are birch trees… We are just like swinging around dem birches, right? Swinging all over the place and it feels pretty damn good. Then we swing on up to the top of a hill and we are smooching… hard. We make out for a while. This is actually most of my dream. It was in actuality a large dream just in terms of duration, but small if you write out the plot or recount it like I’m doing now. Because you can just say ‘and then we smooched… hard’ and that covers like 95% of the dream. Anyway, once we are done smooching you turn your head away in anguish. I try to pull you back to the birch trees so we can swing around a bunch more, but you say you can’t. You cradle your elbow and say that you’ve been trying to tell me something but I never listen. Then you begin to tell me what has been bothering you, but at this point I’m remembering swinging around in the birch trees and smooching and then I’m like ‘woah, am I daydreaming within this dream?’ and you’d think that by acknowledging the dream that it would end, right? But no. When I stop daydreaming you are looking peeved and say ‘Perhaps this will make you listen.’ When I look down you’ve pulled a tiny gun from your hip pocket. It’s so tiny that I actually start to laugh, but then you shoot! You shoot me with the little gun! And I wake up!” Jamie stands staring back at Samantha, appearing rather pleased with himself. Samantha is bewildered. That’s right! That connection was a bit of a stretch, but we are watching the Judd Nelson vehicle that everyone remembers, From the Hip… yup, that movie that you can just imagine because you remember it so well. As for the Friend, we are pairing that with a classic of the genre in Surf Nazis Must Die. We saw this for the first time in high school, but not since. Interested in how it holds up all these years later. Let’s go!
From the Hip (1987) – BMeTric: 13.1; Notability: 26
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 17.6%; Notability: top 12.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.6%; Higher BMeT: Jaws: The Revenge, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Teen Wolf Too, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Leonard Part 6, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Surf Nazis Must Die, Who’s That Girl, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Masters of the Universe, Ghoulies II, Return to Horror High, House II: The Second Story, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Over the Top, Burglar, Cherry 2000, Flowers in the Attic, and 24 more; Higher Notability: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Masters of the Universe, Who’s That Girl, Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, Jaws: The Revenge, Fatal Beauty, Leonard Part 6, Cherry 2000, Blind Date, Burglar, Over the Top, The Sicilian, House II: The Second Story, My Demon Lover, Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, The Believers, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, Hot Pursuit, Slam Dance, Rent-a-Cop, and 12 more; Lower RT: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Hot Pursuit, Return to Horror High, Rent-a-Cop, My Demon Lover, The Allnighter, Jaws: The Revenge, Leonard Part 6, Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise, House II: The Second Story, Teen Wolf Too, Hello Again, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, The Sicilian, Ghoulies II, Russkies, The Squeeze, Surf Nazis Must Die, Siesta, and 19 more; Notes: I’m actually a little surprised this only played 13 times on cable in the 90s, this seems perfect for filling up a random cinemax slot. We’ve watched 6 of the top 10 for 1987, and I’m going to guess Teen Wolf Too has an insane number of cable plays (74! I knew it, that movie was on all the time). Surf Nazis Must Die played 16 times, more than From the Hip! I only knew of it because for some reason my brother knew enough about it to rent it for a bad movie night.
RogerEbert.com – 2.5 stars – I have a notion that a lot of moviegoers in Nelson’s generation will respond to his performance. There’s so much insecurity around right now, so much desperate competition for success, that the notion of a rebel inside corporate America is curiously attractive. If I am right and if our society is poised once again on the brink of a rerun of the 1960s, if Reagan is our Eisenhower, if the campuses are primed to revolt, then “From the Hip” is “The Graduate” of 1987. If I’m wrong, of course, it’s just a very silly movie. Somehow I think I’m wrong.
(This seems to be a trend in some of the reviews of the film: that yeah, people liked Nelson’s performance in this. The film is more fun than it has any right to be, quite similar to …And Justice for All.)
(I must say the fact that this isn’t about someone who holds a dog bone in their mouth at any point is crazy considering the poster. I’ll also say … isn’t this the plot of And Just For All… more on that in the recap I suppose.)
Directors – Bob Clark – ( Known For: A Christmas Story; Black Christmas; Murder by Decree; Dead of Night; Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things; Blonde and Blonder; My Summer Story; Tribute; I’ll Remember April; Now & Forever; She-Man: A Story of Fixation; Breaking Point; Future BMT: Porky’s; Porky’s II: The Next Day; Loose Cannons; Turk 182; BMT: Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2; Baby Geniuses; Rhinestone; From the Hip; Notes: Him slipping into kids films and then his career exploding after Baby Geniuses is something else indeed. We have to do Porky’s at some point, maybe I’ll buy it on VHS.)
Writers – Bob Clark – ( Known For: A Christmas Story; Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things; My Summer Story; She-Man: A Story of Fixation; Future BMT: Porky’s; Porky’s II: The Next Day; Porky’s Revenge; Loose Cannons; BMT: Baby Geniuses; From the Hip; Notes: He died in 2007. Apparently he is one of only two directors who had a movie on both the Loved and Hated lists by Ebert (the other was Reiner).)
David E. Kelley – ( Known For: Lake Placid; Future BMT: Mystery, Alaska; To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday; BMT: From the Hip; Notes: One of the big names in television still to this day. He’s been nominated for 25 Emmys, and won 11, variously for Big Little Lies, Ally McBeal, The Practice, Picket Fences, and L.A. Law. Is this movie a proto-L.A. Law? L.A. Law started in 1986, but this script may have existed for a while prior to that.)
Actors – Judd Nelson – ( Known For: The Breakfast Club; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day; St. Elmo’s Fire; The Transformers: The Movie; New Jack City; Billionaire Boys Club; Nurse; Fandango; Have a Good Trip; Brats; The Dark Backward; Bad Kids Go to Hell; Madness in the Method; Never on Tuesday; Relentless; Making the Grade; The Freediver; Netherbeast Incorporated; Hail Caesar; Future BMT: Airheads; Light It Up; BMT: Steel; From the Hip; Blue City; Notes: Y’all know Judd. His post-Brat Pack career is weird. I am very very excited to eventually watch Airheads again though, it is a very fun and genuinely good movie.)
Elizabeth Perkins – ( Known For: Finding Nemo; Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Ghostbusters; Big; Cats & Dogs; Miracle on 34th Street; Speak; About Last Night; Fierce People; Avalon; Try Seventeen; Indian Summer; The Doctor; My Little Pony: A New Generation; Jiminy Glick in Lalawood; The Thing About My Folks; Love at Large; Sweet Hearts Dance; Enid Is Sleeping; I’m Losing You; Future BMT: 28 Days; Hop; Must Love Dogs; Crazy in Alabama; He Said, She Said; Moonlight and Valentino; Kids in America; BMT: The Ring Two; The Flintstones; From the Hip; Notes: Man, she was huge back in the day. I got very confused for a second about who she was in Ghostbusters, but that is the 2016 Ghostbusters. Nominated for 3 Emmys for Weeds.)
John Hurt – ( Known For: V for Vendetta; Alien; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2; Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Snowpiercer; Hellboy; Contact; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer; The Elephant Man; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Spaceballs; Melancholia; Immortals; Hercules; Dogville; Only Lovers Left Alive; Dead Man; Future BMT: The Skeleton Key; Valiant; Thumbelina; King Ralph; Lost Souls; Partners; Jake Speed; BMT: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin; Wild Bill; From the Hip; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars for The Elephant Man, and Midnight Express. I still need to watch Midnight Express. I read the book and it was just on the wrong side of depressing so I needed some time to process before watching the movie.)
Budget/Gross – $9 million / Domestic: $9,518,342 (Worldwide: $9,518,342)
(Not what you want. I wonder how much of the budget went into some of the location shoots. The locations in this film are quite fun, but probably cost a bit to film at.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (7/23): From the Hip finds Judd Nelson flexing previously unseen acting muscles, but this legal comedy is too grating to pass the bar.
(Too grating?! I guess I can see it, but that is the point. Again, it isn’t that much different than …And Justice For All where the main character is defending a monster and has to vaguely figure out how to get out of the situation deftly.)
New York Times Description: A showoff rookie lawyer in Boston.
(You may not remember this film, but this is a very well known poster in my head. It’s such an F- it comes all the way around and is an A+. What a disaster. Who made this?)
Tagline(s) – Getting To The Top Means Working Like A Dog! (F)
The way he practices law should be a crime (A-)
(The first makes no sense and yet they turned around and made it the basis of the whole thing. The second one is actually not bad. Just needs to be a little tighter.)
Keyword(s) – 1983-1991
Top 10: The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Back to the Future (1985), Goodfellas (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), Die Hard (1988), The Terminator (1984), Scarface (1983), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Future BMT: 72.7 Look Who’s Talking Too (1990), 72.5 Teen Wolf Too (1987), 67.9 Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983), 61.1 Staying Alive (1983), 59.1 Suburban Commando (1991), 57.7 The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), 57.6 Ghost Dad (1990), 56.7 The Karate Kid Part III (1989), 55.1 Who’s That Girl (1987), 54.8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), 53.5 Graffiti Bridge (1990), 52.5 Johnny Be Good (1988), 52.5 Porky’s II: The Next Day (1983), 52.4 Porky’s Revenge (1985), 52.2 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise (1987), 51.8 Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), 49.3 King Solomon’s Mines (1985), 48.7 Hercules (1983), 48.6 Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990), 48.6 My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988)
BMT: Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), Troll 2 (1990), Jaws 3-D (1983), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Going Overboard (1989), Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989), Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989), Mac and Me (1988), Caddyshack II (1988), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Howard the Duck (1986), Supergirl (1984), Cool as Ice (1991), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987), Leonard Part 6 (1987), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989), Superman III (1983), Poltergeist III (1988), A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Wild Orchid (1989), …
Best Options (Flintstones): 57.6 Ghost Dad (1990), 54.8 Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), 48.6 My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988), 44.8 King Ralph (1991), 42.0 Club Paradise (1986), 41.6 Loose Cannons (1990), 41.0 Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), 37.9 Invaders from Mars (1986), 36.5 Burglar (1987), 34.0 Hero and the Terror (1988), 31.0 Jetsons: The Movie (1990), 29.0 He Said, She Said (1991), 28.4 The Presidio (1988), 27.2 Flight of the Intruder (1991), 26.0 Bad Dreams (1988), 24.6 The Survivors (1983), 24.5 Sunset (1988), 21.6 Dead Heat (1988), 20.6 Spies Like Us (1985), 20.3 Strictly Business (1991), 18.9 Head Office (1985), 17.9 Brewster’s Millions (1985), 17.7 Skin Deep (1989), 15.9 Worth Winning (1989), 13.6 Stella (1990), 13.0 From the Hip (1987)
(Ha! Well, what you didn’t know is that we needed to do From the Hip in order to chain up into 2024. These days bad movies are at such a premium they pretty much dictate any and all chain films for the back half of the year.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: John Hurt is No. 3 billed in From the Hip and No. 3 billed in Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 6 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (3 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (6 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Must Love Dogs, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 10.
Notes – At his son’s elementary school, writer-produce-director Bob Clark offered a silent auction prize allowing the winner to go to Charlotte in North Carolina and go behind the scenes during the filming of this movie. After friends of the family won the auction, Clark allowed the entire family to be extras / background artists in a scene rather than just observers.
TV producer Steven Bochco hired writer David E. Kelley to write for his television series L.A. Law (1986) after reading this script.
Star Judd Nelson was Razzie Award nominated for this movie in the category of Worst Actor at the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards but lost out Bill Cosby for Leonard Part 6 (1987).
Attorney David E. Kelley showed his spec screenplay to his law firm’s client, Indian Neck Productions, who optioned it and then recruited the film’s director Bob Clark.
This legal courtroom comedy drama was written by David E. Kelley who was actually a law attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Judd Nelson)
There are a few films that will forever be linked in my mind with the beginning of BMT. Films that seem to come up every once in a while as an option but somehow never get picked. Always the BMTsmaid and never the BMT. The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas is one of those. It’s abundantly clear why that is. Viva Rock Vegas doesn’t feel like a BMT qualifying film. It feels like it should have been shuttled to video release. It has Stephen Baldwin as Barney. It is a prequel about Fred meeting Wilma. It sounds horrible. It’s also a kids movie so for large swaths of BMT history it would have essentially been barred (by what is basically the Dudley Do-Right Rule). Anyway, we’ve slowly been working through these classic BMT forever films. The Loft was one of them (what a joy). So was The Darkest Hour (the other one). One that still remains is Push from 2009… a movie no one remembered and yet I can never forget.
To recap, Fred and Barney are young. Betty and Wilma are young, too. Fun! Wilma is tired of her controlling rich mom and runs away to bedrock where she befriends Betty. Soon they are serving up food to the young, hungry bachelors Fred and Barney. Barney is into Wilma and Fred is into Betty (wha-wha-wha?) but after a date at the amusement park things are sorted how we expect (phew). After meeting Wilma’s disapproving mother and the man she wishes Wilma would marry, Chip, Fred chickens out of proposing. But Wilma’s dad is just happy Wilma is happy and gives her an expensive pearl necklace. Chip apologizes for being rude and invites them out to his casino in Rock Vegas. Fred sees it as an opportunity to gamble his way to a fortune Wilma could be proud of. Chip sees it as a way to get Fred to lose a bunch of money so he can get Wilma back and pay off the mob with her fortune. The plan works pretty much perfectly. The only thing Chip didn’t plan on was The Great Gazoo. Did I not mention him? He’s a green alien that follows Fred and Barney around and helps them (sort of). After Fred and Barney are framed for stealing the necklace from Wilma (and lose their gals in the process) Gazoo lets them in on Chip’s scheme. They escape and ultimately profess their love for their gals and Wilma is like “get out of here Chip,” and smooches Fred… hard. THE END.
Somehow Fred is the weak link of a film that features Stephen Baldwin. In fact I found almost all the casting to be totally confounding, which again speaks to the straight-to-video nature of this film. The only people coming out OK are Krakowski and somehow Alan Cumming as Gazoo and that’s only because that entire storyline appears to have time travelled from the future of Adult Swim and directly into this film. It’s so insane that I respect whoever had the keys to the car on this guy being like “fuck it, keep on doing whatever that is.” All that being said, I found this movie to be more weird than necessarily bad. It ended up being a B version of the first film rather than the Z version I was expecting. But boy, everyone seems to make the craziest plot choices when confronted with the tall order of making a live action Flintstones film.
Hot Take Clam Bake! Where’s Gazoo go? It’s the question that’s on everyone’s mind after watching the two Flintstones films back-to-back. Here he is helping foil the dastardly plot. Where was he later on when Fred was dealing with Cliff? You might be thinking “he’s an alien, he probably went home.” You’d be wrong. He ain’t no alien. Gazoo is a friend, first and foremost. That’s why I suspect foul play. So who killed Gazoo? I suspect Fred. Then again he’s always getting framed for crimes like this so it’s perhaps a Chip or Cliff type character we have yet to meet. Crag… is Crag a character from the show? Probably. Hot Take Temperature: Mick Jagged
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! *gif of me sliding down a dinosaur’s back, slipping off, and slamming face first directly into a huge pile of dinosaur shit* Let’s go!
Oh boy … I mean, the good, I think both of the lead women are quite good, especially Jane Krakowski who is like … it is a little overboard how attractive she is as Betty, but that isn’t here nor there (I insist, it is neither here nor there!). Stephen Baldwin is kind of okay as well, although it is very distracting to see Stephen Baldwin in a movie like this.
The bad is literally everything else. It all looks much worse, Fred is much worse, the story is all over the place, Gazoo is an insane addition to the storyline, and Rock Vegas is a shockingly small piece to the entire film. It is worse in every way, and in most cases it is much much worse.
The movie I think is just on the wrong side of sad and bad to be BMT. It is a lunatic film, that’s for sure. Gazoo is basically tacked onto a not-Flintstones story. But it is just too boring to work. Nothing super memorable about it in the end.
A long time ago I thought to myself: I wonder if I can figure out the colors featured on a poster in a consistent way. The answer was, in many ways, no. I am a little too perfectionist to allow some of the odd edge cases to survive in what would have been a huge uneditable blob of data. With AI though … well, with AI it is pretty difficult to generate a huge blob of data without spending a ton. But at least I can blame the AI when it gets shit wrong. I asked for the top three colors, the primary color, and two featured colors on the IMDb poster. The response was:
Primary Color: #23277C (Dark blue)
Featured Color: #EF4138 (Red)
Featured Color: #F58903 (Orange)
Kind of nails it. The blue is the sky, which is basically the background. The red is the car. And the orange is Dunes, Sands, the other hotel, and Fred’s shirt roughly. In a way the analysis is just like: this poster is ugly. Now, would I agree that this is a “blue” poster? No. I don’t think so. Unfortunately the AI mostly defaults to a majority rule and can’t emulate “Patrick’s Brain” level of intellect in determining that this poster is, in fact, multi-colored. Too bad.
I’m making up a Completely Ridiculous Side Character (Who?) for the Great Gazoo who is mainly in this movie for no reason whatsoever. Again a great Promotional Tie-In (What?) for a direct Burger King toy tie-in complete with Bronto King burger joint features in the movie. This is an A+ Fictional Setting as a Character (Where?) for Rock Vegas. This movie is genuinely bad and quite sad because both of the main actors just pale in comparison to the 1994 original, which is too bad.
Read all about long awaited sequels (maybe?) in the quiz. Cheerios,
Bad Movie Twins 