Category: Recap

Fantastic Four Recap

Jamie

I’ll start this one off with a little anecdote about watching this film. We had been yanked around by Hollywood regarding Fantastic Four’s release date. It’s a byproduct of the multiple ways that a film can be bought or rented these days. You now have to navigate the streaming purchase, streaming rental, iTunes, RedBox, Netflix, etc. release dates to try to figure when a film is actually available for viewing. Initially when me and Patrick put the film on our viewing schedule it was done inadvertently using the streaming purchase release date. BMT don’t play like that. We watch in the theater or we rent it. There is no in between. If we bought this film I would constantly be sadly reminded of purchasing it whenever I ventured into my Amazon library. So we waited and waited and finally took a risk and put it on the docket for a couple weeks ago hoping against hope that it would come out for rental before I would be forced to hold my nose and buy the damn thing. Then, against all odds, it came out for rental on the day that I ended up watching it! It was a Christmas miracle! If I had tried watching it the night before I would have had to buy it. Instead, for a paltry $4 I got to get my fill of the Fantastic Four. And oh what a fantastic ride it was.

Me and Patrick actually disagreed a bit on the film, but not enough to warrant much note. I thought it was terrible… just maybe not quite as terrible as Patrick did.

Alright, now for the game. I think this week I’ll do a little Sklogification of the film. My biggest issue with the film is that the main plot point (them becoming the Fantastic Four) is rooted in them being giant idiots and somewhat morally bankrupt. Basically they build this machine to transport people to an alternate universe. When told that they are not in fact going to travel to the planet that they discovered (why would they?… they are nerd alerts), they get all huffy and feel betrayed that they won’t attain the fame and fortune that comes with being the intrepid explorers of the new planet. So what do they do? They stupidly go without help or supervision and get all fucked up, they start working for the military, and hate their lives and each other (until a super rushed ending that turns that all around). Why have the entire group be so depressing and unlikable? Why have them so obsessed and focused on fame and fortune? The simple change I would make is that after the team develops the machine, the Army (headed by a guy that wants only to shut the expensive program down) dismisses it as a failure and too risky to send people for exploration (perhaps an initial animal test failed or something). Instead of letting the experiment be a failure the Fantastic Four volunteer to go instead of Army personnel. Fine. Your funerals. While the experiment is a success something goes wrong during their return trip and the Army is shocked to find that they have become the very super soldiers they had always hoped to create (and the machine has, of course, been destroyed). So they are now inexorably tied to these four scientists (instead of four soldiers of their choosing) as they represent the best weapons the world has ever seen. When they try to use the Fantastic Four for their own means they find they are unyielding in their morals and won’t play ball. Frustrated the Army goes behind their backs to team up with Dr. Doom to try to get back to the planet only to unleash terror on the Earth when Dr. Doom uses it to turn into an evil super soldier himself. Now they must turn back to the Fantastic Four to defeat Dr. Doom before it’s too late.

The above synopsis for the film solves a lot of the problems I had with the film. Mostly the Fantastic Four just weren’t likable in almost every way. They were morally bankrupt and sad. Just make them better people. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Back in America again, this time watching Fantastic Four … more like Atrocious Bore, am I right? This movie is straight up nonsense. No joke. Let’s get into it.

  • First, not buying the camaraderie of the team. Teller always seems like an outsider, and kind of a douche. There is little throughout that convinces me that these guys are best buds, and that’s a problem.
  • Second, the action scenes are hot garbage straight up. None of them are good. Did I mention that the acting throughout it terrible? Oh I did … it is.
  • Third, the finale is just five people on a green screen punching each other like idiots. And Teller phones in the entire second half of the film, it is bizarre. How is this cast so good and yet the acting so bad?
  • And finally, Mr. Fantastic is literally the worst. I dare Marvel to make a Elastic-man type character work. He looks so dumb. It is the worst … if the acting wasn’t terrible. The acting is actually the worst part of the movie.

The entire thing is shockingly bad. I was legit expecting to like this one. I usually like “fun” popcorn films if I go in expecting nothing. This is the second movie where lowered expectations failed miserably. The other? Transformers 4. I can’t actually lower my expectations far enough to make these films tolerable. I’m not sure it is the worst film of the year (or worst writing, or acting), but I’m tempted to call this the worst directed. Then again, apparently the producers had their fingers all up in the pie for Fantastic Four. What is a boy to do? By the way, Razzie noms coming soon, get hyped.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Color of Night Recap

Jamie

Every once in a while we watch a film for BMT that is immediately vaulted into the BMT HoF. It’s rare, but films like Getaway, Here on Earth, Ghosts of Mars, Endless Love, Battlefield Earth, Old Dogs, etc. cross so far into the absurd that we can only watch with glee. Color of Night is one of those films. From minute one this film makes no sense. It is clearly the product of a madman and how no one stopped it during filming (or at the very least before release) is a mystery that will probably never be solved (hint: it’s probably cocaine). Regardless, it exists. And thankfully so, for it is a wonder.

Legendary is what it is. I have never seen a film where every aspect is terribly done. Plot? Acting? Music? Makeup? Screenwriting? All of it top tier craziness. It really is the best. Just the best. One of the seven wonders of the BMT world.

For the game I’m going to do another Tril-oh-geez (I’m loving this game even if no one else does). Mirrors played a major role in Color of Night and it’s not the first BMT film to prominently feature mirrors. So here is the official Mirrors Tril-oh-geez:

  • Color of Night – seems like it’s used in this film to make a connection between the characters Rose and Ritchie. While Willis talks directly to Rose, the viewer sees her through a reflection over his shoulder. When Willis talks in the presence of Ritchie he is seen in a similar position over his shoulder, but in this case Willis never speaks directly to him. Perhaps a meditation on the difference in how people treat the characters based on their genders or stations in life. Perhaps Willis is blind in more ways than color. Perhaps.
  • I Know Who Killed Me – clearly the mirrors were used here to show how Lindsey Lohan’s characters are reflections of each other: the good life and the bad life, everything reversed.
  • Torque – they are used here cause it’s super rad.

I love getting different genres in the Tril-oh-geez. This isn’t the most exotic with an erotic thriller, horror thriller, and action but I still like it.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Color of Night? More like Color of Shite! Am. I. Right? (I sang the last part). Wow. Wowwy wow wow. Wowzers wow. These moments. The Endless Loves, the Over the Tops. These moments remind me of just how insane the 80s/early 90s were. While we tend to stick to recent bad films, sometimes old school movies need to teach us some shit, because I have opinions:

  • The erotic thriller. Once a majestic, powerful genre now relegated to movies like Obsession and the occasional Tyler Perry joint. At one point in time these movies could make serious bank. If they made sense. This one did not.
  • The soundtrack is insanity. Do I love it? Is this my favorite movie ever?! Am I going insane!!?
  • I cannot stop thinking of Color of Night. It absorbed my thoughts for days. What is wrong with the world where this could happen?!
  • Straight up Bruce Willis penis. You legit see the tip bobbing around in a pool. Why? Director, explain yourself!
  • The “twist” isn’t really a twist, but they kind of act like it is. It was very confusing because I didn’t know whether I was confused. You know?
  • Snakes in the mailbox, hot shot macho psychologists, cuckoo bananas LAPD detectives, and weird lesbian storyline. My life no longer makes sense.
  • IS THIS WHAT LOS ANGELES IS LIKE?!
  • I didn’t even talk about the all important color blindness subplot.

I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I need a sequel. Explain what this character is doing now. Did he marry Jane March? Has everyone recovered? Are him and the police officer best friends? Do they mountain bike in crazy tight compression shorts every weekend? Does Bruce Willis still live in his recently deceased friends house and drive his car around and take on his clients as if this is normal and not highly suspect? I need to know what a 50 year old version of this character is doing. Color of Day. I’ll make it for free. I’ll pay Netflix for the privilege of making it. Jesus Louise.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Gunman Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Gunman? More like No Fun, Man!!! Unless you are super into Sean Penn’s aging strongman bod, this movie probably isn’t for you. His creepy old man face perched upon that ripped bod will haunt my dreams. Speaking of which:

  • For some reason this film is about concussions. It’s like Sean Penn was watching a documentary about the NFL and thought to himself “do you know what this movie needs … me as an assassin in Africa.” It was also really bold to also make this movie about the dangers of HGH (you just got served Sean Penn’s bod).
  • The movie could not be more muddled. Like … you know what the movie is about, but you are just hanging on by your fingertips. One trip to the bathroom and you don’t recover, you are lost for the rest of the movie.
  • The acting is also bonkers at times. Idris Elba floats in just to spout monologues about treehouses, Javier Bardem is fake drunk, and Sean Penn is just ridiculous. They really just let loose. It was a bold move, and strangely kind of works. If Javier reigned it back just a smidge it might have worked out.
  • And yet, I was mostly entertained for the duration of the film. The back third is weaker, I kind of wish they set most of the film in Congo, rather than moving around Europe. I’m surprised at just how poorly it did, seems like people really took the “Taken with Sean Penn” narrative and (unfairly) ran with it. The sheer number of moving parts and hidden subplots is actually a really interesting way to tell a story, even if it leaves you kind of floating and lost every so often.

I’m kind of digging the idea of taking a current totally unrelated issue (concussions) and cross pollinating with a movie idea (Taken). Let’s see. Current controversy: Affirmative action in American universities. Previous movie: Snake Eyes starring Nicolas Cage. The film takes place during the Superbowl (the biggest gambling day of the year) and corrupt police detective is there to oversee local law enforcement at the venue. During the course of the film it is revealed that the star quarterback (Tim Broady) of the Boston Pioneers is taking bribes to throw the game. But is the scandal all to cover an assassination attempt on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (played by Nic Cage) prior to his ruling on affirmative action?! The answer is yes … yeah, it was all a cover for that. I’m going to call it Moneyline.

Jamie

Wait, is Moneyline real? Like can I buy tickets for it right now?… someone tell me if this is real so I can buy tickets to it.

I’m going to keep this brief since Patrick covered the review quite nicely. I am pretty surprised that The Gunman got as bad reviews as it did. Did it have some overacting? Was it fairly confusing? Did it have a ridiculous subplot about concussions and CTE? Yes, yes, and yes. But was it all that bad? Not really. I actually kind of dug it. You see a contradiction here?

For this week’s game I’m going to do another BMTril-oh-geez. This is where I group last week’s film with two other subpar films that share a common theme of sorts to create a terrible, terrible trilogy that masochists can watch in their free time. Due to the extreme ridiculousness of the concussion subplot in The Gunman and the coincidental simultaneous release of the Will Smith vehicle Concussion (“Tell the truth!”),  I bring you the BMTril-oh-geez official Concussion trilogy:

  • The Gunman – obviously.
  • The Ladykillers  – arguably the worst Coen Brothers film to date, but it’s not the worst at having major characters with CTE. One of the band of thieves is a former football player named Lump who is pretty dim cause of all the concussions he had. Hilarious! Also funny sidenote is that J.K. Simmons’ character in the film is named Garth Pancake… meaning that with Unfinished Business it also makes two legs of the Pancake trilogy for films with characters with the last name Pancake.
  • A Dirty Shame – John Waters made this little ditty where people in a town are slowly turned into fetishistic sex addicts through a series of concussions. No characters named Pancake to be seen though.

So there you have it. A true Concussion BMTril-oh-geez of mediocrity with The Gunman, The Ladykillers, and A Dirty Shame.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Unfinished Business Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Triumphantly returning to the UK after triumphantly returning to the United States for TGivs, I got all into Unfinished Business (More like Unpleasant Nonsense! Am I fucking right?!). Wait wait wait, what’s that sound? Dog poo in my face two week in a row my mind is exploding!!!! Congrats BMT you ruined both legs of TGivs journey. Let’s talk about this “movie”:

  • The Bad – Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn things. The movie has no plot, they just kind of meander from one place to another over roughly a week. I’m pretty sure no one knows how business works in this movie which is focused on literally the most boring business possible. They get into some serious real talk about bullying in this alleged “comedy” and then do little to address or resolve it.
  • The Worst – The fact that the movie makes you feel bad because the entire time I’m like “This Dave Franco character seems genuinely mentally challenged. Like … this goes beyond normal just making fun of a stupid person”, and then in the middle they say he actually is. He is mentally challenged. It is revealed that he actually is. At the end he meets his friends from his aided living situation he’s got. Jeez Louise Christ.
  • The Good – Hey, Nick Frost seemed okay. … … You got some pretty scenery from Germany. Dave Franco got to film on location in Germany. Um … yeah, nope, that’s it.
  • The BMT – Um … This movie is so bad as to be unpleasant to watch. BMT is a pleasant watching experience, one of wonder and ultimately of enjoyment. This … is not BMT. I’m sorry Unfinished Business … I’m sorry.

If I were to attempt to make a trilogy of unpleasant “comedies” it would be The Break-Up, The Dilemma, and Unfinished Business. Oh what do you know: they all star Vince Vaughn. I’m doing my own game this week called Vince Vaughn it! Proposed movie: Vince Vaughn is a small business owner of a commercial space flight company. Either Kevin James or Adam Sandler is the genius MIT engineer friend who is going to change the world. All I need to do is add some unnecessary real-talk serious subject matter and we’re gold. How about Kevin James is transgender and considering making a full transition, but oh no, Vince Vaughn can’t handle this and what it might do to his company. “Comedy” ensues. By which I mean a bunch of really serious discussions about Vince Vaughn not being able to handle the situation and then a sudden realization and change of heart. Let’s set it in Austin, so this happens inexplicably during like South by Southwest or something. Movie complete. I hate all of these films. That’s two dog poo straight in my face movies in a row. I think The Gunman is going to be a c-c-c-c-c-combo breaker though (mainly because I don’t think The Gunman will be interesting enough to actually get me riled up).

Jamie

BTW Patrick, your movie is like a comedy version of Aloha. Seriously. The whole film is about a commercial space flight company with all kinds of serious real talk.

I kind of went back and forth on how to deal with Unfinished Business. It’s bad. Like really bad. Patrick got to summarize our discussion and notes on the subject, so in a lot of ways the points he makes about the film cover both our opinions, and yet I can’t shrug this movie off. It’s in my head taunting me with its awfulness. So I do have to make one point (all my own): The writer of Unfinished Business has a large filmography of pretty good to good films under his belt, and yet this film may be the worst written film of the year (competing with Hitman: Agent 47). None of the scenes make any sense together. Everything is just cobbled together with no real impact, brief and inconsequential conversations occur early in the film to explain situations 30-45 minutes later making it ridiculously hard to follow why things are happening, and there is a cyberbullying subplot that is wildly out of place in a broad comedy. Makes one wonder what went so wrong? My guess? I think this was written as a drama with soft comedic undertones (a la The Weatherman), but when they went with Vince Vaughn in casting they grabbed a terrible comedy director and they punched up the script and screwed it all up. But that’s just a guess. This is somewhat, but not totally, supported by an interview he gave about the film. At one point he does mention how most scenes changed from his script during production and that it was a struggle to preserve the script to screen. But he also seems quite jolly about everything and talks about how it was fun to write a broader comedy than he is known for. So it’s still kind of a mystery. Something must have happened though. Because this was a travesty.

For my game I’m also going to do a little trilogy play. I call the game BMTril-oh-geez. It’s where I take something distinctive from the movie at hand and produce a trilogy of terrible films that prominently involve that thing/person/mineral. In this case Unfinished Business decided that a wonderful source of comedy would be aggressive male nudity in a scene involving several glory holes. Got me wondering, what other BMT films are there that involve glory holes? To start, this isn’t even the first one we’ve watched. The Sweetest Thing with Cameron Diaz also had a scene in a public restroom with a glory hole. Doing some research I also found that a terribly reviewed horror film The Unborn also had a crazy scene with a glory hole. So there we go: Unfinished Business, The Sweetest Thing, and The Unborn is the official Glory Hole BMTril-oh-geez. So when you’re looking for next week’s movie marathon with your friends you now have a glory hole three-pack to fall back on. And for all those clamoring to tell me that Scary Movie had a prominent glory hole scene, I’ll just stop you right there. The movie is too good for BMT.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Around the World in 80 Days Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. On my way back to the US, doing my own trip across the world, I watched Around the World in 80 Days. All I have to say about it is: poo de chien sur mon visage (as the throwaway character Monique would say. I say dog poo in my face, straight up). We were a twin house divided on this one (a little) let’s get into it:

  • The Bad –  Jules Verne’s spinning corpse could power a small city, this is possibly the worst adaptation of a book in history, it is offensive. Lord Kelvin’s portrayal offends me as a scientist and resident of Britain. Literally a comically diabolical villain, it is offensive. The movie is objectively racist at times. The way they treat British imperialist rule (as a source of comedy) is offensive.
  • The Worse – The movie itself offended me and upset me so much that it made me question my life and Bad Movie Thursday as a construct. I will never forgive this movie for that. I could barely watch Terminator Genysis on the plane after. But I persevered. I overcame.
  • The Worst – Jackie Chan’s presence as (almost definitely) the star of the movie is inexplicable. The sets are straight out of Epcot, they are insanely and bizarrely terrible. Steve Coogan’s performance is lazy and by the end it seems like he is just begging for the sweet release of death at every moment. The aforementioned Monique (an impressionistic artist from Paris) was pointless, a walking talking romantic plot point. Even the cameos (Arnold as a Turkish prince, Owen and Luke Wilson as the Wright Brothers in particular) should have been fun, but ended up being tragically unfunny. This movie was garbage.
  • The Good – Arnold looked like he had fun. Good for him.
  • The BMT – I say bad. An unpleasant, boring, surreal experience I never wish to relive.

I hate hate hated this movie. Jamie seemed to think the middle was just bonkers enough to make you think “wait, maybe this isn’t a terrible adaptation, maybe it is … bold?”. I disagree, this movie is garbage. There is nothing bold about this adaptation, it is just an aggressively dumb children’s version of the story. Something like an updated mock travelogue version of the story? That’s bold. This was offensive and stupid.

Jamie

Thanksgiving (more popularly known as TGivs) is the day we give thanks. Well I give thanks for my friends and family. I give thanks for the health and happiness of those I love. I give thanks for the opportunities that have been granted me. But I mostly give thanks for all the terrible movies that Hollywood provides to us each year. Oh you’re thinking of making Gods of Egypt? Why thank you. Super odd Warcraft video game adaptation? Thanks again! An inexplicable sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman that no one asked for!?!?! So many thanks to give Hollywood! And this is just looking forward to the first few months of 2016. Hollywood works hard for us and it’s long overdue to give them thanks. Back in 2004 the thanks would have gone a little something like this: “Wait, so you’re telling me that you’re making a big budget adaptation of a 130 year old property starring Jackie Chan and it’ll have a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger?! Uh, yah. Thank you, Hollywood!” And oh, how thankful we should have been.

Patrick’s assessment of my feelings on the film is spot on. The beginning and the end are so bad that it upset me. Everything with the Royal Society hurt me physically to watch. But the middle of the film was just so crazy insane that you couldn’t help but kinda give them some props for going so nuts with the adaptation. There is a scene where Jackie Chan is hanging from a rope attached to a hot air balloon and his pants get caught on a statue. A character says “Oh! That statue grabbed his trousers!” And we smash cut to the statue SMILING! The fucking statue was smiling. The only implication you can get is that the director truly wanted you to think that indeed, the statue grabbed and pulled off Jackie Chan’s trousers. And that’s when the film grabbed me by my trouser heart.

Alright, so for a little game this week I think I might Sklogify It. The sklogified version of this film would be called Around the World in 80 Sklogs and the entire conceit would be that me and Patrick would play every character in the film, plus have approximately 50 cameos that are totally tangential to the primary plot. Don’t worry, Patrick. I will play both the main character and his love interest. Although, that will not make the sex scene any less disturbing. “Why write in an unnecessary sex scene?!” you may ask. We’re trying to get the butts in the seats, aren’t we? Case closed.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Gallows Recap

Jamie

Why do we do this to ourselves? We know we hate found footage films and yet we keep dipping our toes over and over again into the well only to realize that that “well” is in fact a sewer and instead of “dipping our toes” we actually got submerged in shit. I wouldn’t say this was the worst found footage we’ve watched (for reasons detailed in Patrick’s section), but it’s the relative sameness of every… single… film in the genre that just wears on me. I can barely tell these films apart. Unfortunately we have to keep doing it. Each year there are like 3 or 4 BMT found footage films released to theaters. If me and Patrick don’t watch some of them each year, BMT will eventually consist only of found footage films… it’s like the apocalyptic future of BMT. Me and Patrick roaming the wasteland of found footage films to try to find some bad movie sustenance. I’m of course being facetious, everyone. Don’t worry your little heads about this. Patrick has run the numbers (obviously) and we will never (never!) run out of bad films. There are approximately a full year’s worth of bad films released each year. So rest assured, our national nightmare of found footage BMT will never be fully realized. Phew.

I’m feeling a little Sequel, Prequel, Remake for this one. I want a Prequel. No, not the story of the original production of The Gallows culminating in the death of Charlie (and giving a bit more clarity on how he came to exist as a supernatural being). I’m talking about what would have followed right after. Charlie’s girlfriend is devastated at the death of Charlie in a freak theater accident. What else could go wrong? Everything apparently cause now she finds out she’s pregnant and at the same time finds out her deadbeat boyfriend is back from the dead as a ghost! Oh my! How can this odd couple navigate the world of new parenthood when one of them isn’t even of this world?! Through laughter and tears they find that raising a baby isn’t all that hard when you have love… even when one of them is a spooky ghost. It shall be called Ghost Dad… wait…

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Gallows? More like So Shallow! Found Footage? More like dog poo genre in my face. The thoughts on this were somewhat interesting (if you are me or Jamie that is), so rapidfire!:

  • The Good – This is genuinely shocking. We’re talking about a genre already prone to laziness in its reliance on jumpscares, but yet this one tread what seemed to be novel ground (not that I’m an expert on found footage films). (1) They had a genuine reason for the characters to carry a camera around (they needed the light attached to it). (2) The last 20 minutes were genuinely creepy, really tense with actual horror elements beyond jumpscares. (3) They seemed like they enjoyed poking some fun at the genre with some general silliness.
  • The Bad – (1) The first hour is useless. Literally nothing happens. I’m not being figurative, literally nothing of import happens in the first hour of an 80 minute long film. (2) The “twist” ending was terrible. So bad it was hard to tell whether it was meant to be ironic. (3) The acting is horrible. Not a surprise, but it was especially bad all around in this case.
  • The BMT – It kind of has to be. This is the worst of the year in a garbage genre. It must be represented by BMT … if that weren’t the case though I would just kick the entire genre out excepting special occasions.

But hey, they made money, they gave me some scares, and all for $50K! That’s actually incredible. If someone actually intelligently applied like a million dollars to a horror film like this something great might actually come of it. Although, maybe that’s what Paranormal Activity is.

Seriously, maybe I should be checking more of these found footage films outside of BMT (ugh, I hate them so much though). I’m going to wax poetic a bit about the BMeTric and the complications that horror seems to cause it. There is a small and impassioned fanbase around horror films. Combining this with the fact that most horror films aren’t perceived to be particularly good movies, and you got a recipe for BMeTric inflation. It is an issue with the BMeTric because it suggests movies (like the Gallows) are going to be good BMT when they honestly aren’t much fun. There are just weirdos who watch bad horror films (like me to an extent, even though they are spooky and scare me) and screw everything up. What is a boy to do?

To hammer home the points: taking the qualifying (more than 10 rotten tomatoes reviews, less than 40%) OMDB data and splitting off the ones that have a listed genre of “Horror” you can see that horror films are about as popular on average (a little more even), but the rating is, on average, about half a point less.

HorrorAnalysis1
HorrorAnalysis2

Out of all of the genres Horror has the highest 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile with the BMeTric. The average qualifying horror film has a BMeTric of about 35 whereas for all genres the average BMeTric is about 25. This does suggest the first adjustment to the BMeTric. A Genre-Adjusted BMeTric (GAB) might tamp down the increased number of suggested horror films. I’m digging it and will be exploring it more soon. (Editor’s Note: While I did explore this nothing came of it (so far). The BMeTric itself is quite different between the two, I just haven’t found the time to look into what underlying distribution to use and/or how to easily do a genre based transform. I do think this is a good idea in general. Currently, I think the easiest idea is to take quantiles and do the adjustment based on that. They already do this with genetic data I think, so hopefully it ends up being easy enough as to allow the adjustment to be produced each month with the OMDB data dumps).

 

Pixels Recap

Jamie

Patrick and I had to look ourselves in the mirror last week (and by mirror I mean a sheet of glass that we look at each other through). As the email develops and grows (literally… to interminable length), we periodically have to reflect on whether it is growing stale and whether it is time to SHAKE THINGS UP. Last week was that time. And the answer was yes. Time for a BMT Shake Up. It’s not going to change much. We’re just going to try to make sure we aren’t repeating ourselves. The front part of the email is where we fool around (before getting to the super serious second half of the email) and we found ourselves making the same points, playing the same games, and generally repeating ourselves. In an email this long, we should try not to be redundant since the email’s too long. For the most part this will just mean that we’ll start working on the email together, rather than separately. It’ll help us tighten the bolts. Provide structure where there previously had been none. Not really aiming to shorten the email per se, but really just cut out the extra fat so we can add lean joke meat back into the email. So here we go… I guess this is this week’s anecdote.

To start, I have to go on record saying I also didn’t totally mind the film. I wouldn’t say I liked it though. Just OK… like a lot of the poorly reviewed films from this year. It feels a bit like this is the year of the OK film. But that is a discussion for a later time.

Because right now is game time. Usually this is time for a MonoSklog (and Pixels certainly had a couple primo examples), but I had a little inspiration this morning for a new installment of Sklognalysis. That’s where I go all philosophical and/or analytical on a film that probably doesn’t need that much reading into. In this case I want to draw a parallel between Pixels (and Happy Madison Productions as a whole) and the culture of a hockey locker room as described by Montreal Canadiens legend Ken Dryden. In his autobiography The Game he describes a hockey locker room in the following words:

… there is another level of dialogue we can all hear. It is all loud, invigorating, paced to the mood of the room, the product of wound-up bodies with wound-up minds. It’s one line, a laugh, and get out of the way of the next guy – “jock humor.” It is like a “roast,” the kind of intimate, indiscriminate carving that friends do to keep egos under control. Set in motion, it rebounds by word association, thought association, by “off the wall” anything association, just verbal reflex, whatever comes off your tongue, the more outrageous the better. Elections, murders, girl friends, body shapes, body parts… it is anything for a laugh.

Jokes at the expense of others? Ripping on everything and anything to get a laugh? A team of guys spewing what might be called  “jock humor”?! Isn’t that Happy Madison?! They sit around poking fun at each other and genuinely having fun. Each movie they invite you to spend some time with their team of guys who are trying to do the impossible together (make a successful comedy/win a Stanley Cup). If you embrace it and go into it with an open mind, then you might feel like you’re part of the team and begin to enjoy yourself. If you’re a snobby asshole BMT writer that sits in the corner going ‘this locker room smells and I don’t like these people and I don’t like hockey. Harrump’ then guess what? You won’t. It’s a team and they’re just asking you to be their teammates and enjoy the ride. I’m convincing myself at this point! We’re working on a whole other Sandler level here at BMT!

Patrick

Helló mindenki! That’s right, I watched this movie in Budapest, so some Hungarian in your face. Pixels!? More like This Smells! (Sandler slammmmmmmmed). Are you guys ready for a BMT Shake Up Brought To You By Pepsi MAX!? What a Shake Up means is I am not supposed to be so verbose. So three quick points, in and out, hit it:

  • The Good – I actually kind of liked this movie. In the immortal words of Bill Simmons: “My kids love this movie”. I’m sure they do, Bill. I would if I was a young lad just yearning for CGI distractions. All in all the jokes had a decent hit percentage. The actors didn’t totally look like they were phoning it in, and the CGI was gorgeous. What more could you ask for?
  • The Bad – Well … Josh Gad was pretty rough. And the kid actors. And Kevin James. So yeah, the acting was actually pretty terrible. And the movie just felt kind of lazy overall. At one point they just repeat a bunch of jokes from early Sandler films. And rip-off of Armageddon of all movies. The script felt very punched up. Lots of lampshading and other techniques to add in “jokes” to what is in reality a bunch of exposition held together by a plot featuring Kevin James as the president of the United States … yeah, might have wanted to rethink that.
  • The British – And I was genuinely offended by the portrayal of England in this film. As Jamie said “hey, they’re in Patrick’s backyard”. First of all, I got super amped because they were in Hyde Park which I literally work like 100 feet from … but then it was clearly in some park in Los Angeles and there were no other outdoor scenes. Gross.
  • The BMT – Yep I think so. Although it might be too good I have a feeling most people would disagree with us. Weirdly 30-40 sounds right, exactly where it is..

Bam. Quick. Those are my thoughts. Can I just sneak in a shoutout to Dan Aykroyd and Crystal Skull Vodka, both of which made a completely illogical product placement cameo in this film. It was glorious. In the spirit of our newly found brevity I’ll end it there. Búcsú.

The Last Witch Hunter Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Last Witch Hunter? More like Latest Huge Blunder! We went BMT Live! this week, and I must say, it did not disappoint. I’m just going to get into it since I’ve been so long winded the last few weeks.

  • The Bad – Poorly written dialogue (although I found the fundamental story compelling, surprisingly so). It should be no surprise to people this movie bombed because it had like a million credited writers. Five according to Rotten Tomatoes (although only three make it to IMDB). The reworking of the script is evident.
  • The Worse – Speaking of witch (BAM!), the action scenes were terrible. Mostly that is on the director. But again, the script is the culprit at times. The movie ends with four small battles (Vinny D v. Belail, Ygritte mind melding with the Irish dude, Vinny D v. Chekov’s Jail Monster, and the final Vinny D v. the Witch) which just smacks of three different endings getting smashed together “because they had some good ideas guys”.
  • The Worst – The acting was terrible. Before Michael Caine gets rendered into a corpsy budget sucking wax model he was okay. I always like Elijah Wood, I’m not sure why. But Ygritte and Vinny D were bad. For a while I talked myself into Vinny’s acting, but there is a scene right at the end where Caine just acts circles around him and all of a sudden my brain went “NOPE!” and rejected him as a reasonable leading man. His schtick works for the Fast and Furious franchise, but something about his mumbling about a fantasy movie just doesn’t do it for me. Unless, Netflix signs him. If Netflix signs him I’ll watch all of his movies and enjoy them thoroughly.
  • The Good – So to recap: bad script, bad direction, bad acting from the leads. Terrible movie right? Meh. Really fun movie to watch for BMT. Kind of Pompeii-y in how much I can laugh at myself for paying money to watch this in theaters (the anti-Sabotage). But something about it was just kind of enjoyable. Not sure why really, but I don’t think it gets a personal nod for anything but direction. The action scenes are unforgivable. They could have been so much better and immediately salvaged the film.
  • The BMT – First, the movie was in theaters for a second. I went to a showing five days after the UK opening and I was in the second to last showing in London. Straight up. My showing was so late in the release it was for the hearing impaired (not joking, there were english subtitles. Perhaps someone thought it wasn’t in English after watching a few of Vinny D’s scenes, SLAMMED). I assume this is a legal requirement, but was genuinely unavoidable for me as it was the only showing in London that Tuesday night (!). So yeah … that movie made no money. Poor show. Almost makes me feel bad …. Where was I, oh yeah, I liked this for BMT. Like Pompeii.

Prequel, Sequel, Remake. I think I’m going to go with Prequel. I want some more of these witch hunters. Call it Penultimate Witch Hunter as it follows Vinny D and his BFF Witch Hunter uh … Blinton? Vinny D’s name was Kaulder of all things, I just made something up. This is of course played by The Rock. They are killing it as Witch Hunters. Until (Uh oh!) The Rock falls in love with a witch. Is he bewitched? Can Kaulder save him? What is love? Will Kaulder dreamwalk his way to happiness? Find out in the Penultimate Witch Hunter: A Love Story.

Jamie

Aaaawwwwwwwww shit! Jamie’s back, Jack. Talking smack on time and in rhymes (that was embarrassing). It’s just the freedom that comes with not being behind on the emails. It’s just so… so… freeing. Anywho, last week (and truly it was last week) we watched The Last Witch Hunter IN THEATERS and it was as dark and dreary as a boy could have hoped for. I feel like we’ve already watched this film twice this year. It had a faint whiff of Jupiter Ascending (suffering the Icarus Effect, where the filmmakers fly too close to the sun using their Grav boots only to realize how fucking lame they are) mixed with a little Hitman: Agent 47 (writing so bad that the screenwriters probably watched Jupiter Ascending and were like ‘Grav boots! Damn, wish I thought of that’). My main takeaways from the film were:

  1. It wasn’t quite as bad as the reviewers made it out to be! The overall story was actually a refreshing twist on a really, really overplayed plot (secret underground supernatural war that threatens an unknowing humanity). I liked the entire idea of Vinny D’s character and his immortality and why as long as he exists the witch queen can never be truly defeated. Also hard to fault a film for trying too hard to make something interesting.
  2. But it was still really bad! In particular it was just extremely wordy. Like I think they spent so much time coming up with a plot that wasn’t I, Frankenstein level horseshit that they then had to fill the film up with explanations of the plot. It seemed like everywhere they went they were just talking, talking, talking like nerd alerts. Made it a bit boring.
  3. Didn’t help that the action scenes were trash! Really horrible choreography and blocking, really short with no suspense, and mixed with very odd dream fights that bordered on bad abstract art. The dream sequences in particular were rough. Almost seemed like they were added because they didn’t know how to make actual fight scenes… so why not have a bearded Vinny D just run through fields for a while with a shaky cam? That works, right?

Overall, I wasn’t a fan of the film, but at the same time I can understand why there are people out there defending it. It is probably better than Jupiter Ascending (which is the best comparison for the film), but barely. A little surprising how low it got on RT (16%)… I would give it like a 28%.

BTW I like that name for Patrick’s prequel. And anything with The Rock will be… solid (PUN INTENDED). Also reminds me of a little story from last week. My wife was recovering from a cold and just wanted to watch some films for the day so I convinced her to finally see Gravity (which I love). By the end she was like “boring artsy film, whatever” and I was shocked. Gravity? Too artsy? It didn’t occur to me when I watched it in theaters. Later that night we settled in for another film and I had to think to myself, “What film might she like if she just rejected Gravity because it was too artsy?” So obviously we selected San Andreas and she fucking loved it. She was like “Yup, I like this, whatever.” So that’s my wife. Gravity? Too artsy. San Andreas? Yes, please. I’ll take seconds if you have it. Probably just cause of The Rock. I bet if Gravity had The Rock floating around, busting heads, and taking names then she would have been way into it.

Anywho, since The Last Witch Hunter was in theaters we don’t have a MonoSklog (I bet there was one, though. Even inadvertently. They just talked so God damn much). Instead I’ll just make up a new game. I call it BMT Mash-up and it’s where I combine two BMT films to make an ultra BMT film. I’ll call this one The 2 Fast 2 Furious Witch Hunter. Obviously the sequel to The Last Witch Hunter we find our hero a bit suspicious of some heists going on in the Czech Republic. Could it be a new harem of witches who got a need for speed? Looks like Vinny D’s gotta strap into his mean witch-hunting machine and take out some fools. In a clever reversal of The Fast and the Furious, Vinny D goes undercover with the gang (and under covers with the gang leader’s sister, ayo!) in order to find what sinister black magic they are using in their elaborate, stunt-filled heists. When it comes time to take them out for good, will Vinny D have the heart to break his own heart?

Funny enough this actually kinda works cause Vinny D’s character in The Last Witch Hunter also loves fast cars. You’re welcome, writers of the next installment in the Witch Hunter series. Patrick and I just gave you the plots to the prequel and sequel. NBD.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Hot Pursuit Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Hot Pursuit? More like Hot Garbage (sorry Reese Witherspoon). Today the BMT email gets a bit philosophical so buckle up:

  • Is a movie really a movie if no one wanted it or saw it? This movie had that not-so-subtle whiff of All About Steve (JAMIE’S NOTE: that is a perfect comparison!). A movie which is bad idea on paper, that for some reason real actors signed onto. It is low budget, it is not funny, and it is barely a movie. It is something indeed. Why release this to 3000 theaters?
  • Can a movie without jokes still be called a comedy? At best you are talking about the running gag of Reese Witherspoon getting shorter and Sofia Vergara older in the news reports, the taser gag, and the cocaine car (watch the movie if you want to understand all this). That’s it. Those are the jokes in the movie. Bad comedies are the worst. Just the worst.
  • Is a script truly “written” if it was in fact produced by a computer? Quite literally this movie is so by the numbers it was like I was a Minority Report precog. “Oh, those are the other two cops”. “The chief is a bad guy”. “She’s going to kill the drug lord at the Quinceanera”. Have you ever seen those machine learning produced research articles (The ones that every so often have to be purged)? This is what this script is like. I am convinced if I fed 1000 scripts into a machine learning algorithm the first and only script the computer would generate would be this one. Over and over. Forever.

I’m going to leave it at that. Prequel, Sequel, Remake? No thanks. No to all of them.

Jamie

Trying to catch up so I’ll keep my thoughts on Hot Pursuit brief: I don’t know how this film was made. Like the script is basically the worst. So I don’t know how Reese Witherspoon read the script and was like “Good to go. Let’s make this film.” It’s really cliched, super predictable, and has a series of vignette scenes (typical of a road trip-like film) that are embarrassingly bad. I actually thought Sofia Vergara and Reese were OK in the film. Everything else though was just blech. Maybe if they rewrote it a few times it would have been OK. As is, it was not.

Alright. Hmmm, what game to play this week? No time to get a MonoSklog. There were a couple OK (but short) ones through the film but whatever. Let’s go for a little Sklogify It! That’s where I take the film and insert some Sklogs to attempt to somehow improve an otherwise unimprovable concept. This film would be called Sklog Pursuit and instead of having an “odd couple” concept of a loud Colombian lady paired with a Southern policewoman, ours would be a “same couple” concept where both of us look the same and are bestest friends. One of us gets mistaken for a snitch on a drug kingpin (obvs) and a bunch of killers are on our tails trying to take out the snitch before an upcoming trial. The other twin (a policeman) decides that he should probably accompany him to San Antonio to make sure that nothing bad happens to him leading up to the trial. We generally have a great time on the roadtrip and high five a bunch and then we get to San Antonio without the killers ever really catching up to us (pretty unlikely that they would). We then catch a Spurs game, walk the river walk, and see the Alamo before everything is cleared up and we go home. Generally a great time and a good story to tell in the future. In fact that’s the tagline: “Generally a great time and a good story to tell in the future.”

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Jupiter Ascending Recap

Jamie

Let me tell you a little story. On my way to Atlanta last week I was lamenting to my wife at how ill prepared I was for the flight. While I had obtained a glorious copy of Jupiter Ascending, I found myself unable to download it to my phone to watch enroute. ‘Woe is me’ I thought at the mere prospect that I should endure a 2 hour flight without my sweet, sweet Jupiter Ascending action. I turned to my wife on the airport shuttle and half-heartedly joked, ‘Maybe we’ll have a new plane with personal screens and the option to watch JA.’ A single tear rolled down my cheek as these words left my lips, for I was certain that I would never have the opportunity to watch the film. Perhaps I would fall so far behind on BMT that Patrick and I would never catch up. Could this spell the end of BMT? Could it all end with a bungled iphone video transfer? God must have heard my heart (for I believe it was speaking directly to him that day) and declared, ‘not on my God damned watch!’ He replaced whatever shitty Delta plane we were meant to board with the most glorious of planes. TV screens abound! Comfy seats and snacks galore! ‘Could it be? Might these tiny television screens bring me JA in all its glory?’ I exclaimed to no one in particular. ‘Doubtful,’ my wife scoffed, lowering her eye mask and inserting ear plugs so that she might not have to hear or see me weep quietly to myself upon my discovery that there was no JA after all. But no! There would be no tears that day my friends. There would only be joyous laughter and revelry as I watched JA as it was truly meant to be seen. No, not an IMAX screen, but my tiny airplane screen. It was there! Uncut and unrelenting in its ridiculousness. It was destiny. I would not go the week without BMT. Oh no. Not this week. Not any week.

You see what I just wrote there? That ridiculous paragraph of nonsense? That is better and more exciting than anything in Jupiter Ascending a.k.a. the most confusing movie in this or any universe. I literally had no idea who people were or who they were working for or generally what was happening through the film. Not for lack of trying though. They did spend 95% of the film trying to explain it to the audience. Didn’t work out great. I just kinda rolled with it and assumed that all the details didn’t matter for the most part. There were aliens and they were doing stuff. Whatever. That’s not to say that there wasn’t merits to the film. I liked the concept for the most part, it just was too much for a film to handle. Needed to be a book or something. Or like a game of thrones style TV show. Or have some background that people could grasp to. Not sure I’ll be voting for it come Razzie season, but it certainly deserves notice for Redmayne’s acting (geez louise) and writing. That’s it though.

Alright, do I have a MonoSklog for Jupiter Ascending? Nope. No time for that shit when I’m trying to catch up. I think I’ll just do a quick Prequel, Sequel, Remake. I’d love to say that we do a remake with this film starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, but that’s a cheap  and timely No Strings Attached joke. Instead I say we should get a little prequel. Let’s learn a little of the origins of Channing Tatum’s character. What is his motivation? What events led to him losing his wings? When and how did he obtain his grav boots? No one else has grav boots, why not? Did he invent them? Did he find them? Why doesn’t anyone ever take them from him considering he keeps escaping using them? These questions will all be answered in the upcoming film Grav Boots.

Patrick

Jupiter Ascending? More like Poop-iter Descending! (That’s solid, admit it). Wowwy Wow Wow. Huh …. Hmmmmmm. Huh. Huuuuuuuuh. I can’t even sort through my thoughts, I need bulletpoints:

  • So confusing. At first I was like whaaaaaat? Then I was like Oh I get it. Then I was like wait wait wait wait wait … who are these people? Then I was like No, I see …. I def got it this time. Twists and turns man. I agree with what a few other people have said about the movie: it felt like the third in a trilogy with the first two missing. Once it dawns on you that the house Abrasax isn’t the ruler of the universe, but rather one of many minor noble houses, it makes a bit more sense why no one else gives a shit about Mila Kunis and her magic genes.
  • Grav boots are dumb. Channing Tatum uses them in every scene and half the time they are so slow, like he’s just gliding around. He looks like an idiot.
  • I wanted to like this movie too. It is pretty interesting. Spectacular at times. Seems like it could be a whole universe to be explored with books and tv shows and movies … but nope, kind of falls flat by going too big and self-contained. But I did kind of want to like it.
  • Another thing I did not like: how grand and frenetic everything tried to be. Through constraints imposed by technology of the time something like Star Wars seems effortless in comparison. In this everything is so big and there is so much stuff filling every inch of it it is almost too much to take in at any given time and seems overdone.
  • Oh and holy shit, Redmaynes performance! It is a thing to behold. It really is a poor decision by everyone involved. I would be shocked if it doesn’t win the worst actor this year, even though the acting wasn’t bad per se, just a really bad idea.

I’ll leave it there. I don’t think this will be anywhere near my least favorite film of the year. It is so poorly written and executed though (possibly because they were crushing three epic movies into one) that it certainly is a sight to be seen.

Before I go I’ll mention that I watched the Sandler vehicle The Cobbler the other day. Brief thoughts: (1) Not that bad. (2) Actually pretty impressive acting. (3) And with about 10 minutes left I thought to myself “this could be a novel superhero tv series”. Then the ending happened. One of the worse endings I’ve seen for a movie. It doesn’t make sense, and it just went a bit too far and on the nose for me …. whatever. It will not escape Razzie wrath since Sandler is almost definitely getting an actor nod, and they’ll probably lump Pixels, Cobbler and Hotel Transylvania 2 together.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs