As mentioned in the Bye Bye Man preview, Manos: Hands of Fate doesn’t fit traditionally into BMT because of its pre-1980 release. Buuuuuut, since it is so iconic, we felt like it deserved the real preview / recap respect. Shot in 1966 on a super low budget by a random Texan businessman/amateur theater actor I have no more expectations for this than I would a film like Birdemic. It’s just an amateurish film made by a delusional person that should never have seen the light of day. Will likely be a bore, but that’s what this cycle is all about. Finding out whether these categories are as boring as we assumed when we precluded them. Let’s go!
Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966) – BMeTric: 88.1 (#5 on the IMDb Bottom 100)
(Obviously the reason we are here. I’m most interested in that jump in 2013. I found two plausible explanations in the wikipedia page. First there was a kickstarter that year to get a puppet version made. I think that is a bit niche and thus unlikely. That was also the year they announced a prequel being made. I’m more inclined to believe something like that’s when the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode went on netflix, but I don’t really have any evidence for that. A mystery, although likely an extremely solvable one.)
?????? – ??? stars – ????
(I couldn’t really find a review for this film at all. There are some … but they are about at the level of this blog anyways (and our monthly hits are … not impressive). Rather than confusingly link to something like that let’s marvel at the fact that a film can be as revered at this one and yet no legitimate news source has decided to retroactively review the film. C’mon … that’s weird.)
(I mean … like what the fuck? Just like … what the fuck?)
Directors – Harold P. Warren – (BMT: Manos: The Hands of Fate; Notes: Often referred to as a fertilizer salesman even though he actually sold insurance at the time of filming.)
Writers – Harold P. Warren (screenplay) – (BMT: Manos: The Hands of Fate; Notes: Ultimately even though he admitted the film was terrible he remained proud of it and would often where his costume throughout the rest of his life.)
Actors – Tom Neyman – (BMT: Manos: The Hands of Fate; Notes: I going to be be in some strange revival of the film (Manos Returns) next year, may God help us all.)
John Reynolds – (BMT: Manos: The Hands of Fate; Notes: Helped to design the trademark “knees” of Torgo in the film, for which he would become (mildly) famous.)
Diane Adelson – (BMT: Manos: The Hands of Fate; Notes: Became a rather accomplished model after Manos and is currently, seemingly, an antiques dealer.)
Budget/Gross – $19,000 / N/A
(Not real obviously. This film made no money basically only being shown in El Paso, Texas where is was made. The budget it seemingly real at least.)
(I’ll have to make a consensus: Barely a movie, in that soul-crushingly not-fun way we all know and love. Oof. Always though with films like this since all of the reviews are from now. Was a 0% until literally months ago for example.)
(This certainly didn’t have a poster when released. I think everything online is probably from the post-fame era of the film’s existence. Still an F.)
Tagline(s) – It’s Shocking! It’s Beyond Your Imagination! (F)
(I doubt this had any taglines in reality. It was basically not released so why would it need a tagline. I kept this one as a warning to all those that attempt to pass something like this off as a real tagline. I don’t accept it!)
Keyword(s) – family in peril; Top Ten by BMeTric: 88.1 Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966); 57.7 The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007); 17.4 Supremacy (I) (2014);
(NOPE. Hilarious that Seeker comes up in both this and Bye Bye Man in a way though. Although in the most tangential way possible. This movie shares a keyword with it. The Bye Bye Man’s main character’s brother was in Seeker … small world?)
Notes – Cast and crew recall that John Reynolds was on LSD during filming, explaining his confused behavior and incessant twitching in virtually all of his scenes.
The entire film was shot with a hand-held camera that could only record 32 seconds of film at a time. It was also shot without sound; all the lines were dubbed later by two men and one woman. Jackey Neyman Jones cried when she first heard her dubbed voice.
The film had a gala premiere in El Paso. Many local dignitaries attended. Members of the audience began heckling the film during the premiere. Many of the film’s cast and crew sneaked out of the theater before the film ended, to avoid having to admit being part of it.
The only cast members who were paid for their performances were Jackey Neyman Jones, who got a bicycle, and the Doberman, which got a bag of dog food. The rest of the cast was supposed to receive a cut of the movie’s profits, which never materialized. Director Harold P. Warren also gave the crew shares, instead of a salary.
Lighting was limited for the film, which explains the infamous scene in which two cops literally take two steps to investigate, then turn back.
Despite the film’s negative reception, Harold P. Warren was so proud of it that he began wearing the Master’s robe every Halloween. His son Joe Neal Warren has carried on the tradition.
The film was popularized by a 1993 episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (1988), in which Joel and the Bots, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot, go mad while suffering through the film’s endless boredom. The creators of the show called this the worst film that had been featured.
In 2011, Benjamin Solovey found the work print, made from the original 16mm reversal stock. It was in pristine condition. Solovey released the digitally restored film in DVD and Blu-ray formats in October 2015. A new short documentary about the Making of Manos, including interviews with surviving cast members, was included.
The endless driving sequences at the beginning were supposed to have the opening credits over them.
The snake Michael shoots looks a lot better than the rest of the film because it was stock footage lifted from a Disney nature documentary. It’s also why the snake is on purple carpet.
Harold P. Warren only did two takes of each shot. If things didn’t go well, he reassured the novice cast that the magic of Hollywood would fix any errors in post-production.
As filming dragged on and on, the increasingly disgruntled crew began to refer to the movie as “Mangos: The Cans of Fruit”.
We finish up our Bring a Friend cycle by transitioning to the final cycle of the year, our traditional year-end Smaddies Baddies year in review cycle. It’s where we get to watch many of the worst films of 2017 that we didn’t get to watch in one of our BMT Live! events. Now that we are BMT horror fans and aspiring aficionados it’s only fitting that we start by pairing one of the worst reviewed horror films of 2017 with one of the worst films of all times. That’s right we’re watching The Bye Bye ManOs: Hands of Fate. The Bye Bye Man has been on our radar ever since it’s pretty ridiculous trailers (and even more ridiculous name) that seemed to air constantly during last football season. In quite the coincidence I was also watching a past Survivor season (yes, I watch past seasons of Survivor for fun in my spare time. So what?) that happened to feature a contestant by the name of Jonathan Penner. Why is it a coincidence? Because Penner also wrote The Bye Bye Man. So it was literally seared into my brain that we must, must, must watch this film in the future. As for Manos: Hands of Fate, while it’s considered one of the worst films of all time it doesn’t fit traditionally into BMT because of its pre-1980 release. Shot in 1966 on a super low budget by a random Texan businessman/amateur theater actor I have no more expectations for this than I would a film like Birdemic. It’s just an amateurish film made by a delusional person that should never have seen the light of day. Will likely be a bore, but that’s what this cycle is all about. Finding out whether these categories are as boring as we assumed when we precluded them. Let’s go!
The Bye Bye Man (2017) – BMeTric: 63.4
(That VOD bump though! This looks like a classic in the making. It ticked up a bit after the VOD release, but staying steady at 4.4 is very impressive indeed. Looking very promising for staying above 50+ BMeTric for its career.)
RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – Both as a straightforward horror exercise and a look at the perils revolving around off-campus housing in Wisconsin, “The Bye Bye Man” is the kind of film that is so boring and bereft of anything of possible interest that it becomes infuriating.
(Oooooooh yeah. Don’t tantalize me like this RogerEbert.com, my heart can only handle so much. This movie is either going to be hilarious, or an unfortunate mind-bending disaster like The Devil Inside. I’m excited to see which.)
(It’s …. The Bye Bye Man. Looks ridiculous. Like funny ridiculous. Like the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, and my mind can only accept one thing: this is a steaming white hot pile of garbage. I’m excited.)
Directors – Stacy Title – (Known For: The Last Supper; Let the Devil Wear Black; Future BMT: Hood of Horror; BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Notes: Directed her husband Jonathan Penner in this, The Last Supper, and Let the Devil Wear Black. He also wrote The Bye Bye Man.)
Writers – Jonathan Penner (screenplay by) – (Known For: Let the Devil Wear Black; BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Notes: Multiple time contestant on Survivor. Despite being on three seasons he never made it all that far into any season but was a fan favorite. Also husband of director Stacy Title.)
Robert Damon Schneck (based on “The Bridge to Body Island” by) – (BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Notes: Guy who specializes in writing about urban legends and supernatural phenomena. His books sounds kind of fun for maybe a future read.)
Actors – Douglas Smith – (Known For: Miss Sloane; Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; Blast from the Past; Antiviral; State’s Evidence; Future BMT: Ouija; Sleepover; Stage Fright; Hangman’s Curse; Terminator Genisys; The Beautiful Ordinary; BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Notes: Brother of Gregory Smith who we saw in previous BMT films The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and American Outlaws.)
Lucien Laviscount – (BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Notes: British actor knew to American film, but in so much British TV that I’m guessing Patrick has inadvertently seen him before in something.)
Cressida Bonas – (BMT: The Bye Bye Man; Tulip Fever; Notes: British actress just on the scene. Already making a BMT splash with this and Tulip Fever that also got terrible reviews this year.)
Budget/Gross – $7.4 million / Domestic: $22,395,806 (Worldwide: $26,667,197)
(Like many horror film this wins largely by being made for next to nothing. This makes me wonder whether we’ll be treated to The Bye Bye Man 2, even if it is straight to DVD. I would watch it. Gotta keep up with the development of the lore of the Bye Bye Man.)
(The chart is a tiny bit deceiving. It might look like the genre isn’t growing because the money is mostly stagnant, but given that year over year more and more theaters show a supernatural horror film that money does indeed translate to more and more profit. Kicked off by The Blair Witch Project the claim to fame and fortune for the genre is simple: like the slashers of the 80s you can make these on a dime and there is a built-in opening day audience for $10-20 million for anything even remotely coherent. Strike that: anything that promises a jump or two will turn a profit given the business model. It is incredible.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 23% (16/69): The Bye Bye Man clumsily mashes together elements from better horror films, adding up to a derivative effort as short on originality as it is on narrative coherency or satisfying scares.
(Lack of narrative coherency? Sign me up. As for lack of scares? I’m indifferent. While I’m not scared by many older horror films, the jump scares that are sprinkled throughout modern horror still make for an uncomfortable watch even when other people say it’s not scary, so I’m skeptical. I bet that Bye Bye Man is popping up all over the place.)
(I actually like a lot about the poster. Nice font, nice coloring, and I like the artistry that makes it look kinda like an old photo. I wish there was a bit less detail on the main monster. Should be even more of a dark silhouette. But that’s just my opinion.)
Tagline(s) – Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. Don’t think it. Don’t say it. (Ha. Not a tagline.)
The evil behind the most unspeakable acts has a name (D+)
(The first is not a tagline. It’s just an artistic use of text on the poster for effect, but I like how many times imdb wrote it out. So exact. The second is just not a good tagline and should just be thrown out. Just let those “Don’t think it. Don’t say it” sets of text do their job. No need for this extra shit.)
Keyword(s) – supernatural; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.4 Scary Movie 5 (2013); 75.5 Ouija (II) (2014); 72.7 The Apparition (2012); 71.0 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); 70.6 Cell (I) (2016); 70.5 The Gallows (2015); 70.4 Devil’s Due (2014); 67.6 Vampire in Brooklyn (1995); 67.4 Pulse (I) (2006); 67.2 666: The Prophecy (2011);
(We kind of now need to see Ouija, and perhaps we will for an upcoming cycle (SPOILER ALERT!). Man, there are some shit supernatural films out there, I feel like all of these will be watched, and would probably represent a final completion of the Sklog’s horror film education.)
Notes – Previously rated R by the MPAA for “bloody horror violence, language and some sexuality.”
Filmed in November and December 2015, but not released until January 2017.
Doug Jones, who plays the title character, previously played Slender Man (who has similar abilities) in Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story.
The story on which the film is based, “The Bridge to Body Island,” has a much more complex mythology for the Bye Bye Man: He was an albino born in New Orleans in 1912 who ran away as a child and became a derelict who lived in a train yard. After going blind he began murdering people and cutting out their eyes and tongues, which he sewed together and brought to life using voodoo. The resultant creature became the Bye Bye Man’s literal seeing-eye dog, helping him hunt his prey. Several elements from the story- notably the dog and the motif of trains– were retained for the movie, though their purpose is left more elliptical. (Spooky)
The Bye Bye Man is the 2nd collaboration between Carrie-Anne Moss & Douglas Smith. They played doctor and patient in the film, Treading Water.
This would have been the closing week of the Bring a Friend cycle but the Barometric Macroclimate Targeting satellites Patrick and I sent into orbit last year malfunctioned and blew in a GEEOOOOOSSTTTOOORRRRMMMMM. That’s right! As was foretold on an ancient Egyptian scroll, we are indeed watching the much anticipated Geostorm for the final BMT Live! of 2017. The movie was delayed, reshot, and delayed some more to the point where I honestly didn’t actually believe they were releasing the film. Boy was I wrong! They released it all right and it was glorious. Garnering 15% on RT (and still only the third worst reviewed wide release of the week thanks to The Snowman and Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween), it got us to where we were needed to be and capped off a particularly fruitful year of BMT Live! with Fifty Shades Darker, The Mummy, Flatliners, and now Geostorm. Get excited. Let’s go!
(Haaaaa. I usually don’t put up these plots for films that just came out, but this one was too good. Opens inexplicably at 7.0 on IMDb and then (wait for it …) drops like a goddamned stone. It is below 6.0 as of writing, although I won’t update the plot, so this should be a solid 30+ pretty easily even before people see it on VOD. Great stuff.)
AV Club – D+ – In the tradition of KFC’s Famous Bowl—famously described by Patton Oswalt as “a failure pile”—comes Geostorm, which attempts to be every possible apocalyptic weather-based disaster movie at once.
(Hmmmm, an interesting take. The story does seem like a kind of mish-mash of disaster film / conspiracy thriller / action film. That did kind of throw me when I first heard of this film. The plot just sounds like the mix of four different terrible films.)
(After a chilly reception to a first trailer if I recall they went all in with the second. It does look fun if you can look past a questionable choice in music and a dire closing one-liner. “Marry her!” was a major criticism on the net (as the kids call it), and it turned out to be more reflective of this movie than this relatively fun trailer is overall.)
Directors – Dean Devlin – (BMT: Geostorm; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay in 1999 for Godzilla; and in 2017 for Independence Day: Resurgence; and Nominated for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: Mainly a producer and writer (see below), but he’s slowly been taking on more directing projects. Some minor TV Movies, and four episodes of the Librarian television series which he produces.)
Writers – Dean Devlin (written by) – (Known For: Independence Day; Stargate; Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning; Future BMT: Universal Soldier: The Return; Godzilla; Universal Soldier; BMT: Independence Day: Resurgence; Geostorm; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay in 1999 for Godzilla; and in 2017 for Independence Day: Resurgence; and Nominated for Worst Written Film Grossing Over $100 Million for Independence Day in 1997; Notes: The son of two prolific Hollywood writers / actors from the 1960s, his wife is also an actress and has appeared in several of his Librarian projects.)
Paul Guyot (written by) – (BMT: Geostorm; Notes: Primarily a television writer he wrote seven episodes of Librarians. Devlin is, as I said, heavily involved with the Librarian television movies and series concerning the character of Flynn Carsen, and Indiana Jones-esque protector of ancient artifacts. I will likely never see any of them.)
Actors – Gerard Butler – (Known For: 300; RocknRolla; Olympus Has Fallen; How to Train Your Dragon; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Reign of Fire; Tomorrow Never Dies; Mrs Brown; Coriolanus; Nim’s Island; Beowulf & Grendel; Dear Frankie; Harrison’s Flowers; The Cherry Orchard; Future BMT: Dracula 2001; Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life; Tale of the Mummy; The Ugly Truth; Machine Gun Preacher; The Game of Their Lives; A Family Man; BMT: Movie 43; Gods of Egypt; The Bounty Hunter; Timeline; Gamer; Playing for Keeps; London Has Fallen; Geostorm; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor in 2011 for The Bounty Hunter; and in 2017 for Gods of Egypt, and London Has Fallen; and Nominated for Worst Screen Couple/Worst Screen Ensemble for The Bounty Hunter in 2011; Notes: Scottish, but often plays Americans with vaguely Scottish accents. He has a law degree, but was fired a week before being able to practice. Plenty of BMTs to go for this BMT All Star.)
Jim Sturgess – (Known For: Cloud Atlas; Deception; The Other Boleyn Girl; Across the Universe; Eliza Graves; The Way Back; Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole; Spike Island; Fifty Dead Men Walking; Heartless; Mouth to Mouth; The Browning Version; Future BMT: Kidnapping Freddy Heineken; Upside Down; 21; Electric Slide; Crossing Over; BMT: Geostorm; Notes: Awarded the Worst Haircut in Hollywood Award (joking, but his hair does look particularly weird in this film). Was mainly a musician from around 2000 to 2005 in bands like Saint Faith and Dilated Spies, but re-broke into acting as Jude in Across the Universe.)
Abbie Cornish – (Known For: 6 Days; Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; Limitless; Seven Psychopaths; RoboCop; Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole; Bright Star; Candy; Stop-Loss; Somersault; The Monkey’s Mask; The Girl; Future BMT: Trauma; Solace; W.E.; A Good Year; Elizabeth: The Golden Age; BMT: Sucker Punch; Geostorm; Notes: Raps under the name MC Dusk, and older sister to Isabelle Cornish who is in the new disastrous Marvel series Inhumans.)
Budget/Gross – $120 million / Domestic: $4,300,000 (Worldwide: $29,800,000)
(Unless it turns out China loooooves disaster movies (audiences there might actually) this will not even break even in the gross-equals-budget kind of way. It’ll float to something like $80 million. Turns out the biggest disaster was … this movie’s box office returns (ayoooooo))
Rotten Tomatoes (October 22, 2017) – 11% (6/53): Lacking impressive visuals, well-written characters, or involving drama, Geostorm aims for epic disaster-movie spectacle but ends up simply being a disaster of a movie.
(Blah, not a very informative consensus. But the reviews are shockingly bad. This movie should be a prime good-for-what-it-is, and yet people just trashed it. There is some hope in the world!)
(Basically a poster that lives up to the film. Boring, terrible font, and nothing consistent to tie it together. It does tell a story, so that’s a minor plus.)
Tagline(s) – Some Things Were Never Meant to Be Controlled (C)
(Not clever enough to make up for the length. Combined with the poster it does tell a nice concise story on what to expect. All around meh for both poster and tagline, which is disappointing. Feel like they could have gone crazy with it.)
Keyword(s) – malfunction; Top Ten by BMeTric: 72.7 The Apparition (2012); 64.3 Stealth (2005); 55.5 Dark Tide (2012); 49.1 Fortress 2 (2000); 36.6 Two Moon Junction (1988); 33.3 Atlas Shrugged II: The Strike (2012); 32.7 Barbarella (1968); 28.5 Igor (2008); 28.1 Phantom (I) (2013); 24.6 Surrogates (2009);
(HA. Stealth is definitely a malfunction. The only other one I think that will really be on the radar is The Apparition, and borderline Surrogates. That film was barely BMT though.)
Notes – The film underwent re-shoots under the auspices of Jerry Bruckheimer, who was brought in in a producer capacity at a very late stage. Reportedly, these extensive re-shoots, featuring new material written by Laeta Kalogridis, were helmed by ” CSI ” alumnus Danny Cannon over a two week period at a cost of $15m. (Not worth it)
Noted by several cast and crew (even the film’s extras) as being the movie where producer and lead star Gerard Butler kept forgetting all his lines. (hahahahah)
Some NASA scenes were filmed at NASA Facility in New Orleans.
Dean Devlin’s feature directorial debut. (could it be a one and done?! Prob not, he already has another film slated for next year)
The film was set for March 25, 2016 release, But later in August 2014, Warner cancelled the March 2016 date for the film, and replaced the film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) with its original date. On December 11, 2014, WB shifted its live-action animated film Jungle Book: Origins to 2017 and gave its previous date October 21, 2016 to Geostorm. In September 2015, the studio again moved back the film to release on January 13, 2017. It has once again been rescheduled to an October 20, 2017 release date per its trailer on the Kong Skull Island Dvd. (Jesus Christ, that is a delay)
Originally set up at Paramount, but moved to Warner Bros. (Not a super great sign, as if companies didn’t really think it was going to make money)
The idea of catastrophic consequences of weather control by space based stations also is a major plot point in the directorial debut of Dean Devlin’s long time collaborator, Roland Emmerich, _Das Arche Noah Prinzip (1984)_.
Skydance’s 2nd project not released by Paramount. Instead, Warner Bros. Pictures will produce the film.
A game under the same name was released by developer Sticky Studios, which was featured by Apple. It keeps the same premise but follows an alternative plot where three people gather data on Earth to locate a rogue satellite. The game is a turn-based puzzler and generally has very positive reviews. (Huh … I might actually check that out)
I know what all of our faithful readers are thinking and it rhymes with Geostorm, but slow your roll. At the time that we had to choose the films for this week we just didn’t know what the reviews for Geostorm would be like… … … OK, so we did pretty much knew what the reviews for Geostrom would be like, but we couldn’t risk it getting “good for what it is” bullshit reviews that propelled it to 41% on RT. So this week we stayed the course and moved to our Games category where we aimed to get a Mockbuster friend to tag along. A Mockbuster is a film released with a similar title and concept to a major blockbuster hoping to ride the hype to minor profits. In the end there was only one Mockbuster that would do. That’s right! We’re watching TransmorFirst Daughter! Transmorphers is obviously a play off of Transformers and makes me sad to even think about… should be excruciating. As for First Daughter, the Katie Holmes vehicle is both on the Calendar and is an abstract part of the Periodic Table of Smellements (for #1). An unexpectedly important film in the BMTverse. Let’s go!
First Daughter (2004) – BMeTric: 56.5
(Sub-5.0 is a brutal IMDb score, but that isn’t a surprise, the film has brutal reviews. Other than that you have the regression to the mean and 2011 inflection, but not much else interesting. In other world, these plots take after this movie (boom).)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – Fairy-tale romance for wholesome teens centers on the sheltered daughter of the U.S. President who goes off to college to get away from her omnipresent Secret Service detail and falls for a hunky student whose true identity holds a big surprise (not really). Chasing Liberty was bad enough; did we really need another formulaic, juvenile variation of Roman Holiday the same year?
(The answer to the last question is no. I’ve never seen Roman Holiday (I know, a travesty, I have too little experience with film prior to 1980 I admit), but maybe I’ll check it out now. How can I properly assess this purported retelling if I never experienced the original telling?)
(That looks … generic. Honestly they kind of give away the twist hinted at by Leonard Maltin … just look at what Marc Blucas is wearing in certain scenes and you’ll get it. The soundtrack for this trailer is also bonkers.)
Directors – Forest Whitaker – (Known For: Waiting to Exhale; Future BMT: Hope Floats; BMT: First Daughter; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Battlefield Earth in 2001; Notes: Wait wait wait wait wait … the Forest Whitaker directed this? Weird shit. He’s enjoying a bit of a career resurgence with Lee Daniel’s The Butler and the most recent Star Wars films.)
Writers – Jessica Bendinger (story & screenplay) – (Known For: Bring It On; Aquamarine; Future BMT: The Truth About Charlie; Stick It; BMT: First Daughter; Notes: A former model turned novelist turned screenwriter/director. She hasn’t done much after her directorial debut Stick It, but she certainly had a burst of success in the mid-2000s.)
Jerry O’Connell (story) – (BMT: First Daughter; Notes: Yuuup, that Jerry O’Connell. Derisively known as the fat kid from Stand By Me, he ultimately had a very successful career in film. He is currently married to Rebecca Romijn with whom he has twin daughters. We. Love. Twin stories. Especially because Jerry O’Connell seems like a cool cat.)
Kate Kondell (screenplay) – (Future BMT: Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde; BMT: First Daughter; Notes: There isn’t much about her, but she’s written multiple pixie / fairy direct-to-video films including the Tinkerbell pirate fairy film I remember seeing a million advertisements for at one point in my life.)
Actors – Katie Holmes – (Known For: Logan Lucky; Batman Begins; Phone Booth; Woman in Gold; The Gift; Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark; Go; Thank You for Smoking; The Ice Storm; Wonder Boys; The Unbeatables; Pieces of April; Muppets from Space; Touched with Fire; The Extra Man; Future BMT: The Son of No One; Teaching Mrs. Tingle; Abandon; The Romantics; Disturbing Behavior; Mad Money; The Singing Detective; Miss Meadows; The Giver; Days and Nights; All We Had; BMT: Jack and Jill; First Daughter; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Screen Couple for Jack and Jill in 2012; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress in 2006 for Batman Begins; and in 2012 for Jack and Jill; Notes: Most famous for her role in Dawson’s Creek. She subsequently became famous after marrying (and divorcing) Tom Cruise. She’s worked steadily throughout her career and is in the cast of the upcoming Ocean’s Eight.)
Marc Blucas – (Known For: Brawl in Cell Block 99; Sleeping with Other People; We Were Soldiers; Knight and Day; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Pleasantville; Red State; The Jane Austen Book Club; I Capture the Castle; Mother and Child; Sunshine State; Prey for Rock & Roll; Future BMT: Meet Dave; They; Summer Catch; View from the Top; Eddie; Thr3e; Stay Cool; The Alamo; The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human; BMT: First Daughter; Notes: Most well known for having a super fake sounding name. He’s had moderate success in television most recently, and will be in a new Nic Cage film coming out next year, exciting stuff.)
Michael Keaton – (Known For: Spider-Man Homecoming; Beetlejuice; The Founder; Spotlight; Batman; Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); Cars; Batman Returns; Minions; Jackie Brown; Toy Story 3; The Other Guys; RoboCop; Much Ado About Nothing; Out of Sight; Herbie Fully Loaded; Mr. Mum; Night Shift; The Merry Gentleman; Multiplicity; Future BMT: Jack Frost; White Noise; Post Grad; Desperate Measures; Speechless; Gung Ho; One Good Cop; Inventing the Abbotts; The Squeeze; American Assassin; The Last Time; BMT: First Daughter; Need for Speed; Notes: He’s originally from Pittsburgh (all the way down to starting his career working on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood). He had a few minor roles before landing in Ron Howard’s Night Shift where he and Henry Winkler famously swapped roles (or at least characteristics) to much critical acclaim.)
Budget/Gross – $30 million / Domestic: $9,055,921 (Worldwide: $10,592,180)
(Disaster. If you look at the notes there is a whole thing about moving the release because Chasing Liberty flopped so hard … didn’t help.)
(The thing I think I like the most about this genre is that is really is a recent phenomenon. There is a kind of Blockbuster aspect to representing Presidents and speculating about their lives. And this is despite that fact that political cartoons have been skewering presidenting for literally hundreds of years! We love fake presidents (so much we once considered a whole mini-game concerning it), so it is great to see Keaton put on the suit and try out the role.)
(Why do I remember speculating about this … anyways, comes right in the long plateau of a peak for the genre which has had a rather sudden downturn. I probably guessed this last time, but: romantic comedies aren’t tentpoles and are simply getting less screens I think in the new franchise era. Probably doesn’t help that of all film types this one might actually benefit the least from the big screen experience. VOD here we come!)
(Just below Here on Earth (be still my beating heart!). That giant peak? You guessed it, the Twilight Saga. The John Hughes era of the 80s were the heyday, but the late 90s saw a small resurgence. With The Fault in Our Stars and other YA novels starting to find an audience it is possible we might be entering a new post-Twilight bump as well. We’ll see.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (7/85): First Daughter is a bland and charmless fairy tale that fails to rise above the formula.
(Wow. Sub-10% is nuts, and I’m stunned a film like this gets a coveted position like that. Especially when the consensus might as well be: Blah. I’m getting intrigued.)
(Gah! I’m blind! Why is this poster sooooo white? Jesus. It’s also just a poster for Katie Holmes: The Movie… there is nothing First Daughter in this at all. Font is shit too. Boooo. Not an F because it doesn’t actually hurt my brain, only my eyes.)
Tagline(s) – The girl who always stood out is finally getting the chance to fit in. (B)
(I like the effort and the construction. Just too long and still doesn’t work in the whole “daughter of the president” thing.)
Keyword(s) – college; Top Ten by BMeTric: 71.6 The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000); 71.3 Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011); 67.4 Pulse (I) (2006); 66.9 Teen Wolf Too (1987); 65.6 Bodyguard (2011); 64.1 The Roommate (I) (2011); 63.3 The Comebacks (2007); 62.7 Smiley (2012); 60.3 Soul Survivors (2001); 59.9 Flubber (1997);
(Top one is fake, but this does remind me we need to watch Teen Wolf Too at some points. Probably the only one that I really want to see from that list.)
Notes – Vera Wang designed all of Katie Holmes’ ballgowns for this film. (Her originals usually retail for over $10,000 each.) (That last bit is not a comment by us, the parentheses are in the IMDb notes. No comment otherwise)
The release date for the film was pushed back after the similarly themed Chasing Liberty (2004) flopped at the box office. (Ha! I think I’ve seen that one at one point …)
The movie James and Samantha are watching in the movie theater is The Girl Can’t Help It (1956). Director Forest Whitaker was originally set to direct a remake of the 1956 comedy after the release of “First Daughter”.
This film is dedicated to Michael Kamen, the film’s composer.
The book Katie Holmes is reading in the library is Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddhartha’. (It’s on the BMT Not-Necessarily-Bad Book List!)
In the scene where Katie Holmes and Ameriie are sliding down the slope on the slip-n-slide, Katie Holmes inadvertently pulled down Aneriie’s sweatpants while struggling to climb over the hay bales, exposing Ameriie’s bottom in view of the camera. The director chose to leave this in the final cut of the film, since it was a spontaneous event and quite in line with the carefree nature of the scene. (The director being Forest fucking Whitaker)
There are a number of Bring a Friend films that we really went out of our way to accommodate. This week is one of those. When it came to the category of Kids films we really wanted to watch something that was a major release, but we would never ever ever ever watch. Not something like Son of Mask, Marmaduke, or the recently watched Baby Geniuses films, where they transcend the “Never Watch Kids Films” BMT rule, but rather a run-of-the-will children’s film that happened to be terrible. So you know what that means. That’s right! We’re watching Clan of the Cave BeAir Bud: Golden Receiver! There is literally a 0% chance that we would have ever watch Air Bud 2. Wouldn’t have happened without Bring a Friend. The same could almost be said about the BMT film that brought it along. Clan of the Cave Bear is a 1986 adaptation of a 1980 historical fiction book set in the Paleolithic era. I has come up before for BMT, but more seriously as an entry for a book-to-film cycle, since the book was a worldwide success and spawned five sequels. I’ve always been curious to read it and now’s my chance. The film ended up being a gigantic box office flop, so hopefully it can live down to that hype. Let’s go!
The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) – BMeTric: 34.1
(Those are some wild swings in rating for a movie this old. And both films this week have an astonishingly low number of votes. But a 5 IMDb rating is solidly low, so I am expecting a lot.)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – World’s first feminist caveman movie, minus the anthropological detail of Jean Auel’s popular book. Hannah is perfectly cast as outsider who joins band of nomadic Neanderthals, but the story (such as it is) is alternatively boring and unintentionally funny. Subtitles translate cave people’s primitive tongue. Screenplay by John Sayles.
(Unintentionally funny good. Boring bad. But I have a feeling this is going to be mostly boring.)
(IT’S A BOOK! REMEMBER THAT BOOK? That is basically what this trailer says. No, I don’t remember it, and this movie looks boring and weird … a combination that weirdly is getting me a bit excited to be honest.)
Directors – Michael Chapman – (Known For: All the Right Moves; BMT: The Clan of the Cave Bear; Notes: A well known cinematographer, for which he was nominated for two Oscars, for The Fugitive and Raging Bull.)
Writers – Jean M. Auel (novel) – (BMT: The Clan of the Cave Bear; Notes: A children’s book novelist who at one point worked as a circuit board designer for Tektronix, a company that has been making things like oscilloscopes since the 1940s! They tried to make a TV series out of Clan of the Cave Bear recently, but it never got off the ground)
John Sayles (screenplay) – (Known For: The Spiderwick Chronicles; The Howling; Battle Beyond the Stars; Piranha; Lone Star; Alligator; Eight Men Out; Matewan; The Secret of Roan Inish; The Brother from Another Planet; Sunshine State; The Challenge; Go for Sisters; Piranha; Passion Fish; Baby It’s You; Honeydripper; Limbo; Amigo; Return of the Secaucus Seven; BMT: The Clan of the Cave Bear; Notes: Nominated for two Oscars for Lone Star and Passion Fish. His filmography speaks for itself. He was a factory worker who submitted short stories to magazines on the side which were eventually turned into a novel, Pride of the Bimbos. He got a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and used that to transition to a well respected screenwriter. An amazing story.)
Actors – Daryl Hannah – (Known For: Blade Runner; Kill Bill: Vol. 1; Kill Bill: Vol. 2; Splash; Wall Street; Steel Magnolias; Grumpy Old Men; I Am Michael; Roxanne; The Fury; Crimes and Misdemeanours; The Pope of Greenwich Village; The Gingerbread Man; The Big Empty; Legal Eagles; At Play in the Fields of the Lord; Northfork; Casa de los babys; Silver City; Wildflowers; Future BMT: My Favorite Martian; Memoirs of an Invisible Man; Two Much; High Spirits; Keeping Up with the Steins; The Little Rascals; The Final Terror; Summer Lovers; The Hot Flashes; Dancing at the Blue Iguana; Crazy People; The Real Blonde; The Tie That Binds; Grumpier Old Men; Vice; BMT: The Clan of the Cave Bear; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Supporting Actress for Wall Street in 1988; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress in 1989 for High Spirits; and in 1997 for Two Much; Notes: An ardent environmentalist, she has been very politically active in the last ten years. She was also at one point in a relationship with John F. Kennedy Jr.)
Pamela Reed – (Known For: Kindergarten Cop; The Right Stuff; Bean; Proof of Life; The Long Riders; Outside In; Eyewitness; Cadillac Man; Bob Roberts; Melvin and Howard; Why Do Fools Fall in Love; Future BMT: Junior; Young Doctors in Love; The Best of Times; BMT: The Clan of the Cave Bear; Notes: She played Leslie Knope’s mother on Parks and Recreation. She has done a lot of television work recently, on Jericho, United States of Tara, and NCIS: Los Angeles, among others.)
James Remar – (Known For: Django Unchained; X: First Class; The Girl Next Door; Ratatouille; The Warriors; RED; What Lies Beneath; Pineapple Express; Horns; February; 48 Hrs.; Cruising; The Phantom; The Cotton Club; Drugstore Cowboy; Miracle on 34th Street; The Long Riders; White Fang; The Dream Team; Future BMT: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation; Psycho; The Unborn; The Quest; USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage; Blade: Trinity; Duplex; Fatal Instinct; Persecuted; Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Rent-a-Cop; Renaissance Man; Tales from the Darkside: The Movie; BMT: Wild Bill; Judge Dredd; 2 Fast 2 Furious; The Clan of the Cave Bear; Notes: He can still be seen in Aliens as he was originally cast as Hicks, but had to drop out after they had filmed a scene that was too expensive to reshoot. Attended Newton North High School in Massachusetts (what what).)
Budget/Gross – $15 million / Domestic: $1,953,732
(Oh God no, that is awful. I feel like 1986 was just a terrible year for films as a few studios were struggling to make money and throwing anything and everything at the wall hoping it would stick. This might not be much different. Although at least one of the production companies survived this disaster.)
(I’ll make one: Boooooooooring, and worse than the book …. So read the book. Ebert’s original review from the time has a few nice zingers. My favorite being: “If modern men came from beginnings like this, why did they even bother to develop civilization, since they already possessed its most wretched excesses?”)
(Artistic poster with some unique font. Like the stark red on white. It’s solid. Funny thing is that this is also the cover of the DVD and I was told that it looked like a horror film… which I guess is kind of true. Could be an image of a monster.)
Tagline(s) – At The Dawn Of Mankind, A Woman Led The Way. (A)
(This is an all around solid tagline. Clever juxtaposition of Mankind and Woman (and the implications of that), hints at the plot, and just short enough. Near perfect.)
Keyword(s) – neanderthal; Top Ten by BMeTric: 71.6 The Flintstones (1994); 34.1 The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986); 24.0 Eliminators (1986); 21.2 Dieu est grand, je suis toute petite (2001); 16.6 Terror! Il castello delle donne maledette (1974); 16.4 Iceman (1984); 13.9 Dinosaurus! (1960); 12.2 Ironmaster (1983); 10.6 Monster on the Campus (1958); 5.8 Ao: The Last Hunter (2010);
(Ridiculous list. Only the top two are real. Like … Encino Man doesn’t count? Because that def has a higher BMeTric. I’m getting more and more concerned with the quality of these keywords as time goes on.)
Notes – Based on the first novel in the bookseries Earth’s Children by author Jean M. Auel.
A planned back-to-back sequel never made it into production.
Awards – Nominated for the Oscar for Best Makeup (Michael Westmore, Michèle Burke)
There are a number of Bring a Friend films that we really went out of our way to accommodate. This week is one of those. When it came to the category of Kids films we really wanted to watch something that was a major release, but we would never ever ever ever watch. Not something like Son of Mask, Marmaduke, or the recently watched Baby Geniuses films, where they transcend the “Never Watch Kids Films” BMT rule, but rather a run-of-the-will children’s film that happened to be terrible. So you know what that means. That’s right! We’re watching Clan of the Cave BeAir Bud: Golden Receiver! There is literally a 0% chance that we would have ever watch Air Bud 2. Wouldn’t have happened without Bring a Friend. The same could almost be said about the BMT film that brought it along. Clan of the Cave Bear is a 1986 adaptation of a 1980 historical fiction book set in the Paleolithic era. I has come up before for BMT, but more seriously as an entry for a book-to-film cycle, since the book was a worldwide success and spawned five sequels. I’ve always been curious to read it and now’s my chance. The film ended up being a gigantic box office flop, so hopefully it can live down to that hype. Let’s go!
Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998) – BMeTric: 44.8
(This really really has that 2011 inflection, although not very many votes at all. And I’ve never seen that U-shape before on the rating, at least not so far after the release. Why it goes down from 2004 to 2007 is beyond me, a true mystery. I smell a little forensic research perhaps: Why did the IMDb rating for Air Bud 2 drop to 4.0 in 2007?!)
Leonard Maltin – 2.5 stars – Title canine catches pigskins rather than shoots hoops. He and his young owner (Zegers, the lone cast member from the original) join the school football team – plus, a pair of Boris and Natasha-like villains plot to abduct the pooch for their traveling circus. Predictable but harmless fun. Followed by several direct-to-video sequels.
(Predictable but harmless fun, the reason why the Bad Movie Twins no longer watch kids’ films (until now!). I’m sure this will be a non-stop thrill ride … given that the film has a sub-5 on IMDb it is kind of weird Leonard gives it such a break. It is no doubt a stone cold terrible film.)
(Probably the most incredible use of Tubthumping I’ve ever seen. And honestly, the director probably regretted having the kid call the dog the “new wide receptor” instead of the new wide receiver. Seems like just a dumb error instead of a dumb joke. The whole trailer kind of blows my mind honestly.)
Directors – Richard Martin – (BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: An experimental filmmaker, he is the son of Dick Martin who was a comedian in the 60s appearing on things like Match Game.)
Writers – Kevin DiCicco (character “Air Bud”) – (Known For: Air Bud; BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: Air Bud’s trainer, who found him as a stray and trained him in a variety of sports. He made a franchise out of the character of Air Buddy he created which featured on America’s Funniest Home Videos initially.)
Paul Tamasy (characters & written by) – (Known For: Patriots Day; The Finest Hours; The Fighter; Air Bud; BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: Despite being nominated for an academy award for The Fighter, there is very little information about this guy. Air Bud was his first gig, so likely just something he did to break into Hollywood.)
Aaron Mendelsohn (characters & written by) – (Known For: Air Bud; BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: Born in Alaska, he has been heavily involved with the Writer’s Guild over the past ten years.)
Actors – Kevin Zegers – (Known For: Aftermath; Wrong Turn; Dawn of the Dead; In the Mouth of Madness; Frozen; It’s a Boy Girl Thing; The Jane Austen Book Club; Air Bud; Transamerica; Gardens of the Night; Fifty Dead Men Walking; The Stone Angel; Future BMT: Zoom; The Colony; The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones; MVP: Most Valuable Primate; Life with Mikey; The Curse of Downers Grove; BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: I don’t know how this guy survived being a child actor starring in four Air Bud films and MVP: Most Valuable Primate. But he has had an impressive recent career on television including an extended stint on Gossip Girl.)
Cynthia Stevenson – (Known For: Jennifer’s Body; Happiness; The Player; Home for the Holidays; Forget Paris; Tiger Eyes; Future BMT: Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London; Agent Cody Banks; Case 39; Full of It; Live Nude Girls; BMT: I Love You, Beth Cooper; Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: She did six Air Bud movies! She’s been all over television and movies for years. The Air Bud movies make sense considering they are show in Canada and both her and Zegers are in fact Canadian.)
Tim Conway – (Known For: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water; The Apple Dumpling Gang; The Shaggy D.A.; The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again; Future BMT: Speed 2: Cruise Control; Cannonball Run II; Dear God; BMT: Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Notes: He got third billed? He’s the announcer for the final State Championship game at the end so …)
Budget/Gross – $11 million / Domestic: $10,224,116
(Not great. Why does an Air Bud movie cost $11 million to make I wonder? These small mysteries surround this film. Probably made mad cash on DVD purchases and rentals though, that is a shockingly large amount of money, especially in 1998.)
(Not too far ahead of Fluke … not a good look. What I see from this graph is that everyone loves dogs. I kind of love this plot because there is almost a specific trough when Air Bud 2 is released. As if the American people collectively said: No, unacceptable.)
(Below Monkey Trouble which isn’t a great look. I would have guessed Babe was the start to the big 90s boom, but I actually think it is Beethoven, Homeward Bound and Free Willy in ‘92/’93. I have other more unfounded theories about the genre in general, specifically that this was when home video took off and family focused entertainment became a big deal, and animal training was still super cheap.)
(Below Little Giants which isn’t a great look. Football films come in waves, although I couldn’t say why. Perhaps there is a natural rhythm to American audience’s tastes in sports films? Couldn’t say. Last big one was Concussion unfortunately (for the sport, I would assume interest overall is waning with a decline in general))
(Let’s make one: A shadow of the original, this lazy sequel is predictable and poorly written, even if it is an innocuous family-focused affair. Some of those are from the time even, like Ebert’s, which is somewhat surprising.)
(The lower quality makes it a bit tough to judge, but I like the symmetry (even if it suggests, against all odds, that Buddy is the star center for the Timberwolves). Otherwise, just a bright colorful kids’ movie poster, what is there to say?)
Tagline(s) – Just dog it. (F)
(NOPE)
Keyword(s) – russian; Top Ten by BMeTric: 88.4 Street Fighter (1994); 86.2 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987); 83.2 Rollerball (2002); 65.0 Fair Game (1995); 64.1 Tekken (2010); 61.4 Virus (1999); 59.3 xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017); 58.8 The Transporter Refueled (2015); 58.8 A Good Day to Die Hard (2013); 58.6 Jupiter Ascending (2015);
(Sadly we have basically already done Street Fighter outside of the scope of BMT. We did Legend of Chun Li (Hall of Fame inductee) in our first year and back then BMT was like the wild west. We weren’t reading books, doing homework, or anything! A true disaster. So we have both seen Street Fighter fairly recently, so it is unlikely to earn a spot in the rotation anytime soon. So many bad movies, so little time, you know?)
Notes – Six dogs played Bud.
Movie is in memory of “Buddy” who starred in “Air Bud” as a dog who played basketball.
Our keen BMT instincts had us eyeing Flatliners since May for a potential Fall BMT Live! We needed something to bridge the gap between The Mummy and (hopefully) the weather disaster film Geostorm and it just didn’t seem possible that a remake of a 1990 cult classic that no one was asking for could possibly be good. Boy were we right. Taking a break from our Bring a Friend cycle we will be heading to the theater for some BMT fun. Coming into this weekend it stands as the worst reviewed major release of the year (2% on RT compared to 6% for the Rings sequel) and is everything that nobody was hoping it would be. Destined to be forgotten to the sands of time, but not to BMT, let’s get ourselves geared up for a sci fi/horror romp. We haven’t lived until we’ve died, babbbbbyyyyyyy! Let’s go!
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – This sort of movie can be more frustrating than a maliciously terrible or blunderingly incompetent film because at each step you can tell that everyone involved in the production sincerely believed in the material, both as raucous entertainment and as a tale of moral growth. But when the best you can say about a movie is that it means well, that’s proof that it’s not working on any level that matters.
(Just to be clear … this is a film which got 35 bad reviews in a row and sits at 2%. It is likely to be the worst reviewed film of a year that includes The Emoji Movie. Apparently a movie that merely “means well” is a movie everyone can rally behind and give uniformly bad reviews to.)
(I can’t tell if it is a good choice to go full horror or not. I do know that I don’t think this is a particularly interesting choice for a remake to Flatliners. Whether it is an IP grab or a legitimate choice to remake what is kind of a forgotten film of the 90s is yet to be scene, but it feels like an IP grab. Which probably means safe garbage-y horror.)
Directors – Niels Arden Oplev – (Known For: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; Drømmen; Future BMT: Dead Man Down; BMT: Flatliners; Notes: Danish, and that is naturally the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, not the American remake. He’s worked on several American television shows since including directing an episode of Mr. Robot.)
Writers – Peter Filardi (story by) – (Known For: Flatliners; The Craft; BMT: Flatliners; Notes: He is from a family of screenwriters including his brother and wife. Oddly hasn’t written all that much though, although he was attached to some sort of supernatural project a few years ago.)
Ben Ripley (screenplay by) – (Known For: Source Code; The Choir; BMT: Flatliners; Notes: Ha, he wrote the direct-to-video sequels to Species as his first jobs for Fox! He somewhat hit it big with Source Code (his original idea) and is attached to the sequel that is in production.)
Actors – Ellen Page – (Known For: Inception; X-Men: Days of Future Past; Juno; X-Men: The Last Stand; Mercy; Hard Candy; Into the Forest; Super; The Cured; To Rome with Love; My Life as a Courgette; Whip It; Tallulah; The East; Freeheld; Smart People; Window Horses; Mouth to Mouth; The Stone Angel; Marion Bridge; Future BMT: Touchy Feely; The Tracey Fragments; BMT: Flatliners; Notes: Vegan and well-known LGBT advocate having come out as gay a few years ago. In a relationship with professional surfer Samantha Jones.)
Diego Luna – (Known For: The Bad Batch; Rogue One; Elysium; Blood Father; Y Tu Mamá También; Open Range; The Terminal; The Book of Life; Frida; Milk; Contraband; Before Night Falls; Casa de mi Padre; Mister Lonely; Criminal; Rudo y Cursi; Nicotina; Future BMT: Vampires: Los Muertos; Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights; BMT: Flatliners; Notes: A mexican actor appearing in numerous mexican films and some telenovelas. He’s started producing with his company Canana Films.)
Nina Dobrev – (Known For: xXx: Return of Xander Cage; The Perks of Being a Wallflower; Chloe; The Final Girls; Away from Her; Fugitive Pieces; How She Move; Future BMT: Barely Lethal; Let’s Be Cops; BMT: The Roommate; Flatliners; Notes: Bulgarian, although she grew up in Canada. She starred in Vampire Diaries, and has started to make the shift to major features including Bring a Friend film xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.)
(That budget is … respectable actually. It won’t make it back (it is a colossal bomb already), but this now seems like a kind of shot in the dark to try and get some cheap nostalgia cash instead of a poorly thought out use of sweeeeeeeet IP.)
(Can’t really remake horror films without horror films to remake I guess. The boom in the late-00s suggest this is a very nice genre for bad movies. It seemed like it was surging again, but nay, this was the first placed in the genre in nearly two years. And it is not making much money at the moment, soooooo probably won’t help matters)
Rotten Tomatoes – 2% (1/47): Flatliners falls flat as a horror movie and fails to improve upon its source material, rendering this reboot dead on arrival.
(It falls flat? Really? Anyways, this is probably the worst reviewed film of the year. At least up there, sub-5% is extremely rare. I figured this film was going to be terrible because it is a terrible idea (not the killing themselves part, the part where they remake Flatliners), but I never really imagined it would get quite this bad reviews.)
(This poster is good. Seems a bit more like an art piece than a poster, but still good. Only wish the majority of the poster wasn’t so dull colorwise.)
Tagline(s) – You Haven’t Lived Until You’ve Died (A)
(I would say this is a near perfect tagline. It is short, plays on a common phrase, and hints at the plot. Check marks all around. The only concern I have is that I’m not sure it captures the tone of the film, which seems to be a sci fi/horror. But hard to tell without having seen the film.)
Keyword(s) – medical student; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.0 Jason X (2001); 65.4 Valentine (2001); 54.2 Annabelle (I) (2014); 44.3 Unrest (I) (2006); 35.7 The Ruins (2008); 33.7 The Prince & Me (2004); 31.3 Victor Frankenstein (2015); 30.1 Wrong Turn (I) (2003); 29.9 Pathology (2008); 28.0 The Taking (2014);
(Awesome. Victor Frankenstein is one of those films we should have just watched and then never got around to it. I don’t think it even got any Razzie nods, which is also super weird. From everything I heard it is as bad as I, Frankenstein.)
Notes – Sequel to Flatliners (1990) which starred Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, Oliver Platt and William Baldwin.
With Kiefer Sutherland returning as Nelson, the same character he played in the 1990 version of the movie, makes this a sequel rather than a remake.
This movie is NOT a sequel to the 1990 movie. It is a remake, a re-imagining, or a version of the previous movie and has no other connection to it at all. Although Kiefer Sutherland appears in both versions, he plays two different characters. (See above … this production sounds very clear and coherent)
Ellen Page also voiced and motion captured the lead character Jodie Holmes from the 2013 video game Beyond: Two Souls (2013). The game explores the “infraworld” which is analogous to the world after death where the souls reside. Ellen Page’s character in the game also experiences supernatural activities and communicates with entities from the “other side.”
Avery Bederman, the daughter of one of the executive producers of the film, Michael Bederman, has a small role in this movie.
Every cycle is new and different in the BMT-verse, but one thing stays the same: the Chain Reaction always puts us in a tough spot. We have to navigate the past, current, and future cycles all at once or else we might paint ourselves into a corner. This cycle was no different and it left us with only one true spot. That’s right! We’re doing Jaws 3-D-Tox! We’re making our way from The Beverly Hillbillies through the lovely Lea Thompson to the first of the two Jaws sequels that qualify for BMT, Jaws 3-D. Apparently at the time the underwater 3-D photography for the film was actually pretty amazing, but it has been lost to film. Despite this it was still nominated for Worst Picture at the 1983 Razzies, so another feather in our BMT cap. As for D-Tox there was really no other choice for straight-to-DVD as this cycle represented one of the few times we could watch one of films Sly Stallone made in the early 2000’s. This was when his career was really waning and he consecutively made Driven, this, Avenging Angelo, Spy Kids 3-D, and Shade before resuscitating his career with the criminally overrated Rocky Balboa. D-Tox has been on our radar for a while because of just how bad its title is, not to mention that it was released in Europe under an even worse name: Eye See You. Unacceptable! Let’s go!
Jaws 3-D (1983) – BMeTric: 84.7
(See! Last week I wondered about votes just kind of … tailing off. This is more like it. I really do think Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is just slipping into obscurity. The rating is astonishingly low. Like crazy low. I’m kind of shocked. Take a peek below … this is a film Leonard Maltin gave 2 stars. The reviews aren’t overwhelmingly bad … why do people hate this so much. I am intrigued.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Road-company Irwin Allen-type disaster film, unrelated to first two Jaws except by contrivance; this time a shark’s on the loose in Florida’s Sea World. (Does this make it an unofficial remake of Revenge of the Creature?) Might play on TV, but in theaters its only real assets were excellent 3-D effects. Retitled Jaws III for TV and home video.
(Jesus, this review is excellent. Back-to-back hyphen / semi-colon work to open. Two (count’em, two!) older film references (Irwin Allen, the father of the disaster film, and, of all things, Revenge of the Creature). Nice and short, and I’m all about a plot driven by contrivance, so getting me excited.)
(A little bit less information than we traditionally see in trailers for BMT films. Probably for the best considering this just shits all over the previous two films …)
Directors – Joe Alves – (BMT: Jaws 3-D; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Director for Jaws 3-D in 1984; Notes: His one-and-done director job. He is mainly an art director and production designer, including for three Spielberg films (Jaws, The Sugarland Express, and Close Encounters).)
Writers – Peter Benchley (suggested by the novel “Jaws”) – (Known For: Jaws; Jaws 2; The Island; Future BMT: Jaws: The Revenge; The Deep; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Notes: Grandson of famed humorist Robert Benchley, he appears in Jaws as the man reporting the shark attacks at Amity on Fourth of July weekend.)
Richard Matheson (screenplay) – (Known For: I Am Legend; Real Steel; The Box; What Dreams May Come; Stir of Echoes; Twilight Zone: The Movie; The Omega Man; Somewhere in Time; The Legend of Hell House; The Last Man on Earth; The Incredible Shrinking Man; Pit and the Pendulum; The Fall of the House of Usher; The Devil Rides Out; The Raven; Tales of Terror; The Comedy of Terrors; Fanatic; Night of the Eagle; Future BMT: Loose Cannons; The Incredible Shrinking Woman; De Sade; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Jaws 3-D in 1984; Notes: Wrote the book I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, among others. Likely he got involved with Spielberg because he wrote the short story Duel which was Spielberg’s first film.)
Carl Gottlieb (screenplay) – (Known For: Jaws; Jaws 2; The Jerk; Doctor Detroit; Future BMT: Caveman; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Jaws 3-D in 1984; Notes: Wrote the famous book The Jaws Log about the difficult production of the original Jaws. Heavily involved with the Writers’ Guild.)
Guerdon Trueblood (story) – (BMT: Jaws 3-D; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Jaws 3-D in 1984; Notes: Highly successful television writer, he ended up writing several made-for-television creature features including The Savage Bees.)
Michael Kane (additional dialogue) (uncredited) – (Known For: All the Right Moves; Southern Comfort; Future BMT: Smokey and the Bandit Ride Again; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Notes: Appears to have retired around 1994, he rocked multiple movies per year from ‘79 to ‘83. Solid early-80s run.)
Actors – Dennis Quaid – (Known For: The Day After Tomorrow; The Parent Trap; Any Given Sunday; Footloose; Traffic; Wyatt Earp; The Rookie; Soul Surfer; Innerspace; DragonHeart; Frequency; The Right Stuff; Stripes; Truth; Breaking Away; Enemy Mine; Far from Heaven; Dreamscape; At Any Price; Playing by Heart; Future BMT: Legion; Cold Creek Manor; Yours, Mine & Ours; Beneath the Darkness; G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra; Horsemen; Something to Talk About; Flight of the Phoenix; The Alamo; Caveman; Undercover Blues; Vantage Point; Switchback; Wilder Napalm; Pandorum; A Dog’s Purpose; All Night Long; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Movie 43; What to Expect When You’re Expecting; Playing for Keeps; Notes: The more successful brother of Randy Quaid. He plays in a band called “The Sharks” … which is kind of funny because he claims he doesn’t really remember making this film.)
Bess Armstrong – (Known For: Serial Mom; Pecker; Dream Lover; Nothing in Common; The Four Seasons; Diamond Men; Future BMT: That Darn Cat; Second Sight; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Notes: Onca said about Tom Selleck: “he has some real power now, but he doesn’t use that, or his charm, to exploit women. He genuinely seems to like women. For an actor, that’s rare.”)
Simon MacCorkindale – (Known For: Death on the Nile; The Sword and the Sorcerer; BMT: Jaws 3-D; Wing Commander; Notes: Was on 230 episodes of Casualty. He died in 2010 from cancer.)
Budget/Gross – $18 million / Domestic: $45,517,055 (Worldwide: $87,987,055)
(Absolutely smashing it. People do like a creature feature sequel.)
(It is staaaark how many more 3D films came out in the last 10 years compared to in the 80s. People think these films are dying … but they’re going pretty strong it looks like. Right around The Great Wall from this year!)
(We are seeing a resurgence after the boom following Jurassic Park could repeat that success. Things like Jurassic World and Kong: Skull Island seem like the genre is truly back.)
(I’ll have to make my own!: A testament to the greed and arrogance that ultimately lead to a sort of studio collapse in the 90s, this represents nothing more than yet another dumb sequel. The reviews are pretty brutal, although all from after the fact. This film got me wondering about sequelitis, but creature features in particular always had a lot of sequels (like Godzilla), so it wasn’t unique to the “modern” studio system. Still, given the joke about Jaws 19 in Back to the Future Part II, the awareness of the problem was there.)
(Why do I like this poster so much? Like, I like the symmetry, and how it tries to get across the 3-D. I deduct a bit because the big shark looks very silly, but then the foreground with the water skiers is fun. I dig it.)
Tagline(s) – The third dimension is terror. (D-)
(My initial gut reaction was “I dig it”, but then my brain had time to process the nonsense that is actually there. The third dimension is terror. So like, x, y, and terror? It is lucky it doesn’t get an F.)
Keyword(s) – shark; Top Ten by BMeTric: 87.9 Jaws: The Revenge (1987); 84.7 Jaws 3-D (1983);84.2 Movie 43 (2013); 81.4 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005); 77.1 Shark Night 3D (2011); 62.2 My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006); 57.0 Chairman of the Board (1998); 55.5 Dark Tide (2012); 51.8 Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991); 51.2 Sand Sharks (2012);
(We’re leaving a bit of flotsam in our wake with this one, as Jaws: The Revenge will have to be done another time. This is actually an incredible list minus the comedies which “merely have a shark in them”, but Return to the Blue Lagoon? Yes please.)
Notes – According to the book “Roy Scheider: a film biography” (2002) by Diane C. Kachmar, Scheider, who starred in the first two Jaws movies, once said, “Mephistopheles….couldn’t talk me into doing [it]…They knew better than to even ask”. Reportedly, Scheider agreed to make Blue Thunder (1983) in order to ensure that he was definitely and contractually unavailable for this film. Scheider had made Jaws 2 (1978) reluctantly due to a contract issue with Universal Studios whereby he owed the studio two films after withdrawing from The Deer Hunter (1978). To get out of this situation, he opted to make to do Jaws 2 (1978), a picture he didn’t want to work on, in exchange for the studio releasing him from his contract.
The shark was 35 feet long, 10 feet longer than previous films.
David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck, producers of the first two films, originally pitched this as a spoof, based on a suggestion by Matty Simmons and John Hughes. Titled “National Lampoon’s Jaws 3, People 0”, it was about a movie studio trying to make a second sequel to Jaws (1975). It opened with author Peter Benchley being eaten in his pool by a shark, and included a naked Bo Derek and shark-costumed aliens. Joe Dante was attached as director. Steven Spielberg rejected the idea and threatened to walk from his deal with Universal. When Zanuck and Brown learned of the rejection, they quit the studio. (That movie would have been terrible. But it is kind of funny to think of how excited Zanuck and Brown must have been about this idea to quit the studio over it).
In a later interview Dennis Quaid referred to this movie as “I was in Jaws what?”
Lea Thompson’s feature film debut. (Noice, I love Lea Thompson)
The female dolphin called Sandy in the movie is really a male dolphin named Capricorn. He currently lives in Discovery Cove which is owned by SeaWorld Orlando and has interactions with guests like giving them rides and doing tricks for them. Capricorn is 50 years old. (fuck SeaWorld)
In later interviews, writer Richard Matheson claimed that the film was bedeviled with script doctors that ruined the central premise of a white shark swimming upstream and becoming trapped in a lake.
The film made $13,422,500 in its first weekend of release. At the time, that was the highest grossing opening for a 3-D film, it wouldn’t be until 20 years later when Spy Kids 3-D Game Over broke that record ($33,417,739).
The filmmakers initially planned to have very few “pop-out” effects where objects extend beyond the screen in 3D. Studio executives ultimately pressured them to include more, worried that audiences would leave disappointed and spread bad word-of-mouth if the 3D were used mainly for depth. (I cannot wait to notice all of this garbage in 2D)
This is the only film ever directed by Joe Alves. (One and done, one and done, one and done!)
Actresses Lorraine Gary and Fritzi Jane Courtney starred in three of the four “Jaws” films. This movie is the only one that they don’t appear. It is also arguably the only one that Roy Scheider does not appear, given the fact that he appeared in the first two films, and the fourth, Jaws: The Revenge (1987), but in the latter only via the inclusion of a framed photograph, and archive footage used for flashbacks.
This sequel did not use any actors from the first two Jaws movies, Jaws (1975) and Jaws 2 (1978).
The movie was part of an early 1980s cycle of 3D movies that also included Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985), Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983), Jaws 3-D (1983), Parasite (1982), Amityville 3-D (1983), Comin’ at Ya! (1981), Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone (1983) and El tesoro de las cuatro coronas (1983) [“Treasure of the Four Crowns”].
“Jaws 3-D” and “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” have several things in common. Both are the third films in a popular series that began with very successful films released in the 1970s (“Jaws” (1975) and “Halloween” (1978)), both of which launched the careers of their respective directors (Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter). Both were set in new locales not seen in the first two films (the “Jaws” movies took place in Amity Island, and the “Halloween” movies in Haddonfield, Illinois), and were unsuccessful attempts to deviate from previous sequels, which had been highly derivative of the originals (“Jaws 2” (1978) and “Halloween II” (1981)). And both were made by first-time directors who had been the production designers of the previous films (Joe Alves for “Jaws” and Tommy Lee Wallace for “Halloween”).
The movie was directed by Joe Alves who had been the production designer on Jaws (1975) and Jaws 2 (1978) and was also the second unit director for on the latter. Trade paper ‘Variety’ said “Joe Alves was instrumental in the design of the first Jaws shark and was the unsung production hero in both the first two pictures”.
This film was the first shot on Arriflex’s single-camera ArriVision 3D system. However, the system was not actually ready for use until a week into production. During the wait, the Optimax and StereoVision 3D systems were used. All of the footage from the Optimax system was deemed unusable and thrown out (that system was prone to serious misalignment issues), while StereoVision was deemed acceptable enough that it continued to be used for second-unit work through the entire production. ArriVision footage makes up the bulk of the final film, with the earliest-shot and second-unit scenes shot in StereoVision and miniatures and effects shot with a two-camera beam-splitter system similar to later digital 3D setups.
The only Jaws movie which does not feature any scenes filmed at Martha’s Vineyard, known as Amity Island in the series. (BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)
Veteran editor Verna Fields, who won an Oscar for editing the first film, recommended Joe Alves as director.
One of a cycle of 1980s and late 1970s movies that got made after the box-office success Jaws (1975). The films include that movie’s three sequels, Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and Jaws: The Revenge (1987), as well as Orca (1977), Piranha (1978), Tentacles (1977), Killer Fish (1979), Barracuda (1978), Tintorera… Bloody Waters (1977), Blood Beach (1980), Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (1981), L’ultimo squalo (1981), Up from the Depths (1979), Monster (Humanoids from the Deep) (1980), L’isola degli uomini pesce (1979), Devouring Waves (1984) and Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976). (I want to see these)
The characters of Mike Brody (Dennis Quaid) and Sean Brody (John Putch) are the sons of Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) from Jaws (1975) and Jaws 2 (1978).
All the appliances seen in the film’s interior shots were Sears Kenmore-branded. However, this was not intentional. (Awesome secret sponsor)
Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (Rupert Hitzig)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Louis Gossett Jr.)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Joe Alves)
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Richard Matheson, Carl Gottlieb, Guerdon Trueblood)
Originally it seemed obvious that when we hit the “foreign film” entry in the Bring a Friend that we would watch our beloved Nic Cage in Outcast, the Chinese film he did with our less beloved Hayden Christensen. However as we did more research it was clear that the film was an American production looking to break into the Chinese market and probably would have gotten an American release if, you know, it wasn’t so terrible. Seemed to fit better as a straight-to-DVD. So instead we went all in and chose a film that was a 100% foreign release with no American audience in mind and linked it up with a very traditional American rom com release. That’s right! We’re watch Ghosts of Girlfriends PAsterix at the Olympic Games. We all know Ghosts of Girlfriends Past: stars Matthew McConaughey, he plays a giant doucher with a heart of gold, and got solidly terrible reviews. Classic. As for Asterix at the Olympic Games, it’s unlikely anyone has heard of it. I read some articles about it back when it was released because it was a shock to the French cinema. It was the third in a series of films in which the second entry, Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, was a historically gigantic box office smash and critical darling. So obviously the third film was hotly anticipated… and landed with a thud. Everyone hated this film in France and it went on to win the French equivalent to the Razzie award for worst picture. Seemed like a perfect test to see if the language of bad film is universal. Let’s go!
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) – BMeTric: 39.4
(Huh … Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but I feel like I haven’t noticed movies’ IMDb votes tailing off as time goes by. I actually kind of assumed as new users replaced old the number of new votes for a film would kind of just, paradoxically, rise. But apparently it does tail off. Or … maybe this movie is of a certain breed. A movie slowly being forgotten. One of those forgotten films of the 00s that young BMTers will be marvelling over in 2037 … one can dream.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Tepid reimagining of A Christmas Carol as a romantic comedy, with McConaughey typecast as a roguish lothario who’s encouraged to change his charming-wastrel ways while visited by various apparitions – including his late playboy uncle (scene stealer Douglas) – the night before his brother’s wedding. Game actors aren’t helped by flat cinematography (even Garner, as McConaughey’s once and future sweetie, looks drab) and predictable writing.
(Sounds boring. But I’m liking the shots at the cinematography. Niche. I think as long as you go in not expecting much you can probably get out untraumatized. At least, that’s how it sounds to me.)
(Emma Stone looks like fun there. Always loving Breckin Meyer. I guess this is what Leonard Maltin meant by “game cast”. Also it seems like it plays right into a bunch of romantic comedy tropes, like the last 30 minutes of Made of Honor, so that could be fun to stare aghast at.)
Directors – Mark Waters – (Known For: Mean Girls; Freaky Friday; Just Like Heaven; The Spiderwick Chronicles; Mr. Popper’s Penguins; The House of Yes; Future BMT: Vampire Academy; Head Over Heels; Bad Santa 2; BMT: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Notes: Brother of the screenwriter Daniel Waters for Batman Returns, Demolition Man, Heathers, and Hudson Hawk! Also married to an actress (Dina Spybey-Waters) who seems fairly accomplished in television.)
Writers – Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (written by) – (Known For: Bad Moms; The Hangover; Office Christmas Party; Future BMT: Rebound; Four Christmases; The Hangover Part III; 21 & Over; The Change-Up; Full of It; The Hangover Part II; Flypaper; BMT: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Notes: They created and wrote for the show Mixology which at one point became quite famous for being terrible! Notably have provided many uncredited rewrites, including for the BMT film Mr. Woodcock.)
Actors – Matthew McConaughey – (Known For: Sing; Interstellar; Gold; The Wolf of Wall Street; Dazed and Confused; Tropic Thunder; Kubo and the Two Strings; Dallas Buyers Club; Magic Mike; Mud; Free State of Jones; Contact; A Time to Kill; How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days; Reign of Fire; The Lincoln Lawyer; Frailty; Amistad; Bernie; We Are Marshall; Future BMT: The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre; The Wedding Planner; Surfer, Dude; Sahara; Paparazzi; The Dark Tower; Larger Than Life; My Boyfriend’s Back; Angels in the Outfield; The Sea of Trees; Two for the Money; BMT: Failure to Launch; Fool’s Gold; Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Tiptoes; Notes: Enjoying continued late-career success dubbed The McConaissance. He broke onto the scene with Dazed and Confused (which is was subsequently type-cast for, and later embraced), and is an ardent supporter of the Texas Longhorns football team.)
Jennifer Garner – (Known For: Catch Me If You Can; Juno; Dallas Buyers Club; Daredevil; Wakefield; 13 Going on 30; Miracles from Heaven; The Invention of Lying; Draft Day; Danny Collins; Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day; The Kingdom; Deconstructing Harry; Washington Square; Future BMT: Mr. Magoo; Dude, Where’s My Car?; Arthur; Pearl Harbor; Catch and Release; Butter; The Odd Life of Timothy Green; Men, Women & Children; BMT: Elektra; Nine Lives; Valentine’s Day; Mother’s Day; Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Notes: Recently separated from her husband of over ten years, Ben Affleck. Born in Texas she was raised in West Virginia, a fact that occasionally comes up in her acting roles (her call sign in Alias was The Mountaineer at one point, for example).)
Emma Stone – (Known For: Battle of the Sexes; La La Land; The Help; Superbad; Crazy, Stupid, Love.; Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance); The Amazing Spider-Man 2; The Amazing Spider-Man; The House Bunny; Zombieland; Easy A; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; The Interview; Friends with Benefits; Irrational Man; The Croods; The Rocker; Magic in the Moonlight; Future BMT: Marmaduke; Aloha; Gangster Squad; Unlikely Hero; BMT: Movie 43; Ghosts of Girlfriends Past; Notes: Broke out after her role in Superbad she has become one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood as well as winning the Oscar for Best Actress for La La Land last year.)
Budget/Gross – $37.5 million / Domestic: $55,250,026 (Worldwide: $102,223,269)
(Rough domestic total. Would have expected at least a bit more, 75-100 million if it were a success. Probably not really room for a sequel anyways. Thinking about it, I wonder how many romantic comedies leave room for a sequel … they all kind of end the same way right?)
(What a very strange (and consistently created) genre. Her was the last one listed, so … again, either dead or forgotten by the Box Office Mojo staff.)
(Combined with the previous plot the romantic fantasy really did peak in 2009! I wonder if it is because it is cheap, or because they are light hearted fun … either way it does seem interesting that it would crest right after the financial collapse. Both make sense. These are still killing it though, with Beauty and the Beast and certainly other live-action Disney adaptations to come.)
(This genre booming in the early 2000s is just … exactly what you would expect. The genre certainly has gone out of style … can’t say I miss it.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (37/140): A retread of A Christmas Carol, featuring Matthew McConaughey in a retread of his Dazed and Confused role, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past lacks originality, humor, and any semblance of charm.
(I don’t believe you. It is impossible for a film starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Emma Stone, and Michael Douglas to not be incredibly charming. Originality and humor on the other hand I can totally believe.)
(Certainly tells a story and has a central color to focus everything around, but busy and has terrible font. Slightly underwhelming mixed bag.)
Tagline(s) – You can’t always run from your past (D+)
(I always thought that the phrase “running from your past” implied that you can’t actually do it… it’s not something that you can get away from… because it’s your past… an abstraction that cannot be changed or erase and will eventually “catch up with you.” Anyway, what I’m saying is I don’t understand this tagline as it seems meaningless. Besides, it sounds weird that they’re repeating the word “past” in the title and tagline.)
Keyword(s) – wedding; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.7 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 80.8 Sex and the City 2 (2010); 79.8 Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000); 76.5 The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000); 72.8 Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003); 72.0 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011); 70.3 Devil’s Due (2014); 68.4 Supergirl (1984); 67.9 Superman III (1983); 67.8 Double Team (1997);
(Ha! I think Sex and the City 2 is the big one there (although … is there a wedding? I can’t remember. There is in the first one). Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas was once proposed as a Nevada based movie for the Mapl.d.map … we nixed that, but the thought still kind of tickles me. Suggesting Rock Vegas is in fact in Nevada.)
Notes – This is the second time that Christa B. Allen has played the younger version of a character played by Jennifer Garner. The first was in 13 Going on 30 (2004).
Originally set up at Walt Disney Pictures with Ben Affleck attached to play the lead character, and Kevin Smith to direct. Production was to begin in the fall of 2003, but budgetary concerns and the failure of Gigli (2003) forced the studio to cancel the film one month prior to shooting. Ironically, when the film did get made years later, Affleck’s wife Jennifer Garner appeared in it. And the role Affleck was supposed to play, was instead played by his Dazed and Confused (1993) co-star, Matthew McConaughey. (Doesn’t feeeeel like irony. More of just a fun coincidence. I’m not sure why I wouldn’t expect Jennifer Garner to get attached to a movie her now ex-husband was set to star in from years prior.)
When Ben Affleck was attached to the project, offers went out to Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson for the part of Uncle Wayne.
Based on the novel A Christmas Carol in Prose, 1843, by Charles Dickens. (You don’t say)
When going back to his late teens, Connor winds up in Kripke’s basement. Kripke’s basement is where, in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), John Connor said he first made out with Kate Brewster only a few days before the T-2 arrived, both Connor’s name and the locale being homage to the Terminator series.
Released in Germany as “Night of the Ex-Girlfriends”
Director Mark Waters installed a ping-pong table at both Crane Estate and Elm Bank Reservation, where the present-day wedding scenes were filmed, and would regularly challenge Micah Sherman, Albert M. Chan, and Michael Anastasia, who play the groomsmen. (Fun facts)
The first of two films to feature Jennifer Garner and Matthew McConaughey. The second was Dallas Buyers Club (2013).
Anne Archer and Michael Douglas have also been in Fatal Attraction (1987) together, although they do not have scenes together in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009).
In the movie they play the song nothing but a good time by Poison a song that was later sung in the movie Rock of Ages (2012) a movie that stars Catherine Zeta-Jones wife of Michael Douglas who co-starred in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009). (Wait … and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past has 23 letters, the number 23!!!!!!!!!)
Huge week for BMT as we finish up our adventure through the Friday the 13th series. I’m actually getting a little emotional as I relive our journey from F13 n00bs to veterans of the series and big enough fans to be legitimately disappointed when they scrapped the planned reboot this year. The 11th movie in the series, Freddy vs. Jason, pitted two of the most famous film slashers against each other and earned enough goodwill to not qualify for BMT, so that’s just a bonus this week. As for the Bring A Friend for Friday the 13th we went with Black Friday the 13th, pairing a Bargain Bin C-list Gary Daniels martial arts film, Black Friday, with the conclusion of the horror franchise. There had been some questions for as as to what qualified for “Bargain Bin,” but this certainly does: stars a C-list actions star, does not have a trailer, and was directed by the same guy who made Saving Christmas. That is legit lower than Direct-to-DVD… that’s like Might-not-ever-be-on-DVD level. But of course my local public library had a copy ready to rent (my library is amazing). All things considered I’m willing to bet watching Black Friday will be a more horrifying experience than finishing up Friday the 13th. Let’s go!
Friday the 13th (2009) – BMeTric: 46.6
(Nice. Opened high with the horror fans hitting the ratings hard, and they it goes a-tumblin’ down to the “mean”. The idea of an average rating is actually quite fascinating. The mean rating for IMDb as a whole is something like 7.0 (weighted by number of votes). For the top 10 thousand films (by popularity) it is closer to 6.4 instead. And I think if you were to postulate a limit, the mean rating a movie would hit if it was (1) perfectly average, and (2) an infinite number of people rated it, I think it would be around 5.8 all said and done. What does it say about BMT that so many of our movies approach this 5.8 limit like clockwork? I think it tells you a bit about how bad the “average” movie is, but this could also all be horseshit. Only deep diving data-analysis can tell the tale. Stay tuned.)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – The 12th Friday isn’t a sequel but something like a remake of the 1st and 3rd. As before, some annoying teenagers encounter the silent, murderous Jason, who chops, stabs, and bludgeons his way through the cast, though without as much gore as in previous entries. Plodding, dull, and repetitive, this is only occasionally creepy and never scary. Yes, there’s a setup for a sequel, if anyone cares.
(Leonard loves lists. Although I do like the rhythm created by “chops, stabs and bludgeons” and “Plodding, dull, and repetitive”. Brutal takedown at the end, mainly because yeah, no one cared and Paramount cancelled the sequel mere months ago. Sigh.)
(As far as a remake is concerned this is probably the best storyline available. Use the hiker looking for his sister conceit. Replace Mama Voorhees with Jason. And give a few call backs (like the bag over the head). I like the idea of him being a weirdo protecting his territory as well. I am genuinely interested in seeing how they screw it up. Although judging by how much Camp Crystal Lake there is in the trailer, they might have caught a case of over-explainitis.)
Directors – Marcus Nispel – (Future BMT: Conan the Barbarian; The Texas Chainsaw Massacre; BMT: Pathfinder; Friday the 13th; Notes: Was originally attached to End of Days as his feature directorial debut, but left due to budget issues. Was originally a commercial and music video director.)
Writers – Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (screenplay & story) – (Known For: Freddy vs. Jason; Future BMT: Baywatch; BMT: Friday the 13th; Notes: True blue writing partners (they even have a joint wiki page). Brought in after Wheaton (and the originally attached director) was fired, having written Freddy vs. Jason.)
Mark Wheaton (story) – (Future BMT: The Messengers; BMT: Friday the 13th; Notes: He wrote for a number of film magazines prior to becoming a screenwriter despite going to school for playwriting. Writes for video games as well, and has had a few crime novels published in the past few years.)
Victor Miller (characters) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Freddy vs. Jason; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Jason X; Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Wrote the original film.)
Actors – Jared Padalecki – (Known For: Phantom Boy; Future BMT: House of Wax; Cry_Wolf; Flight of the Phoenix; BMT: New York Minute; Friday the 13th; Cheaper by the Dozen; Notes: His IMDb profile is very details and weirdly focused on his high school academic achievements (like being a Presidential Scholar and an “exceptional” chess player). Played Dean Forester on Gilmore Girls.)
Amanda Righetti – (Known For: Captain America: The First Avenger; Role Models; BMT: Friday the 13th; Notes: Was Hailey Nichol on The O.C.! That’s Kirsten’s little sister for those playing at home. Mainly a television actress she had major parts on The Mentalist and Colony most recently.)
Derek Mears – (Known For: Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping; I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore.; Predators; Signs; Zathura: A Space Adventure; Død snø 2; Hatchet III; MacGruber; Future BMT: Wild Wild West; The Haunted Mansion; The Hills Have Eyes II; Cursed; Men in Black II; Live by Night; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; The Demolitionist; Gangster Squad; BMT: Dragon Wars; Friday the 13th; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters; Notes: Known for his “towering height”. Makes sense he would take over as Jason. I don’t have issues with not having Hodder return in the remake, if they had planned on making it a series I think you try out a few people to find someone who can bring something new and fresh to the part.)
Budget/Gross – $19 million / Domestic: $65,002,019 (Worldwide: $91,379,051)
(I mean, that’s a hit. $65 million is nothing to scoff at for a horror. They probably expected more, but none of these films made money, so I don’t know why they would. I am actually stunned they cancelled the sequel. The only plausible explanation is that they are rebooting it again to give it back that microbudget feel with a Blumhouse Pictures deal, but who could possibly know. Perhaps the cut they saw was so bad it would have killed the franchise forever.)
(Second best of the remakes of classic horror franchises, beaten only by Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This franchise died with the remake wave. Is there no novel ways to make a slasher? Is the genre too narrow and self-aware. Possibly. Only time will tell. Would make me sad if true, but I have to imagine someone will come up with a twist and revive it, even if the glory of practical effects fueled 80s slashers are dead and gone.)
(You can kind of see how the slasher died at the same time the remake boom died. There aren’t really any 90s horrors worth rebooting, so possibly they are just waiting a bit before delving back into more recent films? Unclear. Horror is experiencing a renaissance at the moment, so remakes don’t seem like the are entirely wanted or needed.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 25% (42/166): Though technically well-constructed, Friday the 13th is a series rehash that features little to distinguish it from its predecessors.
(Yeah … well I’m not sure going the other way would have worked out very well either. Honestly, I’m hard pressed to think how you could reboot a horror franchise like this without rehashing quite a bit. Any type of “innovation” I don’t think comes across as anything but gimmicky. Maybe set it after all of films (besides Jason X …) and don’t explain his resurrection? Soft reboot into Jason as a ghost story in the woods around Crystal Lake, something everyone forgot about.)
(I like it! Some similarities to the original, although less artistic and more generic. Like the spacing, Jason-centric nature of it, and the coloring is dark but nice. Biggest flaw is they took a series with unique font and made it boring as shit.)
Tagline(s) – Welcome to Crystal Lake (B-)
(Concise and to the point, hinting at what’s to come (hopefully): a Friday the 13th film. Not clever in the least bit though.)
Keyword(s) – camp; Top Ten by BMeTric: 94.5 Batman & Robin (1997); 85.3 Troll 2 (1990); 81.3 Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959); 78.4 Pledge This! (2006); 75.9 Freddy Got Fingered (2001); 69.8 Year One (2009); 64.0 Seed of Chucky (2004); 60.5 Shrooms (2007); 53.6 Exit to Eden (1994); 50.8 Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 (1987);
(Booooooo, unless … does camp mean like a camp … or like campy? Because then Batman & Robin makes sense. Seems like a mix to be honest, which would make this list an absolutely bonkers marathon.)
Notes – The first time Paramount has any association with the “Friday the 13th” series since 1989.
Producer Michael Bay walked out in the movie premiere, stating that the movie featured too much sex. (Ha! Just too much for him)
Adrienne King, star of the original 1980 film, was approached by producers Andrew Form and Bradley Fuller to do a cameo appearance during preproduction. A few days later, the producers called her back and told her they didn’t want anyone from the original film to appear in the remake. (This production sounds organized).
The first film in the series released by both New Line Cinema and Paramount Pictures. Originally, Paramount owned the rights to the series after the original was released in 1980 but sold the rights to New Line Cinema in the early 1990’s after poor box office returns of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989). New Line bought the rights to the characters of Jason Voorhees and Pamela Voorhees, the Crystal Lake name, and the trademark for the title “Friday the 13th”. All footage from the first eight films and the remake rights for the first film remained the property of Paramount. New Line Cinema released Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), Jason X (2001) and Freddy vs. Jason (2003). When Platinum Dunes came aboard to develop the new film, they wanted the freedom to use scenarios and characters from the films still owned by Paramount. After a legal dispute, the companies decided to co-produce the 2009 film.
In this movie Jason wears both the legendary hockey mask and the burlap sac, although neither of those appeared in the original Friday the 13th (1980). (Hmmmm, that’s a lot of fan service)
With $42.2 mil, had the biggest opening weekend of a horror-remake beating out former record holder The Grudge (2004) ($39.1 mil).
The title card of the movie isn’t displayed until the end of the opening segment, nearly 25 minutes into the film, which is one of the longest prologues for a horror film ever. (Holy shit, that is ridiculous)
Tommy Jarvis, a character that appeared in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985), and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) was at one point confirmed by producers Bradley Fuller and Andrew Form of Platinum Dunes to be returning as Jason’s nemesis. (That would have actually been cool maybe, set them up in a trilogy or something to battle it out. I could have gotten behind that).
According to co-writer Damian Shannon, the character of Jason Voorhees was re-envisioned as more territorial, like a hunter, someone who doesn’t kill people at random but will defend his territory from anyone invading it, and this in the most horrible manner. Director Marcus Nispel similarly claims the film shows new aspects of Jason’s personality. Derek Mears says his portrayal of Jason as a survivalist defending his territory is partially inspired by the character of John Rambo in First Blood (1982). (That makes a lot of sense)
Despite the title, the date the events supposedly take place on, Friday the 13th, is only mentioned once. The date can be seen on a tear-away type calendar in the police station, as the officers leave to investigate towards the end of the movie.
One of the victims was originally supposed to drown due to exhaustion as Jason waited her out from the shore of the lake.
Travis Van Winkle portrayed the same character from Transformers (2007) which was directed by Michael Bay.
The film’s setting (New Jersey) is an homage to the original film being filmed in New Jersey. (Wellllll … Crystal Lake is in New Jersey so easy peasy).
Jason just randomly appearing out of thin air as in the earlier films wouldn’t fly this time around. So, they decided he traveled via a series of underground tunnels. That concept was in Mark Wheaton’s original script, but Mark Swift and Damian Shannon claimed to have never read Wheaton’s script until the film was finished, having come up with the same idea about the tunnels on their own. As for the marijuana plant farm which Jason appears to use to lure teenagers into traps, apparently no writer can claim that as their own. According to Swift and Shannon, that was actually director Marcus Nispel’s idea from early on in the development process, and it was their job to work it into the script. (Huh, that could work, but it sounds a bit too over-explainy to me).
The character of Sheriff Bracke, played by Richard Burgi, is named after author Peter Bracke, who wrote the book “Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th”.
Screenwriters Mark Swift and Damian Shannon wanted Jason’s body count in the film to be just 13 as an easter egg for fans. It was surprising how much work it was to kill thirteen people.” Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter pulled off the “just 13 kills” thing as well, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives writer/director Tom McLoughlin originally turned in a film featuring just 13 kills. Executive Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. forced him to perform re-shoots to up the body count to 18. (Ha, yeah, 13 is pretty close to typical for Friday the 13th, 18 is a lot).
A follow up to 2009’s Friday the 13th was slated for release on October 13, 2017, and was all set to go into production in a matter of weeks. But in February 2017 it was announced that paramount had pulled the plug on the project. (Sigh, yep, this is why we were doing this entire thing)
The film takes place on June 13, 1980 and in 2009.
It shares screenwriters with Freddy Vs. Jason, who had previously turned down the chance to do a Freddy Vs. Jason sequel. Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, as a result of the legal delays, Friday the 13th lost its original director (Jonathan Liebesman) and screenwriter (Mark Wheaton). Freddy Vs. Jason writers Mark Swift and Damian Shannon, who had earned their first writing credit with Freddy Vs. Jason but had yet to get another script onto the screen, were brought in to replace Wheaton. Both grew up huge Jason/Freddy fans, but their Freddy Vs. Jason script was largely re-written by David S. Goyer, who went uncredited, and the far campier film that came out of that was not to their liking. Still, New Line actually offered them the chance to pitch ideas for a Freddy Vs. Jason 2, which they turned down, according to Shannon, because “we thought maybe somebody else should tackle it because we shot our wad so to speak. Every idea we had about that was in the first. I don’t know what we could have done with a second one.”
Mark Wheaton’s original pitch to New Line was to reboot the series with “a new Part V,” ignoring the original “New Beginning” and everything that happened after while featuring a prologue showing Jason Voorhees witnessing the murder of his mother. The characters who come to Crystal Lake then know of Jason as they did in Friday the 13th Parts 2, 3-D, and IV, but Voorhees is not yet supernatural as he is beginning with Part VI (or is a demon worm, or has gone to space, etc.). To further suit the needs of a reboot, Wheaton had Voorhees in first the canvas bag as he was in Part 2 only to replace it with the hockey mask halfway through the film.
The character Richie was one of a few characters to have CGI effects added into his death. Derek Mears (Jason) was holding only the handle with half the blade of the fake machete, making it look like it impaled Richie’s (Ben Feldman’s) head. The visual effects crew digitally superimposed the fake machete to look like it was a completely bladed weapon in the final film. Director Marcus Nispel usually allowed minimal use of CGI effects into his films.
Bad Movie Twins 
