Recap – Page 16 – Bad Movie Twins

Original Sin Recap

Jamie

There was a brief moment in time where we made a very big deal about the fact that no BMT film was set in the state of Delaware. Already a dubious state, this made it all the more dubious. Could a state be real if they don’t even care to set a terrible wide release horror or action film there? We said no. Eventually we collapsed under the weight of our own joke and lowered ourselves to watching Survival of the Dead, the sixth entry in the Night of the Living Dead series, in order to tally Delaware. It was released to 20 theaters and it’s one of our greatest shames. What does this have to do with Original Sin? Well, Jolie’s character came to Cuba from Delaware (allegedly). It’s probably why Banderas was like “Hoochie mama, how did such a hot dame come from Delaware?!” So we contemplated watching it as the Delaware film. Good thing we didn’t. Not a glimpse of that “state” to be seen.

Let’s recap this GD thang. Banderas is a workaholic coffee plantation owner. He decides to get a mail order bride so that he can get married without it getting in the way of his work. That’s why he got the Delaware Special. Just a Plain Jane gal from Dover that won’t distract him. Unfortunately out walks Angelina Jolie and… let’s just say he’s a little distracted. They are super into each other for realz and we get some steamy scenes that required me to clean my glasses (for science). Soon Jolie’s sister is writing her and a detective shows up asking to see Jolie. By the time the sister shows up to inform Banderas that Jolie is an imposter who killed his real bride, she’s already long gone with his fortune. Fortunately an extremely creepy and grimy detective is hanging around willing to help him out. How nice and not suspicious! When they track Jolie down, Banderas is basically like “sooooo, we can still bone, right?” and she’s like “yeah, NBD.” So now he goes on the run with Jolie like an absolute crazy person. They live a nice life on the lam only to have it upended when the detective comes a-knocking and Banderas “kills” him. Unfortunately for Banderas this all turns out to be an elaborate ruse. The detective and Jolie are actually working together (what a twist!) and this is just the next step in the plan. Convince Banderas that he’s a murderer, get him into financial straits, get him to sell off his company to give more money to Jolie, and then kill him. But Banderas finds out and, willing to die for his mad love (starring Drew Barrymore), knowingly accepts a poisoned drink from Jolie. But she has a change of heart and they together dispatch the fake detective and live out their crazy life like the couple of crazy kids they are. THE END.

I’m not sure I totally minded this film. Banderas is an absolute imbecile with a screw loose, but in kind of a funny way. Like you can’t believe all the terrible decisions he’s making at every step of the film. I think I actually liked Jolie and I really liked Thomas Jane who seems to be having a ball. The real issue is that it is pretty boring at times, lacking a bit of coherent forward motion, and some of the situations get unnecessarily and unpleasantly grim. That makes it a little hard to recommend cause it lacks a little of the “fun” needed to call it “steamy fun.” As for Swept Away, woof. Maybe that’s why I didn’t mind Original Sin. I had to endure Swept Away. You don’t get to say this often, but Swept Away might actually be the worst movie of all time. There is basically nothing redeeming about it. It is unwatchable. I shudder even remembering the experience of watching it. I can’t believe how much Patrick and I discussed it considering it wasn’t even the main film of the week, but we couldn’t stop marveling at how horrible it was.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Jolie and Jane are bad at their jobs and the plan only works because Banderas is the dumbest human being alive. Almost from the jump everything about Jolie is suspect. Banderas’ response? “Look at those knockers! Better sign all my personal and business accounts over to her.” Then even when she steals everything from him and runs away, what happens when he finds her? “Look at those knockers! Better run off and ruin my life for her.” Literally at any point Banderas could have been like “You know what, fool me once.” But he gets fooled like a thousand times. And then even after he wins, he ends up setting up a poker ruse with Jolie that is bar none the worst attempt at cheating in history. He’ll be dead in a month cause he’s a real dumbo who’s hitched his wagon to a bad con artist. Hot Take Temperature: Sweet BBQ. Patrick?

Patrick

Original Sin? More like Not So Original Sin, amirite? Well, I was promised bodice-ripping excitement by Roger Ebert. But I can’t recall there necessarily being a bodice ripped in this film. I’m mostly positive there was nary a bodice in sight! Anyways, let’s get into it!

These past few weeks I feel like a few things have happened. I’ve discovered that foreign films tend to be a bit more sexy and plodding than American films (at least the non-comedies). And that translating these films directly into American films often leave the actors they get to play the parts a bit lost at sea (especially the comedies). Original Sin I guess it helped by being a book. But ultimately I fear it was hurt by being based on, maybe, not a very good book.
I wouldn’t know I didn’t read the book. Nor did I watch the Truffant film it is based on, although it is on the list of films I’ll want to check out in the future.
But ultimately the film’s plot line seemed depressing, decidedly unsexy in most regards (unless you live in Cuba in the 1890s maybe?), and didn’t really lead anywhere.
I don’t think I liked this film. But I also couldn’t really put my finger on why. Maybe because Banderas seems like an idiot who is duped by an obvious conwoman and her partner in crime at every turn. Maybe because I don’t like watching someone’s life fall apart for two hours. Or maybe I was ready for dangerous sexiness and then was treated to not very much bodice ripping and undangerous sex scenes. I don’t know. But I feel like I would not recommend this film to anyone.
The worst part of the film: the extremely obvious poker cheating. Come on guys. Put some effort into it! You can’t just have Angelina Jolie cross her throat to be like “that guy has a bad hand” and ogle the cards over everyone’s shoulder. It is ludicrous. My hot take? Banderas deserved it. Not because cheating is bad. But because bad cheating is especially bad.
A good Setting as a Character (Where?) for Cuba in the end. And I’ll just throw out a Rare Temporal Setting (When?) for late 19th century, I think people get so caught up in doing 20th century stuff they forget the Gilded Age. And a Worst Twist (How?) for the inevitable reveal that Jolie did it again and seduced the priest into taking her place in prison. I think this is a Bad film, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
As the friend cycle we decided to go with maybe the most notable European remake which is also considered one of the worst movies ever made. Swept Away, ever heard of it? This Madonna vehicle is, how do you say? An abomination. Boom, DOG POO IN MY FACE babyyyyyyyyy. This is actually the worst film ever made. It is shocking to say, but it is actually the worst film ever made. I don’t know how they decided on: horrible person Madonna treats poor fisherman like shit, fisherman in exchange explicitly makes her his slave on deserted island thus revealing that he too is a piece of shit, they fall in love and decide to be pieces of shit together, but instead Madonna goes back to her oppressing life with her insufferable husband leaving fisherman to be a sad piece of shit alone. Oh and there is like some underlying capitalistic stuff going on. For real, how is this written and directed by Guy Ritchie? It is actually a little deranged. Rest assured, if you want to feel horrible about people and movie making, Swept Away is the movie for you. It’ll make you say: “Movies were a mistake.” It is genuinely that bad. A+ Friend in a way, because I no longer have to think about what might be the worst movie ever made. I now know.

Check out the sequel Original Sin 2: Purgatory. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Brick Mansions Recap

Jamie

Back in our salad days, Patrick and I fancied ourselves quite the film connoisseurs. We only watched the best (the best!). So of course we gathered up our friends to catch District B13 in theaters and people were pretty impressed. And rightfully so, we were rad… almost as rad as all the parkour we witnessed that day. By the time Brick Mansions came out we were even radder (can you believe it) and in the midst of building our vast BMT empire, but parkour wasn’t nearly as rad, so we let it pass on by, just biding our time until the moment was juuuuust right. That moment is now. Welcome to BMT Presents: The Brick Mansions Post: The Movie.

To recap, Brick Mansions is the story of Paul Walker, an undercover cop trying to live up to the memory of his father, a cop killed in the line of duty. He’s just trying to keep a dystopian Detroit from going down the toilet, but things are made hard by all the drugs and crime in the brick mansions. Oooo, all those drugs and crime. It just makes me so mad. It also makes Lino mad, a parkour madman who gets himself in trouble by trashing a bunch of heroin peddled by Tremaine. Turns out Tremaine owns (almost all) the cops, so even when Lino gets the upper hand it only lands him in jail and his girlfriend held captive by Tremaine. Just at that moment, Tremaine comes into possession of a nuclear weapon (word) and Walker’s gotta get that bad boy back, baby. He teams up with Lino and infiltrates the brick mansions and hold onto your butts, cause they’re gonna parkour… your butts off… that’s why you gotta hold onto your butts. Once all the butts have been parkoured off, Lino and Walker get to the nuclear weapon, but realize that something seems fishy. The code they are given to diffuse the bomb turns out to be the zip code for the brick mansions. Aha! Don’t you see?! It’s so dumb that it’s gotta be a trap! They parkour their way over to the mayor’s office who is like “but…uh… but…uh… what thuuuuu.” And Walker records him and he sounds so dumb that everyone votes him out of office and votes Tremaine in (for realz). We end with Walker all happy and the former drug dealer planting a tree with a jaunty hat on. Not joking. THE END.

Hoooo man. This movie is dummmmmmbbbbb. Like real stupid for real. I could say it doesn’t make any sense, but it does make sense. It’s just very stupid. But that’s OK, cause the parkour was great, right? Eh, not really. The whole venture seems held back by the fact that Walker is just not on the same level as David Belle (obviously) and so everything seems to be done with tricky camera work. Ultimately, it just came off as a bit lame. If you are going to watch the film I wouldn’t even watch it for the parkour. I would watch it for the hilarious dub they put on Belle, which makes him seem American (… maybe?), and the last fifteen minutes, which holds its own in the vast depths of stupidity we’ve subjected ourselves to in BMT. I mean, a drug dealer kidnaps an innocent lady and holds a city hostage with a nuclear weapon and then gets elected mayor! His second in command immediately starts planting trees and wearing fashionable hats! It’s ludicrous.

Hot Take Clam Bake! The bomb goes off. I’m not even sure this is a hot take. Let’s look at the evidence: They think that the bomb is a trick because the deactivation code is the zip code of the brick mansions. That’s stupid. It was the real deactivation code and the bomb exploded. Everything after that is what happens in Paul Walker’s mind the moments before his body disintegrates. He imagines solving his father’s murder, getting the elitist mayor out of office, turning around the city that he loves, and introducing a hardened drug dealer to environmentalism and fancy hats. That is not real. That is an imagined ending by a man who totally screwed up and let a nuclear bomb go off in a major city. Hot Take Temperature: Jammin’ Jalapeno. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Brick Mansions? More like Shit Mansions amirite? I mean, objectively it seems like the area of Brick Mansions is shit though. No hospitals or schools or anything? Seems like a terrible place to live. Let’s go!

The code is just the zip code to Brick Mansions? “That seems suspicious Mr. Mayor, doesn’t it?” “Shut up Jonathan, it’s called ‘being poetic’, I want Paul Walker, this person I never met, to think for a split second that he just got got by super genius me after punching in this sweet code. I sure do hope the drug dealers don’t shoot him directly in the face immediately when he gets there, and also the ultra sweet parkour expert doesn’t help him. But again, I have to send the parkour guy back in instead of just killing him in prison because that is also poetic.” Because, for real, if fourteen different things don’t go right then the bomb just merely doesn’t explode in the middle of Brick Mansions. He’s relying on Paul Walker just being so sweet that he obviously finds and sets off the bomb.
I guess from the top I should say: just watch District B13 if you want to see this movie. They are exactly the same movie, except instead of Paul Walker explaining why he isn’t doing sweet parkour everywhere, you get another parkour guy doing parkour. So by my calculations that makes it 2x as rad as this film already.
Paul Walker is a terrible actor. Sorry.
Why did they dub the French guy with a bad American accent? They already try and claim he is Quebecois. So … why do they then go out of their way to give him a not-French accent? Just make him speak French or let him speak with an accent or dub him over with someone with a clear accent.
In the end are we supposed to be rooting for the murderous drug dealers who wanted to blow up a bomb in the middle of Detroit to become mayor? So we have back-to-back mayors of Detroit who wanted to set off a bomb in the middle of Detroit? What a wild timeline.
Parkour has never looked so bad. Sorry.
I’m going to throw out the assistant drug dealer as a potential Planchet (Who?) even though I don’t think he gets made fun of enough, I think he’s some other trope, like Incompetant Number Two or something. Some minor Product Placement (What?) for things like BMW. An excellent Setting as a Character (Where?) for Detroit Rock City. A very good MacGuffin (Why?) for the bomb that is in desperate need of disarming. And a Worst Twist (How?) candidate for the reveal that the bomb would only go off once the code was punched in (not the opposite). Definitely a BMT film.

There was already an original Brick Mansions, and a sequel to that … doesn’t mean I can’t make my own sequel Brick Mansions 2: Sins of the Father. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Wicker Park Recap

Jamie

There is a paradox in my life. On the one hand I am constantly watching films (both good and bad), while others in my household pretty much never watch a movie. For example, my doggy seems totally uninterested in the art of cinema (what a rube). So when I find a film that piques the interest of those nearest and dearest to my heart I jump at the opportunity. Wicker Park was one such film. The result is that I actually watched Wicker Park in the not too distant past. My conclusion then is pretty much my conclusion now (and I’ll save that for the end), but a sneak peak is what one of the members of my household thought: “great soundtrack.” It’s true, classic early 2000’s soundtrack that coincided with the greatest soundtrack run of our lifetimes: The OC. The other member had a different view: “I’m a dog, I don’t understand music, but Matthew Lillard was surprisingly charming.” Astute point, Sprinkles.

Quick recap, Matt has returned to Chicago to work for his (soon to be) fiance’s family’s advertising firm. We learn that a couple years ago he left Chicago heartbroken after the loss of his one true love: Lisa. Matt is given a big break by being sent to China to close a big deal, but just before he is set to leave he thinks he catches a glimpse of Lisa. He decides to delay his trip in order to find his true love. Thus begins the most suspenseful aspect of the film: the will he, won’t he… travel to China to close the deal. Come on, man! You can find Lisa when you get back. It’s like… a big deal for your company! If you’re not going to go, just tell them so they can send someone else to close it… gah! Sorry… I was just really worried about the deal. He left a lot of people hanging (I presume). Don’t be a dick. Anyway, with the help of his friend Luke he is able to find the apartment where “Lisa” is staying but finds a different girl there instead. Unbeknownst to him, this “Lisa” is actually an actress named Alex who is dating Luke (by coincidence?). In flashbacks we see that she was a good friend of Lisa who was secretly obsessed with Matt. So when Matt asks Lisa to move to NYC with him and Lisa balks (for reasons unknown) and coincidentally also gets a crazy urgent request to move to Europe it results in Alex playing a dastardly game of telephone where she deceives both of them into believing the other wronged them. In the present day, Matt sleeps with Alex (who he thinks is Lisa (but not that Lisa)), but almost immediately starts to get suspicious. In the meantime the real Lisa realizes that Matt is looking for her and tries her best to get him to meet her in… you know where. Ultimately Matt revelased Alex’s deception, chases Lisa to the airport, and they smooch right after he brushes away his GF and is all like “uh, I didn’t even go to China cause I suck.” THE END.

Confused? It’s actually not all that confusing because it’s actually just very silly. A lot of silly coincidences occur that keep Lisa and Matt apart. Like, think about the chances that Alex ends up dating Luke just when Lisa has returned to NYC and Matt runs into his old friend and starts hanging out with him? Or that Lisa has to leave for Europe within the hour just when Matt has asked her to move in with him? This is Coincidences: The Movie. The stakes also seemed very low. Just a bunch of silly people duping each other in mostly harmless ways and then everything working out. Acting was good though and the soundtrack is great. I do wish they made more films like this, but I’d suggest adding some thrills.

Very quick Hot Take Clam Bake. Josh Hartnett is the villain of the film. You had one job, man. Your future brother-in-law gave you the big job of closing the China deal. You are a low confidence weenie, but he believes in you. He honestly sounds like a great future bro-in-law and you could have a beautiful professional and personal relationship with him. But no, you totally leave him hanging. At least have the common decency to let someone (anyone!) know. Does it say something about me that this was the most stressful and memorable aspect of the film for me? I couldn’t stop thinking about that meeting and this idiot’s complete lack of professionalism. Lisa probably drops him like a hot potato once she finds out about the China Fiasco. She would probably be horrified by his behavior. Hot Take Temperature: Smoky Adobo.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Wicker Park? More like Sick and Dark, amirite? Remember when you could make a film about sad people walking around Chicago for two hours and then just end a film in the cheesiest possible way? Those were the days. Let’s go!

Two movies in a row where if someone asked me “should I watch this movie” I would scream “hellllllllllllls naw.” These films are bad (per se), that would make me recommend them (natch). They are just in the middle and kind of nothing.
And this is the king of the nothing film. There once was a time long ago where independent cinema became infatuated with stories that roamed across a city filled with greys and browns. Tired of that corporate humdrum the protagonists searched for the dream girl who could unlock the arteeeeest within them and allow them to live that bohemian lifestyle they truly aspire for.
Or something like that. The films, in reality, tended to wax poet about nothing for 90 minutes, and this is no exception.
I will say that I found this film to be anxiety inducing. Harnett misses not one but possibly three flights to China? He’s missing meetings. People are calling him. People are surprised he is there (and not, you know … in China). I can’t even imagine what is happening at Faceless Corporate Media HQ. “We missed what meeting? But we sent Harnett. Get Harnett on the horn now! Oh no, something horrible must have happened to Harnett, call the hospitals.” Meanwhile, Harnett is just sleeping in random hotel rooms trying to avoid his fiance and narrowly missing his ex. The movie might as well be called Patrick’s Anxiety Nightmare. Harnett goes to a play and misses his third flight to China! Why are you going to a play?! Go to China you lunatic! People are relying on you! You made a whole sales pitch about … something I’m sure was important. All a waste. What a shame.
I suppose the only interesting thing about it is the twisty twistiness. They did feel the need to layer coincidence upon coincidence upon coincidence until the whole story fell apart around Rose Byrne and her unrequited love.
And then as mentioned you get the cheesy ending where (presumably) Hartnett and his lady love live a poor bohemian lifestyle in the Wicker Park area of Chicago.
I thought Hartnett, as usual, was solid. If you are into these kinds of movies (and/or live in the year 2000) I can see why it could be a three out of four star affair. Which is what Ebert gave it. There is a compelling argument there. But not really my cup of tea overall.
A natural A+ Setting (Where?) for Wicker Park in Chicago. And a decent case for Worst Twist (How?) for the reveal that Rose Byrne was behind all of the bad things in Harnett’s life. Closest to Bad just because it is boring, but I could entertain an argument for something else (although I’d never watch this film again, so it better be a good argument).

Hear all about the sequel to Wicker Park: Wicker Park 2: Huangpu Park. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Loft Recap

Jamie

If I had made a list of top 10 films we missed for BMT, The Loft would have been high up on it. Why? Exactly. Why, indeed. Why did they make a cliche thriller filled with TV actors? The promos for the film must have felt like a Jets-Bills game from the mid-2000’s. Marsden! Urban! Battle of the titans on Thursday Night Football. And to think Eric Stonestreet was in the middle of his Modern Family streak when he did this. Arguably he’s the biggest name in the film. Besides our boy Wentworth Miller. He’s a star in our eyes.

To recap, Karl Urban is a real piece of trash who happens to also be the hottest architect in New Orleans. He’s got a great group of friends, so why not share a creepy sex loft with them? Right? I mean, it’s only logical. His friends are mostly like “uh, what?” but inexplicably they all eventually agree that is makes sense to split this loft like a bunch of sex criminals. Obviously one day they find a dead woman there and they’re all like “what thuuuuu…” They point fingers at one another and we find out through flashbacks that they really are just garbage cans dressed in human clothes. One of them had an affair and now is a real saddo. The other fell in love with a prostitute and is a real saddo. The third is a big drug addict and is a real saddo. The fourth was already a saddo. The fifth was Karl Urban and wait a second! He’s not a saddo at all! In fact he seems quite satisfied with his weird sex condo! He must be the criminal! Doesn’t help that Wentworth Miller taped them all in the apartment like a creep and caught Urban sleeping with everyone they loved. Well that settles it, he killed the woman (almost forgot about her) and so let’s frame him for the murder he definitely committed. But wait, Marsen is a little suspicious. Some of this isn’t adding up. So he goes back to the loft and confronts to saddest saddo of them all (who’d ever suspect?!), Wentworth Miller. Turns out he was so sad that he decided to kill the girl and frame Urban cause… uh… Urban was the only thing that stood in the way of him being with the woman… who he just killed. Anyway, he then jumps from the balcony and six months later everyone is like “that was crazy, right?” THE END.

So yeah, the whole movie is trashy. It’s fun in a ridiculous way. Nothing totally makes sense in how a few of them get away with what would at the very least be obstruction of justice and at worst be a failed attempt to frame their friend for a murder he didn’t commit. And it’s that throw-caution-to-the-wind, who cares if it makes sense attitude that really puts this over the top in terms of BMT thrills and chills. Most films fall flat by overthinking things and ultimately overexplaining their convoluted noir-lite plot into mundanity. This gloriously underthinks its noir-ultra plot into BMT-ity.

Hot Take Clam Bake! The entire premise of the film is false! It’s set up like having a primo sex loft is every trash philanderers dream. No seedy motel receipts, they say. No fake work trips or calls from people wondering if they want you to drop off the handcuffs you left at their place, they explain. Everything your garbage heart desires is there at… The Loft. But guess what is even more suspicious than all that? Going fivesies on a high end loft in the 46th largest city in the United States. What’s that gonna run each of them? Ten grand? Ah yeah, sure is far less suspicious than a $125 hotel room for the zero nights you are actually going to cheat on your wives. This isn’t even a hot take. This whole film is an ice cold take. Hot Take Temperature: Salt & Vinegar.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Loft? More like The Daft! Amirite? Hey guys, want to all get in on this sweet f-shack plan I got going. Don’t worry, it is in my incredibly conspicuous apartment building complete with a balcony overlooking the French Quarter of New Orleans. No? Let’s go!

The plan is even more ludicrous than it sounds, and the motivation for Urban is completely impenetrable. He’s an incredibly rich architect who seemingly gets all of his “friends” in on an f-shack. But he, like, owns the place? So are they going five ways on the mortgage? The HOA fees? And these four other people, that money isn’t being noticed by any of their wives? Them disappearing randomly doesn’t arouse any suspicion? No one, not once, happens to notice Urban hanging on the balcony of that apartment and then later one of his friends (with a woman) and puts two and two together? Are they just like not using that balcony? SO MANY QUESTIONS!
I put friends in quotes because one of the people is the half-criminal half-brother of one guy. Another is a borderline alcoholic who can’t keep his shit together. So … again, why are these the people you are choosing for your f-shack timeshare?
The only thing that really makes sense is that Urban gets off on control, and the most extreme version of that is controlling his friends in a pact in which they’re all committing adultery, but also Urban is having sex with their wives or girlfriends or sisters and stuff in the same bed? But given what we see about him, his f-shack timeshare would have been put to much much better use as a transaction with the other high flying philanderers of the city. He truly is Icarus, flying too close to the sun with his weirdo plans.
And then in the end only one person goes to prison for the murder? Yeah, not buying it. I have a feeling this is a “lost in translation” moment, but the four conspirators who seemingly fake-frame Urban (although Wentworth Miller secretly plans on for-real-framing him) ultimately kill someone. I’m pretty sure that in the end all four could be held responsible for negligent homicide as part of a felony murder (although reading up on it it is possible that that wouldn’t apply since they didn’t commit any other felony / that felony didn’t explicitly involve danger to life? It is possible this is also not the case in Louisiana). There are ways around it, but I just can’t imagine that once Marsden admitted to trying to frame Urban for murder and ultimately a woman dies in the process of that crime, that only the person who actually directly killed the woman would face serious consequences. That doesn’t seem right, but it is possible … I think I need to write into a law podcast to see what they think.
I do kind of like the Setting as a Character (Where?) for New Orleans since it is more subtle than one would think, but is made explicit at one point in the film in which Marsden passes a sign pointing the way to the French Quarter. And a definite Worst Twist (How?) for ultimately it all being a frame up planned by Wentworth Miller that went horribly wrong. This is such a BMT film it is insane, we had an hours long discussion about how ludicrous this film is.

Read about the sneaky sequel The Loft 2: Penthouse in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Sleepless Recap

Jamie

I vividly remember when the Sleepless trailer came out. Why? Because I recall thinking, “are they releasing that to theaters?” I also remember thinking, “boy, that’s a lot of Las Vegas crammed into a single trailer.” So obviously, being obsessive about film settings I was already all in on Sleepless. Even though it felt like a Netflix film or something, I was a bit thrilled that it was getting a wide release. Like 21 Bridges, I just enjoy these types of small thrillers. So the more they can come out and do reasonably well, the more likely another one will come down the pike. Alas, this didn’t do all that well, but at least it (allegedly) existed. And I gotta say, this easily cleared that standard. I can confirm, Sleepless is a film that exists. Mission accomplished.

To recap, Jamie Foxx is a real crooked cop. He’s stealing drugs. He’s killing people. He’s a real bad dude, for sure. Except, wait, he’s also tracking all the drug dealers in Las Vegas in his empty apartment? I’m intrigued. When it turns out that the drugs he stole were actually destined for the biggest and most ruthless drug dealer in the city he’s a little concerned. He’s even more concerned when his son is kidnapped and held for ransom. Gathering up all the drugs, he attempts to deliver it back to the bad guys. Kind of like, “whoopsies” and hope things go OK. But they don’t. That’s because Internal Affairs is tracking him and stole back the drugs. Double whoopsies. Jamie Foxx is able to trick the drug dealers for a little bit, but soon realizes that one of the IA agents is the real corrupt cop. Foxx is able to escape with his son and, after being cornered by the drug dealers, ends up killing them in a bloody shootout (duh). With a last gasp effort he is able to alert the clean IA agent of the dastardly deeds of her partner. The day is saved, the good guys survive, and Vegas is still… Sleepless.

I didn’t mind this film in a throwaway thriller kind of way. Which I think puts it a peg above a normal BMT film. There are certainly things to critique. Like large portions of the plot are driven forwards by coincidence and incompetence on the part of Foxx. The film could have ended any number of times if he just didn’t do something real boneheaded. You could maybe chalk it up to him ultimately wanting to catch/kill the real insane baddie, but… uh… then he’s a pretty awful dad. The ultimate bad dad cop dad. But beyond that it has some fun stuff going on and doesn’t waste time.

Hot Take Clam Bake up in here. Jamie Foxx 100% percent does not get his family back. Sure he and his ex-wife are having a moment. He just brought down the biggest drug lord in Vegas, saved their son, all while looking dope. Some feelings are boiling back to the surface. Maybe the next day Jamie Foxx drops by and they have a pleasant brunch as a family. But Gabrielle Union’s girlfriends aren’t gonna let that fly. He was undercover for years? What kind of husband and father does that? Was he even thinking of the effect that might have on them? He pretty much ruined his son’s life and almost got him killed. Guess who didn’t do that? Dave. Dave’s been the rock of the family. Dave did everything right. Sure, maybe Dave’s job as an accountant isn’t flashy, but he’s a pretty damn good accountant, ayight. And so a couple weeks later Jamie Foxx is back on the job, feeling like supercop and sniffing around the latest homicide. By the time he looks up Gabrielle Union is posting pics on Insta from Hawaii with Dave. Sorry, bro. You snooze, you lose. Hot Take Temperature: Teriyaki.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Sleepless? Not if you watch this movie you aren’t! Haha, got you. The title just walks right into that one. Let’s go!

The film’s biggest crime is that it is rote. Which is the opposite of the original. So it is weird that they took all the interesting ambiguity out of the French film and instead thought “but what if we like … told people what was actually happening explicitly. Then could we set up for a bad sequel idea that will never happen?”
Yeah, they set up for a sequel in which the big bad drug dealer dad comes back to Vegas and guess whaaaaaaaat? He’s got the DEA on the payroll. I bet that is going to cause some issues for our boy Foxx … if the sequel ever happened that is. Instead we have a bizarre happy ending in which (presumably) the nice new fiance of Foxx’s ex is dumped unceremoniously because Foxx is now out of deep cover. Horrible.
Foxx is good in it, but both Mulroney and McNairy seem seriously miscast. Mulroney doesn’t seem sleazy (you should see the French version, sleaze up the wazoo on that guy) and McNairy doesn’t seem threatening.
I might as well just go into why the original is so good. In the original there is no hint that maybe the main character is undercover. Throughout the film it is only mentioned once, when the main character off hand mentions it to the female internal affairs office, but at the time it does actually seem like he might just be lying to get her off his back for a second. In the end he helps her, but that might be just to protect his family. I do ultimately think that he was undercover, but it isn’t wild to think that he wasn’t, that was a lie, and in the end you are in fact watching a bad person get trapped and then do anything to save his family (to the point of potentially getting killed). The film ends with him going to the hospital, and it is unknown whether he survives. It is frenetic and intense and throughout, again, you don’t know whether this person is just the best of a group of bad people or an undercover police officer trying to resolve a complicated situation.
This film throws that directly into the trash and decided to make Taken.
An incredibly sweaty Setting as a Character (Where?) for Vegas, which honestly is a bit too shiny for what the original was going for, a decrepit Atlantic City would have made more sense, but whatever. Borderline MacGuffin (Why?) for the bad of drugs, but I’ve kind of given up on the idea that a MacGuffin needs to be mysterious, so I think this counts. And horrible Worst Twist (How?) candidate for the sequel tease concerning corrupt DEA agents talking to drug dealers. I think this is closest to BMT, it is an amusing and entertaining watch, but cheesy and dumb at the same time, I liked watching it, but it is definitely a bad film.

Read about the sequel Sleepless 2: Good Night’s Rest in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fathers’ Day Recap

Jamie

There are three very funny things about Fathers’ Day that I think have to be noted at the top… mostly because the rest of the film is less interesting. First, the punctuation in the title is magnificent. And this wasn’t lost in translation. The French film’s title was also a pun. Working overtime on the title so they didn’t have to work on anything else it seems. Second, Sugar Ray isn’t just featured in this film. The film basically stars Sugar Ray. Perfection. This was before they hit it big with “Fly” and they changed from nu metal to pop rock. So anyone who watches it now has to think that the premise that Billy Crystal and Robin Williams’ son ran off to follow Sugar Ray on the road is hilarious. But I guess in that very brief moment it was totally serious. Third, the wikipedia page says that some people speculate it was a big commercial failure because it was released on Mother’s Day. HA!

Anyway, the concept of the film is that Billy Crystal is an oft-married lawyer and Robin Williams is a suicidal writer. A woman they both briefly dated seventeen years ago comes a-knockin’ and is like ‘you are the father of my son and he’s missing.’ Billy Crystal is like ‘no way’ but still finds himself drawn to the search where he ends up running into Williams. Realizing the ruse, they set out on the road nonetheless because probably one of them is the father (right? Actually wrong… the lady is an admitted liar and you still aren’t going to question this? Sigh). They find him trashed at a Sugar Ray concert (who among us…) and get him back to their hotel room, but he turns out to be more than they bargained for. He’s still totally in love with a girl following Sugar Ray and wants to go after her. Awww. Oh and also he stole a bunch of money from some drug dealers to buy the girl a necklace. Oh, uh, less awwww. They go after the girl, but the drug dealers catch up with them and hilarity more-or-less ensues. Crystal is ready to abandon the search, but his new wife is like “uh, what kind of father are you?” and he realizes that he has to do right by his fake son. So he goes to the next Sugar Ray concert and he and Williams headbutt everyone to death to help their son escape (basically). Williams and Crystal are now best friends and neither of them are the father of the kid they saved. THE END.

I kinda wish this film was funnier. Or at least that it was funnier in all the bad ways. Cause the idea that the main thrust of the film stars Sugar Ray should be enough to take a film from ‘pretty funny’ to ‘hilarious.’ But that’s presuming the rest of the film can get it to ‘pretty funny.’ But no. It just meanders along. Sometimes it’s sweet, sometimes Robin Williams is asked to carry a heavy improv load, and sometimes it makes no sense. Feels like The Odd Couple II or something. Meh, I mean… I guess it is what it is.

Hot Take Clam Bake time. At the end of the film we see a family reconciled. So does it last? Does our prodigal son stay home for good? I’m gonna shock the world and say yeah. I mean, there he is laying on his bed, thinking of his girlfriend probably in bed with THE Sugar Ray, despite that also thinking of all the rad Sugar Ray moments he is missing when oh ho ho.. What’s this? The DJ on the radio is saying the new single from Sugar Ray is coming on. He turns it up. On comes “Fly” and he’s like WTF, mate? Put some more shrimp on the barbie, cause this isn’t the Sugar Ray I know and love. Where is the nu metal funkiness? This is just some pop rock sellout bullshit. He burns all his Sugar Ray posters and JNCO jeans and buys a suit, goes to college, and becomes a lawyer like his fake dad Billy Crystal. Years later on his deathbed he whispers “Mean Machine” before a wallet chain drops from his dead hand. Everyone is very confused. Hot Take Temperature: Nashville Hot. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Fathers’ Day? More like Fathers’ Lame, amirite? Here are ten easy steps to making Billy Crystal and Robin Williams not at all funny. Let’s go!

The reviewers on this film seemed confused as to how they made these actors not funny. I don’t think it is confusing at all if you’ve seen the original, because the original had, beat for beat, the same jokes. Except in the original it is Gerard Depardieu as a semi-sleezy journalist headbutting people whereas here is it … Billy Crystal still headbutting people? So you see, they just needed to let Billy Crystal and Robin Williams cook. But instead they took a French film (and all that that means in terms of a sense of humor) and applied them directly without alteration onto Billy Crystal and Robin Williams.
For all its quirks Robin Williams still works for me. His tragic depressed clown thing seems pretty okay outside of the one montage where he is trying on hats and saying dumb catchphrases to himself … that was rough.
Everyone else in the film I think doesn’t really work at all. Jared Harris as hardcore Sugar Ray fan / drug dealer? No thanks. Sugar Ray as themselves? Also no thanks. Billy Crystal and Julia Louis Dreyfuss might as well have not been there in the end. The kid is annoying. Bruce Greenwood is not nearly as Bad Dad as I would have hoped. More like Not So Bad Once You Get To Know Him Dad, you know?
But Reno? Sugar Ray? A cast and crew to die for? What a weirdo film. Too bad it wasn’t funny bad and was instead just bad bad huh?
The best ever Product Placement (What?) for Sugar Ray! That counts right? I’m counting it, they play such a huge amusing part in this film. Also a fantastic Setting as a Character (Where?) as both a road trip comedy, but also in it taking place in Reno, Nevada of all places for the final big Sugar Ray concert. Pretty hilarious MacGuffin (Why?) for their not-child they are chasing through the film. I think this is closest to Bad, just by, indeed, being aggressively unfunny.
And I might as well do a tiny bit of a look at the original film called ComPère in a lot of places, which I think is a play off of compere (accomplice) and père (father), which is fun I suppose. The film also isn’t funny (although I could see people thinking it is), but at the very least Depardieu seems far more in place than Billy Crystal does in the same part. So I’ll give it that. I would never ever watch the film again, although it does make me intrigued by early Depardieu. Seems like an interesting actor in terms of how he eventually broke into Hollywood to some degree as well.

Read the never-to-be-seen 20-years-later sequel called Grandfathers’ Day (obviously, even though there are nary a grandfather to be seen in the entire film). Cheerios,

The Sklogs

School for Scoundrels (2006) Recap

Jamie

I was pretty sure we had already watched School for Scoundrels for BMT before. I dreaded having to tell Patrick that, alas, his bad movie memory (BMM) must be shot when he picked this out as the first entry of Merde. Duh, don’t you remember, it’s the one where Billy Bob Thorton is a big ol’ bully… and it co-stars that guy who made it big off that high school comedy a few years earlier… oh wait, that was Mr. Woodcock. And there you have it: this film is a perfect encapsulation of a very precise moment in film history. So precise that I mixed it up with the other Billy Bob Thorton film. So let’s get into it.

Jon Heder is a wimp. He’s got a huge crush on a girl, Amanda, who doesn’t know who he is, his job sucks, and people walk all over him. A friend suggests he take a class by Mr. P on how to be a more assertive person and when he does, guess what? It actually works! Suddenly he’s having great dates with Amanda, he’s standing up for himself at work, and everything is looking up for Job Heder. Nothing can go wrong! He’s going to live forrreeeevvvver. That is until Mr. P decides that he doesn’t like how assertive Heder is getting, so it’s time for him to steal his girl and ruin his life. But uh oh, the student is becoming the master and Heder ruins his life right back. It’s just a comedy of ruining everyones lives. Isn’t it fun to watch people’s lives fall apart? Ha ha ha… ha… oh… ha… yeah. Anyway, when Mr. P and Amanda start to get serious Heder takes things into his own hands and digs up all the dirt on Mr. P’s terrible deeds. Confronting Mr. P and Amanda on a plane, he pretends to have a panic attack forcing Mr. P (who is pretending to be a doctor) to administer aid. Realizing that he’s a big ol’ Liar McLiarton, Amanda dumps the zero to get with the hero… and by hero I mean Heder. THE END.

I actually found myself digging the first half of this film. Heder is charming in his own way and you can kinda believe he is who he’s playing: a nice guy who is finishing last. And the comedy chops that surround him in the film are legit nuts. Every single person in the class and then many in supporting roles are top tier talent. It’s mind blowing. At one point you’re watching the film and you’re like “wait, is that Jim Parsons?… of Young Sheldon fame?… and they don’t even give him a line? But he’s Old Sheldon!” And you’d be right. The back half? Not as much. Pretty unpleasant actually as Mr. P is a monster and ruins Heder’s life. They even do a fake out where they pretend he’s not a monster for a second and I was like “noooooo,” because it just wasn’t right that they would attempt to redeem the piece of shit. But they didn’t pull the punch at least. Overall a pretty mixed bag.

Hot Take Clam Bake time: we see Heder and Amanda vacationing in Miami at the end (speedo and all) and so we are led to believe that they are together for the long haul. Guess what? I’m not buying it. Why? Cause Heder has no talents as far as we can tell. He was a meter maid who got fired for (allegedly) sexually harassing his boss. What is he up to next? Answer: not much. And guess who Amanda just fell for? An old man who was pretending to be a surgeon. What happens when she meets a decrepit old surgeon for real? She’ll be out of there so fast he won’t know what hit him. It lasts three months tops. Hot Take Temperature: Parmesan Garlic. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! School for Scoundrels? More like Uncool and Down-drels! Amirite? How was Jon Heder a star of films again? Just seems wild that he went from barely acting in Napoleon Dynamite to headlining multiple major comedies for about 5 years there. Let’s go!

Yeah, speak of the devil, Heder is terrible. He isn’t really a comedian. His delivery is flat and for the most part he can only play one character (waifish weakling characters who ultimately find inner strength).
All the while the supporting actors in this film are all a who’s who of soon-to-be incredibly famous television comedians. Multiple eventual headliners. It makes me feel insane to think Heder was wandering around on that set, when they could have probably just got David Cross to do it better.
And I liked Napoleon Dynamite and I like Heder in general, he just can’t do the heavy lifting needed to actually make this movie consistently funny. He needed a Will Ferrel type to play off of in scenes … that actually could have been a good storyline. The School for Scoundrels gives everyone a brash obnoxious buddy to help them out. Heder hates Ferrel who, obviously, proceeds to ruin his life to some degree. In the end though they realize they are good friends, can lean on each other, and that they are, in fact, precisely what they need. And what is revealed? That that is the school for scoundrels! They have a corresponding School for Nice Guys for assholes like Ferrel to go to, but the formula is the same: you can help each other become a little better. Friends! Is it a better film? I don’t know. It is different. But Heder needed help I think is the main issue.
While not as kind hearted as the original British film, it is a lot nicer than I expected. I expected it to be a horrorshow of early 2000s awful humor. It was instead mostly nice, with only the ending really dipping in quality.
The ending does kind of ruin it though. You have to have Billy Bob Thornton be secretly nice! It is kind of the idea. That he’s teaching you the tricks you need to get ahead, but that he is not actually a scoundrel.
Decent Product Placement (What?) for Heder’s standard issue New Balance shoes he gets stolen in the beginning of the film. And a Setting as a Character (Where?) for New York City. Otherwise probably closest to Bad for me, but that might be colored by having watched and loved the original.
Speaking of which, the original School for Scoundrels from 1960 is great! The structure of the film is interesting, with the first part of the main character getting dunked on being told in flashback. Then basically a montage sequence at the school for a short middle. And then a mirror image of the main character dunking on all of the people who wronged him at the end. And the whole thing is ultimately very sweet. It did probably make me like this one a bit less.

Read about the School for Scoundrel sequel School for Scoundrels: Friendship is Magic (Literally), in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fortress Recap

Jamie

Fortress is my kind of film. Don’t hate. Participate… in unironically watching Fortress, a future prison film starring Christopher Lambert. If the description itself doesn’t get your juices flowing then… uh… I guess you shouldn’t watch it. That’s probably a prerequisite to enjoying this film. Alright, shall I do the honors? It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad!

To briefly recap, Lambert and his wife are attempting to escape to Canada. There is an ultra strict one child policy in the United States and even though their first child died they are not allowed to have the second. They would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those damn kids… or more accurately a boneheaded mistake by Lambert. Anywho, he ends up in a future prison deep in the ground in the desert where they put an explosive probe inside you to keep you in line and there are laser beams and robots and stuff. And not just any robot either, it’s a Kurtwood Smith robot/cyborg warden. Word. Lambert is former military so it isn’t long before he gains the trust of everyone and he learns that his wife didn’t make it to Canada like he had hoped. She is being kept captive by Kurtwood himself. Lambert is like “helll noooo” and they form a plan. They incite a riot and are able to overcome the robot guards and make it to the top of the prison. Kurtwood is dispatched by his robot overlords because he kinda screwed everything up by falling in love with Lambert’s smoking hot wife. But before they can dispatch the prisoners, one of them (a real leet haxxor) implants a virus in the prison computer system. With everything shut down, Lambert is able to escape to Mexico where his wife has her baby. Sweet success. THE END.

So this movie is pretty rad. It’s not a work of art or anything, and Lambert is… well, he’s Lambert, but it looks cool and the concept is cool. I don’t have too much to criticize even before gushing about Kurtwood Smith. Not only is he a fun actor, but his character was legit interesting. So he’s a cyborg and suddenly sees Loryn Locklin and is like, “What doth rumble in these robot loins?” He is smitten even though he really doesn’t even know what it all means. They explain that illegal children born in the prison are taken from the mothers and are used to create the cyborgs. So Kurtwood would be such a product. And so I wonder if in some way he is creating his own family. He will save her, the baby will become a cyborg, and truly will become the offspring of he and Locklin. Obviously none of this would have ever happened and it’s secondary to the sci-fi shoot-em-up of the rest of the film, but you have to give them some credit. I’ve thought more about that part of Fortress than I have about critically acclaimed films. So yeah, I think I actually liked this movie. As for Beowulf, the point of the bring-a-friends are to find some weird fun not-quite-theatrical releases to enjoy and enjoy Beowulf I did. It is super duper weird. Like have to be seen to be believed type of weird. Some truly hilarious moments during several of the fight scenes. At one point Lambert gets totally roasted by a CGI monster after doing a thousand backflips in a row. So yeah, mission accomplished.

Finally, Hot Take Clam Bake: Lambert and Karen made a selfish mistake by escaping. So you’re saying that the United States is in such disarray that they have imposed a strict one child policy where you can’t have a miscarriage? And yet Mexico and Canada are going to be totally cool with you guys setting up shop? Unlikely. You, your wife, and a newborn are going to def be on the run. Great life for a child, bro. Guess what is a good life? It’s called cyborg life. If it’s good enough for Kurtwood Smith, it’s good enough for your baby. They got your genes, bro, that cyborg gonna run that prison. Sounds pretty great, cause the rest of the world seems like shit. Hot Take Temperature: Mango Habanero. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Fortress? More like Bore-tress! Amirite? Nope! Because there are two things in life I enjoy: Christopher Lambert, and films set in future prisons. And lo! What do we have here? Let’s go!

I unironically like this film. Sue me! I wasn’t joking when I said I love films set in future prisons. They are so simple. There is an evil warden (who maybe is a robot). It is some brutal hellscape with prisoners basically just killing each other in a gladiator type setting. There is often a sweet “hook” for the prison design. In this case the prison is a giant pit in the desert, how brutalist of you Prison Director Poe. So modern. So chic. See I love this garbage! It’s great.
Christopher Lambert … is there. He has an interesting acting quality to him. In many ways he shares some qualities with someone like Seagal. His acting is unique, charming in its own way. When used correctly you get a Highlander or Hard to Kill out of it. But his demise as a star was inevitable. His accent, like with Van Damme, lends a flat quality to the dialogue and eventually you have seen everything he is able to do. By all accounts he’s a delightful person though, and he had a very solid career, so there is no shame.
Kurtwood Smith on the other hand is maybe the coolest villain actor of that era. With this and Robocop it is incredible that you don’t see the looks-like-a-nerd-but-is-a-horrible-piece-of-garbage-who-will-gladly-shoot-you-in-the-face villain a lot more often. It is incredibly unsettling and sinister when done well. This is no exception.
The set design is pretty sweet. The prison break idea is pretty sweet. His friends are all pretty sweet! So again, is it any surprise I unironically like this film? This film isn’t bad. What were the critics thinking?! … They were thinking that the film was a downer that focused too much on the fascism and sadism involved in the prison. I mean, maybe fair, but also undeniably entertaining! This film probably won’t qualify in a few years. Book it.
I’m going to give it a Setting as a Character (Where?) for the future prison, although I could have made a compelling argument that the entire film is specifically set in the Mojave Desert, but I won’t. A great Future Film (When?) for the film taking place in 2017, you mean I missed Fortress year? That’s all for the superlatives, but you know this might be the front runner for Good this year, I don’t see how I don’t continue to think it is amazing six months from now.
I’ll close with saying that our friend this cycle, Beowulf (1999), is crazy. B-b-b-b-b-b-beowulf is b-b-b-b-b-b-b-bonkers. It is like they had a set from, I don’t know, a medieval Power Rangers knockoff, and were like “You have seven days to make a movie, go!” The first half of the film is a bit boring maybe, but amusing in realizing this odd mismash of future and past is intended to be Beowulf in any capacity at all. And then, oh ho, you get the big battle between Beowulf and Gredel and let’s just say it involves two words: endless backflips. Christopher Lambert’s character can’t just do a dozen backflips in a row, he insists on doing a dozen backflips in a row. Multiple times in this film he does a dozen backflips in a row, often while splashing through ankle deep water. It is hilarious, and makes it all worth it. Close on a bad CGI villain that puts The Scorpion King to shame, and we have a recipe for an incredible friend. A-. If you add one more fight with a dozen backflips near the beginning of the film then this is gold. As it is it is a bit of a struggle to get to the goods. Still worth it though.

Look for the sequel to Fortress Fortress 2: The Raid Prison Break Season 4 in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Imposter Recap

Jamie

I keep on wanting to write, ‘Saboteur!’ when thinking about this film. But alas, this is just about some dumb bum imposter played by Gary Sinise. Our boy Gary gets his star turn in this film that can be best summed up as a one-note story streeeetched veeerrrry looooong. May as well get into a short recap with that, because the entire film is about that one note: is Gary Sinise an imposter?

So Gary wakes up with his beautiful wife after a weekend camping trip relaxed and ready to show off a hot new weapon he designed for the big war with humanity’s intergalactic foes. Don’t worry about that camping trip. Sure there was a big ol’ fire but Gary is like “huh, what? Oh yeah we’re fine,” so the viewer can rest assured that the camping trip was no big deal and won’t play a role in the plot in the least. Just as he prepares for the big day Vincent D’Onofrio walks in and is like “Imposter!” and arrests him. He explains that the aliums have developed a new weapon and it’s real cool. Basically they send replicas of humans to Earth who don’t even know they’re replicas. They kill their doubles, assume their lives, wake up with all their memories, and go on with their lives… that is until they get switched on and assassinate someone. Sinise is like bullshit and springs free with his classic Gary Sinise strength. He’s able to contact his wife and attempts to get a body scan to prove he’s not an imposter, but is again chased off by D’Onofrio. He and his wife realize the key to all this is the camping trip (woah, what?) and so they head into the forest where D’Onofrio assures Sinise that he believes him. That’s because in the forest is an alien spaceship and inside is bum bum bum his wife’s body! (What a twist!) They kill the imposter wife but then find bum bum bum Gary Sinise’s hot bod in there too! (What a double twist!) He explodes. THE END.

There was a moment very early in the film (when they kept on droning on and on about the camping trip) that I thought, “wouldn’t it be funny if Sinise just turned out to be an imposter?” Like a whole movie set up around someone being like “I’m not an imposter!” but then he is. You’ve just watched an entire movie where the main character is an alien but doesn’t know it so it’s not even fun in an alien kind of way. And then they did it! It’s pretty dumb and makes the majority of the movie meaningless. If I rewatched it now Gary would be whining “but I love my wiiiife,” and I’d just shrug and be like ‘no you don’t cause you are just some alien drone so why should I listen to you? Sure you have all the memories of Gary Sinise. You’ve got those abs for days, for sure. I appreciate all that… but you’re also just gonna blow up and you’re not really Gary Sinise… no one is. Only Gary Sinise is. He’s a one of one.”

For a Hot Take Clam Bake I’m gonna come out and say it: the aliens’ plan was dumb and bad and failed. Sinise was supposed to blow up a giant weapon he designed and kill the leader of Earth (or something like that). Instead he blows up Vincent D’Onofrio in the middle of a razed forest. Guess what happens next? Big Gary’s weapon blows up the aliens. Because he’s got a big ol’ brain and knew how to kick their asses. Maybe the aliens should have just blown up the weapon when Fake Gary was hanging around the weapon all day. Nope. Let’s just blow up nothing cause we’re dumb. Dumb aliens. Dumb weapon. Dumb plan. You lose.

Hot Take Temperature: Day Old Wildfire. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Imposter? More like Low-cost-er! Amirite? Gary Sinese v. Vincent D’Onofrio babbbbby! YEAH! What? You aren’t jazzed for that CSI: NY vs. Law & Order: Criminal Intent clash? The Battle of the Second Spin-off Stars? This is huge! Let’s go!

Throughout the years we’ve established nice concise phrases for certain types of films. Our most internationally famous one is obviously Dog Poo In Our Face for those films that are so bad they make us irrationally angry. This film ain’t that. This film is the second-most-popular classic Nothing Film. It is a film you’ve seen one-thousand times which feels like no one remembers and if it never existed the world wouldn’t change even a little bit. This film is a Nothing Film.
Basically this film feels like a less well known Phillip K. Dick short story that was squashed between The Minority Report and We Can Remember It for You Wholesale so no one remembers it until someone was like “do we have any more Phillip K. Dick stories to adapt”, and someone opened wikipedia and was like “only one … it’s called Imposter?”
To be clear this is actually based on a Phillip K. Dick story, I’m not making that up. It was first published in the magazine Astounding in June 1953 and can be found in some of his collections. That being said ain’t no one running out of Phillip K. Dick short stories to adapt, there are a billion of them.
Oh the movie, I almost forgot (because it is a nothing film). It uh … well, it um … D’Onofrio is suitably crazy in this I suppose? The whole thing seems to take place at night. The ultimate twist is so obvious that they felt the need to make the twist even twistier … but even then it was really obvious, and they didn’t have the guts to change the actual ultimate twist enough for me to really care that I kind of got it wrong.
I guess what I’m getting at is that this is a poor man’s Minority Report, and even that isn’t really considered very good anymore, so what really does that make this? Bad, I suppose. It makes it a bad movie.
Obviously a great Future Setting (When?) for a film that is sorely lacking in any superlatives. Well except for one of the worst Worst Twists (How?) ever in that it was obvious from the beginning that you are following around an evil android who is going to blow everyone up at the end (and he does). It is closest to Bad I think, just a Nothing Movie.

Check out the Quiz for my sequel Impo2ter. You kind of know it would be stylized like that right? Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Senseless Recap

Jamie

In the not so distant past Senseless would have been prohibited from the BMT treatment. I distinctly remember watching this film when it came out. Probably perusing the aisles of Ye Olde Hollywood Video, Patrick and I saw the dope orange DVD case (VHS box? This landed right on the boundary) and were like “We gotta see the new David Spade joint, we loved him in PCU.” And boy would we have been right (because David Spade essentially plays the same character as he did in PCU). But even that vague recollection would have been enough for us to say, ‘No BMT Allowed!’ Good thing that rule is gonzo..

To recap, Marlon Wayans is a college student working numerous jobs to pay his way through school and support his mother and siblings. He has staked everything on getting a big junior analyst job, but with only one spot (and wealthy financier’s son, David Spade, in the competition) it would seem he’s out of luck. But oh ho ho, what’s this? An experimental drug that will enhance your senses? How fortunate for Wayans (and the audience, for surely hilarity will ensue). Soon he is hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and seeing his way into the lead (not to mention a new hot GF). Still worried about his chances, though, Wayans takes a double dose of the drug and hears, smells, tastes… you get it, right out of the competition again. Off the drug for good, Wayans studies his butt off for the final event and manages to win, but ultimately confesses that he got a leg up in the previous events. He loses the position, but the head of the company likes his spunk and gives him a job in the mail room anyway. Ultimately he gets the job and the girl. THE END.

From the description you’re probably like ‘sounds dumb, probably BMT will rake this film over the coals. Let me get my popcorn ready with my special popcorn spices. Hopefully I can find the special popcorn spices because I so rarely use them since they are special spices and not everyday spices. That would be expensive if I used my special popcorn spices for any old event. Better be special.’ But stop! Don’t pour all those special popcorn spices down your gullet just yet. That’s because (could it be?) maybe this film wasn’t so bad? I won’t go so far as to say that it was not so bad, not so bad, but there were a lot of pleasant things about it. Matthew Lillard was fun and sweet as Wayans’ BFF, the message of the film was good, and David Spade played his character as an aloof nemesis in a pleasing way. The biggest issue is a classic 90’s treatment of the 2D love interest and the fact that the premise of the film is complete nonsense. It’s like a child wrote up what they thought the process of getting an internship was like… why do they care how good Wayans is at hockey? What does that have to do with anything? Why would there be so many different events? It’s wild.

That gets me to my Hot Take Clam Bake… is this a better way for hiring? Should all talent searches be run this way? The one thing it certainly did was separate the wheat from the chaff. Who has time for a Billy Madison-esque academic decathlon to get a junior analyst position? People who are going to be great junior analysts, that’s who. And as a bonus, the competition is such a roller coaster of emotions that even those that dare to cheat the integrity of the decathlon are so physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually spent that they immediately confess and become a better person (and thus a better employee). Hot Take Temperature: Buffalo Wild Wings. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Senseless? More like … Senseless, but like, more pejorative. Remember the year 1998, when gas was 25 cents, living was easy, and Marlon Wayans was a star? Those were the days. Let’s go!

I’ve seen this film before, but the only thing I really remembered from it was that he takes too much of the drug and his senses go all crazy. That was it.
David Spade though is shockingly good. A really interesting character as well. Usually in a film like this his character would be an irredeemable piece of shit. Like the bad guy in Van Wilder. A guy who gleefully ruins the main character’s life (or tries to) because he’s rich and wants to (? That seems like the motivation sometimes). David Spade’s character might be rich, but he just kind of knows he’s the best. He just knows that it is very unlikely that Marlon Waynes will defeat him to get the internship. And so he ultimately is snarky but cordial to Waynes, because why not? Waynes really just doesn’t seem like a threat. It is an interestingly pleasant part of the film.
Fine, Spade humiliating Wayans at the frat is rough, but Wayans shouldn’t even have to try to be in a frat to get the internship in the first place.
The not so pleasant bits are things like the fact that Marlon Waynes definitely cheats on his girlfriend, and lacks any sort of genuine remorse about it, and ultimately she forgives him for basically no reason.
Lillard is a funny character, but feels out of place in the film. He appears to be there solely to make jokes about masturbation and to teach people what a Prince Albert piercing is.
Other than that the film is mostly notable for its ludicrous premise. An internship finally determined by a quiz show format oral exam which depends on you playing sports and being in a fraternity? Seems unlikely.
Some good Product Placement (What?) with Coca Cola products in general. And also a pretty rough Worst Twist (How?) in that I legitimately predicted that Waynes wouldn’t get the job and would instead get a job specifically in the mail room at the end, and then it happened. It was inevitable. The film is, again, closest to Good in that there is some pretty funny stuff in it in the end.

I’ll write about the sequel which will be called Senseless 2: Protectors Assemble! That’s right, Senseless is a true blue superhero now! Cheerios,

The Sklogs