Category: Recap

65 Recap

Jamie

Movies are back and so is the BMT angst about what will or won’t qualify using our (probably now arcane) rules we made up over a decade ago. I’ve tried to be more relaxed about all this as RT scores have generally slid up, but there is always that moment where we find ourselves watching the ticker on a slam dunk like 65 and being like “come on, really?” It has kinda become a joke that a lot of these sure fire stinkers end up settling perfectly at 50% and the reviews are all like “I hated it and it represents the death of art. But it does deliver what it promised: big budget slop. Eat your slop piggies. 2.5/4 stars.” Moonfall was the last great BMT victory I can remember… that is before 65 gave us a scare, but ultimately settled at 35%. Phew. The sentiment appeared to be mostly people wishing it was better… they so very much wanted to like this big dumb dino movie.

To recap, Adam Driver has a sick kiddo at home and bills to pay. Best way to pay is a two year stint in space. Unfortunately, while he’s away his daughter dies… oh and also his spaceship hits an asteroid and crash lands on Earth circa 65 million years ago. Not great. He’s like “may as well roll over and die” (I get it), but then sees that a little girl also survived the crash. So, much like Bernie in Cocoon: The Return, he forgoes suicide for an adventure with his new friend (nailed that very appropriate reference). They find the other part of their ship where there is an escape pod and plan their trek. The girl doesn’t speak English, but they make due. Besides, that seems like small potatoes next to the big ol’ dinos trying to eat them. They go through a series of trials and battle numerous insects and dinosaurs before finally getting to the escape pod. At that point they realize that they are on Earth just before the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs is about to hit. Gulp. A bunch of asteroid debris hits the planet and tips over the escape pod. Driver goes out to try to get it reoriented but is attacked by dinos, which inadvertently tip the pod back over. But the girl doesn’t leave Driver. No way! She instead jumps out and stabs the last dinosaur in the neck with a poisoned bone. Hooray. They hop into the pod together and escape back to safety. THE END.

We are back in theaters, Jack! The movie going experience was perfectly fine for 65, which is appropriate for a film that is also just fine. I had come off a very long day staring at a computer screen and I just wanted to relax and see some dinos. Mission accomplished. That being said, this film is aging like a bottle of fine milk. The more I remember and think about it, the more I’m pretty sure I don’t like it. My primary concern is the structure of the film. It’s more like a series of short episodes where everything that can go wrong does go wrong for our two heroes. The story about Driver’s daughter’s death also seems like it should play a central role in the narrative, but almost seems besides the point in the finished product. I suspect something was lost in translation because the end result is a movie that is 90% pretty OK action scenes involving dinosaurs and then 10% a film trying to say something about loss and grief and death. It just doesn’t come together and so overall, it’s fine (but really probably worse than that).

Hot Take Clam Bake! That little girl was a figment of Driver’s imagination. Here’s a man devastated by his choice to leave his dying little girl at home while he goes on a space mission. He’s missed her death… and then he crashes. There is nothing to live for, he has noted how everyone else on the ship has died. But somehow just before he kills himself he magically finds a little girl roughly the same age as his daughter that he has to shepherd to safety? Suddenly he gets a chance to be a good dad? Sure, sure, sure. Definitely not your brain creating a beautiful fantasy for you. You are definitely a really great dad who saved a perfect daughter substitute. Oh you have to teach this girl to speak your language and all she has are videos of your actual daughter? How convenient. Hope she doesn’t turn out to act and sound exactly like your daughter, you crazy person. Hot Take Temperature: Embrace of the Vampire.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! 65? More like 1 out of 5! Amirite? What if we made Jurassic World but like … much much smaller and worse looking? Let’s go!

  • BMT Live babbbbbbbbbby. And just in the nick of time to get it in for the Winter Season. I think this ultimately was a good and honestly irresistible choice because it is just so perplexing. What is this film? Why is this film? I can understand the idea of “Dinosaurs = $$$”, but then why spend the money on Adam Driver when I’m willing to bet some young actor would be champing at the bit to get this part with these writers. This just feels like a film where they’d announce it and say the lead actor was Sebastian Stan and you’d be like “oh cool” and then remind yourself who Sebastian Stan is (he’s the Winter Soldier in the MCU).
  • The theatrical experience was a delight as always. Shockingly busy. I think we watched the last prime time showing at the major cinemas around where we were. Only matinees from that point onward. But we were the first people in the theater, but then probably a dozen more people showed up.
  • Oh the movie. It was fine. Kind of a dumb idea for a movie. I would understand the point a bit more if you didn’t see the dinosaurs that much. Like if they waited on the reveal as to what 65 meant until the very end as the asteroid hit and it showed the title again and revealed the “million years ago” subtitle.
  • Similarly I would understand the point a bit more if it was more like a survival horror? Or perhaps if it was more frantic without the girl in tow? Like if the idea was he had cured his daughter and he was so close to getting back to her, and so he’s driving himself continually to make this 100 mile journey in like three days fighting dinosaurs and slowly getting more and more beat up and then he finally gets there and escapes, but the entire film is just this ball of stress slowly being wound up.
  • But that isn’t what this film is. It is an action film with two actors, one of which is a child, and the CGI isn’t very good. It’s unfortunately not a particularly good idea for a movie since I think that’s the plot of multiple segments of multiple Jurassic Park films.
  • The studio must have really mangled this thing. It doesn’t make much sense otherwise. There is no way this is the vision of competent screenwriters.
  • I’m going to pop a sneaky Setting as a Character (Where?) for Mexico, because they show the asteroid striking quite close to the landing site and that’s in Mexico, so. Love the borderline A+ Temporal Setting (When?) for 65 [million years ago], so silly. I’ll give it a Bad, the film isn’t interesting enough to be a true BMT.

Read about the sequel 64 in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Navy Seals Recap

Jamie

I’m hoping one of these days we’ll get a real dilemma between Citizen Kane and the BMT film of the week. Alas, on September 11th, 1991 Citizen Kane aired on AMC at 3pm. At 1:30am, in the wee hours of the morning, you were treated to Navy SEALs on Showtime. No conflict there (other than the intense conflict depicted on your early 90’s TV). At that very time, though, both HBO and Cinemax were also starting their showings of a couple other 1990-1991 films. HBO had the thrilling Women & Men 2, while Cinemax had the 1990 film Flashback. So how do you choose? The Times fortunately gives you a little synopsis for each film. Women & Men 2 gets the most extensive: “Three couples.” Wow, one more than I thought. So that’s promising. Navy SEALs gives it to you straight with just the word “Hostages,” wonder if they’ll be saved? Finally Flashback gives you the very mysterious single word descriptor, “Splinters.” … huh. So what do we choose? Obviously for this exercise it would be Flashback cause that is lunacy and we’d have to figure out what “Splinters” means in this context. But I think Navy SEALs is almost definitely the right choice for BMT.

To recap, Biehn and Sheen and mean machines on a Navy SEAL team. They and their bros are married to their work… literally, cause the first thing we see is one of the team members, Billy, skipping out on his wedding to go on a hostage rescue in the general Mediterranean area. They arrive just in time to save a couple hostages. Unfortunately they don’t recognize a high level terrorist or destroy a bunch of Stinger missiles while doing all that saving. Biehn and Sheen are pissed. They want to get those missiles and so when they are found being smuggled at sea they get in on the action. Unfortunately it was all a ruse! There aren’t any missiles at all! Biehn and Sheen are even more pissed. They begin talking with a beautiful reporter who has had contact with the high level terrorist in the past. She’s reluctant at first to give up any info, but has a change of heart after one of the Stingers is used. She tips him to some contacts she knows that might be helpful. The CIA resists, but end up agreeing to let the SEALs nab one of the contacts when they find out he’s already an asset. When they go in to grab him, though, they get into a firefight (all because of big dumb Sheen) and Billy is killed. They are sad. Like real sad. Biehn has some steamy sex with the journalist but his sadness persists. The only thing that will alleviate it is destroying those Stingers. With their location provided by the contact, it’s time to bash some skulls. And skulls, they are bashed. Explosions galore. A few of the SEALs are killed and while the Stingers are destroyed Biehn is hurt badly. But Sheen won’t let him die and they are able to escape to safety. THE END.

This is an extremely dumb movie. Very much a knock off Top Gun film of the late 80’s/early 90’s variety, like Fire Birds, Air America, Flight of the Intruder, Iron Eagle, etc. Just before these films were relegated to the depth of stock footage dreck that producers were selling straight-to-video and overseas in high numbers a few years later. This is still a big budget film, but give credit to those straight-to-video creators cause they so effectively knocked off these movies that now something like Navy SEALs feels like low budget garbage by association. It’s fun, though. Lots of BMT films are no fun at all, but this one is just silly war fluff. Come for all that silly war junk and stay for the ludicrous golf scene in the middle (not to mention almost everything that Charlie Sheen wears in the film).

Hot Take Clam Bake! Why didn’t they remotely destroy the Stinger missiles? We know exactly where they are, there are no hostages, and they are located in what is clearly an extremely hot warzone. Even better, whoever is fighting can take out those Stingers for us. They know exactly where they are. But noooooo, Biehn and Sheen can’t help but get directly involved as if they are the only SEAL team on the planet…  and then like four Navy SEALs die in a non-war time raid involving the destruction of inanimate objects. Absolute disastrous result. I’m not going to say I’m the most qualified to make this decision, but seems like we got institutional failure on our hands top to bottom. Hopefully Biehn’s pivot to a journalism career works out for him. Hot Take Temperature: Sliver.

Patrick? 

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Navy Seals? More like Craven Heels, amirite? Top Gun inspired a generation of military recruiters that they too could make a homoerotic military propaganda film. Let’s go!

  • This film is filled, top to bottom, with some amazing stunts. Credit where credit is due. The sky dive, jumping off the bridge, and the water stunts involving the submarine were all on the level of much better films like Top Gun.
  • I wouldn’t go so far as to say Charlie Sheen is bad in this film, but a lot of the acting feels television-y (which at the time I suppose was a synonym for “bad”). But Sheen has a few moments where it seems like he almost having a genuine adrenaline / stress response which was a cool reaction and probably straight from the writer (who was a Navy SEAL).
  • If I were to point to one major flaw I would say that everything seems like a “set”. Especially the ending where the “Lebanon” city looks like a square block of shooting space dressed up as Lebanon.
  • Actually, strike that. The major flaw is the borderline racist (but yet inevitable) portrayal of the terrorists in the film.
  • Actually, strike that. Or, better yet, just strike out the word “borderline” in the last sentence.
  • The golf scene is insane. A basketball scene last week. A golf scene this week? Awesome.
  • It is only made better that apparently the studio was like “we’re missing something, play some touch football” and Bill Paxton was like “no, that’s too close to the volleyball scene in Top Gun” and shot the golf stuff himself. And then ironically Top Gun 2 they do play touch football (kind of, don’t get me started on that).
  • As far as a review I think I’ll leave it by saying that Fire Birds, this, a bunch of lower level things like Delta Force, etc. they are such an odd reaction in a post-Cold War world (or at least a world where Russia seemed to be close to defeat). The military was really terrified that without a big enemy recruiting numbers were going to fall off a cliff huh?
  • Best Product Placement (What?) for the Ready Room in Virginia Beach? At the very least them sucking down Bud Heavies while playing golf works. A rare Setting as a Character (Where?) for either Virginia or Lebanon, take your pick. Solid McGuffin (Why?) for the Stinger missiles, a nice objective for every mission in the film. Closest to BMT I think, like Fire Birds it is just nonsensical military trash to be funny/fun.

Read about the sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Cocoon: The Return Recap

Jamie

You are Franchise Man. It’s March 27, 1993. Every day is harder than the last, but it’s your job and you love it. You wake up bright and early for an 8:30am showing of Curse of the Fly on Cinemax, which gives you just enough time to catch the 11am airing of The Ewok Adventure on Disney. You stretch your legs and crack your back as you wait the hour for the 2pm showing of Airport 1975 on TBS. You’ve seen it before so you skip the last half hour to hit up Cocoon: The Return on Showtime and follow that up with The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Xtro II: The Second Encounter. The big boss congratulates you for another job well done. You get home and flip your personal TV to channel 11 for a 2am showing of Citizen Kane. It is your secret shame. This is a day in the life of Franchise Man. Fin.

To recap, an old man drops a snow globe and whispers “Rosebud.” … no wait, sorry, wrong movie. The Cocoon gang (and Gutes) are back, Jack! And boy, are they missing Earth. Turns out that going off to live for eternity as glowing aliens has some drawbacks (namely, it’s super weird). So when the aliens have to return to Earth to try one last time to rescue their friends, our favorite geezers come along for the ride. Bernie is quite happy to see them and foregoes committing suicide to pal around with his old friends (fun!). But things go a little sideways when they are all super weird old people and Bernie is like “stop being so weird.” Mix in the fact that Ben’s grandson is a super weenie in need of a father figure, Joe’s cancer returns at the same time that his wife gets hit by a car and needs his special lifeforce to survive (geez), and Art and Alma find out they’re pregnant (at their age!) and things are getting rough. Not to mention that a local research facility has stumbled upon a cocoon and taken it to study. Gutes and the gang decide on a rescue and Art, Ben, Kitty, the Gutes, and Ben’s weenie grandson head on in. While in there they are caught by a researcher, but she is also dismayed by the treatment of the alien and lets them go. They return to the Gutes’ boat and everyone prepares to leave, except that Ben and his family decide to stay behind too. After the aliens depart, the Gutes is kinda sad because he wanted to have alien sex with Kitty, but then he meets the scientist who helped them out and realizes that she is the woman that Kitty told him he would fall in love with. So he’s happy to have regular ol’ human sex with this one. THE END.  

Oh boy. Oh deary Cocoon: The Return. I can’t even say, ‘what have you become?’ The truth is that Cocoon was always weird. It is just wild to have a film where a bunch of old people swim with some cocoons, feel super spry, and proceed through a series of montages where they totally sex up their wives real good. That’s pretty much 70% of the original film. Already weird. The sequel triples down on that concept while adding in a bunch of fluff. There is a beach scene that is so offputting that it should have resulted in an X rating. Then half the film is them doing mundane Earth stuff (e.g. Ben teaching his grandson how to hit a single) and being like “boy I miss this.” Sure… but did we have to see it? The real problem is that I wasn’t a big fan of the first film… so the objectively worse and totally redundant sequel was not for me. One positive note: I thought Elaine Stritch was good in this one. Made up for the Bernie character being reduced to a series of inexplicable impression gags. So my conclusion: give me more Cocoon. I am Franchise Guy.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This whole thing is bullshit. They have never, across two films, explained any rationale why this group of randos got to go into space to live forever. They aren’t even particularly good or nice people. The aliens should have found a bunch of better people to take with them. Speaking of that, why didn’t any of the other old people that went away in the first film return to Earth for this little excursion? What makes these jokesters so special? That’s my hot take: this film should have been about the aliens returning the old people to Earth cause they realized that they made a big mistake and then the old people have to make amends with everyone they left behind who now also hate them. Hot Take Temperature: Body Heat.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! A bunch of aliens decide to grant the gift of eternal life to … a bunch of really old people? Brutal choice. Let’s go!

  • I’ll hop back onto effectively Jamie’s Hot Take: It is absurd that the aliens are like “these morons who botched our operation because they got into a fight in their old folks home and killed one of our friends … yeah, let’s go with them as far as granting eternal life.” Like … a few guys in the Navy maybe? I guess they have some life experience? But they aren’t like hey, maybe we should snag a scientist and junk. It’s insane!
  • Also locks? Ever heard of them?
  • Oh sorry, this isn’t the place to complain about the original surprising hit from the era of “The Old Guys Still Got It!” that brought us smash hits like Grumpy Old Men. I’ll say, the film is pleasant enough, but I really find it interesting that people were enjoying a bunch of old actors in a, frankly, not very funny sci-fi comedy. It would have been remembered like Batteries Not Included if they didn’t make the sequel.
  • The sequel finds The Gutes grimly selling garbage in Florida (living the life…) and for no reason a bunch of old people remembering that literally being on the verge of death was nice I guess. It is already an absurd premise.
  • But what do you expect from this era? They would make a film that is basically like “remember Don Ameche? It’s him but aliens.” and people were falling all over themselves to give them money. What could they do?
  • So as I said, the premise, which is basically just “Hey remember how it took us a thousand years to come and get our friends last time? Well, turns out it only takes us like five years to get here, so we’re back, oh and we have to get them again.”
  • Add in a basketball scene to replace the original’s dance scene.
  • And add in a love interest for the Gutes that isn’t an alium.
  • The end, you have your movie. Everyone complains a lot, and the guy who literally almost kills himself at the beginning of this film decides not to, but he still doesn’t go with them. Dumb.
  • The acting is … it isn’t good. Honestly, it wasn’t that good in the first, but the novelty has worn off and the writing is so lazy the house of cards falls down (where have I experienced this before … oh yeah, Grumpier Old Men. What an era!)
  • They still don’t explain how The Gutes got out of his 30 counts of negligent homicide. THEY HAD A FUNERAL. He’s the last person to see all of them. It was his boat they were on (which is now gone). He says something to the effect of “Oh man, I got in a lot of trouble for that.” You mean like the 20 years in prison you should have been sentenced to? Then six of these people come back, one of them dies, and three of them stay? How are they explaining that? Where are the 24 friends you were with? Cuba?! Legit, it is a giant plot hole that is maybe okay to forget about for a one off nonsense film, but they don’t even really try and lampshade it for the second one. It is a bit nuts.
  • Some hilarious Product Placement (What?) like Quaker Oats which is front and center in a cooking scene early in the film. Definitely Setting as a Character (Where?) for Florida. I think that’s it. Definite BMT film, what an odd film.

Alright, well, go check out Cocoon: The Protector of the Gem in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Good Son Recap

Jamie

The Good Son is a good movie… and by that I mean the last movie we watched in the “good movie” series. It’s also the first in the series of films we watched that aired on the same date as Citizen Kane. On December 30, 1994, The Good Son aired in the primo 10pm spot on Cinemax. Earlier in the day on AMC, 5pm to be exact, Citizen Kane aired. Phew. No need for a Sophie’s Choice on this one. You have plenty of time to watch CK, eat dinner, smooch the wife, put the kids to bed, and fire up The Good Son. “But Daddy! I want to watch the Culkin film too!” They’ll scream. No, no children, this one’s for Mom and Dad. Then you waggle your eyebrows cause you just noticed that Body of Evidence comes on at 12:30am. It’s gonna be a looong night. How do we know all this? Cause Patrick has a big ol’ genius brain that can rip apart the nytimes tv listings and produce pristine movie data for our perusal. We’re through the looking glass, folks. Cycles in BMT will never be the same.

To recap, Elijah Wood’s mom is dying, but understandably he can’t cope with that so he promises that she won’t die (he won’t let her) which then kinda fucks him up when she does die. His dad just needs ONE BIG DEAL so that he can be there for his son forever, so he sends him to Maine to stay with his bro and his family. They have also not too long ago come through a tragedy. Their little baby accidentally drowned in the bath. But they still have Macaulay Culkin and his younger sister and are happy to have a third kid in the house. Elijah is having a grand old time with Macaulay… that is until he starts doing some real bad stuff. Like he creates a gun that shoots nails and kills a dog and then he drops a mannequin onto a busy road and causes a big crash. Elijah is legit like WTF, mate?!?! But every time he tries to tell someone they don’t believe him or Macaulay is one step ahead of him, expressing concern over Elijah or Macaulay is like “you better not tell” in a creepy kid voice. He then starts threatening his little sister and Elijah becomes focused on keeping her safe… unfortunately he snoozes on the job and Macaulay is able to fling her through the ice while skating. She survives but Elijah starts to get the mom thinking. She decides to take Macaulay for a walk and confront him. This results in Macaulay using his super human brain and strength to throw her from a cliff where she is left dangling. Elijah finds them and starts to battle Macaulay and before they roll off the cliff together, the mom is able to climb back up and grab them both. Now it really is a Sophie’s Choice as she has to decide between the angelic nephew and the full blown serial killer son. She chooses Elijah and drops Macaulay to his death. THE END.

Well they did it guys. They actually did it. They made a movie where a mom had to look in the eyes of her psycho child and drop him off a cliff to the rocks below. I really didn’t think they had the guts. But they did. My main assessment of this film is that it effectively accomplishes the creepy kid psycho movie that it was trying to make with some decent writing. You can certainly quibble with the accuracy of Macaulay’s character. And you can definitely agree with Ebert that this is a real miscast of Macaulay Culkin both for the reason that Ebert is railing against (this looks like a kids movie when it is not), but also because Culin plays it very similar to Home Alone. His same Culkin kinda flat delivery. He doesn’t seem to make a choice on how to play the sociopath character. He just plays it kinda like himself. Overall I kinda liked it though. I was engaged.

Hot Take Clam Bake! I do not buy that in a matter of weeks Culkin’s character goes from perfect angel, never done anything wrong in his parents’ eyes, never done anything wrong in the community kid, to admitting to killing his sibling and trying to kill his mom all in the time that Elijah Wood is hanging around. Sure he’s making a nail gun and building dummies, but before this week he’s just building his Good Son brand so strong that no one will ever believe Wood. Bullshit. I think the parents knew the whole time. The dad probably brought Elijah Wood into the fold to see if he could be a good influence. But he wasn’t…. Ooooooh, quite the opposite my friend. Just the sight of the real Good Son made Culkin go crazy. Good job dad. This is all your fault. Hot Take Temperature: Poison Ivy.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Good Son? More like Word, Son, amirite? What up Macaulay, you’re a bad guy now? Reprising your villain role from Home Alone? Heyoooo. Let’s go!

  • Yo, Macaulay … youz a psycho in this film.
  • Within the core of this film is a good film. An interesting film about a young sociopath and the adults who are willfully blind to all the signs of his pathology all revealed by another young person they force themselves to not believe.
  • The film itself? I found it interesting. Not good. Not really bad. It has a reason to be (more than most BMT can say), but still, is it good? No, I don’t think so.
  • Culkin is actually disturbing in the film, but more in a way that makes you wonder about the writer of the film. Shooting a dog with a bolt out of a crazy self-made crossbow? That’s weird. Throwing a dummy off a highway and hightailing it out of there without a second thought? That’s straight from the headlines I suppose. Killing your brother and then trying to kill your sister? That’s actually bonkers though.
  • In that same way I guess there is an argument that the writers get some things right (the obsession with death, the trophy he keeps, killing animals, etc.) and some things wrong (I’m not sure, but I would think the escalation would have gone from animals to a random person, not one’s own brother, just out of a sense of self-preservation). I think I understand the complaint that the entire thing falls apart under the weight of trying to explain Culkin’s sociopathy.
  • I definitely understand Ebert’s complaint that the film is a dark, twisted, crazy movie with a question of precisely who it is being made for.
  • Elijah Wood and Macaulay Culkin in a film together though? Ages like wine. Kind of stunning to see two incredibly good child actors carrying a movie together.
  • The setting of Maine also is just chef’s kiss. Obviously a nod to the Stephen King undertones to the film. It feels precisely like a King short story in the vein of The Body.
  • The movie itself is pretty tight, and entertaining, and tense when it needs to be. Probably the silliest bit is the ending. The contrived cliffhanger moment with the mother having to choose between her son and nephew is a bit beyond credulity.
  • Definite Setting as a Character (Where?) for Maine. And a solid Worst Twist (How?) for the ultimate final scene and the forced choice between killing Wood or Culkin. I think the film is closest to Good, although it really walks that line between Good and Bad (all I know is it isn’t BMT).

Check out the sequel, The Good Man, in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Recap

Jamie

The Rise of the Silver Surfer is a true BMT conundrum. On the one hand it was a sequel to a bad superhero film that seemed to buy into the “more is more” principle of franchises. On the other hand it involves the Silver Surfer, suggesting that they were also buying into the “go big or go home” principle of BMT/Franchise Man. Will it be bad or will it be BMT? That’s the question. The Silver Surfer seems like a tricky choice for a second film. Is he cool or is he lame? Is bringing a space monster into the mix a bit much? He’s an alien on a surfboard… that can’t be right… right? But as I learned many years later watching The Avengers in theaters, as CGI aliums poured out of a hole in the sky, as everyone around me seems totally cool with that turn of events in their big action film… I realized at that moment that, wait a second… lame stuff is… good now? Lame stuff is now good, I guess. And I’ve been enjoying lame stuff ever since. So I guess it’s kind of neither bad nor BMT… it just might be lame (which is good).

To recap, the Fantastic Four are back, Jack! And boy are they having trouble putting on a wedding. Egad! Sue Storm is increasingly frustrated by Reed because he’s always got his head in the clouds trying to save the world. Unfortunately as their wedding approaches (and just after he busts a groove at his mean bachelor party) he is asked to investigate mysterious, surfing related events across the globe. He says, “No!” he’s got a wedding to plan… but secretly he does anyway. So when the wedding day arrives he is all set up to track the mysterious surfer… just in time for the surfer to crash the wedding and destroy Reed’s creation. Sue. Is. Pissed. But they got bigger fish to fry cause the surfer, the Silver Surfer that is, is taking a chunk out of Earth. They gear up to track him, but they aren’t the only ones. Is that Dr. Doom’s music? Yes, he’s alive, and yes, the Silver Surfer helpfully turns him back into a human. They reluctantly team up to develop a way to trap the Surfer by separating him from his surfboard (oddly, that’s also my only weakness). They succeed, yay! But they also learn that he is in service to a world eater called Galactus who is just about to eat Earth (boo). Then, like a total dick, Dr. Doom double crosses them and steals the board (not the time, bro). They pursue him with the help of (the actually good) Silver Surfer who regains his board and with the help of Johnny flies his board into Galactus and that… uh… kills him I guess. Everyone is happy, Earth is saved, Sue and Reed get married, and the Silver Surfer is dead (or is he? (he’s not (but doesn’t matter cause the franchise is))). THE END.

This is definitely better than the first film even though the Fantastic Four is lamer and sillier than ever before. That’s because the Silver Surfer is way cooler than he has any right to be. He sounds like a child made him up, but there is something perfect in the undistilled unironicism of the character. He is silver, he rides a surfboard, he’s an alien, and he helps a cosmic entity eat planets. That’s some dumb shit, but you kinda need that dumb stuff to make this (very dumb) movie work a little bit. At least better than the first one. This is all despite having one of the worst scenes in cinematic history in Reed’s bachelor party. Horrible. Worse than the X-Games scene in the first one. Anyway, on the verge of being not that bad. As for the 1994 “unreleased” Fantastic Four film… uh… wtf, mate? They claim online that they never meant to release the film and I quibble with that. Clearly they were going to release the film… that was the threat. If their terms weren’t met they were going to release the film. 100%. It is wall-to-wall insanity and I kind of wish for history’s sake that it actually did get released. If I had to make a comparison I’d say straight-to-video Lawnmower Man 2… that’s the vibe.

Hot Take Clam Bake! And I mean hot. My take is two fold. Sue Storm and Reed Richards are in it for the long haul because they have super powers that allow them to (putting it politely) make super love. The Thing and the Human Torch? Not so much. We are clearly heading for disaster. Two members of the crew are getting super freaky under the super sheets while the other two are monsters that might just kill their significant (or even insignificant) others. What is the conclusion here? US Government, get these maniacs under control! That’s right, I’m right back at it. It’s me: guy who wants the government to take the Fantastic Four into custody. This is a ticking time bomb my friends. I don’t care how tender Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters’ pure, blind love is… he will be in a blind rage after he crushes her to death by accident. Hot Take Temperature: Ghost Pepper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer? More like Bland-tastic Bore Too: Lies of the Silver Grifter! Amirite? Well … it’s better than nothing. Let’s go!

  • Right off the bat I’ll say that I found this film to be a lot better than the first one. Or at least better. “A lot” might be pushing it. But still, it felt better.
  • The Human Torch seemed a bit toned down which was nice.
  • The power-swapping was good in principle, although in practice The Human Thing didn’t work well at all (although a solid gag).
  • The film does have probably the worst scene in the film with Mr. Fantastic’s bachelor party dance sequence. Inexplicable. Hollywood Badass Bar to the extreme. Bad effects. It had it all! I wonder how much higher the Rotten Tomatoes score would have been by just removing that scene and nothing else. I’d call it the Fantastic Cut, and people would be scratching their heads trying to figure out the 30 seconds of footage that were removed.
  • Who am I kidding, obviously people would immediately be like “WHERE’S THE DANCE SCENE!?” and freak out about it.
  • Biggest complaint about the film was bringing back Dr. Doom. Actually strike that. The biggest complaint is bringing back Dr. Doom and then magically making him look the same as he did before using Silver Surfer powers. That was ultra dumb.
  • The Silver Surfer was solid though. One of the rare he’s-bad-oh-wait-he’s-actually-good bad guys in a comic film. Although if you know anything about anything in comics it is obvious Silver Surfer is a tragic figure and not really a villain.
  • For Bring a Friend we then tripled up (what what!) on our fantastic weekend and watched Fantastic Four (1994). This is an insane story. So some guy owned the rights to The Fantastic Four for years and in 1995 the rights were going to expire if he didn’t make a movie. Oddly, the requirement to make a movie didn’t actually require him to release a movie … small oversight. So this guy enlists Roger Corman to put together a Canadian production with Canadian soap opera actors and this film was born. It was then shown in a few private screenings and thrown in a vault. The fact that a copy exists on the internet at all is astounding. Almost mind-blowing. The movie itself is a marvel of bad effects, although I have to say, The Thing’s head is pretty cool for an early 90s animatronic thing. A bit boring, but definitely worth a watch just to see some of the really early Marvel stuff that was happening at the time. A. Just for the historical aspect of the film it is definitely worth a watch.
  • This film might have the best Product Placement (What?) I’ve ever seen in the fact that the crazy hovership thing the Fantastic Four fly around in is explicitly covered in Dodge Ram logos. The logos are everywhere, on the front, on the seats, just crazy stuff. Good NYC film for Setting as a Character (Where?). I think I’ll leave it there. Closest to BMT still I think, I just can’t bring myself to call this movie good despite it being entertaining, and the dance scene is too good to make the film straight bad.

Check out the big finale of the Brundlefly Jr. Saga in the two part Fantastic Four sequels in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fantastic Four (2005) Recap

Jamie

Sometimes our BMT eyes are a little bigger than our BMT mouths and Fantastic Four is one of those times. We didn’t just watch the first Fantastic Four. We didn’t just watch both Fantastic Fours. We got all that and a bag of potato chips with the original, never officially released Fantastic Four adaptation. It was a FF Fest that had us rock ‘n rolling all night and partying every day. And that’s really all that motivated all this. We just wanted to really sink our teeth into some 2000s magic. That of course also meant that I was knee deep into the 5 hour FF Fest and I looked over at the mirror that hangs in my BMT man cave and asked “who am I?” The answer? Franchise Man, babbbby. I love franchises.

To recap, Dr. Reed Richards is the smartest man alive… but also an asshole. As a result he’s a bit down on his luck just when a super cosmic event is passing Earth that will prove all his theories true! Oh no! He begs his very rich rival Dr. Von Doom to let him use his space station, which Doom delights in granting in part so he can flaunt the inclusion of his new GF ( and Reed’s ex-GF), Sue Storm, on the mission. Along for the ride are Reed’s friend Ben Grimm and Sue’s brother Johnny. They go up there, but oops! More berries. And by more berries I mean that the cosmic cloud has arrived early. Oh no! After getting owned by the cloud they wake up on Earth. Everything seems fine until Johnny starts spouting fire, Reed is stretching left and right, Sue is invisible, and Ben is a monstrous thing. The funniest part is when Ben tries to see his wife and basically the wife is like “gross” and runs away. Later on a sad Ben happens upon a disaster on a bridge and uses his grossness to save the day (with the help of his friends) and everyone is like, “Woah, those four are fantastic!”… except Ben’s wife who stops by just at that moment to throw her wedding ring on the ground. Ha! They all retreat to the Baxter building where Reed works on curing them. Johnny is not thrilled by the prospect but Ben is desperate and grows increasingly frustrated by the lack of progress. Doom, having lost his company in the disaster, but gained metal/electricity powers, decides to undermine Ben and Reed’s friendship. He uses his electricity power to help Ben use Reed’s curing machine to fix his condition. But it was all a ruse! Doom had realized the Thing was the only thing that could stop him. Now back to being normal he watches in horror as Doom does battle with his friends in a bid for power. Ultimately he willingly turns back into the Thing and joins the fray and together they are fantastic and are able to kill Dr. Doom. THE END… or is it? (It’s not). 

When I saw the runtime on this sucker I thought I was dreaming. A blazing 106 minutes for a superhero movie? Sign me up and sign me down. I also think they did a good job with The Thing and Johnny. Opposite sides of the coin from acting and effects standpoint, but at those extremes the film did OK. Outside of that there was some trouble. Sue and Reed are pretty meh and it falls pretty hard into the origin story pitfall. The entire movie is spent giving them powers, having them agonize over those powers, and then at the very last minute having to use their powers to stop… the other guy who got powers. Just four dopes with powers wrecking a city. So some good, some bad, and a BMT whopper in the Thing’s wife being generally grossed out by him and dropping him like it’s hot.

Hot Take Clam Bake! The Fantastic Four should and would have been taken into custody by the US Government. There was a mission to space that resulted in five people gaining superpowers. One (just one!) got a little peeved and wrecked NYC. And they were helpless to stop it without the help of the other four superpeople. The moral of the story was that they should accept their powers. The government would have to step in and tell them that they can’t. Sorry. Much like Cameron Poe, they are now dangerous weapons. They wrecked a city in self defense and so they have to figure a few things out. Maybe if some alien comes along and there is some bigger threat to humanity they can be free (fat chance!) but until then they are doing research in some underground military base somewhere. Hot Take Temperature: Butch T.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Fantastic Four?! More like Bland-tastic Bore! AMIRITE?! Wow, that one actually works. Let’s go!

  • Man there are a lot of issues with this film. Although I think a lot of them are issues with how films like this are approached more so than the film actually being bad at the time. So I’m going to try and grade things on a Today Bad – Timeless Bad – 2000’s Bad scale. Basically, is this just bad all the time, was it bad at the time but not so much now, or bad now but not so much then. Get it? No. Let’s go.
  • Human Torch being a gross human being and a general asshole? Today Bad. Back then I’m sure Chris Evans guzzling some Mountain Dew and doing sweet tricks at the X Games while ogling the ladies and being a creep was cool as shit. And it helps that he’s the best part of the film from an acting / charm perspective. But today it is gross and doesn’t fly so well.
  • The Thing’s wife breaking up with him immediately? Timeless Bad. Not only is it poor storytelling where outside of being an unsupportive horrible person, the character has no development, the story goes out of its way to have the character show up out of nowhere to get a divorce?! The craziest scene in the film.
  • The Thing makeup – 2000s Bad. It actually looks kind of cool, but back in the 2000s apparently people thought it looked like crap?
  • The Human Torch effects – Today Bad. I’m sure at the time they thought it looked good. It doesn’t.
  • Mr. Fantastic effects – Timeless Bad. I’m sure people thought they looked good at the time, but deep inside they knew it looked like trash. Still does.
  • Invisible Woman getting naked for no reason – Today Bad. Can someone tell me what function Invisible Woman played in getting them across the barrier during the bridge scene by getting naked? No? No explanation since everyone else just ends up with her 14 feet away without anything happening?
  • Superhero baddies – Timeless Bad. Whenever I think of how the MCU started with Iron Man fighting … his boss? On a random street in NYC or something? I’ll remember how The Fantastic Four walked so Iron Man could run. Never in my life have I seen a more small potatoes battle than The Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom fighting over … I don’t know, control of a company or something maybe? Continuing having powers? Unclear really.
  • You know what, I’ll leave it there since this is already pretty long. As for some positives. As hammy as it all is I thought the acting was very game for the story they were telling. The film is pretty entertaining and goes at a quick pace. And as I said, Chris Evans is so charming it is no wonder they needed to fold him into the MCU elsewhere.
  • Solid Product Placement (What?) for the X Games in general which also ends with a lingering scene outside of the venue with huge billboards advertising Mountain Dew and junk. Solid Setting as a Character (Where?) for NYC where half of all superhero films are set. This is closest to BMT, just an undeniably entertaining garbage film.

I’ll leave the review for The Fantastic Four (1995) for the sequel review. Check out the big finale of the Brundlefly Jr. Saga in the two part Fantastic Four sequels in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Arthur 2: On the Rocks Recap

Jamie

Why are we watching the sequel to Arthur this year? It does deserve some elaboration. We’ve played with meta themes the last few years. We had 90’s galore. We had future films. It’s really rooted in figuring out a good way to synthesize the BMT story with the penultimate Bring a Friend cycle. It’s an elaborate yearlong project and probably the unheralded achievement of our generation. So what is the theme this year? Arthur. It’s a big ol’ birthday for our dad this year and this kicks it off. Only makes sense that it starts with Arthur 2: On the Rocks. Not only does he rock, but this is really the only extremely straightforward film in the metacycle. The rest are built on Patrick’s research project involving the New York Times TV listings and so the “Daddio” films that are upcoming are mostly just a mix of films that aired on his birthday over the years. So sit back, pop some popping corn, and enjoy watching a somewhat annoying drunk person.

To recap, Arthur is back, Jack! And he’s drunker than ever. When his wife reveals that she can’t have children they gear up for adoption. But being a drunk asshole doesn’t mix with adoption so he has to tone it down. He does, that is until his family sells off the company to his archenemy, Burt Johnson, who takes all his money away and demands Arthur divorce Linda and marry his daughter Susan instead. Uh oh! He refuses (because that’s insane) and they end up broke. First they end up with Linda’s father, but Burt buys up the building and forces them out (ha!). Then Arthur finds a job, but Burt buys the company and gets him fired (haha!). Foiled at every turn, Linda fears about their chances at adoption and after getting a visit from Susan decides that the best thing for Arthur is for him to be free to marry Susan and get his money back. Devastated Arthur goes back to drinking and ends up homeless (hahaha!). He hits total rock bottom and has a vision of his dead butler Hobson, who tells him not to give up (for his fambly). Arthur puts his nose to the grindstone and sniffs out a bunch of dirt on Burt, but when he confronts him with it he is simply laughed at. Burt don’t care. Burt is immune babbbyyyy. He’s also ready to straight murder Arthur (hahahahaha!). At the last moment, though, Susan has a change of heart. She turns the tables on her father and threatens to reveal his many affairs unless he gives Arthur his money back. Now rich again Arthur returns to Linda and they get a new adopted baby, but that’s not all! Linda’s pregnant too! Awwwww. THE END

I did really enjoy the first film, although I often found Arthur himself a boor. I was also kind of thrown by how straightforward the film is. It’s love at first sight for him and Liza Minelli and that’s really all you need to grapple with. All that said, the butler was very funny, there were some good gags here and there, and Dudley Moore is an entertainer so he was entertaining even if I didn’t like his character. This of course is all thrown out the window for the sequel which plays a lot more like a spoof of Arthur than anything else. Really, everything about the film is unpleasant. Struggling to adopt. Homelessness. Unemployment. All of it screams that they should think of something (anything!) funnier. They also just rehashed the main crux of the first film (Arthur will be/is poor) even when it didn’t make any sense. Why is the girl from the first film still obsessed with Arthur? He is a drunk… isn’t there some boring rich guy she can marry? But no, she’s so crazy in the second film you have to assume there is something deranged about her. That is until she turns around and becomes totally normal at the very end of the film. All of it is bizarre.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This revelation is going to be really hard on Arthur and Linda’s marriage but I have to get it off my chest. Linda, it’s pretty obvious that Arthur originally asked you out just to make his parents mad. Your marriage is built on lies. Let me lay it out for you. Arthur is told by his father that if he doesn’t marry Susan he will lose all his money, he agrees, and then that afternoon he is seen sadly buying expensive clothes and openly talking about how he’s just doing it to make his father angry. That very moment he sees you, a mildly attractive person (beautiful on the inside, but he wouldn’t know that), shoplifting. He then bails you out and asks you on a date. Anything suspicious about that series of events? Lies! It’s all lies! He never expected to realize that Linda is all that (and a bag of potato chips). No sir. He just wanted to make his dad mad. Hot Take Temperature: Classic Habanero. 

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Arthur 2: On the Rocks? More like Arthur 2: Also Sucks, amirite?! RUN IT BACK. Let’s go!

  • Probably worth talking about the original first. The original is delightful. Surprising that it was an Oscar winner. Double surprising Dudley Moore himself got nominated. But still, a delight, and once you get past the first scene (which is Arthur at his most grating) the rest is easy breezy and quite fun and funny. It calls back to the days when you could make a self-contained comedy and get nominated for an Oscar and then forget about it … for eight years that is.
  • Ah, this film. The primary issue with this film is it isn’t funny. The secondary issue is that it is often profoundly sad and doesn’t seem to realize it. The tertiary issue is it is a waste, but honestly the first two issues pretty much cover it.
  • I was listening to a podcast about the movie Stripes the other day and I realized precisely what the issue with this film is. Stripes is notorious for its bizarre and downright bad third act set in Eastern Europe. I don’t remember where I heard it, but someone once said that the third act of Stripes is actually Stripes 2, they just tacked it onto Stripes. It makes sense. The first film is about basic training and learning what it means to be in the military and ends with the great Razzle Dazzle dance and the recruits passing their exam and going off to be part of the US military. The sequel is about them single handedly winning the Cold War in a winnebago and everyone hates it. It is a perfect analogy.
  • Here, the argument would go: Arthur 2 exists because it was the original third act of Arthur, but they cut it to make an Oscar winning film. Basically the original two act movie would be: Arthur is told he must marry or get cut off, he meets Linda who he falls in love with, and the second act concludes with Arthur crashing his own wedding and breaking up with his fiance. The third act is then about Arthur and Linda trying to muddle through being poor, while Arthur’s almost-father-in-law tries and ruin Arthur’s family, but in the end Arthur’s family gets one over on the baddie, and Arthur’s grandmother decides that no Bach will be poor, so Arthur and Linda live happily ever after (and rich). The End.
  • The analogy is almost perfect. And like Stripes 2: European Theater, this film is downright bad and weird and not funny and it makes perfect sense it was panned by critics.
  • A very very New York City film for Setting as a Character (Where?). And a very very very Christmas movie for Secret Holiday Film (When?) as well. And I’ll give it a Worst Twist (How?) for the reveal that Arthur’s almost-fiance was actually good all along (awwwwwwwwwwww) which makes no sense. Closest to Bad, bad comedies rarely live up to BMT standards and I don’t think this one manages it.

Read about the sequel Arthur 3: Dark Money in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Killer Elite Recap

Jamie

After waking up from my Killer Elite induced slumber, I was trying to remember why we wanted to watch this in the first place. In some part it was because we needed to connect through Amsterdam and Robert De Niro was sitting right there for us. Hard to pass up a screen legend when you have a chance to get him in the Chain. But really we can all admit it’s really because this film had not one, but two different slang terms for “good” in the title. It was both killer and elite… in reality it was neither, but we just simply had to watch it for the Good Movie Cycle. So to sum it up, we are on quite the streak of films that were picked entirely based on their title. Fresh Horses was all about dem horses… Killer Elite was all about words that make the film sound “good” when in fact the film is not good. Great.

To recap, Jason Statham is an elite killer. After a job goes wrong and he kills a target in front of their daughter, he decides to call it quits. Fast forward a year and he’s living his best life in Australia spending QT with his GF. But uh oh! Looks like he’s getting pulled back into the game. That’s because his best friend/elderly person Robert De Niro got caught up in a big money job to kill some elite British killers. Seeing that they were just too elite for his blood, he tried to pull out, but the uber wealthy Omani isn’t having any of that. Statham is like “fine, I’ll do it” and assembles a team. They go about creating elaborate situations in which their targets are killed, but it looks like an accident, and also they admit on camera that they indeed killed the people they are accused of killing. It’s so elaborate and nonsensical you would think we were watching Mechanic: Resurrection… but we aren’t. It’s not that elaborate. Anyway, in the course of getting information they begin to be tracked by the Feather Men, a group that influences British policy with a light touch. Clive Owen is tasked with tracking them. By the time they get to the last target Statham is under constant surveillance. This will be their most elaborate scheme yet! Turns out it’s a bit too elaborate because pretty much everyone dies. Although Statham is able to get the target and fake a confession. He gets Boddy D out and he heads home. THE END… psych! We got one last super elaborate killing left! The writer of the books that the film is based on also needs a good killing. Statham gets his scheme on, but ends up faking the final death. Why? Cause he’s just like… done, man. Done with elite killing. Clive Owen is like “fuck that,” and goes and tattles on him, kills the Omani, and takes the money. Statham catched up with him just to tell him “I’m done with elite killing, so don’t mess with me again,” and he goes back to Australia for more QT with the GF. THE END.

I just couldn’t deal with this movie. It’s a “very serious” version of Mechanic: Resurrection that runs far too long and has Dominic Purcell as the fourth lead… fourth! Not interested. That’s a hard pass from me. That’s even giving the film some credit for having some pretty good action scenes. I can definitely believe that there are fans of this movie and it has a surprisingly high IMDb rating to prove it.  I’m just not one of them. I do have to shout out Robert De Niro for taking a role where he’s barely on screen and the premise of his character is “I really wanted a big paycheck so I agreed to something, but when I realized what it was I tried to back out, but they won’t let me, so now I’m being held captive until all this is over.” That’s some meta shit, Bobby.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Imagine a world where Statham is like “I’m good,” and leaves De Niro. He gives into the scheme far too easily and for what? Old man rivers who at like 70 years old couldn’t help but get wrapped up in this bullshit? Nope. No. Stay in Australia and have a great time with your GF. Don’t need the money, don’t need the headache. As a result a dozen people aren’t dead as a bonus… except for De Niro. He is definitely killed. But that’s his problem. Hot Take Temperature: Carolina Reaper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Killer Elite? More like Barely Complete, amirite? A true murders row of British people who you remember used to be quite famous in the early 2010s (and Robert De Niro somehow). Let’s go!

  • Is Jason Statham still a movie star? Let’s investigate. He has a movie coming out this very week, that’s a check in the movie-star box. That movie is something I’ve never heard of, so let’s put that in the not-movie-star box. But then again, it has already made $30 million internationally … so maybe he’s an international movie star still? He made The Meg in 2018, and was still hanging around the Fast & Furious franchise as well … I think he’s still a movie star.
  • Just peeked at his upcoming slate though. The Meg 2, Fast X, Spy 2, and The Expendables 4?! Yeah definitely still a movie star. Jesus.
  • Clive Owen isn’t though, he’s kind of slowly ended up being a prestige television star.
  • And at age 79 Robert De Niro is … somehow. I mean, when he’s not playing a grandpa in bad comedies.
  • I guess the point is this: once upon a time this was an eye popping cast. Like: Statham, De Niro, and Clive Owen! Wowza. That level. Now? It feels like an odd relic of a time long ago.
  • Oh it should be pointed out that the most amusing bit of this entire movie is that it is based on a book, and that 100% of people involved in the real incidents being discussed basically call it a load of crap and hate the guy who wrote it. The guy who wrote it is a character in the film, and … I don’t know, it is really bizarre. Go read his biography. He’s Ralph Fiennes’s distant cousin or something and was at one point dismissed from the army for trying to blow up the set of the Doctor Doolittle musical from the 60s. It is insane and the only thing interesting about this film.
  • A few of the action scenes are fun. Like running through the tunnels of bees and stuff. That is probably the bread and butter of the film.
  • But the acting is terrible, the writing is terrible, and I feel like the direction (outside of action) is also sub-par. It is a sub-par movie, and pretty boring to boot.
  • I did vaguely like the story of Statham’s childhood friend turned lover in Australia. If only because it gave me the phrase “girl in the red gumboots” which I can use places like the Quiz. That’ll be a gift that will keep on giving … for a month, then I’ll forget about this movie forever.
  • I have to give a Setting as a Character (Where?) to Yemen, I’m surprised it has never come up before. Wait, should I add it to the map … I guess I should. For a film about revenge and conspiracies and secret societies there is shockingly little in the way of a MacGuffin. Closest to Bad, just boring nonsense.

Check out the continuing adventures of Brundlefly Jr. in Killer Elite 2: The Boy in the Red Gumboots. I told you I was going to get some mileage out of that. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fresh Horses Recap

Jamie

These horses are f-f-f-f-fresh. Funky Fresh. Never before has such a thin concept gone so far for BMT. The mere name of this film, Fresh Horses, is so weird that it stopped Patrick in his tracks and he insisted we watch. What made these horses so fresh, we wondered. And it was a tricky spot. Films from the 80’s not only significantly predate any of your favorite online databases (obviously), but the box office was like a wee little babe at that point. The data is sparse. So it’s hard enough knowing if a film is actually bad… but you also have to wonder whether it was even a wide release film. Was Fresh Horses deserving of being BMT? Who cares! These horses are fresh. Funky Fresh Horses. Welcome to FFH. We’ve rebranded.

To recap, Matt is a Richy Rich… or at least comparatively rich for Cincinnati. After getting engaged he becomes increasingly unhappy with his course in life. He decides to head down to Kentucky where there are no rulez and he meets Jewel. He is instantly obsessed. She seems so naive and pure (like a horse… a totally fresh horse) and he runs away from everything to be with her. Turns out he probably needs therapy, but whatevs! YOLO! Every time things seem like they are so pure and beautiful in their love there is some new speedbump in their way. Jewel is married?! Gah! Jewel might be 16 years old?! Gosh darn it. Jewel is mildly bored by Matt’s potential career choice of board game design?! Worst one yet! Eventually things spiral so far out of control that Matt decides he has to call things quits and he goes off for some fun with girls from his University. Discovered by Jewel and realizing he was just trying to hurt her, he gives the relationship one more go. But when he gets into a scuffle with Jewel’s husband they decide to officially break up. A year later they meet in Cincinnati and Matt finds that Jewel has left her husband, gone back to school and has a new beau. He’s happy for her and just as he turns away he mentions how he never did give her his real name. She asks what it is and he says, “Milton.. Milton Bradley.” THE END.

Alright, fine, that last part didn’t happen. But that would have been fresh. Funky fresh. This is a bit of a nothing film other than portraying some real wild stuff as if it’s just a normal, everyday coming-of-age tale. Weird stuff happens in real life, so perhaps this is par for the course for some, but you can’t help but be knocked back a couple steps when the characters keep upping the ante on Jewel and Matt is like “don’t care, I love her.” You probably don’t, bro. The only things that seem worth much in the film is an early turn by Ben Stiller, a stellar showing by Cincinnati, and an ending that feels a little like the second After film. How would a relationship like this end? Probably the college kid would reorient and get back on the path to his normal career and maybe the girl would end up turning her life around without him. They would not end up together… and they don’t. This isn’t a good film, it’s a weird film. Which is better than bad.

Hot Take Clam Bake! You know what, I think these kids are going to make it. The film tells you they are well on their way to leading fulfilling lives away from each other. I say no! I say they see each other that one day and Matt is like “Wow, Jewel is looking great and is now kind of a brainiac like me.” and Jewel is like “Wow, Matt is looking great and he’s not some lost weirdo anymore.” Soon he hears through the grapevine that she’s single again. “You wanna catch a flick?” he asks. Tim Burton’s Batman sounds like it’s good. She agrees. They end up back at his place where, what’s this? She is suddenly interested in his burgeoning board game career? And hold up, did she just make a suggestion on how to change the rules… and the game is now better? Oh, they’re passing Go and they’re collecting $200 (if you know what I mean). Hot Take Temperature: US Grade Police Pepper Spray.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! It’s f-f-f-f-f-f-f-funky fresh horses. Brother … those horses? They’re super fresh. Let’s go!

  • Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh what’s this now? Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh what did we just watch now? And not in a “this film is wild kind of way”, but in a “I forgot people used to make films like this, that they would be released widely to theaters, that they would be panned by critics, and that they would play constantly on television … and then people would just forget this film existed?”
  • To point number one: I’ve been collecting data from the New York Times on television listings. Fresh Horses? All over the place in 1990. Played on television 15 times. That is as much as 55 other films from 1988 (already alarming …). Was Fresh Horses a top 60ish film in 1988? Not by gross, but by theatrical count it was for sure (as a matter of fact by that metric it was 57th versus 56th by television plays …). Is the number of times it played on television a proxy for theatrical counts? If so, could something like this be used for years where there isn’t good data on theatrical count? Interesting questions all around.
  • Oh, am I avoiding talking about this film? I couldn’t tell.
  • This film is really weird. I would say it is very well acted. I would say that the story is told well. The direction is at least adequate, although perhaps hardly spectacular (but it is adapting a stage play, so a difficult task). The writing seems solid. The issue just seems to be that they took a stage play with challenging ideas and … that’s it. There is something lost in translation. The weighty bit of the script: him falling in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. That girl turning out to be 16 years old. That girl coming from an abusive background. That girl being married. That girl also maybe being a liar, but then again the undercurrent of her constantly being trapped by horrible men in a terrible situation, and then maybe it’s those men who are lying both to themselves and Andrew McCarthy to protect themselves. That’s a challenge. It sounds like a play. I think Ringwald and McCarthy handle the material well, but ultimately the film feels like a nothing film.
  • Is it because it feels like this pulls the punch at the end? Are there consequences at the end of this film? It feels like ultimately Jewel gets out of her situation (or is she perhaps duping another “high class” guy after using McCarthy to get her annulment? These are the questions), McCarthy moves up north to become a chemical engineer, his friend lives happily ever after. So … what was the consequence? McCarthy got beat up once and broke up with his rich fiancee. He may have had a fight with his family. That’s about it. I was fully expecting to watch McCarthy ruin his life. Either by following Jewel down a dark and dangerous path, or literally getting killed attempting to “save her”. I’m glad he didn’t, but at the same time is the film “less than” because it leaves things so unchanged? It feels like a stage play basically. That feels like a problem.
  • I’m surprised I have so much to say, but it was a weird film.
  • Shout out to Product Placement (What?) for White Castle, a solid addition to our BMT fast food product placement pantheon. Definite Setting as a Character (Where?) for the Cincinnati / Kentucky border which underscores the entire central dynamic of the film. I’ll leave it with that. This is closest to Bad easily I think, just because it is boring and I would never ever ever watch it again.

Read all about the sequel Fresher Horses in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Money Train Recap

Jamie

Money Train! Now this… this is a movie. It’s a Wonderful Life? Bah! That ain’t nothing. When it’s Xmas I wan’t one thing and one thing only: Money Train. The Train is filled with money. Are you following me? It’s especially filled with money on New Year’s Eve… get it? Our boys are one half karate master and one half dopey gambling addict. Guess what happens next? It’s Money Train. More like BMT Train choo choo. All aboard.

Let’s recap, it’s Money Train choo choo all aboard. Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson are brothers. Both are transit cops in NYC running sting operations to take down muggers. When one of the operations go south and the special force used to protect the “money train” blows away a kid, they get in hot water with the captain who just wants to protect dat money. We learn that Harrelson is a fuck-up, always getting bailed out by Snipes. His latest fuck-up is going deep in debt to the mob, but Snipes promises they’ll get paid back. Meanwhile, they get assigned a new partner, JLo, who is looking hot and steamy. Through the holidays there are all kinds of shenanigans. Harrelson gets and promptly loses all the money needed to pay off the mob. Snipes and JLo have a steamy tryst which makes Harrelson sad. They learn a bunch about the money train and how one might steal from it (which is helpful to the audience who will, spoiler alert, have to follow such a heist later in the film). Finally they track down and explode a serial arsonist called The Torch (word). That last part, particularly the part where they explode a criminal, gets Harrelson and Snipes fired. Harrelson decides to rob the money train but just can’t help but tip off Snipes who runs to his rescue. Just when things are looking real bad for Harrelson, Snipes shows up and they are off and running trying to escape. It’s a big time climax where the captain does a bunch of illegal stuff that can get people killed while Snipes and Harrelson figure a way to prevent their money train from destroying everything in its path like a glorious money torpedo. They finally are able to trip up the train and just as it derails they jump to another train and make their escape. We finish with them arguing about the money gearing up for Money Train 2: It’s a Boat Now (sadly, not the case). THE END.

I LOVED THE MOVIE. It is crazy bonkers. Robert Blake is the craziest antagonist this side of the Mississippi and yet everyone pretends all the crazy stuff that is happening is no big deal… just a normal day in Money Train land. It’s perfect. Even the parts that aren’t perfect are perfect. Like Harrelson looks like a crazy person and the idea that he would look at JLo and be like “Yo, Snipes, clear out,” is glorious. Snipes learning that his brother fucked up with the mob so his solution is to go into their strip club and beat them all up with kung fu (a skill never used before or after by the character) is glorious. Did I mention JLo looking so good that they should have stopped the movie and been like “uh, she’s the star, right? Like what are we doing? Get everyone out of here, JLo is now the star.” Glorious. BMT perfection and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Speaking of JLo, what is she doing with these bozos? Sure, Snipes is looking great in this film. I would guess this might even be peak Snipes. But still, you’re a NYC transit cop. What are you doing rooting for Snipes and his fuck-up brother to rob the money train? Arrest those fools, get a much cooler boyfriend, and keep being a great cop. This is the big problem with the film. I don’t root for bad guys. This is why Money Train 2 would have to be JLo going undercover with the FBI to nab Snipes and Harrelson. But then at the very end she lets them go, only to have Money Train 3 be a twist-em-up where the FBI comes to her and is like “there is this terrorist group transporting guns on their gun train, do you know anyone who could stop them? Any train robbers?” and JLo is like “uh, cha… I just might know a couple people.” And then in the end they are all about fambly and shit… wait, what was I talking about? Hot Take Temperature: Banana Pepper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Chooooooo choooooooo you sound like a big ol’ Money Train. Let’s go!

  • Helllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllls yeah.
  • Money train baby! Let’s see.
  • Christmas movie. CHECK. This is an incredible Christmas movie. The entire movie takes place almost in the week between Christmas and New Years complete with Christmas decorations and gifts and a white Christmas in New York.
  • New Years movie. CHECK. This is also amazingly an incredible New Years movie. Dare I say it? It is the BEST New Years movie. The movie pretty much ends right at the New Year. The New Year plays a huge role in the plot. The movie ends in Times Square itself! I think this is it. I think I will watch this movie every New Years and time it so that our heroes pop out of the subway and into Times Square at precisely midnight.
  • Train movie. CHECK. Choo choo mother f-er, that’s the sound of a ludicrous looking NYC money train. It’s got beefy guards. It’s got bars on the windows. And it’s got millions of dollars ready to be robbed by our no good gambling addict hero. Choo choo!
  • Sorry boys, but that’s the triple threat. We have a leader in the best BMT of the year in the club house. And I honestly would be a little shocked to see it supplanted.
  • I didn’t like Woody Harrelson very much in this. There was something a little off with him. Maybe he isn’t a very believable New Yorker? Maybe. I kept on thinking you needed someone who was more of a fuck up due to being an addict you know? Harrelson was channeling his Cheers character and seemed like a fuck up because he was a moron. All the way down to his terrible heist plan.
  • Wesley Snipes was a bit of a revelation on the other hand. I didn’t much like him in Rising Sun. It felt like instead of giving him a character they just expected Snipes to act as himself mostly. In this though I thought he was great. Very charismatic and his chemistry with J-Lo was also great. Also he’s a really good martial artist and they knew how to showcase that.
  • And J-Lo was great. It isn’t a wonder that she was one of the main strong points that critics pointed to even in the bad reviews.
  • The entire plot is ludicrous, but that’s what you want. You want it to basically be The Rock. Don’t overthink these things.
  • The major flaw in the film I think was the entire arsonist storyline. There is a tighter script here where the person they are chasing is instead a guy they think is going to rob the Money Train. And the entire time Harrelson is talking about how easy it would be to rob it, so this guy isn’t going to be some mastermind. He’s going to be an idiot with nothing to lose … and then they end up finding the guy dead or something. And Harrelson gets fired and realizes he can basically pull off the heist himself since no one knows the real culprit is dead. Suddenly the B-plot and the A-plot converge and that’s the beauty of a heist film right? I think it’s better at least. The arsonist storyline is just stupid.
  • A decent Product Placement (What?) for some very conspicuous Budweiser placement. A very very Setting as a Character (Where?) for New York City, all the way down to the very real (apparently) money train. A double dose of Secret Holiday Film (When?) for both Christmas and New Years. Wait, is this an A+ MacGuffin (Why?) for the titular Money Train? Borderline but I’ll give it to them. And this is so BMT it came around and because even more BMT!

Check out the sequel Money Train 2: Offline in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs