Category: Preview

Endless Love (2014) Preview

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. Well … that is the only possible reason Endless Love 2014 is being inducted, it has to be Here on Earth 2 … right? Enjoy!

Endless Love (2014) – BMeTric: 22.7; Notability: 32 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 46.0%; Notability: top 40.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 12.2% Higher BMeT: Left Behind, The Legend of Hercules, Ouija, God’s Not Dead, The Pyramid, Tammy, Sex Tape, A Haunted House 2, I, Frankenstein, Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones, Outcast, Dying of the Light, Tokarev, Annabelle, Everly, Annie, Pompeii, The Carrier, Vampire Academy, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and 41 more; Higher Notability: Transformers: Age of Extinction, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Exodus: Gods and Kings, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Dracula Untold, Transcendence, Think Like a Man Too, Dumb and Dumber To, Annie, The Monuments Men, A New York Winter’s Tale, Horrible Bosses 2, Ride Along, The Expendables 3, Need for Speed, Men, Women & Children, Lessons in Love, Vampire Academy, Blended, I, Frankenstein, and 6 more; Lower RT: Left Behind, The Legend of Hercules, Outcast, I, Frankenstein, Ouija, Lessons in Love, Addicted, A Haunted House 2, Dying of the Light, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Just Before I Go, Search Party, The Best of Me, The Cobbler, The Carrier, Tokarev, No Good Deed, God’s Not Dead, The Nut Job, A New York Winter’s Tale and 7 more; Notes: This, I think, is right in that Here on Earth zone. Perhaps that is what Here on Earth really is. A film that critics are like “blah” and normal people are like “what? I haven’t seen that” … but we aren’t normal people.

RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – Feste’s sanitized version seems like it’s aimed not at high-school kids but rather at those who are even younger: girls who can leave the theater and peruse the mall for just the right boho-chic clothes to emulate Wilde’s fashionably wild look.

(Sanitized. That really is what it is all about. It feels odd that a sanitized film could be, in actuality, a BMT Hall of Fame film, but perhaps with just the right amount of “wait … this is what they adapted the book about a crazy stalker boyfriend into?” it could work.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRXGch6675Q/

(I think the trailer makes David out to be more dangerous than he actually is in the film. They must have realized they screwed up in you know … not actually adapting the book.)

Directors – Shana Feste – (Known For: The Greatest; Boundaries; Future BMT: Country Strong; BMT: Endless Love; Notes: She writes almost all of what she directs. Currently writing and directing the mini-series Dirty Diana with Demi Moore.)

Writers – Shana Feste (screenplay) – (Known For: The Greatest; You’re Not You; Boundaries; Future BMT: Country Strong; BMT: Endless Love; Notes: The plotline for The Greatest: “A drama that is centered around a troubled teenage girl, and a family that is trying to get over the loss of their son.” … that’s this movie! WHAT THE HELL?!)

Joshua Safran (screenplay) – (BMT: Endless Love; Notes: Writer/producer on Gossip Girl and Quantico among others. My guess is they brought him in to adapt the book into something more palatable for 2014.)

Scott Spencer (book) – (Known For: Waking the Dead; Future BMT: Father Hood; BMT: Endless Love; Endless Love; Notes: Wrote the book. The book is interesting. It was considered to be one of the quintessential stories written about young love at the time, but it feels like it has been completely overshadowed by, oddly, the song made for the 1981 film.)

Actors – Gabriella Wilde – (Known For: Wonder Woman 1984; Carrie; Future BMT: St Trinian’s 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold; BMT: The Three Musketeers; Endless Love; Notes: British and descended from actual genuine royalty. She was originally a model and artist but switched to acting.)

Alex Pettyfer – (Known For: The Butler; Magic Mike; Wild Child; Back Roads; Elvis & Nixon; The Strange Ones; Tormented; Future BMT: Stormbreaker; The Last Witness; In Time; Echo Boomers; BMT: Beastly; I Am Number Four; Endless Love; Notes: Kid actor, he got the part in the Alex Rider series when he was 15 years old. Also British.)

Bruce Greenwood – (Known For: Doctor Sleep; Kingsman: The Golden Circle; Star Trek; The Place Beyond the Pines; The Post; Gerald’s Game; Deja Vu; Flight; Super 8; Star Trek into Darkness; First Blood; The Core; Gold; I, Robot; Dinner for Schmucks; Spectral; Eight Below; Capote; Kodachrome; I’m Not There; Future BMT: Swept Away; Wild Orchid; Racing Stripes; Fathers’ Day; Disturbing Behavior; Passenger 57; The Captive; Firehouse Dog; Rules of Engagement; National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Double Jeopardy; Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House; And Now a Word from Our Sponsor; Cell 213; For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada; Donovan’s Echo; Fathers & Daughters; BMT: Hollywood Homicide; Here on Earth; Devil’s Knot; Endless Love; Notes: Yup, he’s the father in both Here on Earth and Endless Love. Currently starring in The Resident, a medical drama on Fox.)

Budget/Gross – $20,000,000 / Domestic: $23,438,250 (Worldwide: $34,718,173)

(Quite bad. That big name energy coming from 1981’s smash hit Endless Love didn’t do much for it it seems.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 16% (15/95): Blander than the original Endless Love and even less faithful to the source material, this remake is clichéd and unintentionally silly.

(I. love. cliched. And I love unintentionally silly. Bodes well. Reviewer Highlight: This remake has almost nothing to do with Spencer’s novel. It’s the kind of film you make when you’ve run out of Nicholas Sparks books. – Wesley Morris, Grantland)

Poster – Endless Lurv (2014)

(Honestly, this poster would be 400x better if it didn’t have the scratched lettering in the center. I’m fine with the “you hot leads” as the poster for a film like this, but I think this, like the trailer, is selling a more thriller-y film than it actually is. Were there massive reshoots or something? The marketing seems strange. C.)

Tagline(s) – Say Goodbye to Innocence. (B)

(I think I get what they are selling to a degree: Dad’s worst nightmare? Except in the film David isn’t that. The dad is actually a colossal dick to David at every moment and the entire film is “bad dad broken dad gets fixed by naive high school boy who doesn’t know what love is”. It’s a wild film. Anyways, I think for what they are likely selling it is fine, even though it doesn’t describe the film.)

Keyword – remake

Top 10: Beauty and the Beast (2017), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), The Invisible Man (2020), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book (2016), Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015), The Departed (2006), The Grinch (2018), The Lion King (2019)

Future BMT: 83.1 Inspector Gadget (1999), 82.8 Prom Night (2008), 74.3 Psycho (1998), 72.0 Grudge (2020), 68.8 Black Christmas (2006), 68.8 The Shaggy Dog (2006), 67.8 Poltergeist (2015), 67.3 Scooby-Doo (2002), 66.8 Thunderbirds (2004), 65.6 Pulse (2006);

BMT: Fantasy Island (2020), Baywatch (2017), Just Go with It (2011), The Last Airbender (2010), The Mummy (2017), Fantastic Four (2015), Gone in Sixty Seconds (2000), The Hustle (2019), Point Break (2015), Poseidon (2006), Godzilla (1998), Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), Friday the 13th (2009), Wild Wild West (1999), Conan the Barbarian (2011), Thir13en Ghosts (2001), Endless Love (2014), Death Wish (2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), The Lone Ranger (2013), Super Mario Bros. (1993), CHIPS (2017), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Flatliners (2017), Red Dawn (2012), The Haunting (1999), Jungle 2 Jungle (1997), Left Behind (2014), The Avengers (1998), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), The Big Wedding (2013), The Fog (2005), The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), The Wicker Man (2006), Get Carter (2000), The Women (2008), One Missed Call (2008), Are We Done Yet? (2007), The Musketeer (2001), Bangkok Dangerous (2008)

(So. Many. Remakes. The plot is interesting. I think it points to smaller cast/crew productions taking over some of what used to be fairly large productions. Like if this film was made in 1999 it would have been huge with like … Matt Damon in talks to star. But instead they are like “just how many British people who can’t really do accents can we put into this production?”)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 9) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Bruce Greenwood is No. 3 billed in Endless Love and No. 6 billed in Here on Earth => 3 + 6 = 9. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – Both lead roles are British. (So is the mother, and the brother is Australian. And yet … the only person in the entire film who even attempts a southern accent is Robert Patrick, despite the entire film being set in Georgia)

Emma Roberts turned down the lead role of Jade Butterfield. (Would have been more interesting with her I think, shame)

The trailer for the film included scenes that were either altered or not included in the actual film. (Reshoots?)

Remake of the 1981 film. (Not really, it isn’t even an adaptation of the book … are we sure they even asked permission to use the title?)

In the original film, Jade was 15, David was 17, and they started dating after her brother Keith introduced them to each other; and a subplot involved Ann becoming infatuated with David and living vicariously through him and Jade after watching them have sex one night. Also, David’s surname was Axelrod; here it’s been changed to Elliot; and Ann’s name is spelled Anne. (Yeah … they changed a bit of the story).

Endless Love (1981) Preview

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. This actually isn’t one of those five films. This is a bonus preview I’ve made because Endless Love (2014) is being inducted. That preview will follow directly. But if you end up watching Endless Love 1981, here’s your one stop shop for preview information. Enjoy!

Endless Love (1981) – BMeTric: 46.5; Notability: 31 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 4.3%; Notability: top 28.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 8.6% Higher Notability: Halloween II, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Cannonball Run, Looker, All Night Long, The Devil and Max Devlin, The Final Conflict, Death Hunt, Caveman; Lower RT: Final Exam, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Deadly Blessing, Death Hunt, The Devil and Max Devlin, Student Bodies, Caveman; Notes: The BMeTric bit is obviously the most impressive. To understand what it is saying, consider that only films with Rotten Tomatoes scores below 40% are counted in the percentiles (so it is the top XX% for qualifying films). So basically it is saying there are 20ish such films in 1981 and of those this film has the highest BMeTric. That’s pretty amazing. Sub-5.0 IMDb, and very notable for having an Oscar nominated song. Hit it! Endlesssssss Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurve.

RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – Is there anything good in the movie? Yes. Brooke Shields is good. She is a great natural beauty, and she demonstrates, in a scene of tenderness and concern for Hewitt and in a scene of rage with her father, that she has a strong, unaffected screen acting manner. But the movie as a whole does not understand the particular strengths of the novel that inspired it, does not convince us it understands adolescent love, does not seem to know its characters very well, and is a narrative and logical mess.

(I 100% agree with Ebert on all counts here. I think the film, with a few years of distance, is slightly better than the two stars he gave it. But I think Shields is the strongest bit of a pretty okay adaptation of a difficult book.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33msTt1jAu8/

(Pretty intense stuff. This trailer makes me wonder whether it was recut due to confusion by test audiences. Because it is really explicit that he set the fire, so the scene (which isn’t in the movie) of him admitting he set the fire doesn’t make sense. But, if the film was originally non-linear … then it would be easy for the movie to be shown in such a way where the “you’re just jealous of our love compared to your failing marriage” idea holds a lot of water.)

Directors – Franco Zeffirelli – (Known For: Tea with Mussolini; Romeo and Juliet; Hamlet; Jane Eyre; The Taming of the Shrew; Brother Sun, Sister Moon; Callas Forever; Future BMT: The Champ; BMT: Endless Love; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director for Endless Love in 1982; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars, one as director for Romeo and Juliet, and the other for La traviata as a set designer. Was a member of the Italian parliament in the 90s for the rightist party Forza Italia.)

Writers – Scott Spencer (based on the novel by) – (Known For: Waking the Dead; Future BMT: Father Hood; BMT: Endless Love; Endless Love; Notes: Apparently adapted someone else’s book into the Charles Bronson film Act of Vengeance.)

Judith Rascoe (screenplay by) – (Known For: The Bang Bang Club; Dog Soldiers; Future BMT: Terror Train; Havana; BMT: Endless Love; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Endless Love in 1982; Notes: Daughter of critic Burton Rascoe, she is a writer who taught fiction at Yale. She was tapped to adapt a series of novels in the late 70s and early 80s.)

Actors – Brooke Shields – (Known For: The Other Guys; Pretty Baby; The Midnight Meat Train; Chalet Girl; Freeway; Hannah Montana: The Movie; The Muppets Take Manhattan; Alice, Sweet Alice; Freaked; King of the Gypsies; Daisy Winters; Future BMT: The Bachelor; Black and White; Cannonball Fever; The Hot Flashes; The Greening of Whitney Brown; BMT: Furry Vengeance; Endless Love; The Blue Lagoon; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actress for The Blue Lagoon in 1981; Winner for Worst Supporting Actor for Sahara in 1985; Winner for Worst Supporting Actress for Speed Zone in 1990; Nominee for Worst Actress in 1982 for Endless Love; and in 1985 for Sahara; Nominee for Worst Actress of the Century in 2000 for Endless Love, Sahara, and The Blue Lagoon; and Nominee for Worst Actress of the Decade in 1990 for Cannonball Fever, Endless Love, Sahara, and The Blue Lagoon; Notes: Was a model and 15 at the time of filming this film. She stopped acting in 1983 to attend Princeton where she graduated in Romance Languages. She was the star of the television show Suddenly Susan.)

Martin Hewitt – (Future BMT: Two Moon Junction; Yellowbeard; BMT: Endless Love; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst New Star for Endless Love in 1982; Notes: Hired as part of a nationwide search. Is a home inspector in California now.)

Shirley Knight – (Known For: As Good as It Gets; Our Idiot Brother; Sweet Bird of Youth; The Private Lives of Pippa Lee; Picnic; The Salton Sea; Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; The Rain People; Juggernaut; The Group; Petulia; Redwood Highway; A House on a Hill; Future BMT: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure; Angel Eyes; Diabolique; The Centre of the World; Grandma’s Boy; Little Boy Blue; P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!; BMT: Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2; Paul Blart: Mall Cop; Color of Night; Endless Love; Stuart Saves His Family; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress for Endless Love in 1982; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars in the 60s for Sweet Bird of Youth and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. Was a Warner Brothers television contract star in her early career.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $31,184,024 (Worldwide: $32,492,674)

(Obviously hard to tell, but $31 million seems pretty alright for an adaptation of a novel in 1981. I can’t imagine people were thinking in terms of beaucoup bucks on the Endless Love IP at the time. There are also not really any actors in it. It was probably fine.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 28% (5/18)

(I get to make a consensus: Notorious for its poor understanding of the character and melodramatic tones, the film mainly fails to live up to its much more profound source material. Reviewer Highlight: A Cotton-candy rendition of Scott Spencer’s powerful novel, Endless Love is a manipulative tale of a doomed romance which careens repeatedly between the credible and the ridiculous. – Variety Staff, Variety)

Poster – Endless Lurv

(I like it. I like the color, I like how creepy he looks. The literally endless Endless Love is maybe a bit on the nose, but otherwise it is a pretty solid poster for the film. A-.)

Tagline(s) – She is 15. He is 17. The love every parent fears. (B)

(I think it could have done without the first bit. I understand that part of the point is that she is far too young to be dealing with this obsessing young man … but I think the short and sweet “The love every parent fears” gets the point across while clashing with what otherwise might seem like a generic romance to work well.)

Keyword – obsessive love

Top 10: The Great Gatsby (2013), Batman (1989), Fear (1996), There’s Something About Mary (1998), Ghost (1990), The English Patient (1996), Fatal Attraction (1987), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), Walk the Line (2005), The Reader (2008)

Future BMT: 60.5 Obsessed (2009), 51.0 Eye of the Beholder (1999), 50.9 Mr. Wrong (1996), 37.3 Enough (2002), 36.0 Hush (1998), 33.3 Mad Love (1995), 32.4 The Crush (1993), 25.1 The Phantom of the Opera (1989), 24.0 To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday (1996), 23.0 A Thin Line Between Love and Hate (1996);

BMT: The Boy Next Door (2015), Swimfan (2002), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), The Roommate (2011), Perfect Stranger (2007)

(They’ve loved obsessive love in Hollywood for years. I think I’m most intrigued by eventually watching Obsessed, although I do believe Jamie has already seen that one.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 19) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Brooke Shields is No. 1 billed in Endless Love and No. 3 billed in Furry Vengeance, which also stars Brendan Fraser (No. 1 billed) who is in Escape from Planet Earth (No. 1 billed), which also stars Jessica Alba (No. 4 billed) who is in Mechanic: Resurrection (No. 2 billed), which also stars Jason Statham (No. 1 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 4 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 19. If we were to watch Extraordinary Measures we can get the HoE Number down to 14.

Notes – During the lovemaking scene, director Franco Zeffirelli squeezed Brooke Shields’ big toe off camera to provoke a reaction that would look like an orgasm. (Gross)

Movie debuts of Tom Cruise, Ian Ziering and Jami Gertz. (I don’t remember Ian Ziering)

Tom Cruise’s very brief appearance in the movie is critical to the movie’s plot. (I guess … )

Brooke Shields’ mother and manager Teri Shields nearly turned down the movie after first reading the script, as she felt the role of Jade Butterfield had no substance. She said “It was just going to be Brooke standing around looking beautiful.”

Martin Hewitt was the subject of a high profile talent search. Despite considerable media attention, his career failed to take off. Both Leonard Whiting and Graham Faulkner experienced similar career slumps after appearing in Romeo and Juliet (1968) and Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) for Franco Zeffirelli.

Meg Ryan auditioned for the role of Jade Butterfield before Brooke Shields was cast. (That could have been interesting)

The MPAA awarded the initial cut of the movie an X rating. Franco Zeffirelli subsequently made several cuts in the love scenes between Brooke Shields and Martin Hewitt to achieve a lower rating. The movie was resubmitted to the MPAA five times before they awarded this an R rating.

The movie was noted to have one of the most spectacular one-man stunt displays when Hugh Butterfield gets run over by a car in New York City. The stuntman does a high end-over-end flip in mid-air. (It is very impressive)

Awards – Nominee for the Oscar for Best Music, Original Song (Lionel Richie, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (Dyson Lovell, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Brooke Shields, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Shirley Knight, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Franco Zeffirelli, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Judith Rascoe, 1982)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst New Star (Martin Hewitt, 1982)

Message in a Bottle Preview

Jamie and Patrick stride down the street towards St. Mary’s Church, Jamie’s nose still buried deep in the book. “Why are we going anywhere?” whines Jamie, “This book is really heating up, the cyborg just took Communion.” Patrick ignored him. For all its lack of literary merit, the book does seem to be giving them clues. Taking a deep breath Patrick busts into the church, half expecting a couple of cyborgs ready for some hand-to-hand combat. Instead a lone priest stands shocked in the middle of the empty nave. His eyes become wide and he starts to stumble backwards. “Los diablos… los robots,” he is able to sputter before turning and fleeing out a side entrance. Well, they certainly seem to be on the right track. “Ahem,” they hear and wheel around, hands ready for karate. A woman leans back lazily in one of the pews. “So I guess it’s true,” she says, a smirk on her face, “los diablos came back looking for a fight. Don’t worry, I’m not here to fight you, so relax. I’m here to find out what the hell is going on with the Bad Movie Twins. The name’s Lindsey Appleton, hardscrabble investigative reporter… and I presume you two aren’t los diablos.” Jamie and Patrick shake their heads. When they ask what she’s found out so far, Lindsey shrugs and tosses them an object. “This was here when I arrived, but it’s addressed to you, so I assume you better be the ones to read it.” Jamie and Patrick look at what they hold in their hands… a bottle. But not just any bottle. This bottle has a message in it. When they pull it free it just has two words on it, “page 473,” and Jamie’s already flipping to that place in the book. That’s right! With a based-on-a-book series comes great responsibility… but also mostly reading Nicholas Sparks novels. We still have quite a number of them to get through so we thought we should start at the beginning. Not his first book but the first one that got adapted, Message in a Bottle. Let’s go! 

Message in a Bottle (1999) – BMeTric: 22.4; Notability: 40 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 30.4%; Notability: top 34.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 32.6% Higher BMeT: Baby Geniuses, Inspector Gadget, Universal Soldier: The Return, Wing Commander, Wild Wild West, The Haunting, Dudley Do-Right, Bats, The Rage: Carrie 2, Virus, The Mod Squad, The Bachelor, Breakfast of Champions, The Astronaut’s Wife, Eye of the Beholder, Superstar, My Favorite Martian, Random Hearts, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Simply Irresistible, and 32 more; Higher Notability: Wild Wild West, Inspector Gadget, The 13th Warrior, End of Days, My Favorite Martian, Snow Falling on Cedars, Idle Hands, Joan of Arc, The Haunting, The Story of Us, The Out-of-Towners, Crazy in Alabama, Double Jeopardy, Random Hearts, Instinct, Stigmata, Dudley Do-Right, In Too Deep, The General’s Daughter, The Other Sister, and 9 more; Lower RT: Baby Geniuses, The Mod Squad, Universal Soldier: The Return, Friends & Lovers, The Bachelor, Eye of the Beholder, Wing Commander, Chill Factor, Virus, Body Shots, End of Days, Jawbreaker, My Favorite Martian, The King and I, Lost & Found, Molly, Gloria, Idle Hands, Random Hearts, The Astronaut’s Wife and 42 more; Notes: Low BMeTric, but a surprisingly high Notability, especially since this is the first Nicholas Sparks film. Looking at this list mostly reminds me that we have a ton to do still as far as 1999 is concerned.

RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – “Message in a Bottle” is a tearjerker that strolls from crisis to crisis. It’s curiously muted, as if it fears that passion would tear its delicate fabric; even the fights are more in sorrow than in anger, and when there’s a fistfight, it doesn’t feel like a real fistfight–it feels more like someone thought the movie needed a fistfight ’round about then.

(That is pretty brutal. Ebert mentions later in the review that he hadn’t read the book, so indeed, he wouldn’t really know whether all of this makes sense with regards to the book, not like that really matters.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpb616fwYMk/

(I remember when this movie came out … and yet I don’t remember this trailer. Because I feel like I thought this was some Sleepless in Seattle, “lonely heart looking for love, going to do some silliness with a message in a bottle” story. But this is like “my wife died and I’m real sad, can you fix me, I’m a brooding and broken man” type story … somehow that is far less interesting than a story about a weirdo who thinks bottles in the ocean are a dating app or whatever.)

Directors – Luis Mandoki – (Known For: When a Man Loves a Woman; White Palace; Voces inocentes; La vida precoz y breve de Sabina Rivas; Gaby: A True Story; Future BMT: Angel Eyes; Born Yesterday; Trapped; BMT: Message in a Bottle; Notes: Gaby: A True Story was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. From Mexico City, he’s also made a few Documentaries, particularly about the 2006 election in Mexico.)

Writers – Nicholas Sparks (novel) – (Known For: The Notebook; Future BMT: The Last Song; Nights in Rodanthe; Dear John; The Lucky One; The Best of Me; The Longest Ride; BMT: Message in a Bottle; The Choice; Safe Haven; A Walk to Remember; Notes: It is just an incredible number of books he’s had made into films. Has twin daughters.)

Gerald Di Pego (screenplay) (as Gerald DiPego) – (Known For: Sharky’s Machine; Phenomenon; Words and Pictures; Little Murder; W; Future BMT: Angel Eyes; The Forgotten; Instinct; BMT: Message in a Bottle; Notes: Almost exclusively wrote television. Including an episode of Murder, She Wrote where Jessica probes a 20-year-old unsolved murder after attending the funeral of a New Orleans jazz great.)

Actors – Kevin Costner – (Known For: Let Him Go; Hidden Figures; Man of Steel; Molly’s Game; Dances with Wolves; The Untouchables; The Highwaymen; Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; Waterworld; JFK; No Way Out; Mr. Brooks; Field of Dreams; Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit; The Art of Racing in the Rain; Silverado; Open Range; Tin Cup; Draft Day; The Big Chill; Future BMT: Play It to the Bone; Dragonfly; 3 Days to Kill; Swing Vote; The Bodyguard; Criminal; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Revenge; Black or White; The War; BMT: Rumor Has It…; 3000 Miles to Graceland; The Postman; Message in a Bottle; The Guardian; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Director, and Worst Actor for The Postman in 1998; Winner for Worst Actor, and Worst Remake or Sequel for Wyatt Earp in 1995; Winner for Worst Actor for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in 1992; Nominee for Worst Actor in 1993 for The Bodyguard; in 1996 for Waterworld; in 2000 for For Love of the Game, and Message in a Bottle; and in 2002 for 3000 Miles to Graceland; Nominee for Worst Screen Couple in 1995 for Wyatt Earp; and in 2002 for 3000 Miles to Graceland; and Nominee for Worst Actor of the Century in 2000 for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Postman, The Postman, Waterworld, Waterworld, Wyatt Earp, and Wyatt Earp; Notes: Rumors are swirling that he might be leaving Yellowstone! I’ve never seen it, but I am always intrigued by westerns.)

Robin Wright – (Known For: Wonder Woman 1984; Wonder Woman; Forrest Gump; Blade Runner 2049; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; The Princess Bride; Everest; Moneyball; State of Play; Unbreakable; Adore; Beowulf; A Most Wanted Man; The Pledge; The Last Castle; White Oleander; A Christmas Carol; New York, I Love You; The Conspirator; State of Grace; Future BMT: Toys; Justice League; BMT: Message in a Bottle; Notes: Won a Golden Globe for House of Cards. Her career started on the Soap Opera Santa Barbara. Was married to Sean Penn for nearly 15 years.)

Paul Newman – (Known For: Cars; Cool Hand Luke; Road to Perdition; The Towering Inferno; The Sting; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; Slap Shot; The Verdict; The Color of Money; Nobody’s Fool; The Hustler; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; Hud; The Hudsucker Proxy; Exodus; Twilight; Hombre; What a Way to Go!; Torn Curtain; Silent Movie; Future BMT: When Time Ran Out…; Harry & Son; BMT: Message in a Bottle; Notes: Was married to his second wife for 50 years prior to his death. Won an Oscar for The Color of Money, and then started a salad dressing company which was non-profit and donated all profits to charity. It has apparently raised over $550 million for charity.)

Budget/Gross – $80,000,000 / Domestic: $52,880,016 (Worldwide: $118,880,016)

(Amazingly terrible performance if the budget is to be believed. I guess a Kevin Costner rom com would have been looking for $100 million at the time? So yeah, it didn’t really do great overall I guess.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 32% (12/38): Handsome-looking but dramatically inert, Message in a Bottle maroons a formidable cast in a trite romance that lacks spark.

(But it doesn’t lack Nicholas Sparks (da dum chhhhhh). Reviewer Highlight: Adapted from Nicholas Sparks’ 1998 best-seller, ”Message in a Bottle” isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s a true all-stops-out gusher, the sort of solemn contemporary hankie-fest in which a sweet, smart, lonely-at-the-core professional woman … proceeds to fall for the Last Romantic Man. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)

Poster – Sad Love 2: Even Sadder

(I mean, that poster is getting butts in seats, let’s not get it twisted. It does its job and I suspect it does it well. But couldn’t get a little better with the font? I’m gonna come in at a B. Like the overall sunset orange color tone as well.)

Tagline(s) – A story of love lost and found. (B-)

(I can see what they were going for. Not totally terrible, weaving in “Lost and Found” into the tagline along with “Love Lost”. So kind of a twist of two common phrases. Not clever enough though and a little clunky.)

Keyword – based on novel

Top 10: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Goodfellas (1990), Forrest Gump (1994), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Jojo Rabbit (2019), Emma. (2020), Homefront (2013), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), The Invisible Man (2020)

Future BMT: 72.2 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), 47.5 The Dark Tower (2017), 43.8 Priest (2011), 43.6 Allegiant (2016), 43.4 The Rhythm Section (2020), 42.2 Pan (2015), 41.3 Addicted (2014), 40.8 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), 40.8 Ben-Hur (2016), 39.7 Eat Pray Love (2010);

BMT: After (2019), Dolittle (2020), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Hunter Killer (2018), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), The 5th Wave (2016), The Three Musketeers (2011), Striptease (1996), The Circle (2017), Warcraft: The Beginning (2016), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), Death Wish (2018), A Walk to Remember (2002), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), The Choice (2016), Conan the Barbarian (2011), Kiss the Girls (1997), Jumper (2008), The Snowman (2017), The Host (2013), Something Borrowed (2011), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Mortdecai (2015), Eragon (2006), I Am Number Four (2011), Vampire Academy (2014), Dragonball Evolution (2009), The 13th Warrior (1999), Poseidon (2006), Seventh Son (2014), Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), The Postman (1997), The Haunting (1999)

(Looks to be in that last little wave of the 90s just prior to when they started making a ton of YA adaptations and things like Harry Potter, and instead they were harkening back to when you picked a wall-liked book and made a straight adaptation from the material (without sequels in mind).)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Kevin Costner is No. 1 billed in Message in a Bottle and No. 2 billed in 3000 Miles to Graceland, which also stars Kurt Russell (No. 1 billed) who is in Tango and Cash (No. 2 billed), which also stars Sylvester Stallone (No. 1 billed) who is in Expendables 3 (No. 1 billed), which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 4 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 16. If we were to watch Toys, Jack, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 14.

Notes – After the scene where Kevin Costner gets involved in a fight, his lip is bleeding. He puts his hand to it and looks at the blood. This was not part of the script. Another actor, Steve Mellor (Man on Dock) was scripted to pull Costner away from the fight from behind. When Mellor’s arms came around, he accidentally gave Costner a bloody lip. After the take, Mellor apologized to Costner for the accident. Costner said not to worry about it; that he ended up turning it into something. And, in fact, the director ended up using that shot. (fun fact)

This is the 1st film adaptation from a Nicholas Sparks novel.

The sites that were finally chosen for most of the shooting of the scenes of Garret’s hometown were Northport and Popham Beach, Maine. Over $250,000. of renovations were done to the seasonal home in Popham that became Garret’s house, including the addition of the room which held Catherine’s artwork and the adjacent living room with fireplace (faux). At the end of filming the owner of the house demanded that it be returned to its original state costing the production company nearly as much to undo. (Ha!)

The producers originally planned to film on Tangier Island, Virginia, USA, but some members of the town council objected to the drinking, cursing and sex in the movie and demanded script revisions in exchange for shooting permission. Warner Brothers then tried Martha’s Vineyard near Chilmark, Massachusetts, USA, but the Chilmark Conservation Commission turned down a request to build a temporary 3,000-square-foot house on stilts in the dunes near Chilmark Pond. (They would, that is an incredibly irresponsible thing to do. Think about the poor Piping Plovers you lunatics!!)

This movie is set in North Carolina, but at the end of the movie when Dodge is brought to Garrets boat the Game Wardens sleeve patches have the state of Maine Logo. (Huuuuuuuge error!)

The painting in Catherine’s studio that Dodge carried outside during Garrett’s encounter with Catherine’s brother is “Girl With Lantern” by the American impressionist painter Helen Maria Turner. The painting, which was produced in 1904, is housed in the Greenville Museum of Art in Greenville, South Carolina, USA.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Kevin Costner, 2000)

Hall of Fame Speech #23: Silent Hill: Revelation

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. You know, now that I think about it, Silent Hill: Revelations is pretty close to Here on Earth. Just replace Kelley with Kit and Samantha with Adelaide. Then all you need is Pyramid Head as our Jasper and it’s basically the same movie. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for Silent Hill: Revelation

Way back when, Patrick and I ended up together at a conference on Halloween as the remnants of Hurricane Sandy ripped through Pittsburgh… now that’s a setting worthy of a BMT film! We couldn’t let such a fortuitous occurrence pass us by so we obviously caught a taxi to the nearest showing of Silent Hill: Revelation tout de suite. It was a sequel to a film we had never seen, but back then that really didn’t stop us. When we arrived at the theater we were horrified not by the horror film we were promised, but rather that the doors of the theater were locked. A teenage tickettaker came to the door to let us know that since it was Halloween and a hurricane was rolling through they decided to close early! The hooligans! Probably had plans to do some underage drinking at our expense. Dismayed we found our way to a smoke-filled locals bar and crushed a couple Iron City Lights while watching Halloween 4 on mute. It was a night to remember and it took us almost three years after that to finally watch the film and realize what a theatrical experience we missed. Gah! Kids these days. 

It has been five years since we watched the film. But what do I remember?

  • Uh, the above story will live forever in my dreams and my nightmares. The greatest thing about it is just how specific it is to a particular time. Halloween, Hurricane Sandy, Silent Hill: Revelation. It’s really in itself an A+ setting BMT experience. I will treasure it always.
  • The visuals are nothing short of laughable. When I finally did settle down to watch the film in 2015 I think I probably went into it fearing it would be boring… basically not crazy in that Wicker Man kind of way to have significant BMT legs. I was kinda right and wrong. The film is certainly not crazy, but it’s also not boring because the visual effects, both practical and computer generated, are so laughable that I couldn’t believe my eyes. One second you are staring at a man wrapped in cellophane while a pyramid-headed monster in a latex bodysuit turns a carousel, the next second the world melts in a CGI mess made for the late stages of the 3D film boom. It’s like they couldn’t decide whether to make terrible practical or CGI effects so they said why not both?
  • There was something about Pyramid Head, the recurring demon from the video game series… but I honestly can’t remember. There was something about him that we loved and made us scream “Pyramid Head!” while we watched the film… oh well, guess I’ll find out on the rewatch.
  • Really the only other thing I remember is that this was peak BMT Kit Harington. We had already partook in his star turn in Pompeii as a BMT Live! Then we basically watched this and Seventh Son back-to-back the next year. Man, if we had seen our boy Kit on the big screen in 2012 who knows how different our lives could have been.

Now one would think that the Great Silent Hill Revelation Adventure of 2012 starring Halloween and Hurricane Sandy would be the most important thing about this film, but really I think it is the visuals. The reason being is that I think the visuals help tell a story of how this became a somewhat unique and singular BMT horror experience (and not just a story that ends with us crushing Iron City Lights). You have to remember where this film fits in the history of the 3D filmmaking fad. We are basically just at saturation and along comes an exposition heavy, video game horror film (already behind the 8 ball when it comes to the scares) and they pop that visual gimmick right on top of it for no reason. No wonder it comes off like a not scary cheesefest. It… looks… ridiculous. And thinking about it, that’s not as common as you’d think for our BMT horror films. Sure you might have your late Hellraisers that start to look a little funky, but in large part horror films are made on shoestring budgets and lean more on atmosphere, jump scares, and gore than visual pizzazz. Leave that to fantasy films… and that’s what really sets it apart: they never seemed to realize they were making a horror film. As a result you actively laugh at it. It is literally never scary.

How did the rewatch go? Pretty much as great as I expected. Everything I remembered was accurate (minus the smoke filled bar on the outskirts of Pittsburgh). This is one of the least scary horror films in history (depending on whether you think Lawnmower Man 2 is a horror film) and it boils down to the effects. In a hilarious turn, Pyramid Head plays the Rexy to Silent Hill’s Jurassic Park and against all odds becomes the demonic protector/hero of the film. Pyramid Head!!!! But I do think there are several things I forgot from that first experience. In particular, the accents, which are off the hook, and just how close this got to straight-to-video territory. Let’s get into it.

Everyone in this film is American… you can be forgiven for forgetting that as we have an Australian actress and two Brits filling out the top three roles and their accents range from “is she Australian?” to “did Kit Harington spring fully formed from the grounds of Eton never before having heard an American talk?”. I can forgive Adelaide Clemens and Sean Bean to some extent. Their accents are bad but seriously they ain’t got shit on what Kit Harington pulls out. It seems to be some modern twist on the transatlantic accent. By the middle of the film when it is finally revealed that he grew up in Silent Hill your brain can at least rationalize what you are hearing as some West Virginia dialect that exists only in Silent Hill. Saved by the twist, Kit, and the fact that they cast noted thespian Malcolm McDowell as your grand papa.

Speaking of McDowell, there is a moment when Sharon first gets to Silent Hill where they start churning through some exposition where I thought, hmmm, you know what? This story isn’t half bad. It’s a mix of a chosen one prophecy/rosemary’s baby type thing and, while not scary in the least bit, it’s a little interesting. Then they had a visually pleasing demonic nurse scene and I was starting to be like, wait, did I misremember how bad this movie is? But then enter Malcolm McDowell. The man of a thousand straight-to-video releases, who never saw a script he said no to, crashes into this film like a Malcolm McDowell in a china shop. Basically from that point on they may as well have already thrown the film into the bargain bin. 

So let’s summarize. We have a totally not scary horror film filled with terrible accents by actors young and old. The mishmash of visual effects and poor 3D rendering make every second a laughfest, while Malcolm McDowell hams it up in a scene he could have shot in four hours. And in a beautiful climax Pyramid Head plays the Rexy to our Jurassic Park(s) and lops off everyone’s heads to save the day… but other than that, pretty good. Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Silent Hill: Revelation.

Silent Hill: Revelation Preview

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. But other people might just say we want to watch Kit Harington struggle with an American accent while being chased by Triangle Head. Enjoy!

Silent Hill: Revelation (2012) – BMeTric: 65.6; Notability: 30 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 2.8%; Notability: top 46.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 4.1% Higher BMeT: Piranha 3DD, LOL, The Devil Inside, Paranormal Activity 4, The Apparition, ATM, Chernobyl Diaries; Higher Notability: Battleship, Red Tails, This Means War, Dark Shadows, Total Recall, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Red Dawn, Wrath of the Titans, Resident Evil: Retribution, The ABCs of Death, Man on a Ledge, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike, The Watch, Underworld: Awakening, Girl Most Likely, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, The Babymakers, Gambit, and 10 more; Lower RT: One for the Money, The Apparition, Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike, Playing for Keeps, The Cold Light of Day, The Devil Inside, So Undercover, Fire with Fire, The Babymakers; Notes: Sitting around 5.0 with that many votes is pretty impressive.I think the BMeTric is the most impressive as far as cred. Obviously also a notably bad video game film.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  When her father (Bean) disappears, teenager Clemens and a high school friend (Harington) enter a mysterious town of Silent Hill, which she’s been warned about It’s the gateway to a bunch of weird other dimensions (or something) with monstrous beings calore … and it has something to do with her past. Colorful but drab, lots of visual effects but boring, and never scary. This sequel is a waste of time. Based on the video game.

(Wow, these days when I can just snap up Ebert review semi-automatically, the Maltin review is a rare treat. And to hit a BOMB with one? That is a great time. Maltin notoriously doesn’t like horror films, so for him to say it isn’t scary is something indeed.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f06VJSsh8II/

(It is incredible … you can tell that Kit Harington has a terrible accent in the trailer. In the absolute most important scenes he just sounds vaguely Welsh or something (which I suppose is what might happen when a British person does a terrible American accent). In a way it looks really cool … but it also looks cheesy because you know once you are watching it it’ll just be laughable.)

Directors – M.J. Bassett – (Known For: Rogue; Solomon Kane; Future BMT: Deathwatch; Wilderness; BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Notes: His commercial career is almost entirely horror (and not a lot of television as well). He started out as a wildlife photographer and documentary maker before breaking out with Deathwatch.)

Writers – M.J. Bassett (written by) (as Michael J. Bassett) – (Known For: Rogue; Solomon Kane; Future BMT: Deathwatch; BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Notes: Writes most of what he directed, including Rogue, which, by the way, stars Megan Fox of all people.)

Laurent Hadida (adapted by) – (BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Notes: The only thing he is credited as writing. He seems to mostly be a producer, so I would guess he helped with translating Silent Hill 3 into a screenplay and did just enough to warrant a credit.)

Hiroyuki Owaku (story “Silent Hill 3”) (uncredited) – (BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Notes: Was involved in Silent Hill 2, 3, and 4. I’m actually a bit surprised that there were really only ever four numbered titles in that series.)

Keiichiro Toyama (video games) (uncredited) – (BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Notes: Also worked on Silent Hill, although it seems like he is not more heavily involved in a series called Gravity Rush.)

Actors – Adelaide Clemens – (Known For: The Great Gatsby; No One Lives; To the Stars; The World Made Straight; Wasted on the Young; The Automatic Hate; Future BMT: Generation Um…; Certainty; BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Notes: Australian. Currently she is in the Edie Falco series Tommy.)

Kit Harington – (Known For: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Brimstone; Testament of Youth; Spooks: The Greater Good; Future BMT: The Death and Life of John F. Donovan; BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Pompeii; Seventh Son; Notes: Looks like he’s involved in the upcoming Eternals film for the MCU, so he’s transitioning to the big time.)

Sean Bean – (Known For: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; Wolfwalkers; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; Possessor; Troy; The Martian; GoldenEye; National Treasure; Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief; Ronin; Patriot Games; Mirror Mirror; Equilibrium; The Field; North Country; Black Beauty; Black Death; Dark River; Caravaggio; Future BMT: Soldiers of Fortune; The Hitcher; Outlaw; Drone; Flightplan; Don’t Say a Word; Essex Boys; Anna Karenina; The Island; Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV; BMT: Silent Hill: Revelation; Jupiter Ascending; Pixels; Silent Hill; Notes: A voice in Wolfwalkers which is the hot new animated film of 2020. Famously dies in a huge number of the films he appears in and currently is in the Snowpiercer television show.)

Budget/Gross – $20,000,000 / Domestic: $17,529,157 (Worldwide: $55,362,705)

(Not bad. Whoever took over the franchise made a correct choice. The original made about twice as much on twice the budget, but I think this is more definitely near a break-even point all things considered. Horror is meant for low budget to get that risk-reward going.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 10% (6/60): Mediocre effort even by the standards of video game adaptations, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D features weak characters and an incomprehensible plot with a shortage of scares.

(Brutal consensus. “Bad even for a video game film” isn’t what you want when there have basically never been a good video game film ever. Reviewer Highlight: It confirms once again that with the notable exception of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, a film that feels like a videogame is never a positive development. – Nathan Rabin, AV Club)

Poster – Silent Sklog: Revolutionaries in Smell-O-Vision

(So I’m of two minds here. On the one hand I love the unique perspective, the unique custom font, and the contrasting fire vs. ghoulish green coloring. On the other, the 3D-ness of it makes it feel dated, it is really busy, and it just looks like a movie I don’t want to watch. I’m going to go with a straight B because I have garbage taste maybe? Something about it says I like it, I guess because it is really unique.)

Tagline(s) – This Halloween prepare for a 3D ride through hell. (F)

(This though I hate. You could write this about any horror film that comes out in October basically (as long as it’s in 3D I suppose). Like, why ride? Why not something more video game-y? This tagline feels more Haunted Mansion, not Silent Hill.)

Keyword – alternate reality

Top 10: Tenet (2020), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Interstellar (2014), Inception (2010), The Matrix (1999), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Watchmen (2009), Groundhog Day (1993), The Golden Compass (2007), Doctor Strange (2016)

Future BMT: 61.6 Soul Survivors (2001), 54.8 Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), 51.1 Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010), 40.8 The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), 38.9 House II: The Second Story (1987), 36.5 The One (2001), 36.0 Premonition (2007), 31.7 White Man’s Burden (1995), 30.4 Arthur and the Invisibles (2006), 30.1 Mirrors (2008);

BMT: Howard: A New Breed of Hero (1986), Sucker Punch (2011), Event Horizon (1997), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Flatliners (2017), Cool World (1992), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997), Silent Hill: Revelation (2012), Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012), A Sound of Thunder (2005), Alex & Emma (2003)

(For real though, they really did seem to like alternative realities in 2010 didn’t they? Must have been when CGI was cheap and they could do full CGI monsters adequately or something. I’m excited for the Resident Evil series eventually, which we always put off because, you know, it is six movies.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Deborah Kara Unger is No. 7 billed in Silent Hill: Revelation and No. 6 billed in 88 Minutes, which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 7 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 17. If we were to watch Suspect Zero, and The Black Dahlia we can get the HoE Number down to 13.

Notes – Red Pyramid is a full body costume that was blended at Roberto Campanella wrists, requiring only 25 minutes of preparation for each scene, as opposed to the three hours it took in the first film.

For the scene of the goldfish “dying”, the crew placed the fish in specially prepared water that would cause the animals to fall asleep, creating the appearance of a dying animal without actually causing them any harm. (cool)

Kit Harington admitted trying to play the Silent Hill games for research but quit because they were too scary for him.

When it came time to work with Carrie-Anne Moss, an unexpected dynamic occurred on set between her and the lead Adelaide Clemens. At base camp, Moss was pleasant in her conversations with Clemens, but once they both arrived on set, Moss changed. As Adelaide Clemens describes, “She ceased any contact and kept a two meter distance from me. I did not fully realize this distancing until we started shooting; she came over and put her hand on my chin and I’ve never felt a more intense invasion of personal space. I just shuddered. It was fascinating and powerful.”

All the monsters in the film, with the exception of the Mannequin Spider which was completely CGI, were practical effects done on set with stunt performers portraying the creatures. The creatures would later be enhanced with CGI effects.

After the release of the film, Bassett apologized to any fans disappointed with the film on his blog and has remained uninvolved in the Silent Hill series since then.

Roger Avary was originally set to write the film and had actually begun writing a draft when he was sent to jail for gross vehicular manslaughter and two felony counts of causing bodily injury while intoxicated. The film was then delayed until the studio hired M.J. Bassett in Fall 2010 to write and direct. (For those curious he did eventually serve a year in jail, and appears to have just begun getting movies made again)

Konami’s marketing for the film in Japan included a special ramen to tie in with the theatrical release.

The first film had underperformed below expectations at the box office (grossing only $99 million against a $50 million budget) and received generally negative reviews, leading Sony to sell the sequel rights to Universal and a reduced budget of $20 million.

M.J. Bassett stated in a interview at New York Comic-Con that due to shooting in 3D he was not able to use hand-held camera or Steadycam.

One of the very few mainstream films where the character of Sean Bean does not die (although he does die in a dream).

The mannequin storeroom scene happened earlier in the script, occurring immediately after Douglas is killed by the Missionary. This makes more sense because the mannequin storeroom is in the mall.

The Rite Preview

The half-cyborg robot from the past looks quizzically at the latest gadget: the mp3 player. “Beep boop beep boop kids these days,” it says as it puts on a walkman and pops in its “Tunes to Kill By” mixed tape.

Patrick massages his head. The book is inane… “I don’t get it,” says Jamie quizzically, “were they trying to make a bad book or the raddest books, cause I’m digging this dope bot (as the kids say).” As the unofficial king of YA lit and the creator of the mega swamp monster revival, Patrick is embarrassed and yet unsurprised by Jamie’s lack of literary sense. Whoever wrote this book knew what bad media was all about. It’s almost… like… “they were born there,” he mutters. “What?” asks Jamie, looking up from the Rich and Poe book, “I didn’t catch that. The half-cyborg just started playing electric guitar with his leg..” My god, four chapters in and the cyborg still hasn’t left its apartment! “No dummy,” Patrick says, shaking his head, “the authors. There is no way they could make a book like this without being immersed in bad media. I think these imposters were born in the BMTverse. Or maybe even the Z-movie universe.” This is going to be tougher than either of them thought. How can they find two people who never even existed in this world? “Keep reading,” suggests Patrick, stumped. The book may be their only chance to find any clues.

As the half-cyborg finishes describing the perfect method for whittling a whistle there is a knock at the door. The robot cracks its knuckles. Could be some dweebs. When he opens it there stands his steamy neighbor, Mary. (“this should be good”, thinks Patrick) “Time for church, Cyborg,” she says (Gah!) That’s right! We’re watching The Rite. Now you might be thinking “why would you watch The Rite, a movie that no one remembers coming out?” That’s because believe it or not it’s the 10th (!) anniversary of us starting to watch bad movies. At the time we started, this film was out in theaters and happens to be based on a book. What a coincidence and happy anniversary to us. Let’s go!

The Rite (2011) – BMeTric: 33.2; Notability: 31 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 35.6%; Notability: top 50.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 15.7% Higher BMeT: Jack and Jill, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, Shark Night 3D, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, The Roommate, Abduction, Conan the Barbarian, I Don’t Know How She Does It, Zookeeper, Apollo 18, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, The Dilemma, Trespass, Season of the Witch, The Smurfs, The Son of No One, Green Lantern, The Resident, and 29 more; Higher Notability: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Green Lantern, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Cars 2, Jack and Jill, Battle: Los Angeles, Hop, New Year’s Eve, Your Highness, The Smurfs, Immortals, In Time, Red Riding Hood, Johnny English Reborn, I Am Number Four, The Hangover Part II, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, Larry Crowne, Priest, and 26 more; Lower RT: Jack and Jill, The Roommate, A Little Bit of Heaven, Beneath the Darkness, Hick, Abduction, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, Dream House, New Year’s Eve, The Reunion, Trespass, Red Riding Hood, Season of the Witch, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, Atlas Shrugged: Part I, The Moth Diaries, Zookeeper, The Ledge, Something Borrowed, Priest and 14 more; Notes: This is a decent test here, because by both BMeTric and Notability this is kind of meh, but it was one of the worst reviewed of that year … kind of seems like it is just going to be boring though. Even the IMDb rating isn’t as bad as most of the films we’ve been doing recently.

RogerEbert.com – 3.0 stars – This is I suspect a more realistic film than “The Exorcist,” although not its equal. The real Father Gary Thomas has cited “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” (2005) as more accurate. I admire “The Rite” because while it delivers what I suppose should be called horror, it is atmospheric, its cinematography is eerie and evocative, and the actors enrich it. It has given some thought to exorcism. Grant its assumptions, and it has something to say.

(Hinteresting. Not typical you’ll see Ebert go this far from the rest of the critics. It is an interesting points about the film though. Most people thought it was dull. Ebert grants that, but being somewhat dull is forgivable since at least it has a raison d’etre. Makes sense.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hG3ktopqv8/

(Ha! The opening. Someone said they were going to do something ludicrous, The Vatican denied it … that must mean there is a ton of truth to it! I think as long as the film doesn’t pretend exorcisms and possessions are real I’m going to be kind of peachy keen with it. If it does though, I’ll probably end up having a problem.)

Directors – Mikael Håfström – (Known For: Escape Plan; 1408; Evil; Future BMT: Outside the Wire; Derailed; Shanghai; BMT: The Rite; Notes: Swedish, he wrote and directed mostly in Sweden until the 00s when he transitioned to Hollywood. He directs mostly television now.)

Writers – Michael Petroni (written by) – (Known For: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Book Thief; The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys; Future BMT: Backtrack; Till Human Voices Wake Us; BMT: Queen of the Damned; The Rite; Notes: He’s written a few different possession films. He also seemed to make good money adapting books with religious themes into films.)

Matt Baglio (book) (suggestion) – (BMT: The Rite; Notes: He has basically just does a few exorcism things as far as Hollywood is concerned. It seems likely that the female journalist in the film is supposed to be him, while Colin O’Donoghue is Gary Thomas.)

Actors – Colin O’Donoghue – (Known For: Carrie Pilby; Storage 24; What Still Remains; BMT: The Rite; Notes: Played Captain Hook in Once Upon a Time. Is Irish and was the guitarist for the band The Enemies, but had to quit to pursue acting full time.)

Anthony Hopkins – (Known For: Thor: Ragnarok; The Silence of the Lambs; Thor; The Father; How the Grinch Stole Christmas; A Bridge Too Far; Thor: The Dark World; Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Meet Joe Black; Legends of the Fall; Red Dragon; The Elephant Man; Mission: Impossible II; The Two Popes; Chaplin; Noah; Fracture; RED 2; Beowulf; The Mask of Zorro; Future BMT: Alexander; Misconduct; Freejack; Go with Me; The Wolfman; Slipstream; Desperate Hours; Collide; Kidnapping Freddy Heineken; All the King’s Men; 360; Solace; Instinct; The Innocent; Surviving Picasso; The Trial; Hannibal; The City of Your Final Destination; August; BMT: Transformers: The Last Knight; Bad Company; The Rite; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor for A Change of Seasons in 1981; and Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor in 2018 for Collide, and Transformers: The Last Knight; Notes: Y’all know Anthony Hopkins. Good news for him, he just got the Covid-19 vaccine!)

Ciarán Hinds – (Known For: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2; Red Sparrow; There Will Be Blood; First Man; Frozen; Frozen 2; Munich; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Silence; In Bruges; Road to Perdition; John Carter; Miami Vice; Excalibur; The Woman in Black; The Sum of All Fears; Race to Witch Mountain; The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover; The Debt; Bleed for This; Future BMT: Mary Reilly; Salvation Boulevard; The Weight of Water; Justice League; McCanick; The Statement; The Tiger’s Tail; The Nativity Story; The Phantom of the Opera; BMT: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance; Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life; Hitman: Agent 47; The Rite; Notes: From Northern Ireland. Apparently is a close friend of Liam Neeson.)

Budget/Gross – $37,000,000 / Domestic: $33,047,633 (Worldwide: $96,560,591)

(Borderline. I’m kind of surprised it made more money internationally … is there be big religious / exorcism market outside of the US? I could believe it.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 21% (37/173): Anthony Hopkins is as excellent as ever, but he’s no match for The Rite’s dawdling pace and lack of chills — or Colin O’Donoghue’s tentative performance in the leading role.

(Hmmm, too bad, because I don’t think you could really do this film with anything but an unknown in the lead role. It needs that balance with Hopkins do there isn’t a competition basically. Reviewer Highlight: The Rite commits the supreme sin of making the devil dull. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly)

Poster – That’s Rite!

(A yes, nothing gets the butts in the seats like a giant poster of Anthony Hopkins’ face. The Elephant Man himself. The box office draw of Hearts of Atlantis. Anyway, I do like a lot about this poster… but the size of Hopkins’ face is making me uncomfortable. B.)

Tagline(s) – You can only defeat it when you believe. (C-)

(That is more or less the plot of the book. It basically lays out the argument for why demonic possession is real this way: how could it not be real if so many people believe in it… so faith basically. And yes, you can only defeat it by believing in it because otherwise there isn’t anything to defeat in the first place. Bravo. The tagline is confusing and doesn’t sound right in my ears. But it’s just boring, not offensive.)

Keyword – based on book

Top 10: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Ready Player One (2018), Goodfellas (1990), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Forrest Gump (1994), Le Mans ’66 (2019), A Simple Favour (2018), Fight Club (1999), Die Hard (1988), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Future BMT: 65.2 The Turning (2020), 56.5 Snow Dogs (2002), 55.9 The Stepford Wives (2004), 53.1 Hanging Up (2000), 49.7 Abandon (2002), 44.3 Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000), 42.1 Village of the Damned (1995), 39.1 Krippendorf’s Tribe (1998), 38.0 Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (2011), 37.0 Deal of the Century (1983);

BMT: Something Borrowed (2011), Striptease (1996), Eragon (2006), Cocktail (1988), Kiss the Girls (1997), Gangster Squad (2013), What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), The Rite (2011), Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001), Deadly Friend (1986), I Dreamed of Africa (2000)

(Below average notability for a based on a book film. I think this is the lesser of the two keywords (the other being Based on a Novel). Here, obviously, we have a great future film in Krippendorf’s Tribe … yeah that film is a load of shit.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Ciarán Hinds is No. 5 billed in The Rite and No. 2 billed in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 5 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 1 = 15. If we were to watch Instinct, and Pearl Harbor we can get the HoE Number down to 13.

Notes – Mikael Håfström attended exorcisms to prepare for directing this movie. He was not allowed to witness them, but he could hear what was happening from outside the door. (… alright then)

The language Istvan Kovak (Rutger Hauer) speaks is Hungarian. It can be translated as: “My love, my flower, my bliss.”

Shipped to theaters under the code name “Denial”.

Alice Braga (Angeline) is the niece of Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)).

The film is based off a book, which centres around real-life priest Father Gary Thomas from California. He was tasked by his bishop to become the diocesan exorcist and so was sent to Rome to learn how to do it.

The writing on Father Lucas Trevant’s (Sir Anthony Hopkins’) wall (“Fi sydd biau fe nawr”) is Welsh (just like Hopkins), and translates to “He belongs to me now”.

The image used to describe the demon Baal is usually that of a man, a cat, a toad, or a combination of all of them. Father Lucas Trevant’s (Sir Anthony Hopkins’) house is infested with cats, as well as toads in the fountain.

The Legend of Hercules Preview

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. Well, nothing says “I’m a producer and I have no idea what I’m doing” like making a film starring Kellen Lutz. Enjoy!

The Legend of Hercules (2014) – BMeTric: 83.1; Notability: 33 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.4%; Notability: top 38.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.4% Higher BMeT: Left Behind; Higher Notability: Transformers: Age of Extinction, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Exodus: Gods and Kings, A Million Ways to Die in the West, Dracula Untold, Transcendence, Think Like a Man Too, Dumb and Dumber To, Annie, The Monuments Men, A New York Winter’s Tale, Horrible Bosses 2, Ride Along, The Expendables 3, Need for Speed, Men, Women & Children, Walk of Shame, Lessons in Love, Vampire Academy, Blended, and 6 more; Lower RT: Left Behind; Notes: Absurdly low IMDb rating for that number of votes. It is crazy that anything beat it at all, congrats to Let Behind I guess. This is definitely in that same small-but-terrible camp that seems to just churn out Hall of Fame films in the mid-2010s.

RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – It may or may not be a good thing that summer will bring a second attempt at reviving Hercules on the big screen with Dwayne Johnson in the lead and directed by Brett Ratner. But with the bar set this low, surely the performer formerly known as The Rock doesn’t have to strain himself too hard to pump up the entertainment value.

(It is pretty funny that both of these movies came out, and both were bad. Shockingly the one with The Rock isn’t even close to good, and thus it has been completely forgotten. The complete catastrophe that is this film didn’t really help with that.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GMzQwO2l0/

(Holy crap, this looks like such a load of crap. I … just don’t understand. They really don’t make films like this anymore. Hell, they barely made films like this in 2014! This feels like a movie some guy who got rich buying up real estate in 2007 would make before going bankrupt.)

Directors – Renny Harlin – (Known For: Die Hard 2; Deep Blue Sea; The Long Kiss Goodnight; Cliffhanger; The Dyatlov Pass Incident; A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master; Prison; Bodies at Rest; Future BMT: Exorcist: The Beginning; 12 Rounds; Cutthroat Island; 5 Days of War; Skiptrace; Cleaner; Mindhunters; The Adventures of Ford Fairlane; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Driven; The Covenant; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director in 1991 for The Adventures of Ford Fairlane; in 1996 for Cutthroat Island; in 2002 for Driven; in 2005 for Exorcist: The Beginning; and in 2015 for The Legend of Hercules; Notes: Finnish, and is probably the most successful Finnish director in Hollywood history. Was married to Gena Davis for five years.)

Writers – Sean Hood (screenplay) – (Known For: Cube 2: Hypercube; Future BMT: Halloween: Resurrection; The Crow: Wicked Prayer; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Conan the Barbarian; Notes: Claims to have retired from screenwriting in 2018, but has an announced television series, so perhaps it is just that he is no longer pursuing feature films.)

Daniel Giat (screenplay) – (BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Notes: Nominated for two Emmys for Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Path to War.)

Renny Harlin (screenplay) – (Known For: Prison; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Director in 1991 for The Adventures of Ford Fairlane; in 1996 for Cutthroat Island; in 2002 for Driven; in 2005 for Exorcist: The Beginning; and in 2015 for The Legend of Hercules; Notes: Only wrote a few films including Born American starring Chuck Norris’s son Mike Norris.)

Giulio Steve (screenplay) – (BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Notes: A very prolific Italian producer … I have to imagine this has something to do with cheap production in Europe in some capacity.)

Actors – Kellan Lutz – (Known For: Twilight; Immortals; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse; What Men Want; Science Fiction Volume One: The Osiris Child; Experimenter; Future BMT: Prom Night; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1; Extraction; A Nightmare on Elm Street; Tarzan; Love, Wedding, Marriage; Guardians of the Tomb; Speed Kills; Java Heat; Syrup; A Warrior’s Heart; Accepted; Stick It; As Blood Runs Deep; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; The Twilight Saga: New Moon; The Expendables 3; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor, and Worst Screen Combo for The Legend of Hercules in 2015; Notes: Naturally started his film career as a model. He was born in North Dakota and moved to Hollywood originally to attend Chapman University to study Chemical Engineering (what what). He dropped out to pursue acting.)

Gaia Weiss – (Known For: Judy; We Are Boats; Future BMT: Overdrive; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actress for The Legend of Hercules in 2015; Notes: French. Originally trained as a professional ballerina.)Scott Adkins – (Known For: Zero Dark Thirty; Doctor Strange; The Bourne Ultimatum; Yip Man 4; The Expendables 2; Triple Threat; Avengement; Unleashed; Accident Man; Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning; Ninja: Shadow of a Tear; Close Range; Savage Dog; Future BMT: The Pink Panther; The Accidental Spy; Grimsby; American Assassin; Criminal; Dead Reckoning; BMT: The Legend of Hercules; The Medallion; X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Notes: Trained in Taekwondo, Kickboxing, Ninjutsu, Krav Maga, Karate, Wushu, Jiujitsu, Muay Thai, Capoeira and Acrobatic Gymnastics. Dat’s a lotta martial arts.)

Budget/Gross – $70,000,000 / Domestic: $18,848,538 (Worldwide: $61,279,452)

(Woof. Who thought a Kellen Lutz film was going to gross like $140 million dollars? In what universe was this going to ever make enough money to be worth it. It just doesn’t make any sense. Is this one of the biggest bombs of 2014?)

Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (4/83): Cheap-looking, poorly acted, and dull, The Legend of Hercules is neither fun enough to qualify as an action movie nor absorbing enough to work on a dramatic level.

(I don’t think they were ever thinking of the drama angle to this stuff. What they were hoping for was maybe Kellen Lutz mugging for the camera while rock music played .. or something. Who knows. Reviewer Highlight: The dialogue isn’t dubbed, but is written and delivered so indifferently that it might as well have been. – Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club)

Poster – The Legend of Smirk-ules

(It is definitely of the time. I personally don’t like the blue-toned “grittiness” of posters which I think were popular at the time. I think the weirdest bit of the poster is that it is just a full picture of Kellen Lutz … and yet his name isn’t on the poster. They are advertising it as essentially: Just imagine whomever you want in this role, he barely needs to even have a face to be what we want, which is a generic Hercules person. I’m giving it a C+, I think it delivers what the filmmakers wanted, but I don’t like the bland color scheme. Bumping it up for the font.)

Tagline(s) – Every man has a destiny (D)

(I actually hate it and I’ll explain why. Is Hercules a man? In this movie he might be, I can’t remember. But in the stories he’s the son of a god … so yeah, the son of a god would obviously have a destiny! I can’t think of a good one, but I would have tried to go more with the “legend” part of it, how a mortal man destined to save his people became a legend.)

Keyword – sword and sandal

Top 10: Gladiator (2000), Braveheart (1995), Aladdin (2019), 300 (2006), Troy (2004), The Beastmaster (1982), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Immortals (2011), Legend (1985), Clash of the Titans (2010)

Future BMT: 49.7 The Last Legion (2007), 47.9 Alexander (2004), 46.9 Kull the Conqueror (1997), 45.3 A Kid in King Arthur’s Court (1995), 42.9 Hercules (1983), 42.5 Samson (2018), 41.2 Clash of the Titans (2010), 40.8 Ben-Hur (2016), 34.4 Il mondo di Yor (1983), 33.9 Immortals (2011);

BMT: Gods of Egypt (2016), Conan the Barbarian (2011), Eragon (2006), Conan the Destroyer (1984), Pompeii (2014), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), Red Sonja (1985), The 13th Warrior (1999), The Legend of Hercules (2014), Season of the Witch (2011), Meet the Spartans (2008)

(Every so often they try and bring these sword and sandal films back and it never quite works. I think it is because they try and make them action films. The ones that end up being good seem to hire big name actors and bring the drama to the story. The bad ones hire a Kellen Lutz who looks good without a shirt and go from there.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 24) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Kellan Lutz is No. 1 billed in The Legend of Hercules and No. 15 billed in Expendables 3, which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 4 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 1 + 15 + 2 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 24. If we were to watch Immortals, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Pearl Harbor we can get the HoE Number down to 15.

Notes – Scott Adkins’s character, King Amphitryon, is seen at two different ages in the film, younger and older, and Adkins created two different looks for the character. He said he wanted to look extremely “lean and ripped” for the younger scenes, showing highly defined eight-pack abs in a shirtless scene, as compared to very “muscular and bulky” for the older scenes, where he just had to show his biceps in sleeveless costumes. He said for the younger scenes, he ate very carefully and trained a lot to achieve the ultra-cut look but for the older scenes, he trained just as hard but ate what he wanted because the focus was on size and not muscle definition, and he did not have a shirtless scene anymore. (This is a very very detailed note)

This was the second Greek mythology movie to star Kellen Lutz. The first was Immortals (2011), where Lutz portrayed Hercules’ uncle, Poseidon. (Whaaaaaaa?)

Director Renny Harlin mandated that all the male actors shave their legs along with their torsos, because the film was being shot natively in 3-D and he said that hair stuck out when you shot with stereoscopic cameras. (Whaaaaaaa?)

Director Renny Harlin said that he chose Scott Adkins for the role of King Amphitryon because of “his acting skills, his incredible physical ability and his incredible physique.” He said that King Amphitryon “had to be the biggest badass the audience had ever seen, and only Scott Adkins fit that bill.”

Kellan Lutz said his co-star Scott Adkins had the body of a god and that his physique was so great, it looked green-screened. He also said it “did not make his Hercules character look too well.”

Kellan Lutz said that because he was shirtless through much of the movie, he could constantly do push-ups and ab-crunches on set before takes without fear of sweating into his costumes and staining them. He said it allowed him to look pumped on camera, greatly enhancing his looks, and he ended up doing more than a thousand push-ups and ab-crunches every day on set for the duration of the shoot. (Jesus, these notes are just like … descriptions of gym workouts)

Due to the heavy armor worn by his character throughout the film, Johnathon Schaech was bitterly disappointed that he was unable appear shirtless in the film. He had been following a punishing bodybuilding and dieting regime to prepare for the role. (Jesus, what the hell are these notes! Was this all from a Men’s Fitness interview or something?)

Hebe, in Greek mythology, is actually the Goddess of Eternal Youth and the daughter of Zeus and Hera. Considering that Hercules is the son of Zeus, that would actually make the two love birds half-siblings.

When Kellan Lutz first landed the role, he said that physique-wise he wanted to get really big to portray Hercules. However, director Renny Harlin told him not to get any bigger as he found it very stereotypical for Hercules to be “a pile of meat.” Instead, he instructed Lutz to “get his abs to pop out more” as he thought it would be a great effect in 3-D. So Kellan Lutz adopted a special Paleo (caveman) diet for the role, ensuring that no fat accumulated on his body and that his abs visibly popped throughout principal photography. (What. The. Hell. Are. These. Notes.)

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (2015)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Kellan Lutz, 2015)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Gaia Weiss, 2015)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Renny Harlin, 2015)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel (2015)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Combo (Kellan Lutz, 2015)

Solo (1996) Preview

Jamie and Patrick emerge from the portal to Earth and they breathe in the fresh Brooklyn air. Home at last. Patrick pulls out his emergency cable knit sweater and they begin the hike back to their apartment. He sure is ready to put the Obsidian Dongle away for safekeeping and see his wife and six children, while Jamie just needs a classic NY slice and his MTV. Rad. As they pass by their favorite book store a stray glance stops Patrick dead in his tracks. “J-j-jamie… what is that?” he says in a panic. A large “Bestseller” sign hangs over a large stack of the latest hit: R&P: Rest in Peace: The Death of Rich and Poe. They scramble into the bookstore and buy a copy for themselves. They stare at the glossy cover in disbelief. It’s exactly like the one they saw in the BMTverse. They flip to the back page to see a picture of them… there they are smiling from a picture neither remembered taking. A chill runs down their spines when they turn back to the front and see a small sticker that reads: “soon to be a major motion picture.” “They can’t,” mutters Patrick, “if that movie bombs then…” but Jamie is right there on the same page, “Rich and Poe will die in the BMTverse.” Hearts racing they run back to their apartment and pace the room. “We need to know who stole our identities and what the hell is going on”, says Jamie, “and there’s only one way to do that.” Patrick nods. They have to read that book. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” says Patrick as he reads the first line: “‘Let’s pound some dweebs,’ says the robot terminator cyborg sent from 1996 to kill Rich and Poe…” Oh boy. That’s right! We continue the based-on-a-book cycle on a lesser known 90’s action film Solo starring Mario Van Peebles. It’s about an AI weapon that fights back against its creators and is based on the book Weapon by Robert Mason. Let’s go!

Solo (1996) – BMeTric: 46.5; Notability: 18 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 7.2%; Notability: top 80.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 1.0% Higher BMeT: Barb Wire, Kazaam, Striptease, Bio-Dome, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, The Crow: City of Angels, The Stupids, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Mr. Wrong, Spy Hard, Poison Ivy 2, Jingle All The Way; Higher Notability: Eraser, The Fan, Spy Hard, Jingle All The Way, Chain Reaction, Daylight, The Associate, Dear God, Mulholland Falls, Up Close & Personal, Eddie, Eye for an Eye, Sgt. Bilko, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Larger Than Life, Dunston Checks In, The Chamber, Carpool, Girl 6, and 58 more; Lower RT: Bio-Dome, Kazaam; Notes: I’m starting to think bad films come in two flavors. There are the ones where the notability is relatively low but it absolutely crushes BMeTric / RT (which are usually the same as long as critics and audiences don’t disagree). And then there are the soulless films which have huge notability but seem to always hover in that 35-55% range on RT. I think the low-notability ones tend to be the more beloved in BMT, so that’s promising. Also, I can’t believe we haven’t seen either Bio-Dome or Kazaam for BMT yet.

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  Solo is an android who has a crisis of conscience when he directly disobeys an order that would result in the murder of innocent people. This sets him on a collision course with his creators, particularly a sadistic colonel. Standard action for nondiscerning fans of the genre. Van Peebles is actually quite appealing in the lead.

(Not much to discuss there as it boils down to: pretty much what you would expect, although Van Peebles is better that one would think. I’m shocked, having watched the movie, that he doesn’t mention that it yet again seems to rip off Seven Samurai.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV-4gWRtNxY/

(Oh wow the overlay with the blatant Apocalypse Now rip off. This trailer looks like a direct-to-video garbage fire. What the hell were they thinking?)

Directors – Norberto Barba – (BMT: Solo; Notes: Mostly does television now, including 11 episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Served in the U.S. Army Special Forces.)

Writers – Robert Mason (novel) – (BMT: Solo; Notes: Wrote an autobiography called Chickenhawk about his experience flying helicopters in Vietnam. His only other credit is writing for a documentary on the same subject. His writing is mostly science-fiction, like Weapon, the book Solo is based on.)

David L. Corley (screenplay) (as David Corley) – (BMT: Solo; Notes: Almost exclusively wrote straight-to-video stuff after this, including Executive Power starring Jean Claude Van Damme.)

Actors – Mario Van Peebles – (Known For: Ali; New Jack City; Heartbreak Ridge; The Cotton Club; Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; Run the Race; How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass; Stag; The Hebrew Hammer; Future BMT: Exterminator 2; Gunmen; Posse; Submerged; We the Party; Multiple Sarcasms; Panther; BMT: Jaws: The Revenge; Highlander III: The Final Dimension; Solo; Notes: A director, actor, and producer, the son of Melvin Van Peebles. He directed the film Badasssss! which is about the making of his father’s film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.)

William Sadler – (Known For: The Shawshank Redemption; The Green Mile; Bill & Ted Face the Music; Iron Man Three; Die Hard 2; The Highwaymen; The Mist; Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey; VFW; The Hot Spot; Kinsey; Freeheld; Freaked; Rush; Project X; Trespass; Being Flynn; Greetings from Tim Buckley; Ava’s Possessions; The Hollow; Future BMT: Grudge; Machete Kills; Bordello of Blood; Disturbing Behavior; Hard to Kill; K-9; The Duel; RocketMan; Living Among Us; The Battle of Shaker Heights; Hanky Panky; Eagle Eye; Man on a Ledge; Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight; Awaken the Night; A New Wave; Freedom; August Rush; Reach the Rock; Frank the Bastard; BMT: Solo; Notes: I never realized he played the Grim Reaper in the Bill & Ted films. Played Sgt. Toomey in Neil Simon’s Tony Award winning play Biloxi Blues.)

Barry Corbin – (Known For: No Country for Old Men; WarGames; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas; Stir Crazy; Urban Cowboy; The Hot Spot; The Homesman; Planes: Fire & Rescue; In the Valley of Elah; Dead and Buried; Honkytonk Man; Nothing in Common; Permanent Record; All Saints; The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez; That Evening Sun; Provinces of Night; The Man Who Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez; The Valley; Race to Space; Future BMT: The Dukes of Hazzard; Ghost Dad; Who’s Harry Crumb?; Held Up; Career Opportunities; Burning Rubber; Beer for My Horses; Any Which Way You Can; The Man Who Loved Women; Curdled; The Grand; My Science Project; Lake City; Short Time; New Life; BMT: Solo; Critters 2; Notes: Nominated for three Emmys, two for Northern Exposure, and one for the TV Movie Moon Shot. He was in the marines and actually did train at Camp Pendleton in California where they were planning on reprogramming Solo.)

Budget/Gross – $19 million / Domestic: $5,107,669 (Worldwide: $5,107,669)

(Brutal return. But I’m not sure what they expected since the film looks like it was destined to be straight-to-video. I’m not sure why you would spend $20 million on a Mario Van Peebles vehicle in the first place. Where did the money go? Exclusively into pyrotechnics?)

Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (3/36): Featuring hammy performances and bland characters, Solo is an all too straightforward actioner that’s both predictable and instantly forgettable.

(Sounds about right. I’m still pretty perplexed that of all people Mario Van Peebles was being tagged as a potential action star in 1996. Reviewer Highlight: These escapist showdown movies are only as good as their villains and heroes. The heavies here are more of those ubiquitous gung-ho military types who are due to be dishonorably discharged from further cinematic duty. – Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune)

Poster – Solo: A BMT Story

(I’d love to think what would happen if Patrick and I were able to travel back in time and see this poster in the wild. I feel like a graphic artist somewhere threw this together and assumed it would be rejected and then when he was told his poster was chosen he panicked. At least they got that sweet block lettering. D.)

Tagline(s) – Part man. Part machine. Total weapon. Prepare to go Solo! (C+)

(You were going so good there for a while, tagline. Honestly the end is tacked on. Prior to that it’s an OK tagline. It’s got the structure and the plot. Just lacks a little creativity. Really what they have is something that works for any cyborg film… although, I’m not always prepared to go solo for every cyborg film, so that’s helpful to know.)

Keyword – based on novel

Top 10: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Emma. (2020), Goodfellas (1990), Ready Player One (2018), Jojo Rabbit (2019), Forrest Gump (1994), Call Me by Your Name (2017)

Future BMT: 72.2 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), 47.5 The Dark Tower (2017), 45.7 London Fields (2018), 43.8 Priest (2011), 43.6 Allegiant (2016), 43.4 The Rhythm Section (2020), 42.2 Pan (2015), 41.3 Addicted (2014), 39.7 Eat Pray Love (2010), 39.4 The Princess Diaries 2 (2004);

BMT: After (2019), Dolittle (2020), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011), Warcraft: The Beginning (2016), The Three Musketeers (2011), The Circle (2017), The Snowman (2017), Striptease (1996), Conan the Barbarian (2011), The 5th Wave (2016), Hunter Killer (2018), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), Vampire Academy (2014), Jumper (2008), Around the World in 80 Days (2004), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), A Walk to Remember (2002), A Dog’s Purpose (2017), I Am Number Four (2011), Death Wish (2018), Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), Poseidon (2006), Eragon (2006), Kiss the Girls (1997), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005), Along Came a Spider (2001), The Choice (2016), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), Something Borrowed (2011), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), The Host (2013), Safe Haven (2013)

(My god, we’ve done so many of them. And we still, confusingly, still have Twilight films to watch? I forget because I actually randomly watched them all years ago for no apparent reason. None of the others in that Future BMT section seem particularly appealing if I’m being honest. Although some of them have to be in a different keyword since we aren’t even half way through this cycle.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Mario Van Peebles is No. 1 billed in Solo and No. 2 billed in Highlander: The Final Dimension, which also stars Deborah Kara Unger (No. 3 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 6 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 1 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 3 + 1 = 16. If we were to watch Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, and Kingdom Come we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – The program on the TV that the people in the village is The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). (I noticed this in the wild. Really good film, would highly recommend even if you don’t typically go for 50s films and that particular brand of special effect artistry)

2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story included the subtitle so as not to be confused with this film. (Well … I would assume it included a subtitle because Solo sounds like it could literally be anything. I doubt many people would be like “I’m going to Solo tonight want to come?” and their friends would respond “Wait, you’re going to go see that 1996 Mario Van Peebles robot film in theaters? That’s weird”)

Hall of Fame Speech #21: The Roommate

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. Well, this film may not be perfect, but I do know one thing … Billy Zane wants to go to fashion week. Enjoy!

Hall of Fame Induction Speech for The Roommate

In the world of The Roommate, Billy Zane was living his best life as a happy fashion professor and predator of young ladies at an unnamed university in southern California. Despite everything he had, he always dreamed of one thing every year, and that is Fashion Week in Milan. He just wanted to go to fashion week guys! It’s a chance of a lifetime. That is, no joke, maybe the only tangible thing I remembered about this film as you’ll see. I remembered, and will always remember, that Billy Zane wanted to go to fashion week. I completely forgot Cam Gigantic was in this film … but I still randomly mention that Billy Zane wanted to go to fashion week in polite conversation. And that right there, that’s why The Roommate deserved consideration for the BMT Hall of Fame.

It has been five years since we watched the film. Somehow I still have not watched Single White Female, the film that this film blatantly rips off. Whatever … what do I remember?

  • Billy Zane only wants to go to fashion week! Somehow, someway, this somewhat minor role for Billy Zane launched him immediately into the BMT (actor) Hall of Fame. He just wanted to go to fashion week … and sure, probably sexually assault Minka Kelly. But ultimately his shattered dreams of partying at Fashion Week is basically all I remember about this film.
  • This was a film that was surprisingly very much in the mainstream at the time, which is kind of mind blowing to think about. How mainstream? Well, SNL made a Digital Short about it. That’s usually reserved for hugely popular things like the season 2 finale of The O.C. … wait.
  • I think it is easy to forget just how (relatively) famous Minka Kelly (who was just coming off of Friday Night Lights) and Leighton Meester (who was starring in Gossip Girl at the time) were. This very much feels like Blumhouse before Blumhouse in that they snapped up television stars on the cheap and managed to ensemble an incredible cast out of it.
  • Other than that … huh, I really can’t remember anything about this movie. It is such an obvious and generic thriller that my brain can’t hold onto it, it is like smoke, impossible to grasp.

So which do I think is the most important? It really depends on what you are looking for. What actually sets this film apart from other generic teen thrillers is the cast. Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly, Cam Gigantic, and Billy Zane? Uh, sign me up! These days I feel like a Blumhouse-y teen thriller ends up going with just one Dennis Quaid, or J-Lo, etc. I’m sure for some younger generation some of those casts have a similar allure with people like Lucy Hale headlining. But nothing says the BMT-generation than Friday Night Lights, Gossip Girl, The O.C., and Billy Zane!

Wait, I can hear you saying, but really? Is that all that sets the film apart? No, because you see … Billy Zane wants to go to fashion week. And he really really wants to go to fashion week with Minka Kelly specifically. And he (probably) wants to have sex with her … but when push comes to shove and Leighton Meester comes a-knocking, the only thing Billy Zane really wants in his heart of hearts is to go to fashion week, so why won’t she just let him go to fashion week? Won’t someone think of poor Billy Zane and his dreams of fashion week?! This joke has been a giant part of BMT for the last five years. I probably mention Billy Zane’s desire to go to fashion week three or four times a year. That is the mark of a truly great BMT film. So that’s it really. There is potentially a reason for it’s Hall of Fame induction in general (the stellar tv-star cast), but specifically for BMT it is all about the Zane (as usual).

How did the rewatch go? Huh. Well, I can certainly see why I don’t remember a thing about this film after rewatching. It is so wholly generic and predictable that your brain really can’t latch onto anything. Everything could (and is) completely derivative of other films. So that’s it right? No Hall of Fame for The Roommate, we have to admit we made a huge mistake, right? WRONG. Because Billy Zane still wants to go to fashion week, babyyyyyyyyyy! And really, that was all I ever needed this film to do. The only way this film wasn’t going to meet my expectations was if it somehow turned out that we were totally misremembering the film and instead Billy Zane was like … coming from fashion week in Titanic or Zoolander or something. But nope, he certainly was super interested in partying in Milan in The Roommate, and so the BMT meme lives on!

A few things changed while viewing this the second time. Like, I have a new respect for Cam Gigantic now (I might even call him by his actual name some day). He is pitch perfect as the secretly-nice, super-chill, frat bro who seems like he smokes weed 24 hours a day, but doesn’t make a big deal about it (you know?). And, as mentioned above, really the entire cast is such a blast from the past that it is just a continual delight to see Lyla Garrity and Blair Waldorf interact on screen, even if it is in a blah generic thriller like The Roommate. And finally, I think more than ever, having watched hundreds of bad movies at this point, it was very obvious this was just Single White Female in a different setting. No wonder critics hated it.

It is somewhat unusual that I pretty much nail the “what I remember” section of a Hall of Fame rewatch, most of the time it turns out I completely forgot that Big Momma dunked a basketball and my mind exploded (for example). This one I think I pretty much nailed it, it is all about that cast and Billy Zane. In the era of The Boy Next Door, where Blumhouse churns out critically panned, but financially successful thrillers and horror films for teenagers to go to on the weekend, I think it can be easy to forget just how much of a delight these easy, breezy teen-targeted thrillers can be when they have that one weird quirk. That one thing your brain can use as a totem to navigate the confusing mishmash of derivative ideas. And so we’ll always remember that Billy Zane wanted to go to fashion week. He wanted to go so, so badly. Welcome to the Hall of Fame The Roommate.

The Roommate Preview

Brief note before we start: This year we got together our fifth (!) class to be inducted into the Smaddies Baddies BMT Hall of Fame. At the time these films are inducted it will be officially 10 years since we started BMT! That’s absurd. But as is typical there will be films we watch five years ago which maybe deserve to be considered the merde de la merde of BMT delight. The previews and speeches will be released leading up to the eighth (tenth?) Smaddies Baddies for the five films ultimately chosen. Some might say the purpose of watching all genres and sizes of movie is to find another Here On Earth, the perfect BMT film. Others might say we just want to see Cam Gigantic, Lyla Garrity, and Insane Leighton Meester fight it out Single White Female-style. Enjoy!

The Roommate (2011) – BMeTric: 68.0; Notability: 25 

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.6%; Notability: top 65.1%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.5% Higher BMeT: Jack and Jill, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World, Shark Night 3D, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1; Higher Notability: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Green Lantern, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, Cars 2, Jack and Jill, Battle: Los Angeles, Hop, New Year’s Eve, Your Highness, The Smurfs, Immortals, In Time, Red Riding Hood, Johnny English Reborn, I Am Number Four, The Hangover Part II, Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, Larry Crowne, Priest, and 38 more; Lower RT: Jack and Jill; Notes: It has actually been going down in IMDb rating recently! That’s fun. A sub-5.0 is a guarantee of a solid BMeTric, so it is no wonder that it fits into the “small film which both critics and audiences hated” category.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Young woman (Kelly) moves into her dorm at an L.A. college. At first, she likes her shy, somewhat disturbed roommate (Meester), but soon discovers the young woman has become frighteningly attached to her. Trivial, trite would-be thriller shamelessly copies Single White Female. You’ve seen this before and done much better.

(Incredible energy from Leonard here. He is usually pretty forgiving of trite films I feel like, but apparently it is such a rip-off of Single White Female that it doesn’t get that pass? I should probably watch Single White Female, huh?)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NX30f8b1Oo/

(The trailer looks a lot more like a horror film that it actually is. All of the creepy night stuff isn’t really in the film, it seems like it was kind of post production nonsense. Weird trailer. If I saw that I would be like “cool, a horror film” and then what you get is actually a thriller version of The O.C.)

Directors – Christian E. Christiansen – (BMT: The Roommate; Notes: Nominated for Best Short Film, Live Action, at the 2008 Academy Awards. He is from Denmark and this was his one and only foray into the Hollywood system.)

Writers – Sonny Mallhi (written by) – (Known For: Anguish; BMT: The Roommate; Notes: Was a producer for years, this was his first writing credit. He almost exclusively writes / produces horror films.)

Actors – Minka Kelly – (Known For: The Butler; 500 Days of Summer; The Kingdom; She’s in Portland; The World Made Straight; State’s Evidence; Future BMT: Naked; Night Hunter; Papa Hemingway in Cuba; BMT: The Roommate; Just Go with It; Notes: This was one of her only major starring roles after Friday Night Lights ended. She is now starring in the television series Titans. Is the daughter of Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay, and was briefly engaged to Derek Jeter.)

Leighton Meester – (Known For: The Judge; Date Night; Going the Distance; Like Sunday, Like Rain; Life Partners; By the Gun; Future BMT: The Oranges; Hangman’s Curse; Country Strong; The Beautiful Ordinary; Brothers in Arms; BMT: The Roommate; Monte Carlo; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for That’s My Boy in 2013; Notes: Was a huge star in Gossip Girl at the time. These days she’s in the shoe Single Parents. She is married to Adam Brody from The O.C. Released an album called Heartstrings in 2014.)

Cam Gigandet – (Known For: Twilight; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2; The Magnificent Seven; Easy A; Future BMT: Who’s Your Caddy?; The Unborn; Dangerous Lies; Schlong Story; Priest; In the Blood; Plush; Free Ride; Never Back Down; Pandorum; 4 Minute Mile; BMT: The Roommate; Trespass; Burlesque; Notes: I know him mostly as Volchok on The O.C., but he is still a pretty busy film actor these days. Has a black belt in Krav Maga. We almost exclusively refer to him as Cam Gigantic.)

Budget/Gross – $16,000,000 / Domestic: $37,300,000 (Worldwide: $40,492,652)

(That is pretty solid actually. Where is my The Roommate 2: Fashion Week in Milan? I need more Billy Zane in my life!)

Rotten Tomatoes – 3% (3/86): Devoid of chills, thrills, or even cheap titillation, The Roommate isn’t even bad enough to be good.

(Yeah that sounds about right, although I obviously disagree with the idea that is isn’t so bad it ends up being good … because it is in the Hall of Fame, by definition it was so bad it is good (in it’s own way). Reviewer Highlight: Kelly and Meester hit their marks and look pretty doing it, while supporting players Cam Gigandet, Billy Zane and Aly Michalka fade into the background so blandly that viewers will never remember they were there. – Ann Hornaday, Washington Post … how dare you suggest I would ever forget Billy Zane is in this film!)

Poster – The Roomsklog

(What I like: a little bit of weathered interest on the font, and the feel of the college campus atmosphere nails it. What I don’t like: The crazy time lapse effect in the middle, and only featuring Leighton Meester. It also feels a bit too bright maybe? Not a very thriller-y poster. C+. I think if it was more sinister it would be in the B range.)

Tagline(s) – 2,000 colleges. 8 million roommates. Which one will you get? (D)

(I don’t like it. It is too long, and there are too many numbers. The answer to the question being posed is: very likely one of the 7,999,999 roommates who aren’t Crazy Leighton Meester.)

Keyword – psycho thriller

Top 10: Inception (2010), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven (1995), Zodiac (2007), Split (2016), Shutter Island (2010), Ex Machina (2014), The Sixth Sense (1999), Don’t Breathe (2016), The Gift (2015)

Future BMT: 77.9 Boogeyman (2005), 58.8 Exorcist: The Beginning (2004), 56.7 See No Evil (2006), 53.5 The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018), 51.0 Eye of the Beholder (1999), 49.5 Unforgettable (2017), 44.5 The Purge (2013), 40.2 Gothika (2003), 39.1 The Forgotten (2004), 37.8 Never Talk to Strangers (1995);

BMT: Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), Friday the 13th (2009), House of Wax (2005), Perfect Stranger (2007), The Number 23 (2007), The Roommate (2011), Jason X (2001), Friday the 13th: Part III (1982), Jade (1995), The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), Twisted (2004), Godsend (2004)

(The days of the big budget, big Hollywood star psycho thriller certainly seems to have passed. You can even see it in the box office numbers. A $40 million return is fine, but you can’t have stars with those types of numbers, and you certainly won’t make a ton of cash like Blumhouse if you are wasting money on things like actor salaries. I’m not super excited about any of the Future BMT films listed.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Cam Gigandet is No. 3 billed in The Roommate and No. 4 billed in Trespass, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 3 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 1 = 15. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – Leighton Meester was originally cast as Sara but then opted to take the role of Rebecca instead.

When the audience first meets Sara, a drawing of Leighton Meester as her character Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl (2007) can be seen in the background.

Minka Kelly was 30 while playing an 18-year-old in this movie. (Jesus, that means she was 28 playing a senior in high school in Friday Night Lights)

The college and ominous looking stairs leading to it on the movie poster is an actual college in Winfield, Ks. Southwestern College and its 77 steps are frequently used as backdrops in photos and used for exercise. (And they got sued for it)

In the original script, Sara’s favorite film was Coyote Ugly. In the finished film, it’s The Devil Wears Prada. (Why Coyote Ugly?!)

The name of the cafe Sara works at – Råzone – is the title of one of director Christian E. Christiansen’s movies. It’s in his native Danish and means raw zone. It’s design even matches that of the movie’s title design.

The two leads have pancakes in the same “Quality Cafe” seen in Se7en (1995) with Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow, and Ghost World (2001), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), and Catch Me If You Can (2002). (So it is a distinctive looking cafe in L.A., I guess at least all of those are set in L.A. rather explicitly)

The original script had Rebecca have a fight with Irene in the nightclub bathroom before killing her with Sara discovering her dead body during the final confrontation at Irene’s apartment. This was rewritten to have Rebecca seduce Irene and kiss her before kidnapping her. (I like the way they did it. Even the one death seemed a bit overboard in that it doesn’t make much sense that she would kill Sara’s ex-boyfriend as a favor to Sara)