Category: Recap

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

Be Cool Recap

Jamie

Be Cool. Ugh. Patrick is having me do the full recap for this one because he’s putting all of the information on the BMeTric that he’s been developing together [which is now on the website!]. What a film to leave me with though. I surprisingly despised this film. It is terrible. I cannot believe that it garnered a 30% on RT. Were those reviewers crazy? Did they watch this travesty of a film that tarnished everything the Get Shorty built? I really need to read the book now just to know whether Leonard (Elmore that is… Maltin wishes) screwed up in conceiving the plot for a sequel seemingly made as a result of Get Shorty’s success, or whether the acting, adaption, and production choices combined into a super storm of shit. I sure hope it’s the latter, cause that would be a shame for Elmore Leonard. I fully expected this film to just be a ‘meh’ film that I would forget about until three years from now I wonder ‘wait, did we watch Be Cool for BMT? I think we did but can remember nothing of the plot.’ Not the case. I hated this film.

Onto my three points:

  1. John Travolta! You know what happens when you try to make a sequel to a John Travolta film 10 years after the original? You go from having John “Too Cool for School” Travolta in your film to have John “Scary Mask Face” Travolta who seems just super thrilled with how great things are going in the music biz. You almost expect his scary stretched out face to start exclaiming, ‘Oh boy, this sure is fun. Neato,’ as he smiles uncontrollably at the camera. It would be interesting to look at the films in between Get Shorty and Be Cool to try to pinpoint exactly where John Travolta “lost it”. Can Patrick and I quantify it? As scientists we may be the only ones capable of unlocking the mystery. My guess? A little film called Battlefield Earth. I think it broke something in his brain… and face.
  2. The cameos! So many cameos to go along with ridiculously long music video sequences for Aerosmith and The Black Eyed Peas. I recently watched the Entourage movie (yes, of my own volition. Don’t you judge me) and found the movie pretty shitty, but the cameos at least a bit fun. This was the opposite. The cameos made everything worse. Seemed like they were more interested in filling the movie with meaningless fluff, than actually filming anything relevant. Oh and Andre 3000, who had an actual role in the film, wasn’t much better than the cameos. Pretty rough stuff all around for musicians on the big screen.
  3. The Rock! Finally something good to say. Almost all of the comedic roles in the film were pretty bad. Cedric the Entertainer was just OK, Vince Vaughn was awful, awful, awful. The Rock, though, was the only part of the film that I kinda liked. He had a fun role as a gay bodyguard of sorts and you can really tell that he’s going to be a star. The only critique I have is more in the writing of the role. His homosexuality seems to just be used as a one note joke throughout the film. He is simply gay and everyone laughs at the idea that The Rock is gay… but there isn’t any substance to it. Just felt a bit dated even for 2005. In fact the entire film just felt dated and weird and awful and I hated everyone in the film.

That’s kind of the entire take away from the film. Everything is dated. nothing feels like it was made in 2005. What once felt real and interesting in Get Shorty now feels super lame. Chili Palmer (Travolta’s character) is no doubt about it super lame in this film. God, he’s the lamest. Thank God I’m done with this. Great end to the map. A film I really didn’t care for, apl.de.ap singing a little tune on the big screen, and a beautiful finished map. Love it.

Well, I really, really, really wanted to get a MonoSklog from this film, but Netflix failed me and couldn’t get me the disc in time (whaaaaa? Let the people in charge know. Not good for their brand when they let down a media juggernaut like BMT). Lucky for us the MonoSklogs I wanted are available on Youtube. The first one is an absolute gem by The Rock. I call it Mi MonoSklogio:

Hilarious, albeit a bit shorter than we usually go for. The second one is the “infamous” MonoSklog by Cedric the Entertainer. I call it Mi Cultura:

This is explicitly mentioned as not being in the book and written for the film. Egad! Both are pretty ridiculously bad. Which makes them good… for their badness.

Cheers,

The Sklogs

September Dawn Recap

Jamie

September Dawn was just the worst. Imagine a 100 minute Gods and Generals that feels like an 8-hour Gods and Generals (so like… normal length). That’s September Dawn. The worst. No fun at all. Just the worst. Think of the worst thing.. now think of something worse than that. That’s September Dawn. I have nothing more to say. The acting was bad. The story was bad. The editing was really crazy. The flashbacks were ridic (you’ll see). Everything was weird as shit and I hated it.

When I don’t have much to say I can trust Patrick to pick up the slack. Welp, I didn’t want to do a MonoSklog for September Dawn (it deserves nothing!), but when there is an impassioned speech by a Mormon leader set to the tune of really, really, really bad practical effects you gotta do what you gotta do. [Mis Testiculos was a MonoSklog from the movie which we have chosen to leave out of the online content until further notice]. Why the odd name… if you watch the movie you’ll see. Those were some pretty fake testicles. Ugh. This movie.

Patrick

Hallo allemaal! September Dawn? More like September Yawn! Sitting in Schiphol Airport on my way back from Amsterdam watching literally the most boring movie I’ve ever seen. Now, real BMT scholars should be raising extreme objections at this moment. “Bullshit, Gods and Generals extended 4 hour 30 minute cut.” They’d be right, so long that some say I’m still watching it to this day. But for a normal movie made by not crazy people, this one was quite boring. Let’s get very very briefly into this.

  • Scene by scene recap of this movie: A wagon train gets to Utah, they stop, boy falls in love with girl, gets a horse, yada yada yada people die. The horse training was literally the most interesting part of this movie.
  • I repeat: the horse training was the more entertaining part of this movie.
  • The direction was indeed bonkers, thanks for the tip Leonard.
  • And that’s that. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. It is not fun to watch. It is so bad it goes all the way around and becomes bad again.
  • Quick Sequel, Prequel, Reboot: I’m thinking sequel, but really dig deep into the subsequent legal case that happened after the massacre. I’m thinking 24 hours long, just legal briefs being read out loud. More entertaining than this movie.

Alright, this looks like a pretty short one so I guess I’ll just wrap it up there. Psych! BMT:CSI:SVU (we’re the special victims) in your face. After this week’s movie we are moving into Bad Movie Thursday Emergency Razzie Preparation Mode (BMTERPM). So, since I’m doing all this analysis, why not try and figure out what makes the Razzies tick? Check out the full analysis here. But the takeaway, there does seem to at least be one major takeaway from looking at how the BMeTric and a Razzie Score correlate: you need BMTargets. The guys like Sandler, and Michael Bay, and Kirk Cameron to get the sweet sweet score. Something to think about as the Razzies approach.

At the time this was a long post (look at the size of that BMT:CSI:SVU!), but we got to be able to predict this stuff! Unfortunately there is little prenomination data available … maybe the head Razzie will send it to me….

Vaarwel,

The Sklogs

Critters 2: The Main Course Recap

 

Patrick

Bonjour tous le monde! Critters 2 more like Shitty Too! That’s right, I’m in grande Paris, and (sadly) I did watch Critters 2 in the bits and pieces of spare time I’ve had while killing it in the city of love. Lucky for you, this means this one will be short (yes, sadly, no BMT:CSI:SVU today). Let’s do it:

  • Let’s start with the first movie. So cheap. The shittiest of all shitty effects. Bad acting up and down (although the kid was actually rather decent). Essentially it is Leprechaun. A director who is either young or passionate about the horror genre getting his shot at making a feature length film. In this one it was actually impressive because this movie was probably made for like a thousand dollars. And the guy ended up being pretty famous (Bill and Ted, The Mighty Ducks, etc.). Anyways, the movie wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen, plus I got a little Billy Zane time (which as you all should know, I’m always happy about).
  • The second one …. was kind of the epitome of why I hate horror-comedy. By taking nothing seriously it takes a movie that already has horrible acting and effects (because of budget), and adds in intentionally bad writing to the mix.
  • That being said: up until the end I didn’t actually mind watching the movie, it had entertaining bits. I do wish they hadn’t recast the sheriff. There were three major characters who returned from the first film, they got two (the aforementioned kid and his friend Charlie). Just cut the sheriff character, right? But that is a minor gripe.
  • A more major gripe: The first ending wasn’t bad. The issue is that there was a second one. Essentially the critters are being hunted by shapeshifting bountyhunters. And it turns out one of them secretly transformed into a critter in order to lead them to their ultimate destruction. I didn’t see it coming at all and I thought it was pretty clever. But then, after destroying them, the critters somehow form a giant critterball and roll around eating people they run over. Besides being dumb, it also managed to replace the kind of nice trick ending with the perfectly predictable one.
  • An impression of me watching the finale of the movie. “Oh Charlie is running away, I bet he’s going to get the spaceship.” “Oh there is a critterball, I bet Charlie is going to destroy it with the spaceship.” “Oh Charlie destroyed the critterball with the spaceship and ‘died’, I bet he ejected at the last minute and is totally alive”. All three easily predicted while only half paying attention to this movie.

I’ll leave it there and will close with this: Was it a good BMT? Nope. Low budget sequel to a low budget horror-comedy … 99 times out of 100 that’s bad news. But I didn’t mind watching the two films. Like Leprechaun there is a kind of cult mystique surrounding the film based on really loving the classic horror genre. I wouldn’t touch the direct-to-video sequels if you paid me though.

Jamie

Alright, so last week was Critters 2. I enjoyed the original Critters quite a bit. It was kind of like a more interesting and better made version of Leprechaun (also on the map for North Dakota) since it was an oddball horror with some comedy elements (albeit with a lot more Billy Zane). Also oddly reminded me a bit of The Thing in the sense that it was set up as a horror film but had some really hardcore SciFi elements to it. Something about the 70s and 80s where horror and SciFi mixed heavily (see: everything that Stephen King wrote). Critters 2? I’d rather not talk about it. Given that the first film was a modest success you would think that the film (at the very least) would look a bit better than the first one. Since the series was now a known quantity you need to step up your game and try to build a Mark Sanchize. Instead, they seemed to go the opposite direction. Now that they had a known quantity, they decided to wring every penny out of it till it was dead and they no longer had to deal with it (franchises are hard, no?). I’m not sure what else to say beyond that. I was surprised by how much worse than the first one it actually was as the film kept going it just kept on getting more and more embarrassing. The culmination was an ending that was so ridiculous and silly that I almost had to turn off the film.

I don’t remember if me and Patrick discussed the Critters-Leprechaun similarity in the past. If not, twins! I disagree about it not being a good BMT. I think this was an OK one. Not nearly the worst BMT we’ve ever had and comes with some interesting bad movie lore. I guarantee it’s better than both What Goes Up and this week’s September Dawn. That is quite the shit sandwich to be caught in. Also, how can you honestly say that you won’t be touching the direct-to-video sequels? This from a man who has watched all of the Leprechaun films.

Anyway, just going to have a quick game this week. Mostly it’s to highlight my least favorite part of Critters 2. It’s called WTF, mate? and it’s something that me and Patrick used to do way, way, way back before we even wrote an email. We used to ask each other what the WTF moment of the film was where you just couldn’t handle how bad the film was anymore. Not every film had one, but Critters 2 certainly did. While I would love to say that the ending was the WTF moment cause it was horrific, I have to go with this diner scene:

which is a travesty in a very Gremlins 2 on Key & Peele kind of way:

I have to admit though, that Critter’s new bald hairdo was indeed quite bitchin’.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

What Goes Up Recap

What goes up, must come down. Spinning wheel got to go round. Woooo! Love that song and love this documentary about the making of the Blood Sweat & Tears classic

… what’s that? Did I watch the wrong movie? It’s the one starring Steve Coogan, Hilary Duff, and Josh Peck, right? Yeah… I just assumed all the bullshit in the film was an extended allegory for the literal blood, sweat, and tears that David Clayton-Thomas poured into the making of that song and struggles of leading a contemporary American jazz-rock ensemble. No? Huh. Well then I’m completely flabbergasted cause nothing in the film really meant anything and it was all super weird and unnecessary. It was actually pretty unpleasant to watch. The main character was a doucher whose whole life is a sham and the kids all had upsetting lives. In particular, Olivia Thirlby’s character who had a pretty rough incest/abortion storyline. That’s right, second week in a row with an incest storyline! Last week it was A Thousand Acres, and this week What Goes Up followed it right up… because that’s what everyone’s clamoring for in their film selections: incest.

Alright, well I’m glad they made this film for the sake of my precious, precious map, but also kinda wish we could have just pretended we had never seen Eight Crazy Nights (or as I like to call it, Eight Cray Cray Nights). Like, would any of you have really cared or knew that Patrick and I tricked you? No. But we would have known in our hearts, and much like Coogan in What Goes Up, the lie would have been necessary, but also soul-consuming.

Anywho, gonna keep my MonoSklog section brief this week. Loved, loved, loved Josh Peck’s MonoSklog in What Goes Up. I call it Mi Panegírico, and if you can catch it it is worth it. There is something about how Josh Peck says “But everyone says ‘No… You gotta fucking accept it.'” that really make that scene. Just a really solid job right there. But like usual, Monosklogs are not for the website. Fair use just isn’t our bag you know?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! What Go Up … Brings me down! What a depressing, weird, small, weird movie.

  • It was weird. It is hard to even make fun of. There is just so much that goes into it that seems like it is super serious. Probably super personal. But I feel like it is a mess. Just a jumble of symbols and messages and nothing really gets done particularly right.
  • Side stories alongside side stories. There’s a girl who was paralyzed in an accident, we get to see a story about that. There is Hilary Duff’s story of trying to seduce Coogan. Another girl was in love with the teacher who died. Two other girls are weirdos, and get involved in a variety of shenanigans. Josh Peck has a strange story about being fascinated with the principal’s wife and newborn child. The music teacher (who was in love (?) with the teacher who killed himself) is having a meltdown for various reasons. And Coogan has been fabricating stories about the woman he loved for months to deal with her suicide …. None of these storylines are particularly interesting.
  • Probably because Coogan’s character is a bad person whom I do not like.
  • This is unpleasant and it was a bad BMT film. The BMeTric based on IMDB votes and rating nailed it again (11.7/100 (NOTE: As of July 9, 2016) if you recall, where 25 is just about the BMThreshold for Enjoyment). This week we probably have a bit better chance (Critters 2 has a BMeTric of approximately 35/100, not bad).

That’s it. I want to see the Prequel to this movie called The Shed. It is about all these characters, how they get to be in Mr. C’s class, and how they learn acceptance and love. It ends with Coogan rolling into town. Literally no one will watch this film. Netflix, get off the horn, this movie does not and never will need to be made.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

 

A Thousand Acres Recap

Jamie

It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad! Every once in a while we at BMTHQ stumble across a film that, for whatever reason, was underappreciated at the time. This doesn’t mean that the films were good by any means (looking at you Freddy Got Fingered), just that it seems odd that they got such bad reviews. A Thousand Acres is one of those films. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was based on a beloved (at the time) book or maybe it was because there was a bit of drama in the pre- and postproduction stages of the film. I don’t know. All I know is that this was essentially a straight adaption of a book I loved (read: good story) which some really good acting. Could it have been better? Sure, there is a bit of a tonal problem when the film seems to set out to be a family film (or at least a film about families) and then shift into the realm of incest. But despite that shortcoming the rest of the film seemed perfectly reasonable. At the very least it shouldn’t have ended up at 23% on RT. That seems ridiculous.

Alright, it’s been a little bit since our last MonoSklog so you can thank A Thousand Acres for providing a gem for this week. I call it Mi Hermana [EDITOR’S NOTE: Link to video has been removed for rights reasons] (I don’t think we used that one yet). That is some serious staring-at-each-other-and-crying action. I can’t wait to use that in my regional theater auditions and shush the casting director if he doesn’t let me stare and cry long enough at the end. “It says 40 seconds of staring and crying God damn it and that’s what I’m going to do! Geez! Can’t an artist get a break in this town!”

Before I throw it to Patrick I would like to note that this is not the first film involving incest that we’ve watched for BMT. Not even the first on the map. That would be Georgia Rule, set in the great state of Idaho. And thinking about it, that film also suffered from a significant tonal problem as it vacillated between a family comedy and incest… And with that I’m out.

Patrick

It’s not that bad! It’s not that bad! ‘Ello everyone. A Thousand Acres wasn’t that bad:

  • Actually, I rather enjoyed it. Sure some of the complex ideas from the book seemed to have been slightly lost in translation, but the performances were, dare I say, excellent?
  • I had two (minor) complaints. First, a little boring. It isn’t the most exciting movie you’ll ever watch. Second, Colin Firth’s character probably played a bigger role in the book, but in the movie the character just kind of melts away after the climax of the film. I understand the point of the character, but the movie as written kind of doesn’t need him.

That’s it! That’s the complaints. I’m not sure why it got such a poor reception at the time. I think a few years later and this guy does just fine. Whatever, not my problem, and a poor poor (but necessary addition) to the map (for another example, see this week). Since this is so short let’s get really into some BMT:CSI:SVU, non-Thousand Acres addition.

[NOTE: The following discussion was fleshed out in later posts, and then collected into this Institute post. I’ve removed the plots because, for the most part they are old and non representative of the ultimate analysis, but left as mch of the discussion as possible for archival reasons. Enjoy!]

So in the past few months I’ve become more and more fascinated by IMDB user ratings. The value is enigmatic, but I can’t get over how useful a measure of “popularity” is in assessing potential BMT candidates. The thing is it can’t be used for 2015 films because films gain a ton of their lifetime votes in their first year of release. So, using the way back machine (the internet archive) I’ve been collecting the IMDB vote and rating trajectories from the past. Rough, but kind of fascinating.

But … there is something weird. Baiscally there is an inflection point in 2011, so what is happening? That inflection point is often there regardless of the age of the movie. At first I thought it was a cult-film thing with Grandma’s Boy … but Big Momma’s House isn’t a cult film. Then I thought maybe it was something to do with non-US users, but the proportion of votes coming from outside the US has been steadily rising since the early 2000s, no weird bump in 2011. Then I thought maybe bots. It could be bots, but you’d think since they have to “trick” bots into thinking they are voting by actually recording (but ignoring) their votes that you’d see a larger and larger discrepancy between the calculated rating and real rating, but nope, nothing special in 2011.

I’m now convinced the answer is simple: 2011 marks a point in time in which smartphones became effectively universal, and a point in time in which IMDB upgraded their site, the iOS app was launched, etc. A point in which IMDB went from auseful tool (for people who knew about it), to basically the first resource people access. Looking at Google trends for IMDB you do see this weird bump around 2011. It is subtle, but it is there. It appears to coincide, indeed, with their app going “universal”. So then, if you look at a films which have been pretty stable over time it still seems to get the same bump!

Phew … Cheerios,

The Sklogs