Recap – Page 14 – Bad Movie Twins

The Wizard Recap

Jamie

Caaaallliiiffffooooorrrrnnniiiaaaaa. Appropriate as I write this post from that very state. I too was inexorably drawn by the power of video games. Yet when I got here I realized it was never about being a super video game wizard (although certainly a perk), but rather, as Vinny D would say, fambly. *Sniff* It’s beautiful. It’s all somewhat ironic too as the phrase “Caaaalllliiiiffffoooooorrrrnniiiaaaa,” is probably second only to “I love my power glove. It’s so bad” as the quote from the film that has lived on in infamy. Yet California is barely in the film. We get a heaping dose of Utah and then really spend some QT with the GF in Nevada. From there it is like they teleport to Universal Studios. If you grew up with this film you must have imagined California was just a giant theme park where kids grumble about the unfairness of having to battle each other in hotly anticipated video game releases. But California isn’t like that… it isn’t like that at all. I do the research so you don’t have to.

To recap, Jimmy Woods is a boy who is struggling with the death of his twin sister. He barely speaks and spends his time either building elaborate architectural creations or attempting to walk to Caaallliiifffooorrrnnniaaaaa. His stepdad is naturally a horrible caricature dead set on locking the kid away, but Jimmy’s brother Corey won’t have any of that. He grabs Jimmy and sets out for Caaaallliiffffooorrrnnniiiaaa. Their parents are horrified. The dad sets out with their older son in search, while the mom hires an equally horrible caricature of a private investigator to get them back. This leads to numerous clashes between the two all while Corey and Jimmy attempt to find their way out of Utah. Stumbling upon Haley, a girl trying to get home to Reno, they realize that Jimmy is a video game wizard. His natural talents earn them money hustling locals at arcade machines while also pointing them towards the big video game championships in Caaalllliifffooorrrnniiiaa. Why? Because if Jimmy wins the big championship even a horrible caricature of a stepdad couldn’t convince anyone to lock him up. They run into all kinds of trouble, including a local video game legend named Luke who gives them a taste of the Power Glove (it’s so bad) and exactly what the competition at the championships will be like. When they finally arrive in Reno they are able to do a little training and scrape together the funds for the final push to Caaallliiifffooorrnniaaa. At the championships all the worlds collide as they witness Jimmy rise to the finals and ultimately grab the crown. Everyone agrees he can’t be locked up and on the way home they see a roadside dinosaur attraction that the family went to before. Stopping there they realize this is where Jimmy has been aiming the whole time and the wizard is able to finally heal. THE END.

The Wizard is a funny little movie. The production quality is like an episode of 90210. I use that comparison only because, like in The Wizard, it’s one or the few times that I’ve seen a boom mic drop into frame in the wild. It also cuts forward so fast (even cutting the score midsequence sometimes) that you wonder what kind of editing magic was happening. You add in the unintentional comedy of the Power Glove, a truly insane product placement back story, and some incredible acting choices in the video game competition and you have a minor classic on your hands. I found it interesting that the reviews at the time were very critical of this being an exploitative knockoff of Rain Man and Tommy (but for kids!) but I guess I wonder… is that really a bad thing? Speaking of…

Hot Take Clam Bake! Are we sure making knockoffs of classic films for kids is really a bad thing? Like should I be worried about the artistic purity of a Casablanca knockoff set in a high school? Give it to me. I will eat up any and all high school versions of whatever classic film you give me. High school films are great, coming-of-age stories are great. They don’t make enough of them really. I dare you to watch She’s All That and come away thinking anything other than “that movie was all that and a bag of potato chips. Give me more potato chip movies so I can munch ‘em all up.” The fact that The Wizard is a knockoff of Rain Man and/or Tommy is dope. Hot Take Temperature: Bulgarian Carrot.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Caaaaaaaaalifoooooooooornia. That’s right, after suffering that traumatic event of witnessing The Wizard (and the raw power of the Power Glove, it’s so bad), I have an insatiable need to go to Universal Studios. Let’s go!

I watched this film a ton when I was younger. As usual I make no apologies. I like this movie. It is pure nostalgia. I don’t care though, what a silly nonsense movie this is. I would watch it again right now.
But boy howdy, do I agree with Roger Ebert: are we sure we should be watching a film in which two (and eventually three) literal children are hitchhiking their way across three states (and like multiple deserts right?) to get to … I mean, initially they just want to get to California, whatever that means. Eventually they decide that they’ve got a video game prodigy on their hands and they are going to make the money their families need to heal (or whatever) at the maybe first ever Video Game Championships in Universal Studios, Lunacy. And even being a little older than I was watching this film most of the time (let’s say like 11?) it is harrowing watching children narrowly avoid dying on highways and junk. What a weird movie.
The one two punch of product placement for both The Power Glove (and explicitly Super Mario 3) and Universal Studios is also something else.
The stories from wikipedia are fun. Like how the director was told to shoot EVERYTHING in the script. And he’s like “but … then the movie will be three hours. It’ll be a huge waste of money since we’ll have to throw it all out”. But the producers were just like “do it.” So he did … and they cut it down and wasted a boatload of time and money. But that probably is why the film ends up all cut to shit in the end is that huge swaths of boring filler garbage was eventually cut out. Release the Universal Cut you cowards! I want to watch The Wizard as a 3 hour epic.
Still to this day I tell random people that I love my Power Glove, and how bad it is. This film has a very weird cult following, but it is also amazing.
How does the kid know where to find the secret flute in an unreleased game? Well, maybe because it was already released in Japan months prior? Naw, that can’t be it because then Haley would have been excited instead of angry since they would have been able to know the tricks of the game by calling the hotline in Reno. So since they definitely didn’t know the trick the answer must be … magic I guess? I don’t see how anyone finds that flute the first time you play the game organically. No matter how much of a savant you are, that seems to be pushing it.
Obviously an incredible Product Placement (What?) for Nintendo, Super Mario 3, The Power Glove, and Universal Studios. Truly awesome. A great Road Trip Film (Where?) for the kids going from Utah through Nevada to California. A subtle yet I think real MacGuffin (Why?) for Caaaaaaaalifornia as no one really knows why they are going there, and yet it is the central driving force for the film.

Read all about the 35 years in the making sequel The Wizard 2 in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Firestarter (2022) Recap

Jamie

I usually start these posts with a little anecdote. Maybe I’d talk about all the remakes of movies that we forgot we ever watched (looking at you, Flatliners). Or maybe I’d mention how Firestarter brings together two BMT legends for the first time, Stephen King and Zac Efron. Or maybe I’d talk about how Firestarter is part of the recent return to the theaters for films that just a year ago would almost definitely have gone directly to a streamer. That last point is so so important. It really could change the near BMT future dramatically… the House Party remake just got a theatrical release for God’s sake. But no, I won’t mention any of those things. There are only two words that are worthy of Firestarter (2022). Two words that would usually end the post: dog poo.

To recap, Zac Efron and his wife participated in a college drug test fo’ cash that left them with supernatural abilities. They attempt to hide from the baddies that did this to them and use their powers as little as possible, but things are getting out of hand with their daughter, Charlie, who was born with abilities many times more powerful than their own. After a particularly… fiery outburst she ends up… blowing their cover. Another superhuman named Rainbird is sent by the shady government agency who did the experiments to find them, but Charlie is able to fireball him into submission and she and Efron are able to escape (the wife, alas, is not). Now on the run they encounter numerous zany characters. Check out this horrible mean alcoholic man with a paralyzed wife! It’s a laugh-a-minute jaunt across the country as they literally torch animals to death (come on guys, that’s the only thing you can’t do on television). Our main man Efron is captured and the baddies use him to lure Charlie to the sleek government facility where they aim to capture her. But, uh oh! She’s more powerful than they possibly imagined. She continues the trend of making us hate her by torching a man who is on the phone with his pregnant wife (it’s all so unnecessary) before ultimately killing her father in an act of mercy. She burns the facility to the ground and collapses outside where Rainbird picks her up and carries her away to presumably regroup as the supervillain duo: Fire & Rain. THE END.

Wow, this is dog poo. This is next level dog poo. I hated this film. It is horrible. The original is a decent movie and then it seemed like they looked at that and changed everything for the worse. I don’t say this lightly but… I can’t believe I wasted my time watching this shit. What am I doing? Why did I do this? It’s always weird when a last second movie swoops in and has a shot at winning a coveted Smaddie Baddie… somehow feels wrong. I remember that came up regarding Cats. It was a question whether we could really give the top prize to the last film of the year? Feels like recency bias. I’ll have to look back at 2022, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this came out on top for the Strange Wilderness award. That’s how dog poo this was. Gross.

Hot Take Clam Bake! It’s really not that bad. JK. It is that bad. My hot take is really that the girl needed to die. They set it all up. She’s growing stronger. She’s killing innocent cats. She seeks out a man with a pregnant wife so she can steal his key card and torch him, leaving his wife a widow and his unborn child fatherless. Some rando IT people are literally begging her to spare them and she doesn’t. By the end they set her up as a weapon that will likely end the world if she can’t control her power. And yet there she walks away in Rainbird’s arms at the end? No. Rainbird needs to take a page out of the OG Rainbird’s book and karate chop her across the bridge of the nose. Narratively it’s the only choice. It’s what the director clearly wants. Oh, and my literal hot take (but it’s actually a cold take) is that they needed at least 50 more full body burn practical stunts in this film. Firestarter is a nonstarter for me without full body burns. Let’s get rid of this CGI bullshit and go back to the real thing. Hot Take Temperature: Tabasco Pepper.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Firestarter? I hardly knew’er! Amirite? Again?! Let’s go!

This movie ain’t that bad. It’s horrendous.
Dog poo in my face. Somehow off the top rope I genuinely think this is the worst film of 2022.
It looks like crap.
It is an abomination as far as the source material goes.
It is an abomination as far as the original adaptation goes.
Everything they change is for the worse.
Is the worst thing that they took John Rainbird and made him vaguely into a good guy? Wait, I can hear you say, they couldn’t have done that. John Rainbird? The guy who wants to smash Charlie’s face in order to gain powers in the afterlife? Genuine insane person John Rainbird? He’s now a broken anti-hero who also has powers. Get the f outta town.
Is the worst thing that they took the number one most interesting thing about the original (The Shop) and made it into a ten minute sequence of Charlie walking through a few hallways and then burning it down? Instead of a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere it is now a giant concrete building (I think in Boston)? Soulless garbage.
Is the worst thing that they posit that Charlie learns to be the Firestarter, the twisted Firestarter, in about an hour in the woods in a half-hearted montage? You heard that right, all that good stuff of the experiments, and the blocks of ice, and the mysterious explanation of how Charlie harnesses her power … right in the bin, who gives a shit right? Instead Charlie burns a cat to death and a few leaves et voila, she’s the twisted firestarter.
Hell, is the worst thing just that you see the mother’s death? That the farmer’s character is ruined? That they’ve mixed up all the powers? That everyone’s powers are mushy nonsense now? That the scientist character is barely there? That the leader of The Shop has like four lines total? That they had to make the family Neoluddites for anything to make sense?
There isn’t much else to say. This is probably my least favorite film of the year. What an unexpected twist that was.
I think it is a Setting as a Character (Where?) for Western Massachusetts? It is kind of hard to tell, but they are hiding out somewhere rural and they keep on mentioning wanting to go to Boston. And Worst Twist (How?) for the obvious (given the original) semi-twist that Charlie’s dad is going to make her burn The Shop to the ground. Definitely 100% closest to Bad, I did not like this film and will take pleasure in never watching it again.

Read about Firestarter PD, the CBS procedural crime show starring John Rainbird and his group of magical teenagers. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Firestarter (1984) Recap

Jamie

This is the firestarter, the twisted firestarter. This is the trouble starter, pumpkin investigator… alright maybe I slightly changed that last part. I feel like I can just spend this whole spot on Firestarter by The Prodigy lyrics (both right and wrong) since the primary post is for the 2022 remake and I’ll talk about all the Stephen King, remake, Zac Efron boringness there. Here I can just mention how I’m the fear addicted, a danger illustrated and get on with it. Really dive in on how I’m the pain you tasted, fell intoxicated and all that. Just normal things normal people say… the self inflicted, mind detonator, yeah.

To recap, Andy and his daughter Charlie are on the run from some G-men. They both have powers (Andy psychic and Charlie pyrokinetic) and use these to escape and find their way to a kindly old man’s farm. We learn in flashback that Charlie and his wife were part of a college experiment that went awry (or went as planned, I guess) and they’ve been living under the watch of the government ever since. Unfortunately, Charlie is growing stronger and The Shop decides it’s time to bring her in and see what she can do. Maybe they can even relaunch the program. Back in the present, as they try to snatch them from the farm, Charlie lights the G-men ablaze and they escape once again. Realizing just how powerful she is, The Shop sends an assassin named Rainbird after them. He tracks them to a small lake house and is able to subdue them. At The Shop they keep Andy drugged while testing Charlie. Rainbird takes it upon himself to befriend Charlie under the guise of a kind janitor. His plan seems real gross, but don’t worry, he explains that really he just wants to eventually lull Charlie into a sense of security so he can karate chop her in the face to death. Phew. That’s better. Eventually Andy is able to overcome the drugs and sets up a plan to get Charlie and him out of there. Unfortunately Rainbird catches wind of it and kills Andy before they can escape. When he tries to kill Charlie she is able to stop the bullets and create Rainbird flambe out of him. She then leaves The Shop and numerous people charred ruins in her wake. She arrives back at the kindly farmer’s house who helps her get to the newspaper so that she can reveal The Shop’s sins. THE END.

Unexpectedly decent is how I would describe this film. I didn’t have much hope at the start. David Keith is there with a crazy bushy mullet and George C. Scott appears to be playing a Native American character. He looks like Steven Seagal… and like Steven Seagal now, not from the 90’s. Barrymore is still very young and it almost looks like a TV movie. All this probably has you thinking it’s horrible. But it’s really not. It has some nice scenery and cuts pretty close to what is a good King book. Then we get to the big finish and really I was pretty impressed. Lots of stunts. Lots of fire. I thought the ending was a bunch of fun. So it ultimately kind of delivered. Add in a few more Rainbird face chops and I would have been a happy camper. Not the worst at all. So really what’s the worst that can happen with a remake, right?… Right?

Hot Take Clam Bake! That big story that Charlie is shopping around about The Shop? Ain’t gonna work, bro. What are you gonna do walk in there and say “check out my powers?” Cause there ain’t other evidence you have. The Shop is burned down. Even if it wasn’t I’m sure it technically doesn’t exist anyway. The college drug test your dad did? Scrubbed clean. You have to show dem powers and it’s gonna be real scary. They will not know what to do with you which means you’ll be right back in a bigger and badder Shop. Now you don’t even have Rainbird to karate chop his way in there and save you… you killed him… which is what everyone else will assume you are aiming to do to them. Now you got two choices: become America’s weapon or get tranquilized till you can’t use your powers anymore. Weapon here you come. Firestarter 2: America’s Weapon here we come. Hot Take Temperature: Rocotillo.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Firestarter? I hardly knew’er! Amirite? Let’s go!

This movie ain’t that bad. Just a bit boring.
But man, young Drew Barrymore had it didn’t she! It is incredibly hard to imagine that kids like Macaulay Culkin and Drew Barrymore could exist. Genuine like 8 year old movie stars. But then again … I’m not sure either of them would necessarily say their child stardom was a good or healthy thing, so maybe we can chaulk it up to the late 80s being a wild time and just appreciate that these performances exist.
John Rainbird is a pretty amazing villain. Ebert mistakenly describes him as a pedophile. I don’t think he ever was in the book, and he clearly isn’t in the movie either. It is possible the scene in which Rainbird explains why he wants Charlie was added after the fact, so maybe Ebert could be forgiven, but his motivation is even more bonkers than that: he wants to karate chop Drew Barrymore in the face to gain her magic powers in the afterlife. Honestly … if that was in the movie I don’t know how Ebert could have missed it, it was a real WTF moment for me.
Does in media res rarely work? I can’t really recall. I think it works here, although flashbacks do a lot of heavy lifting for the first half of the film. I feel like it works here because it gives a reason for Charlie’s father to be breaking down, and brings the characters to The Shop much quicker.
Martin Sheen is great. Also a great villain.
And the idea of “bah, she’s a little girl, what could she do? We’ll just teach her and everything will be peachy keen” and the crazy Loomis-esque scientist saying “SHE COULD CRACK THE WORLD IN HALF!” works well for me. Even this movie doesn’t know how powerful the Firestarter is.
So yeah, I liked the movie. Even if it (1) isn’t a very good horror film if that was what it was going for, (2) it is a bit plodding, (3) the flashbacks were a bit much, and (4) it ultimately is a bit boring when taken as a whole. Still liked it.
I think Worst Twist (How?) for the non-twist of Charlie burning The Shop to the ground is the only (weak) superlative I would lob out there. Easily closest to Good, I liked this film.

Hear about Firestarter: The Television Series in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Jurassic World: Dominion Recap

Jamie

Bah dah dah duh duh. Bah dah dah duh duh. Like peering over the ridge at a live brachiosaurus, Patrick and I take off our sunglasses and stumble out of our BMTmobile. Welcome to Jurassic World: Dominion: The Post. When this was released to theaters I had very little interest in seeing it. Apart from what seemed like a cool feathered dino in a cold weather situation, there wasn’t much else in the trailer that grabbed my attention (and I never saw Fallen Kingdom anyway). So it was very fitting that Dominion would qualify for BMT and thus force our hands. But don’t worry, you better believe I got over the disappointment fast. Because it’s me, Franchise Guy! The guy who wants another Tom Cruise Mummy movie. You’ve been franchised!

To recap, Jurassic World is back, Jack. Remember all the stuff that happened in the first two Jurassic World films? No? Don’t worry, just know that now dinos are everywhere and also you can’t hunt them for some reason and they are being sent to live in Italy under the thumb of a big tech weirdo for science. If that’s not enough, there is a big time illegal dino trade going on and the big tech weirdo is also designing giant bugs to boost sales on… anti-giant bug crops I guess. Anyway, Claire is back and now she is an ecoterrorist shacking up with Owen raising their clone daughter. Everything has to be hush hush so you know that that clone is immediately getting kidnapped along with Blue’s raptor baby. Don’t worry, Blue, Owen promises to get that baby back. Off they jet to Malta where the two kids are picked up by the tech weirdo’s guys. Owen and Claire are a second late, but just in time to kick some smuggler’s asses, get some indoraptors set on them, and jump a jet to the tech weirdo’s compound/company. As Owen and Claire arrive, the company sets flying dinos on them and Claire uses the only parachute to get out. Owen and their new pilot buddy crash land and try to track her. Both are almost eaten by some real cool new dinos that I’m sure kids went crazy for. Meanwhile the tech weirdo is like ‘use this kid to solve our problems,’ and BD Wong basically mumbles under his breath that they are the problem. Spoiler Alert. While all this is going on Laura Dern and Sam Neill are invited out to the company by Jeff Goldblum (the cast is back, Jack). It becomes pretty clear, pretty fast that Goldblum brought them there to reveal the treachery going on. They do just that, grab the girl and skedaddle. Eventually they stumble onto Owen and Claire and everyone hugs. As the company bursts into flames (and our tech weirdo is eaten by dinos) our heroes make their grand escape. But, uh oh! There’s a big dinosaur ready to eat them. How will they survive this?! You know how: Sexy Rexy saves the day again. They all escape and the world builds a dino-human utopia. THE END.

This was a slippery one… and by that I mean that the plot just slipped right off my brain. This movie is megadumb. I wish I had an appropriate comparison to convey just how big and dumb it is. What’s big… something huge… ah, well I’m sure it will come to me. Anyway, it being a giant dumbo of a movie isn’t really its primary crime. In fact, it might be its greatest attribute. At least it was trying something pretty wild. Even if they still ended up with the T-Rex saving the day. They just can’t quit Sexy Rexy. No, the greatest crime is that it looks like shit. In a year where we saw Avatar 2 and you swam with literal aliens and were like “beautiful alien planet let me talk to whales with you,” you also have this film. The raptors look terrible… like it’s a TV show or something. I personally think it’s the worst of the bunch.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This is easy. Let the dinos die. In Fallen Kingdom they start to rend their clothes in despair at the thought of a volcano destroying all the dinosaurs on the island. You should be so lucky. Give that volcano a medal. No wonder the US Senate decided to vote against saving the dinosaurs (real scene in the film) and yet our meddling “heroes” have to swoop in and help the bad guys bring the dinos to the mainland. And if that isn’t enough they get another minidisaster that’s all set to destroy the dinos again… and they save them AGAIN! Are you guys insane? They need to lock you up. For the love of God just let them be extinct in peace. This isn’t a hot take even. This is an ice cold take. We can’t have a society where pterodactyls are swooping around and terrorizing humanity. Somehow the US Senate figured this out and you guys didn’t. Let the volcano do its job. Temperature: Sweet Bell Pepper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Jurassic Park: Dominion? More like Jurassic Fart: Lame-inion, amirite? I mean, I suppose there must have been at least some Jurassic farts in that Jurassic park / world, right? So yeah, I was right. Let’s go!

I had never seen any of the Jurassic World films.
Now I have seen all of them. My life is spiritually worse off because of this. What is the opposite of a religious experience?
But really let’s get some quick cut reviews of the first two films to start off.
The first film is kind of good, although much like Star Wars I think there is an argument that “Jurassic Park but like … updated” is a pretty safe bet. Lots of dinosaurs though. Some good CGI. A pretty weak love story, especially the bits where people are like “your boyfriend is cool” to Howard and she gets all moon eyed. Could have done without that aspect to her character if I’m being honest. Oh Chris Pratt is also not very good at acting, very one note, basically the same character as Starlord.
The second film is significantly worse. Now there is a very obvious villain character, an odd jaunt to the dino island which feels far too short, and then the surely-far-too-large-mansion that can house like what? A third of Jurassic World. I ain’t buying it. Also the dinosaurs are officially smarter than us. I was waiting for Chris Pratt to be like “shoot, it taught itself quantum mechanics and built an atomic bomb, run!” Needless to say I was unimpressed, although the CGI? Still felt top notch.
This guy? Woof. First, the CGI is awful. What the hell? The velociraptors in particular look like trash. They run like the raptor from Beast Wars. Any scene with a raptor looks like garbage. And then the entire trip out to not-Tim-Cook’s definitely-not-secretly-evil company whose business plan is obviously making more dinosaurs (genetic power as Ian Malcolm would say) appears to be an excuse to allow the OG Jurassic Park crew to film the movie from the comfort of a sound stage. Definitely the worst of the new trilogy, although I would argue that the second is pretty close once you think about it.
Anyways, seeing the OG crew was nice.
I also do think Howard’s arc across the three films from operator of Jurassic World, to outspoken dinosaur conservationist, to legit eco-terrorist was cool.
Chris Pratt’s evolution from Chris Pratt to Chris Pratt to Chris Pratt was less impressive.
It does make you wonder what the future holds for Jurassic Park / World. The trilogy is finished. But it would seem like they would still want to do something with it. A television series maybe? A smaller scale affair? Nothing? Hard to tell.
Let’s go with a Setting as a Character (Where?) for the unlikely shoutout to the Italian Dolomites as the home of all of the dinosaurs from Jurassic World. You know what? That’s it. I don’t think it really deserves anything else. Closest to BMT I think, it is undeniably entertaining and an interesting look into the world of Big BMT which we tend to shy away from.

Read about my idea for the spinoff film Jurassic World: Half Past Dinosaur in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Amsterdam Recap

Jamie

One big perk of the past year is that Patrick and I have been able to go to the movies together a number of times (usually to partake in some artistic achievement like Tár or Prey for the Devil) and each trailer that plays gets a silent look between us. Usually these looks are balanced, like yin and yang. Equal and opposite looks. Like Banshees of Inisherin and Plane. It’s like “Boy, I can’t wait for that one,” but for opposite reasons. Then there is the look like “That seems like a bit much.” Like seeing the trailer for M3GAN and it’s kind of a good thing. Like wow… that seems like a lot… and it could be fun. The equal and opposite is a film like Amsterdam where we tiredly look over at each other and it’s just like… “that just feels like… a lot.” Amsterdam just felt like a lot. It’s just a lot.

To recap, there’s just a lot. Like… it’s a lot. Bale is a wounded veteran doctor in NYC who is called on by his black lawyer veteran friend, Harold, to help determine whether Taylor Swift’s father (a celebrated general) has been murdered. [Big breath.] He determines that he probably was, but when they go to tell TSwift she is unceremoniously shoved in the street and killed. The murderer tries to pin the murder on them and so they go on the run. In order to inform the rest of the film we are treated to a lengthy flashback where we meet Margot Robbie, a free-spirited artist/spy who helped treat them during the war. They become BFF’s Forever and live a great life in Amsterdam until Bale is like “I gotta go back to NYC to see my wife.” There he gets into hot water as he tries to help veterans with their pain and so Harold joins him to help, thus officially breaking up the trio. [Even bigger breath.] Back in the present Bale uses his connections amongst the veterans to stall the police and heads to Tom Voze’s house, a notable citizen of NYC, to try to get him to vouch for their character and they are surprised to find that Robbie is there. Turns out she’s a Voze. [Medium breath.] Tom Voze suggests they go talk to General Dillenbeck and try to get him on their side. In the meantime all kinds of shady stuff is happening with a group called the Committee of the Five and so they stop off to see Robbie’s spy friends. They say, indeed, the Committee of the Five are trying to establish a fascist state in America using Dillenbeck, so they should try to stop them. Dillenbeck agrees and sets up the climax of the film where he will lure the Committee to a veteran’s gala where they will reveal them to the authorities. [Final breath.] All of this occurs, but wait! Tim Voze is part of the Committee (what a twist!) and they use their power and influence to avoid jail. As a result Robbie and Harold have to go on the run, but it’s OK because they have love. Bale stays and I guess is fine. I don’t know. THE END.

There is too much going on to grasp what the purpose of all this was. There were aspects of the film I liked. For example, I thought the fact that Bale’s character was physically debilitated by his war injuries was an interesting idea to explore alongside Harold (struggling with the racism of the era) and Margot Robbie’s character (who’s art makes her family think she’s mentally ill). For a moment I thought the idea was that the broken and beaten down of the world were who really prevented the fall… but it’s just one of a million ideas that are ultimately explored in the film. So I can’t tell if that was even there. Maybe the idea is that Robert De Niro is what prevents the fall… could that be it? Anyway, the film looked good and the acting was generally pretty good I thought, but there’s nothing there to grab onto and by the end I wasn’t sure it amounted to much. It’s funny because I would say if you wanted something like this then you should just watch Don’t Look Up, which is just as big and (I thought) much more successful… but a lot of people also thought that was bad… so it kinda tells you everything you need to know about where this one ends up.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Maybe Robert De Niro should have just become the dictator of America… might have saved us from eventually starting BMT and now watching Amsterdam. Or maybe it’s the opposite, maybe under the fascist state art would have shrivel to a hard tiny prune and we’d be forced to eat our Amsterdam prunes every day extolling our dear leader, Robert De Niro. So now I’m not sure. Maybe Robert De Niro shouldn’t have become dictator of America. We’ll (probably) never know. Hot Take Temperature: Started as Carolina Reaper but shriveled to a Banana Pepper by the end.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Amsterdam? More like Amster-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang, amirite? Thank you David O. Russell, the only way we were getting the chain reaction to work this year was with a crazy huge ensemble disaster. Let’s go!

It must be the fact that we avoid giant ensemble cast films like this for BMT because I can’t really remember the last one we watched. Maybe they just tend not to be that bad? Maybe I’m misremembering. Funny enough the one we chained from was Pearl Harbor, which is also a giant ensemble cast disaster. This feels different because it is a straight drama (with comedic elements).
Christian Bale is good.
The rest … I would entertain arguments that anyone in this film is good. They are all acting very weird. They are all being acted off the screen by Christian Bale who is amazing as usual. It is a cyclone of quirks that kind of never works.
Well, except Robert De Niro who acts like De Niro. It is weird he is supposed to be a real person (kind of) but in the end he’s just De Niro.
Russell films are weird. He likes to take a real life event, then he fills it chockablock with weirdos with quirks, and in the end the not-very-interesting real life event is overwhelmed by the quirky acting. But most of the time it works to varying degrees. This time?
Yeah, it is just really dull. Every time Christian Bale is on screen the film comes alive. His character is so real and quirky and fun and funny and works really well. But then every time anyone else is on screen the film falls apart. I wonder how hard Russell pushed to get Jennifer Lawrence in the Margo Robbie role. Probably so hard.
The real life event is the Business Plot by the way, and don’t bother reading about it, it seems like a genuinely uninteresting non-conspiracy of questionable authenticity. It is very weird that a movie has been made about it. The Bonus Army would have been a more interesting setting.
Gosh how do I even keep on talking about this film. It feels like it was barely written, the acting is mostly average at best, and it is beautiful and a cool period piece. I guess that is what it has going for it, it is a fun period piece at best.
I guess I’ll call it an A+ Setting (Where?) for Amsterdam, you can’t deny it does take place in Amsterdam to some degree. The film is closest to Bad because there just is nothing to it besides Bale, and you’ve seen better performances by him anyways.

Read about the unlikely science fiction sequel, Amsterdam 2: Half Past Time, in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Where the Crawdads Sing Recap

Jamie

This could be a perfect BMT film. Sure you can find your Morbiuses and Blacklights and laugh and laugh, but it’s the Here on Earths that set BMT apart. “Why are you watching that?” is what we want to hear. “Oh right, I forgot about that film,” is perfection. We want to turn to someone and say “You wanna see a bad movie?” and for them to get a perfect picture in their head of a human-cyborg dog kung fu buddy cop film we dug up from somewhere only to be presented with Endless Love and be like “WTF mate.” I cherish the time I showed someone Here on Earth and they deadpan asked me half way through “so you think this is funny?” and the answer was yes… and so were they. In that perfect moment they were hilarious. And that’s what Where the Crawdads Sing could be… could have been. If only it were actually bad.

To recap, Kya is a Marsh Girl. Much like the dreaded Lawnmower Man of legend, Kya is shunned by the town nearby as a monster. So when a local man is found having fallen to his death in the marsh all eyes go to the legendary Marsh Girl (who was also rumored to have been bedding that very local man). After she is locked up, her public defender tries to help establish her alibi and we get to learn about the ups and downs of her life in the marsh. We see her alcoholic father and how he drove Kya’s mother away first. Then the rest of her family until it was just her. She tried to go to school but everyone laughed at the Marsh GIrl so she eventually just lived in the marsh with the help of some kind shop owners. Eventually she finds friendship (and then more, awww) with a local boy who teaches her to read. He soon realizes that she knows more about marsh life than even the most expert expert, so when he leaves for college he suggests she write publishers about publishing a book of her nature drawings. She is dismayed by his departure and eventually falls in with the (eventually murdered) local man. He seems kind of full of himself, but she likes him. In the meantime she finds out she needs money to keep her marsh home, so she follows the advice and publishes a book… and then more books. And soon she really is the expert expert on marsh life. The local boy returns and is like “that local man is no good” but she throws rocks at him and is like get out of here, local boy. He turns out right, though, when she finds that her beau is actually engaged. She breaks up with him but he’s like “no Marsh Girl breaks up with me” and assaults her. She escapes and soon thereafter she heads off on a trip during which the local man is killed. That lands us back in the present where she is found innocent because her trip has given her a pretty rock solid alibi and people also realize the Marsh Girl isn’t so bad after all. Jokes on them, because after a long and beautiful life with the local boy he finds a piece of evidence that suggests she really did murder the local man (what a twist!). But he throws it in the marsh because he loved her. He loved that murdering Marsh Girl. THE END.

I liked this film. I was picking up the emotional beats it was putting down. Looked great, well made, solid acting, and effectively pulled at my heartstrings. I can see why fans of the book liked it. I can see why people who didn’t read the book liked it. It fills the void that Nicholas Sparks left and did it better than most of the Sparks films we’ve watched. So why is this a BMT film? I’m not sure. It probably is hurt by just how popular the book is. It is almost inconceivably popular and there might be a bit of a backlash to that. Seems like maybe the book is like… actually really good to boot. So when a mainstream pretty good PG-13 film adaptation is made the book’s shadow looms too large. It comes off as weakening the (already morally dubious) message. Otherwise I’m a little confused. The movie is just fine. Some reviewers called it dull. But that’s like… just your opinion, man. I liked this film.

Hot Take Clam Bake! The local boy (now a local old Marsh Man) shouldn’t have thrown out the evidence of murder so foul at the end. Do you not like money?! Think of the local economy you could have sent rocketing with the revelation that the Marsh Girl actually did get away with murder. Sure, also closure for the local man’s family, but we got podcasts, we got merchandise, we got a Marsh Museum. See where the Marsh Girl planned it all! You thought her nature books sold big before. Get a load of what happens when you hint that she left clues to her OTHER MURDERS in her books. You have deprived the whole town of financial security. Jobs, man. J-O-B-S. Do you hate jobs? Do you hate the economy? Disgusting. You disgust me. Hot Take Temperature: Rocoto.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Where the Crawdads Sing? More like Where the Craw-bads Stink, amirite?! Alright boys and girls, we have to adapt a beloved book into a film. Be very careful about being faithful … wait, not like that! Let’s go!

Of all the 2022 films I’ve seen for BMT this is probably objectively the best one. I’ve had it recommended to me by multiple people without them realizing I was already going to watch it because it is a “bad” movie. They seemed genuinely unaware that the film was critically not well received.
And honestly, while it is a bit long, and a bit dull, overall it probably is the best bad movie of the year by a long mile. It has an incredibly compelling main character, a fun period aspect to it, a very strong supporting storyline involving the store owners who help care for Kya, a romance that felt not forced and genuine, and a villain whose villainy also felt genuine. Some of the acting is weak, but it’s a grab bag when you are dealing with young actors and a long production I think.
Things I would change #1: I would have made it much more of a courtroom drama than it was. The courtroom aspect of the story was touched on so infrequently that it felt forced / rushed / cobbled together. If you tell the story thoroughly through testimony, vignettes of perceptions and descriptions, prosecution then defense, it feels like that growth from Marsh Girl to Kya and the believability of her alibi maybe works better. Full disclosure: I never read the book.
Things I would change #2: I would have shown the murder at the end. Weak cop out to merely leave to one’s imagination the strength and cunning it took for Kya to pull it off. Then again, you might have been tempted to fashion a more unambiguous “Kya only defended herself really” story, so it might not have worked showing her in all her cold blooded glory.
Things I would change #3: The world seemed half-baked in that I really had no idea where anyone but Kya lived. I had no idea how far the town was, how often people saw her. Did people know her? Where was the beach? What did people actually think of Chase dating her?
These are all fairly minor things though. Unfortunately for me it is tough to make fun of this film. But maybe there will be some room for that in Where The Crawdads Kill, the sequel to the film I made for the quiz.
Definite Setting as a Character (Where?) for the marshes of North Carolina, this is such a North Carolina film it feels like a bizarro world where Nicholas Sparks is good at writing (zing). Solid Secret Holiday Film (When?) for July 4th playing a major role in the romance underlying the entire movie. And definitely a Worst Twist (How?) for the ultimate reveal that Kya is a stone cold killer. Very much closest to Good.

As mentioned, read about Where the Crawdads Kill in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Invitation Recap

Jamie

Dear Reader, you are cordially invited to this spooky scary post where we discuss the sexy (but also scary, don’t forget that part) film The Invitation. It’s not the first time we’ve invited you to a vampire spookfest, but this is definitely for sure in the top ten sexiest of those vampire scarapaloozas we’ve watched. I mean, come on… Twilight? Ever heard of it? Queen of the Damned is sexy, I think. Vampire Academy, Priest, Vampire in Brooklyn, Dracula 2000… once we get to the Underworld franchise we’ll be swimming in sexy, so… top twenty. At least the top twenty sexiest of the vampire films we’ll watch for BMT. So RSVP like your life depends on it… because it just might. Bwahahahaha.

To recap, Evie is working hard as a caterer trying to make ends meet. She lost her Mom a while back and feels lost. It’s all about fambly, as Vinny D would say. Oh ho, what’s this? She happens to be catering a function for a DNA sequencing company and the swag bag contains a test that will help you connect with unknown fambly? How fortunate for the plot of this film. That’s because she does it and immediately matches up with a snobby rich guy from England who is a little too thrilled to meet her. He invites her to London for a wedding and she accepts, obviously. Upon arriving she meets what appears to be an unbearably rich count (who is also super hot and steamy). Count Steamy is embarrassed by his actions and spends the next half of the movie trying to woo her. He’s quite successful at it. He’s also quite successful at eating the wedding staff cause, you guessed it, he’s a sexy vampire. Just when things are heating up he really throws cold water on the whole affair by revealing that A) he’s a vamp. B) that the wedding she’s attending is actually between him and her. C) being his wife requires the general murder and eating of people. She’s not into that (no matter how steamy he is) and tries to escape. Ultimately Count Steamy is too powerful and she is turned into his bride/a vampire. But with her new super vamp powers she turns the tables on him and burns the whole thing to the ground. Later we see her going full vampire hunter and taking out all the bad vampire-loving richie riches. Sequel anyone? THE END.

The concept of this film is good. The DNA matching angle is clever (although the setup is strained) and then when things get weird I feel like it hit a stride that I enjoyed. Unfortunately there is a whole 45 minute middle part of the film that seems convinced that it’s the next Twilight or something. Or like the creator wanted to make Get Out (but with vampires) and the studio was like “juuuust a bit more sexy though. Get Out is kind of sexy, right?” and it’s like what? It went on so long that I started to wonder whether I was crazy and the film was actually going to turn out to be Twilight and the vampire was actually good (and sexy). But he wasn’t, so I’m not sure what the purpose of all the sexy stuff really was. I wish it got weird quicker and then stayed weird longer. As it is they had a very fun scene that was quickly followed by the vampire getting totally roasted. Very mixed. Could have been good, but not really bad.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Do it! Do it, Evie. Did being a vampire seem all that bad? Hear me out. You get a forever fambly. That’s pretty good. In fact, it seems like everything you ever wanted. Not enough? How about immortality? Ever heard of it? If a fambly and immortality isn’t enough let me go right for the pocketbook. And not just yours, either. Sure you’re rich, but think of all those villagers that rely on Count Steamy for their day to day livelihood. Jobs, Evie. J-O-B-S. Do you hate jobs? Do you hate the economy? Just cause you can’t stomach drinking a little blood here and there you want to put everyone in this village out of a job. Disgusting. You disgust me. Hot Take Temperature: Charleston Hot.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Invitation? More like I Think I’m Busy That Night, amirite? Dracula is back jack! And this time he’s reimagined. Let’s go!

The core story here is actually uh … kind of good? I love the idea that this is a modern film that posits that the events of Dracula were inverted. Dracula won, married Lucy, and he now basically runs a cult in England / Romania and is living forever. That’s a cool story. Even the prequel would have been a cool story.
The beginning of the film gives me whiffs of Get Out and it was pretty disappointing that the friend, Grace, didn’t show up again as a foil to the overly serious Dracula story.
Which I guess is an issue. I can’t decide if the story is better as a serious alternate Dracula story (complete with reveal), or if it is better as a half-tongue-in-cheek story that partially plays off of current social issues and stuff.
Ultimately the overly serious tone falls apart a bit because the acting outside of Evie is juuuuuuuust a bit overwrought. Walter in particular looks and acts like a fake person. Like they created him in an AI simulation as the epitome of British poshness. Similarly Oliver feels more like a British trope than an actual British person.
The twist, if that is what you can even call it, while interesting, feels weak and undercooked. I wish the horror interludes throughout with the gross looking vampires didn’t exist either. In the end they went all in with horror and, in my opinion, it blew up in their face.
Here’s my pitch. Evie and her friend are invited to England for a wedding. They show up and things are going very well, albeit there are every so often weirdo bits that they shrug off as things lost in translation as they are American. Being caterers (i.e. “the help”) they hang with the maids, but they keep on disappearing. That’s weird, but the maids don’t really know what is up, and Evie and Grace are having fun so whatever. Meanwhile there is a straight-from-Jane-Austin romance happening between Evie and Walter which is very sexy. Suddenly in the third act at the big wedding dinner things just go off the rails. Grace is “killed” and Evie wed to Walter and the horror of all of the events are fully revealed. Everything is now very very not-sexy. But at the last second Grace reappears alive as a full blown vampire hunter, and they start taking everyone out. The whole thing is Dracula and the woman who killed herself in the beginning is Lucy from the book. In my version Lucy and Evie and Dracula’s original wife all look identical and that is part of Dracula’s twisted immortality: destined (and cursed) love. The End.
But I liked the movie more than I would have expected.
Definitely a Setting as a Character (Where?) for jolly ol’ England. And I’ll toss out a Worst Twist (How?) for the ultimate reveal that Walter is, in fact, the actual Dracula from the book. I think this is closest to Good.

Read about the sequel, The Invitation 2: Dracula Reborn in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Blacklight Recap

Jamie

You guys ever seen Murphy’s Law starring Charles Bronson? I’ll disregard the obvious “No” answer to that question and bulldozer my way to my point. Liam Neeson is Charles Bronson. Charles Bronson is Liam Neeson. Ever seen them in the same room? Didn’t think so. Waaaaayyyy back in the yesteryears of the 80’s our boy Bronson had ridden his Death Wish franchise fame to what wikipedia refers to as his Cannon Films era. We are sitting in the Cannon Films era of Liam Neeson (having ridden the Taken franchise to this point). More often the Cannon Films era films of Bronson were things like Assassination, which is pretty terrible as it meanders its way through a cookie cutter plot with an aging star (and I mean actively aging before your eyes). Then there are things like Murphy’s Law which is batshit crazy and I loved every second of it. So this is where we are with Neeson. Every time we watch one I’ll be asking myself, “Is this Neeson’s Murphy’s Law?” and then hope we haven’t yet turned the corner to the Final Years era of Neeson with whatever ends up being his Family of Cops trilogy.

To recap, Liam Neeson is a fixer. But that’s not exciting enough for a film. Let’s try that again, Liam Neeson is a fixer who also has OCD and wants to retire to spend more time with his granddaughter. Ah, much better. But there is something afoot in D.C. that he has to take care of first. After a congressional candidate is murdered in an intentional hit and run, an undercover agent attempts to leak it to a reporter. Neeson is tasked with bringing him in. On the way to doing so, Neeson stops by his granddaughter’s school to hang out a bit and ends up losing the agent. Oops. Later on, after the agent attempts to contact the reporter again, he is shot and killed by government agents in front of Neeson. Neeson is a bit peeved at this and confronts the FBI director about what the agent was leaking to the reporter. Namely, that the director has an operation that kills civilians who interfere with the government. The director is like “don’t worry about it” and brushes him off. Neeson is pissed and becomes even more pissed after his family goes missing and the reporter’s boss is killed for publishing the story. He breaks into the directors house and forces him to hand over evidence of the operation. This goes south from there, but Neeson is able to escape with the evidence. Using this evidence he is able to get the director arrested and get his family back (who turns out were just in witness protection, oops). THE END.

On a scale of Not Murphy’s Law to Murphy’s Law I declare Blacklight… drumroll… Not Murphy’s Law. Really not even all that close. Very much an Assassination type vehicle. Cookie cutter plot spiced up a bit with some mild OCD for our boy Neeson. Overall feels closer to a television pilot than a feature film. Honestly, there isn’t even all that much good to say about it other than they blessedly abstained from giving rickety crickets Old Man Neeson a love interest in the film. He’s just an old man who wants to spend more time with his granddaughter. Phew.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Neeson’s daughter is kind of right. He’s not a great presence in his granddaughter’s life. His OCD does seem in control, and I don’t really see so much harm in him helping her understand self-defense and staying safe. But… like… he’s also kind of an assassin. He killed a bunch of people in the movie and also ended up getting them dropped into witness protection. Just not really feeling that part of it. But you do you, guys. Go fly that kite and keep having some sleepovers. I’m sure your part in taking down one of the most important people in D.C. won’t come back and bite you. This is actually why they can’t make Blacklight 2. Just too sad when Neeson’s daughter has to be like “Told yah so. I’m going to have to ask you to stay away for a while… at least until you totally murder everyone trying to murder you at the moment… who’s that again? The President? Cool cool cool.” Hot Take Temperature: Sweet BBQ.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Blacklight? More like Why Are They Making this Old Man Run Around and Pretend to Be an Action Star? Oh Wait, That’s Liam Neeson?! Amirite? It is actually a bit distressing watching Liam Neeson run, but more on that later. Let’s go!

Oh boy, Liam Neeson cannot run. And not like, Liam Neeson looks like he runs slow. Or like Liam Neeson runs funny. But like did Liam Neeson blow out both knees right before filming? That is the level. He’s actually not as old as I thought he was. But then again, my perception of his age was 100% based on how he looks like when he runs so I was figuring he must be 103 or something.
Zing, sorry Liam, still love you, but put your feet up for a year, or maybe go to Germany for experimental stem cell treatment. Something. You need some cartilage in those knees brother.
Enough about Liam Neeson, let’s talk about this movie. This movie represents everything wrong with films in 2022. I will take no questions on this matter, thank you.
Fine, I’ll explain. Way back when when someone wanted to make something on the cheap they called Roger Corman or Dino De Laurentiis up, who called up a director who could work on the cheap, and they slapped something together with cheap effects. But those effects? They had charm. They were real, visceral things cobbled together by special effects artists (emphasis on “artist”). And sure, they looked cheesy, but there is an undeniable charm to something like Conan the Destroyer where it sometimes looks like crap, but also is just wild crazy shit and undeniably fun.
This? Slow moving cars moving around empty streets. Fake explosions, fake fights, and fake gunshots. And a storyline might as well be a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of a Dick Wolf television show. The construction of this film makes me sad. Because this is precisely the type of film that AI is going to generate in 10 years. And no one will really be able to tell the difference. Except Liam Neeson will run like a 20 year old when the AI makes it (zing).
I liked a few of the actors in it though, although add Taylor John Smith to the list of actors who might as well not have a face, that’s how interchangeable he is as a leading man.
Also this might be the worst third act of a film I’ve ever seen, it is nonsensical garbage.
I’ll leave you with my two favorite moments from the film. First, and I mentioned this in the preview, but there is something special about a little girl calling the action hero of the film “grandpa” right to his face. It probably speaks to the dire situation Hollywood is in that 60-year-old Tom Cruise and 70-year-old Liam Neeson are still starring in action blockbusters in 2022. The second one is that one of the side characters is a British person, and in his introductory scene he’s watching some footy (soccer to you Yanks). He is quite frustrated with the game, and at one moment bursts out “no no no no!” and throws a pen at the screen remarking “I lost a few quid on that one.” The intense moment portrayed on that screen? Stock footage of a soccer player passing a ball into the backfield. That’s it. Some poor intern was asked to add football to the screen and didn’t really think about what should actually go there, or (more likely) was given $0 and 15 minutes to do this task and winged it. Regardless, incredibly entertaining stuff.
Definitely a Setting as a Character (Where?) for DC. And I’m going to give it a MacGuffin (Why?) for the little zip drive with all of the “evidence” on it that the bad guys are really really concerned about. I think this is a tried and true BMT film because there are just enough weird shit in it to work for me.

Make sure to check out the sequel Blacklight 2: Ultraviolet in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

After Ever Happy Recap

Jamie

Hi, it’s me. Franchise guy. You know, the guy who wishes they made another Mummy movie starring Tom Cruise. So you can imagine what a gift the After series has been to all of us. This is already the fourth movie in a series that started as One Direction fan fiction. And it ain’t done! There are (allegedly) three more entries in the series in the works! Did Patrick and I make a wish upon a monkey paw in order to make this dream a reality? No (that was a totally unrelated wish). These are growing organically and we are just lucky enough to pluck them off the After tree. Hopefully those After trees will bear their sweet fruit for many years to come. I want to be watching Hardin and Tessa as forty-something people churning through Hardin’s (latest) mid-life crisis.

To recap, we start right where we left off. Hardin has just found out his dad isn’t his dad and his actual dad is totally boning his mom right before she gets married. He’s real sad and it is not sexy. I’m talking burning down his mom’s apartment in a fit of rage kind of not sexy. Tessa is kinda over it, particularly when he disappears on a bender with his old London friends. Returning home she is shocked to find her addict father dead in her apartment. Not ideal and not sexy. Word eventually reaches Hardin, who rushes back to be by Tessa’s side, but she is still not having him. I don’t blame her, Hardin has, to put it bluntly, transitioned from sexy sad to actually sad. He needs to go to sexy rehab to get his mojo back and stat. Tessa, meanwhile, decides to escape it all by moving to NYC and becoming a waitress. She seems to find some level of peace in her new life (and perhaps a burgeoning romance to boot), but she can’t escape Hardin who shows up on her doorstep claiming to be a new man. And what a new man he is! He’s bringing sexy back and Tessa is all about dat. Unfortunately, after the sexy has been sufficiently brought back, Tessa finds that the real reason Hardin is back is to shop his new book. You know it! It’s After, the meta book! He wrote After! And it’s kinda rude and crude. Hardin’s like “come on, I kinda need this,” but Tessa throws him out cause he’s a rude crude dude. Months later he’s been rocketed to fame as the hot young author and it looks like maybe Tessa and Hardin aren’t meant for each other after all (or are they? (they are)). THE END.

I think the only appropriate thing to do in a situation like this is to assess this film in direct comparison to the other entries in the series. I have fond memories of the first film cause it was kind of a quaint classic college drama. I found that one to be quite silly, but in a good way. The second is actually good… or at least has some good things in it. It is the only entry in the series that had me stop and think “wait, do these films actually have something to say about addiction and the difficulties of young love?” The third was streaming trash that was mostly funny because of all the places they decided to have Hardin and Tessa have sex. Somehow both the most and least sexy film in the series. Finally, this one, which is actually just kind of sad. It doesn’t feel like a complete movie. It’s like they left out all the sexy stuff and are saving it for movie #5. So all you’re left with is a not sexy sad film about a girl and the asshole she loves… bring sexy back, After! Where has all the sexy gone!?

Hot Take Clam Bake! Hardin did the right thing. I think you’re supposed to be conflicted as to whether Hardin did Tessa dirty by writing After. It’s a full blown tell-all and Tessa wasn’t warned about it. But guess what, Tessa (if that’s even your real name) you left Hardin with nothing but his memories. He was at rock bottom and forced to confront his feelings in rehab through art and ever since you met him how has Hardin communicated? Through the written word. There he is with no friends, no prospects, and no girl to have sexy sex with in his sexy gym, car, or hot tub (amongst the many other very normal sexy places he might have sex). What was this guy supposed to do but write a scathing rebuke of your relationship and become rich and famous while you toil away as a waitress? Hot Take Temperature: Mango Habanero.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! After Ever Happy? More like Ever More Happy That I Get to Watch After Films for the Rest of My Life! Amirite? I am, because After is my guilty pleasure. Tessa and Hardin are an epic couple. Like Ryan and Marissa, or Romeo and Juliet. That level. Let’s go!

I’m not joking, I would watch one of these films a year forever. Make it like that show … Degrassi is it? The one where they just rotate out the characters as they age out of the series. Just get different After people forever and ever and ever and ever.
For real though, why not? This is the only thing Wattpad Studios has going for it.
The writing! The acting! The complete lack of a plot! This is the BMT triple threat franchise. Nothing in the world even compares.
Can I even remember what happened in this film? Let’s see. Hardin cries a bunch because his father isn’t his father, so he burns down a house and then parties in East London for a bit. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, Tessa’s dad dies from an overdose. Back in Seattle, Tessa learns she is infertile, and then Tessa reveals that she is breaking up with Hardin and moving to New York City as a strong independent woman. Hardin goes to AA and writes the titular After “novel”, which ends up in a bidding war in NYC. This is no bueno though, because Tessa doesn’t want her life put on blast in a bestselling “novel”. She breaks up with him again when he’s like “sorry not sorry, I’m selling this novel, it is like … the only thing I have going for me.” To be continued.
The To Be Continued is shocking to say the least. Spoilers but there isn’t another novel. There were four books and a prequel called Before. So, in a way they just Part I’d us! They made After Ever Happy Part I without telling anyone they were splitting the final book into two. Sneaky buggers. For real though, I would watch a 50-year-old Hardin struggling with addiction, crying to 50-year-old Tessa in their opulent midtown NYC penthouse, so I hope in 50 years there is an After Ever Happy Part XLI or whatever.
Wait, should I write After fanfiction? It started as fanfiction. So why not? Then I can have After forever and ever and ever.
Oh the movie? I will repeat myself: nothing happens, the writing is horrible, the acting is horrible, and you just watch inexplicable wealthy assholes cry at each other for 90 minutes. In other words: inject that right into my veins bro.
Unfortunately nothing so egregious as Hardin giving Tessa the gift of vertical integration via a Kindle in this one. I’m going to give it a Setting as a Character (Where?) for NYC, which if we are being honest, should have always been where Vance Publishing is based, and where Tessa should have always been living. Funny Secret Holiday Film (When?) for the brief shot of a New Years Eve party in NYC. And a Worst Twist (How?) just for the “to be continued” at the end. Definitely BMT, so much so it might be a leader in the clubhouse for BMT winner this year, but I’ll have to look back.

I know you’ve been clamoring for it. A return of Hardin and the Bad Boys with Hearts of Gold. You met them in Bad Boys Assemble: Hearts of Gold. Well, read about the sequel Bad Boys Assemble: Fists of Steel in the Quiz. It gives me some real Empire Strikes Back vibes. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The King’s Daughter Recap

Jamie

Our BMT venture (and future empire) is inherently a silly venture. But serious things do have impact. The King’s Daughter is a clear byproduct of one such serious thing: the pandemic. Way back in 2015 we were already seeing the writing on the wall regarding streaming (and the writing spelled out “The Ridiculous 6” in big block letters). Sandler was the king of BMT and yet would disappear from our lives if we didn’t relax the theatrical requirement… but we didn’t break. Flash forward to the pandemic and nothing is theatrical and so the end of year cycle was in an existential crisis. What is a theatrical requirement without theatrical releases? … but we didn’t break. And now this is our reward. 2022 has juuuuust enough films for us to do a true blue end of year cycle and so we take what we can get and that includes The King’s Daughter. Funny enough, The King’s Daughter had already wrapped filming BEFORE we watched The Ridiculous 6… and yet it also didn’t break. It persisted all the way to BMT glory.

To summarize, Pierce Brosnan has some glorious flowing locks and is like “check out my hair and also I want to live forever find me a mermaid.” And someone does. This dude brings the mermaid back and the king’s doctor is like “thanks, and also we are going to murder it so make sure it survives till then.” And the guy is like… uh, OK. Meanwhile he also has a secret daughter that has been kept away in a convent and Brosnan is like “check out my hair and also bring me my daughter.” And someone does. She’s a dope musician and pretty quickly he’s bipping and bopping to her tunes. While she’s living it up in luxury she stumbles upon the sea captain and his hot bod (and also the mermaid). She’s instantly smitten. Meanwhile her daddio is ready to marry her off for profit (and still planning on killing that mermaid). She ends up going out for a day of fun with the sea captain and breaks her arm which is then magically healed by the mermaid. So as you can imagine, she is horrified when it is then revealed that this magical creature is going to be sacrificed for the King. She and the sea captain go off to free her. They fight off an evil doctor and then she flees to the coast where she begs her dad not to kill the mermaid. He refuses so she does the only thing she can: fling herself from the cliff so that he needs the mermaid to live in order to save her life. He stops the mermaid murder and allows her and the sea captain to go off on sea adventures together. THE END.

Let’s start with some positives. Cool looking movie. It was filmed at Versailles so it’s a visual feast at times and you can really feel at those times the love and care that finally brought the film to the big screens. I also found the story itself to be weird fun… although the book appears to be even weirder so maybe I would have liked it more if it was a more faithful adaptation. Now for the negatives. The film is a narrative mess, particularly in the beginning as they try to hack their way into the story. And I really do mean hack, as the film appears to have been edited by a terminator robot designed to get you from beginning to middle as quickly as possible. Once there you just kind of muddle along as you wonder to yourself exactly how you ended up watching a movie that even Pierce Brosnan has probably forgotten exists. So yeah, negatives certainly far outweigh the positives in this mermaid tale that everyone was clamoring for. As for Spiderhead, is it wrong that I kind of dug it? I thought the acting was pretty good and the concept engaging (if maybe a little simplistic). I often find contemporary science fiction a little cold and often extremely stupid (The Circle is a good example… Replicas as well) and this is far superior to most of the films in that genre that I’ve seen recently. Surprised it dropped so low on RT, even if it’s overall just an OK film.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Brosnan was right. First of all he seems like a pretty good king. I didn’t see the obligatory attempted assassination scene that would tell me he was bad ergo he was good. And it’s not like this is the only mermaid around. So maybe he’s just trying out this dangerous experiment first on himself so that then he could bring the disrupting technology to the masses of France. Ever think about that? We even get a glimpse at the end of Atlantis and there was like… a lot of mermaids. So, what? This alleged King’s daughter gets to decide whether the world gets to know about being immortal. Who came along and made you Queen of Mermaid Protection, lady? I want to be immortal, but I also don’t want to be the first person to try out some weird mermaid medical procedure. Brosnan was a risk-taking visionary stopped by his shortsighted daughter. Hot Take Temperature: Blazin’

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The King’s Daughter? More like Wince Harder! Amirite? A film so big it was 20 years in the making and shelved for 8 of those years. Let’s go!

So this film was optioned in the late 90s/early 00s and has been in production for literally 20 years. It is basically this generation’s Avatar 2. The grand vision of (checks notes) Sean McNamara finally coming to screen!
Oh, but it was filmed around 2014. That’s right, it sat on a shelf for 8 years waiting for just the right moment to dump it in theaters (that has to be a contractual thing right?) and forget about it.
It was also apparently the largest Chinese investment in an American film ever? That is a very 2014 thing as well. These days American films don’t even get released in China. This could actually be a record held by The King’s Daughter for a long long time.
The first third of the film is basically 70 separate shots all strung together by a poor editor who was probably given 48 hours to recut the film and chainsmoked the entire time. I’ve never seen so many smash cuts in my life. Just smash cut to the North Sea. Smash cut to the convent. Smash cut back to Versailles. There is clearly very very little footage available to construct this film. Which also makes it ultra confusing as to why it isn’t 80 minutes long. I would have fully expected it to be 80 minutes with 7 minutes of credits to stretch things out.
There is something to the costume design and pop soundtrack. Like a CW show or Vampire Academy thing maybe. There are moments where it is jarring. Like when they have a shot of the main character and she’s in a dress with a full length back zipper. I had to look it up. Zippers weren’t invented until maybe 200 years after the film took place. So there is an anachronistic faux-modern thing going on with the costuming and stuff. I hate it personally, but it is a thing.
All the acting is awful. There is a scene near the end where William Hurt and Pierce Brosnan are just spouting like “Forgive me Father for I have sinned” and Hurt is like “You are forgiven” and then they awkwardly touch each other’s faces and … I think half this film might be improvised? Something is up with it because even the established actors seem to be bumbling around not quite knowing what they are supposed to be doing.
This film is very perplexing. It should be a fun watch as it is a complete mess with several laugh out loud moments. But it is also only entertaining for the first thirty minutes and then sinks into a boring non-story for an hour and the film is overall just quite boring. Which is too bad.
Naturally a Setting as a Character (Where?) for France, and specifically Versaille. There is nothing else. It is set in a specific year in the 17th century (they say at the beginning) and it is specifically set during a solar eclipse, but I looked it up. There wasn’t an eclipse in the right spot that year, so that was just all made up. Closest to Bad for committing the bad movie mortal sin of being boring.
Along with The King’s Daughter we had to go hunting for a 2022 friend and that naturally led us to Spiderhead. I knew of Spiderhead because it is based on a short story which people seem to enjoy quite a bit called Escape from Spiderhead. Naturally I read the short story which is very short and it is an interesting read. It does kind of ruin the movie. The movie ends up veering into a weirder story involving an actual escape, the main scientist taking his own drugs, and a lot more prisoners than in the book. The main differences: (1) In the original the main character doesn’t just drunkenly kill his friend and girlfriend, he kills a guy with a rock during a fight on purpose; (2) There is no love interest; (3) He kills himself in the end, that’s his escape, he gives himself a huge dose of the sadness drug and then kills himself. The movie is interesting in its own way, but would have been much more interesting if they had stuck to the book more. A character study where you really only see three or four characters and keep the title and twisty ending. As it stands it just ends up being a glossy Netflix movie without much heart. C. Some interesting stuff, but not enough to recommend.

Check out the sequel to the film called The King’s Granddaughter. Cheerios,

The Sklogs