Category: Recap

Prom Night (2008) Recap

Jamie

I have long contended that any movie is improved by setting it in high school or college. Take a concept (Fatal Attraction for example). Now set it in high school… wait a second! I now have Swimfan! It’s amazing. See? Let’s try another. Uh… Jurassic Park… OK. Dinosaurs loose on a college campus? Sign me up. Should I try one more? The Killing Fields… Alright, well that… yeah, nevermind. So it almost always works. In fact this could be another character of mine, similar to Franchise Man. The School Fool. A fool for all things school. Anyway, this explains why when it became clear that Prom Night was a possibility for the 2008 entry in the cycle I was unreasonably excited. It also helps that horror films are the original “improved by setting it in high school or college” standard. So screw you, Disaster Movie and Extreme Movie… 2008 is for the School Fool.

To recap, Donna is a high school freshman when her whole family is killed by a teacher who has become obsessed with her. Three years later, she is living with her Aunt and Uncle and on the verge of Senior Prom/college when nightmares of the event return. Everyone including her boyfriend and friends want her to just have a nice night and not think about all that bad stuff. Unfortunately, there is a reason to think about it as the local police find out that days prior the teacher escaped from jail and is heading her way. So what is a police officer to do? On the one hand they could swoop in and lock down Donna to keep her safe. On the other they could let her have some fun at prom. Lucky for us these police officers think option 2 is just dandy (cause otherwise this movie would be pretty boring). At the prom Donna and everyone are having a great time… in fact, it’s such a typical prom that you start to wonder why you are even watching it. At that point the teacher starts to snag different people who leave the prom and kill them. Donna never leaves the prom, though, cause she’s a prom fiend so she doesn’t get killed… that is until the police figure out that they totally screwed up and pull the fire alarm. Donna just thinks it’s a fire so runs up to her room to grab her mother’s scarf and is confronted by the teacher. Fortunately she is fast like a rabbit and escapes. The police take her home while they scour the hotel for the teacher, but realize too late that he also escaped their clutches. At that point he kills Donna’s boyfriend and tries to kill her, but the police arrive just in time to kill him instead. Donna is probably extra scarred by this and the police probably have to answer a bunch of questions regarding their competence. THE END.

Prom Night is a whole lotta nonsense. I used to say about some films that you could “see the seams” when everything seemed manufactured. The rules of the world appeared to no longer apply given the amount of suspension of disbelief required to watch the film. Prom Night feels that way. The bad guy is just some loser teacher and yet he functions like he’s a supervillain or something. They make sure the police grumble about not being told the dude escaped from jail for three days because you need to have them know about him and yet not have enough time to warn the girl before she heads to prom. You need her to start having nightmares again so the family can logically (well, almost logically) decide that not telling her about the escaped killer is the best course of action. It really is narratively bonkers. That being said… it’s hard not to like a silly high school horror film. I enjoyed the experience of watching this objectively terrible movie. Oh and our boy Kellen Lutz has one of the funniest scenes of the millennium in the film. I almost wanted to get the DVD from the library just to burn the scene… but then I didn’t.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This is a stealth horror remake of Can’t Hardly Wait. Preston is obsessed with Amanda just like our teacher is obsessed with Donna. He looks forward to the end of senior year event to finally make his big move, much like the teacher chooses prom as the target of his escape. Preston is even mistaken for a creepo by Amanda at first… which is riffing on an alternative reading of the film (that he’s in fact a stalker/psycho). This take is driven by the fact that Donna wakes up in the final scene with Can’t Hardly Wait playing on television and now that I’ve written this all out I actually believe that wasn’t a mistake. This is not longer even a hot take. This was all inspired by Can’t Hardly Wait. Hot Take Temperature: Antarctica.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about a crazed stalker at a fancy pants prom?! Let’s go!

Might as well get this out of the way: I watched the original in prep for the remake. Pretty good. I think maybe Prom Night was the true moment where Jamie Lee Curtis was crowned the Scream Queen. Three movies, three horror films, and this was arguably the second slasher. Would do Terror Train the next year. The only issue with the film really is that they really telegraph the killer. Like, it is so obvious that your mind starts playing tricks on you and you become convinced they could not possibly have done the most obvious thing … but they did. Some fun kills though, particularly the van going over the cliff.

As for this, woof! (But in a good way). Like, abominable, but in the most satisfying and amazing way.

We have a crazed killer for sure, but you know who it is from the jump. An interesting twist, but I can’t say it really works because doesn’t this just become a serial killer thriller in slasher clothing? If we are talking supernatural here with Freddy, Jason, or Michael then I think you get away with the unstoppable force killer, but here you did need a little mystery to amp up the thrills.

Speaking of mystery, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to pinpoint precisely what game the father was watching on television when he was murdered. It was the November 11, 2000 Oregon St game at Arizona in their one-loss season. Prom Night definitely takes place much later, so we are talking about a Oregon St superfan here. Confirmed! There is actually a lot of Oregon stuff in the film. The boyfriend was definitely going to Oregon St the next year, and they talk about a car getting stolen from a commuter going to Portland, and there is an Oregon St Athletics jacket.

I have a dumb theory about that actually. In my opinion the Oregon stuff was a bit over the top. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it was probably because the director was a huge television director. So a director who has to, potentially, take a script and decide how to best set this film in “Oregon” or wherever while using just establishing shots and filming in LA. And the way you do that is by making a guy an Oregon St superfan and throwing a jacket in a truck, et voila, I’m instantly transported to Oregon.

Oh the movie? The kills are lame (like … really lame. Confusingly lame) and there is no tension at all. The only slight saving grace is the extremely odd presence of Idris Elba as the cop chasing the killer.

But ultimately this film is amazing in the same way the OC is amazing. It scratches a very specific itch. That itch being watching 30 year olds playing high school students with dumb high school drama and weird high school parties.

I already explained this is an incredible Setting as a Character (Where?) for Oregon. And what a better MacGuffin (Why?) that the love of an unattainable beauty, which isn’t a real MacGuffin, but I don’t care because this film deserves more superlatives. Amazing and confounding as it might seem there is no twist in this slasher film. This film is BMT through and through I would watch it a thousand times.

Read about my Prom Night sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Taken 2 Recap

Jamie

It should come as no surprise that when confronted with back-to-back bonus weeks involving the Dumb and Dumber franchise and the Taken franchise that we chose to double up on D&D and save Taken 3 for another time. As Jack from Lost would say, “We have to go back.” Mild spoiler here, but what a mistake! Not that Taken 2 is such an amazing BMT film that adding Taken 3 to the mix would have elevated the art of bad movie watching to new heights. And not that the Dumb and Dumber franchise was such a swing and miss from a BMT perspective. It’s more that after watching Taken 2 I thought to myself “ah yes, there is an obvious conclusion to this cohesive and yet diminishing tale. Let me take a look at the Wikipedia page and confirm.” At that point, once I read the barest details about Taken 3’s plot, my eyes bugged out of my head like a cartoon. It sounds totally insane and not at all what I expected. But that’s a tale for another day.

To recap, Taken in back, Jack! And boy does Bryan have a particular set of skills. Those skills? Being a great dad, awwww. His ex-wife Lennie is having trouble with her new husband, his daughter has a new boyfriend, and she’s trying to get her driver’s license. So everyone is vibing and Bryan invites them to Istanbul to get their groove back. Meanwhile an Albanian mobster rues the fact that Bryan killed his whole family so he decides to kill him in exchange. Back to Istanbul where Bryan is showing Kim around and explaining how he learned so much about the city from a book… so that’s his particular set of skills: reading. Ultimately, he and Lennie are captured while out at a bazaar, but Kim is able to hide with the help of her dad. Bryan tracks where he’s going and ends up being able to call Kim. He helps her very accurately find out where he is hidden and when she finds the location he has her drop a gun down to him. With that he is able to escape and save Kim, but Lennie is taken away to a different location. Bryan and Kim drive to the US Embassy where Kim is hidden away before Bryan uses his super reading brain to retrace his steps and find the mobster’s HQ. He kills everyone and when confronting the Big Bad he gives the guy a choice: leave them alone and live or don’t and die. The guy decides to not leave him alone and so Bryan kills him. This seems to be no problem for anyone and he heads on back home where Kim gets her license and they all meet her boyfriend over milkshakes while Lennie’s new husband is probably somewhere being sad. THE END.

Hahaha! Taken 2! And apparently this isn’t as crazy as it gets! The film starts exactly like you would expect. It’s perfect. Albanian thugs descend on Turkey and take his whole family hostage this time. I’m on board. More Taken, please (says Franchise Man). But once our boy Bryan is taken and Kim is left to pinpoint his location and save the day we descend close to a parody. Patrick took a screenshot of how Kim is meant to have pinpointed his location and it’s so wrong that you can’t help but laugh. Then when Bryan has to track down his wife at the mobster’s HQ it’s like you are watching an episode of The Mentalist or something where he uses his super brain and reading skillz to retrace his way through the streets of Istanbul. It’s absurd. So absurd that I assumed the third film also qualified for BMT because it is more of the same… from what I gather I’m so, so wrong. So I guess I’ll say that I enjoyed the absurd moments that this gave me. The rest was just a fine Taken movie. I wish it were more absurd, but that’ll have to wait for the next one.

Hot Take Clam Bake! So in the beginning of the film you see Bryan cleaning his car at the carwash. The attendant is like “yo, we can do that,” but Bryan knows exactly how he likes his car. Why? Cause HE IS THE CAR WASH ATTENDANT. That’s right, the Taken series is just the delusions of a saddo. His ex-wife is living it up with her rich husband. He never sees his daughter. So he dreams… dreams of his daughter appreciating his help prepping for the driver’s test. Dreams of racing to the embassy to save his daughter. Dreams of retracing the steps he remembers from when the baddies drove him to their HQ. Notice a theme? Cars. All involve cars. Why? Because he’s a car wash attendant and this is just a dream. Each car we see is a car he is washing in that moment. Hot Take Temperature: Hot Wax.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about Liam Neeson pre-bad knees running around Turkey hoping Maggie Grace can follow complex directions? Let’s go!

Hey, c’mon. You are lying yourself if you don’t think this is at least entertaining. It knows what it is (dumb) and it plays into it perfectly. It is a fine follow up to a film which is, in reality, not particularly good and has probably aged poorly (even from a purely action perspective).

The film is pretty nonsensical as well, with some great unintentional hilarity (all surrounding the purportedly what? 16 year old Maggie Grace? She was 29 at the time). Just look at this fucking picture:

… Maggie Grace is supposed to be drawing a 3km circle, so she measures out 3km with a string, and then attaches it to the top of the pen(?) and draws a circle that is way too small. It is hard to tell whether they end up lampshading this a bit as well since Neeson maybe even says that the circle is too small. No worries, she’s just going to lob a few grenades into downtown Istanbul and he’ll figure out where he is that way.

Let’s see. There is also a whole odd aside in which Neeson is friends with a bunch of other security experts who help him out by calling the Turkish authorities and get them … to let him go wandering around Istanbul to kill people after he crashed a car into the US Embassy? Fat fucking chance.

So you see, this movie is super dumb. But the action is at times good, and I also think there was a potential for a redeeming finale to the trilogy. Part 1: They take the wrong guy’s daughter and he goes and kills them. Part 2: The wider syndicate underestimates him again while trying to get revenge. Part 3: Man realizes the syndicate will never stop trying to hurt his family and takes the fight to them in Albania?

Apparently that isn’t what the third is about (by a long shot) which I have to assume is because the second was so poorly received they tried to tack out of the original idea and just made things worse.

Very much a Setting as a Character (Where?) for Turkey which is where the bulk of the film is set (not Albania, a boy can dream). I think that is it honestly, there isn’t even a twist. The movie is closest to Good and is arguably so depending on how you feel.

Read about my sequel to Taken in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Dumb and Dumber To Recap

Jamie

It’s wild that I didn’t end up seeing Dumb and Dumber To in theaters. Not just because we saw the prequel in theaters, but because there was a stretch pre-Anchorman and pre-Wet Hot American Summer where it’s a reasonable possibility that I would have said the original film was my favorite comedy of all time. Amazingly this didn’t play into seeing the prequel at all (we obviously knew that was a tragic mistake and we were just seeing it for a goof… right?). Then all those many years later it felt like the original had shrunk so far in my imagination that it never even crossed my mind to see the sequel when it came out. To be honest (and this is shameful)… I’m not sure I knew it even qualified for BMT. What a twist! You know what? I blame the name. That’s on you, Dumb and Dumber To.

To recap, Harry and Lloyd are back, Jack! Many years after the events of the first film we find Harry taking care of Lloyd who has lapsed into a fugue state for decades. This turns out to be a prank and Lloyd and Harry proceed home where Harry informs him that he needs a kidney transplant. They head over to his parent’s house to see if they can help, but they are an old Asian couple that adopted Harry, so they can’t help. Fortunately Harry has a letter from Fraida Feltcher who informs him that he fathered a child with her and that child might now have an extra kidney for him. Fanny, who was given up for adoption, lives in Maryland where they find that she’s already on her way to El Paso to cover for her ailing father at a scientific conference. Being just as stupid as Harry and Lloyd she forgets her phone and a MacGuffin-like package she was meant to take with her. Lloyd and Harry agree to deliver it for them and take Travis, the groundskeeper (and lover of Fanny’s mother), along. Are there hijinks on the way? You better believe it. Travis, who is in cahoots with Fanny’s mother to kill her father and take his fortune, ultimately is killed by Harry and Lloyd by mistake. They end up arriving in El Paso unscathed and a bunch of incidents happen whereby Harry is mistaken for Fanny’s father and makes everyone at the conference look silly. Lloyd has fallen in love with Fanny but ends up coming to believe he is actually her father. Travis’ brother and Fanny’s mother arrive ready to kill all of them for the money. But in the end it turns out the dad was onto them the whole time and all the bad guys are captured. Lloyd apologizes to Harry for fathering Fanny, but Harry reveals the kidney thing was also a prank. Fraida then reveals that neither are the father but instead it was a friend of theirs that we never met… so… I guess that’s it. THE END.

This recap is a perfect encapsulation of the film. It starts out with some funny little scenes and a simple set up but eventually gets bogged down with too much plot. I also found Lloyd to be nearly insufferable in this film. He’s not just mean, but quite racist and misogynistic. Ultimately I know that this is part of them being super stupid (and thus on some level a commentary on that type of thinking), but they are still ostensibly the heroes of our story. By the end, as this type of humor piled up, it felt more like Me, Myself and Irene… kind of crossed into a level of crassness that I didn’t so much like. I wonder in cases like this whether there is some provocation being tried in the humor to test whether there is going to be an outcry. Almost like the Farrelly brothers wanted people to object so they could be like “see, you can’t make them like you used to.” But I watched the original Dumb and Dumber in preparation and it’s nothing like this… not nearly as mean-spirited. So I’m not sure why it is that the humor feels so much different. Ultimately, it had its moments, but left a bad taste in my mouth.

Hot Take Clam Bake! They die at the end. The bad guys show up with a gun and shoot them and what we see as the end of the film is the last moments before they die where Lloyd imagines Harry’s kidney disease is a prank and that the girl isn’t his daughter so she doesn’t have to witness his death. He imagines everything has worked out wonderfully for them and they walk off into the sunset. But think about it… they are quite stupid. Makes a whole lot more sense that they die. Hot Take Temperature: Atomic Pepper.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about making a sequel decades after the original but forgetting to make the main characters somewhat likable? Let’s go!

There is a fundamentally strange bit about this movie that involves the big twist. It goes a little like this: Harry got a postcard (he thinks) concerning a girl who he had sex with long ago who had a daughter. We are then introduced to this young woman who is, howyousay, quite dumb? Later there is some indication that nay! It isn’t Harry’s daughter, but it is instead Lloyd’s daughter! Oh, what a twist! But then in a final twist it is revealed that neither are the father, instead it was a guy they used to know who died in a motorcycle accident (for which Lloyd is partially to blame and has no empathy or regrets about).

So … was that guy also dumb? I guess he must have been. But still that seems strange to me. That the three people who could have been the father were all incredibly dumb people?

Anyways, much like the much maligned prequel there isn’t much funny here. There are some of the same charms. Them rubbing their butts and then eating stuff without realizing the stuff they are eating now smells and tastes like butt? Sure. Rolling down the street to meet Harry’s parents who are obviously his adoptive parents and it being suggested he just hasn’t been home in decades for no reason? Got it. The ultimate reveal that Harry’s whole kidney issue was a goof similar to the beginning of the film. Kind of works.

What I’m trying to say here is it does trump the prequel by actually having a few funny bits here and there. The prequel had nothing.

But as I said up top the issue is Lloyd in particular is super mean spirited. Something about it rubs one the wrong way thirty years later. Something about their age I feel like should have softened them a bit. But then we are talking about a different movie I suppose.

The B-plot also sucks in this one and is kind of oddly similar to the original for no reason. A big crime conspiracy to get rich being foiled by the two buffoons. Actually all three movies for some reason seem to hinge around these guys foiling crimes for some reason. I wonder why that is.

A good Product Placement (What?) for a giant inexplicable Coca Cola sign at one point. Again, a Setting as a Character (Where?) for Rhode Island with a fun road trip element like in the original. A decent MacGuffin (Why?) which turns into a rare Fake MacGuffin by the end. And I’ve already mentioned the Worst Twist (How?) which is a not-as-rare Double Twist by the end as to the parentage of the dumb young lady. I think this is a Bad movie, it isn’t bad enough to be BMT but isn’t good enough to be Good.

Read about my sequel  to my betrayal in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd Recap

Jamie

When Harry me Lloyd? Don’t you mean “When Jamie and Patrick Met Bad Movies”? Now Patrick is going to spin you a yarn later about us watching this movie in theaters because we were making the big bucks at our summer jobs and no longer understood the value of time and money. Time and money were for suckers and suckers didn’t watch Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd. This is a nice tale. Unfortunately it’s WRONG. Hulk and Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd were indeed two theatrical films we watched in 2003, but not because we were making the big bucks. Check out the dates when those films came out: June 13th and June 17th. We were making the big bucks while school was in session? I think not. As my memory serves (correctly), these were the two movies we used our free passes to the local cinema purchased from our high school tennis team fundraiser. So yeah we weren’t considering time and money because it was free and we had the whole beautiful summer in front of us. 

To recap, Lloyd, the oft-held back son of the school janitor, and Harry, the long home schooled new kid, are on a crash course… literally. Not only do we get the origin story of when Harry met Lloyd on that first day of school, but also the origin story for Lloyd’s chipped tooth. Awesome. Anyway, our two heroes are immediately wrapped up in a scheme by the criminal school principal and his lover, the lunch lady, who aim to start a special ed class to embezzle money from. Harry and Lloyd are tasked with getting the class filled and, due to the odd mixture of students they snag, plucky girl reporter Jessica starts on the scent. What else happens? Uh… some racist caricaturing. There is a treasure hunt Harry’s mom made up that they are trying to find. They go to a museum. Harry mistakenly smears chocolate all over a bathroom and Bob Sagat thinks his bathroom is covered in poop. Just a bunch of classy gags for a very classy film. Ultimately both the reporter and the class discover the plot after Lloyd snags the treasure chest full of evidence the principal keeps (thinking it’s Harry’s treasure by mistake). They decide to entrap the principal at the big TGivs parade and the reporter and everyone hails them as heroes. Ultimately, though, they don’t get the girl and instead Bob Sagat thinks they smeared a bunch of poop on his car or whatever. THE END.

Hmmmm, let’s start with a compliment. I thought the actor who portrayed Lloyd was very good. No wonder he went on to star in NCIS: Los Angeles. Not much to say outside of that. I recall liking the Bob Sagat bits when I saw this in the theater, but I think I kind of forgot the set up with the chocolate bar and stuff. All of it is quite dumb and mildly offensive. It also has that 80’s/90’s kids movie trope where the principal has to have some kind of complicated plot he’s hatching that our heroes have to foil. Why? I guess because there’s nothing else for a couple of dumb people to do. I think I would have preferred for them to go full straight-to-video 90’s and have the school taken over by terrorists or something. Anyway, there is very little to recommend in this film. The acting is tragic besides Lloyd and a totally out of place and underutilized Shia LaBeouf. The real tragedy is that this went to theaters so you can’t ignore its existence like we all do with Ace Ventura Jr.

Hot Take Clam Bake! This film does not actually take place in 1986 but rather 1992 and thus I believe that these are in fact imposters and not the Harry and Lloyd we met in Dumb and Dumber. Exhibit A is the excessive use of Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby, a song released in 1990. Now you are probably like “it’s just a song, dummy, meant to evoke the attitude of Lloyd dancing to something else.” Oh yeah, well how about Exhibit B? At one point in the film Lloyd uses the phrase “It’s on like Donkey Kong.” This phrase is attributed to Ice Cube from his 1992 album Predator. I just seriously doubt that 6 years earlier the dumbest man on the planet beat Ice Cube to the punch. Next you’ll be saying he’s a time traveler… wait a sec… HOLY SHIT! Hot Take Temperature: Vanilla Ice Cube.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about the one where you make a totally disconnected prequel but you still just play back all the best jokes from the original? Let’s go!

We ended up watching this as a bonus since it came out too early for the cycle. Time to finish the Dumb and Dumber franchise once and for all (well, until we decide to change over to the Bad Cartoon Twins I guess, there was a cartoon right?).

And fun fact, 2003. This would have been when we were making the big bucks during the summer and realizing “wait … we can just watch any movie that comes to theaters?” And we did. This and The Hulk are the two I distinctly remember from the summer of 2003. Nothing else really sticks out except I don’t think I watched X2 because I distinctly remember watching that twice on some plane ride. Given the year, I think it was likely the flight I took to London a year later?

Wait one goddamned second, Grind was 2003. Impressive, our friends who made us watch that a thousand times were on the cutting edge getting that on VHS.

Oh, this movie … but I was having so much fun reminiscing about the random movies I watched in and around 2003.

This movie is dumb and disgusting. I don’t actually really get though why the story is that Harry was cast first and they were dead set on him, and then he had to convince them to cast the guy who played Lloyd … I thought the guy playing Lloyd ultimately was way better and looked much more like the original character. Whatever.

No jokes are funny, the love interest story is dumb, and the underlying A story of a conspiracy to bilk some fund of money for special education is a waste of time.

In a way it is a perfect movie to explain why 2000-2008 was just the absolute best for bad movies. They decided to make this without input of the original creators or any of the actors at all. They made it and it got released to theaters in this form. It made $26 million. Lunacy.

Obviously Setting as a Character (Where?) for Rhode Island which is where all Dumb and Dumber movies begin. Secret Holiday Film Alert (When?) for TGivs as there is a parade surrounding this at the end. And I’ll throw out a Worst Twist (How?) for the ultimate reveal that everything that happened in the movie was kind of pointless since they were already running a sting operation on the principal so he was going to be caught regardless. This movie is a BMT movie, it perfectly represents everything that is wrong with early-2000s comedies and movie making.

Read about the prequel to my own betrayal in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Poltergeist (2015) Recap

Jamie

Oh hi, there. It’s me, Franchise Man. You may remember me best from when I demanded that they make another Mummy movie starring Tom Cruise. I’m here to tell you about something very important to me. In an age where franchise technology has innovated to create all manner of franchise extension I believe we’ve lost sight of franchise’s greatest weapon: the remake. Why must we constrain ourselves with previously created lore? Why must we always consider the fans of the franchise and how they feel? What about how I feel? I feel like creating something almost exactly the same as the original… is that so wrong? And maybe I’ll add some jump scares… or something… I don’t know. All I know is that I should be able to look to the past and then produce a ghostly specter of the film that people loved. Something so ghastly that it will haunt the fans for decades to come. Is that not horrific? Is that not terrifying? Am I not Franchise Man?

To recap, Eric and Amy (and their three kids, Madison, Griffin, and Kendra) are moving on down. Eric has lost his job and is holding out for something perfect. Meanwhile he’s battling the scariest thing of all… credit card debt. Aaahhhhhhhhh. Why are you spending all that money, Eric? Time to tighten that belt! You have three kids rapidly approaching college age! Spoooookkkyyyy. When they move into the new house they find it spooktakular. This is put into stark relief when the parents go out to a dinner party and come home to find the two older children actively being attacked by their greatest fears (old people and trees, I guess) and the youngest, Madison, sucked into some poltergeist realm. Turns out she’s got the Shine (but not really, we don’t want to get sued). The family begins to fall apart and they look anywhere for help. This includes a professor of the paranormal and a host of a paranormal TV show. These jokesters come in and start doing all their stuff. They pretty quickly realize that they are in fact afraid of these ghosts and busting feels better in theory than in practice. They end up finding a path out of the poltergeist realm, but how are they going to help Madison find the path? Oh I know! A drone! But what if that drone crashes. Oh I know! Griffin will overcome his fears and go after Madison himself. He is able to rescue Madison and then it’s a mad scramble to get out of the house before it is sucked into Poltergeist World. Ultimately the TV host sacrifices himself to help them escape… or maybe not. It’s hard to tell. THE END.

I started this film and I was ready to be like “a bold take on Poltergeist, I like it! Franchise Man!” But I was quickly disabused of that notion. Sure we get a little taste of what they were going for. The family is all afraid. The dad is afraid he won’t be able to provide. The mom that she isn’t a good enough writer. The son of… everything. The oldest daughter is addicted to her phone (afraid of the world?). As a result the youngest daughter is left alone. So alone that her only solace is the spirit world that she can communicate with. Great start, guys. From there it is chaos only a Franchise Man could love. The ending it so bad that it’s probably only saved from being on some “worst endings of all time” lists because no one saw this movie or remembers it exists. Sigh. I wanted to like you Poltergeist.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Um… you ever think that maybe it’s the family that’s in Poltergeist World and the daughter is in the real world. Wooooaaahhhh. Credit card debt up the wazoo. No job prospects. Squirrels in the attic. Uh… clowns… also in the attic. I mean, sounds like the whole family is dealing with a horrorshow, doesn’t it? Maybe the real world looks like a ghost realm of terror to those living through the real terror of this family’s life. Have I hooked you yet? Good, then buckle up for my new movie I’m directing: Credit Card Debt: The Movie. Rated NC-17. Hot Take Temperature: Jared Harris.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about Poltergeist … again?! Let’s go!

I don’t really begrudge an attempt to redo a movie. They are redoing The Running Man soon. I just watched the first Running Man. It was kind of fun … kind of weird too and not at all like the book, so there is room for some improvement. Want to try and reboot Nightmare on Elm Street? Hey why not? Could be a lot of stuff to mine out of “an evil guy is so evil he can kill you in your dreams” idea without having to deal with the truly demented amount of lore.

Poltergeist was a really fun and interesting movie with some pretty cool 80s horror moments. But nothing so great that it can’t be tried again, and the sequels are really terrible and so being able to extend stuff works and could be fun!

This movie is pointless though. It didn’t try and take any of the cool stuff from the original, the actors top to bottom are less fun than in the original, and the idea is even lamer couched in nonsensical connections to the 2008 financial crisis (kind of).

Cool stuff from the original: the suggestion that really the ghosts just needed a way to go home. Some of the practical effects, and the psychic.

Stuff that is much lamer in the reboot: the suggestions that the ghosts are just like evil and want to steal the young girl for some reason, the much lamer practical effects, and the much lamer psychic who is now a History Channel hack I guess.

The movie is also not scary, and it doesn’t do a good job playing to its strength (which is punching way above its weight in getting Rockwell).

I guess where does this rank on the Poltergeist rankings? I think third. The third film is really dire and is actually just messily made. This is at least kind of harmless. The first and second are both much better though even though the second has its own problems (making everyone unlikeable and suffering from a severe case of over-explainitis).

Great Product Placement (What?) for Apple where a huge part of the film is Sam Rockwell buying a new sweet iPhone for his daughter. A pretty nice Setting as a Character (Where?) for Illinois, which is just all over license plates and stuff. And naturally a Worst Twist (How?) for reupping the same twist at the end of the original which was much better in that one as well. I think this is Bad, it is just not an interesting or inventive reboot, it’s lazy.

Read about my new rebooted sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Madame Web Recap

Jamie

Buckle up. Madame Web came. Madame Web saw. Madame Web conquered. It’s the classic example of a film where me and Patrick look at each other and said, “If this doesn’t qualify for BMT then we should just pack it in.” Never a doubt, my friends. BMT continues for another day. It saw all the fun that people were having at its expense and essentially was like “oh yeah, well it’s even crazier than you thought it would be.” People complained that the funny line in the trailer wasn’t in the film. You know why? Because even funnier lines were ADR’d into the film in its place. This. Movie. Rocked.

To recap, Cassandra Webb is an EMT in NYC having come up through the foster system after her mother was killed in the rainforests of Peru while researching spiders whose bite can give people special powers. After experiencing a near death experience she starts to see the future. Meanwhile, her mother’s murderer, Ezekial Sims, having used the spiders to give himself powers, begins a hunt for three girls, Julia, Anya, and Mattie, who he can see eventually lead to his death. Cassie starts to get a handle on her powers after seeing one of her friends die and not being able to do anything about it. On the way to his funeral she has a flash that shows the three girls being killed by Ezekial. She gathers them up and goes on the run, inadvertently being mistaken for their kidnappers. She hides them away in the forest. While she goes to gather supplies, they get themselves in trouble and are nearly killed by Ezekial. Realizing that she needs help, Cassie leaves them with her friend Ben Parker and heads to Peru where she meets up with the spider people that helped save her when her mother was killed. They tell her all kinds of spider mumbo jumbo just in time for her to return and realize the girls are in trouble. She swoops in and saves them and then heads to a firework factory for the big… fireworks. Ezekiel follows and they fight a bunch. They realize that Cassie can change the future and was always meant to kill Ezekial and she drops a delicious Pepsi sign on his head. She’s injured in the blast, though, and is left blind and in a wheelchair. Oh, did I say she’s left blind and in a wheelchair? I mean that she was left in a rad futuristic wheelchair sporting the dopest sunglasses this side of New York City. THE END (or is it? IT IS))

Did I mention that this movie rocked? It ironically rocked to the extreme. I felt bad for a second because there were some little kids in the theater that seemed to be enjoying themselves unironically (irony only develops later in life) and I had to stifle my laughter for the last, oh, thirty minutes of the film. The climax is nuts with the giant Pepsi sign and the serious (?) setting at a literal fireworks factory. But when she shows up in a high tech wheelchair and some crispy dope futuristic sunglasses circa Demolition Man I was actually laughing out loud. They must have at least been a little in on the joke at that point, right? Dakota Johnson had to have taken one glance at those sunglasses and thought, “oh shit, I guess I’m in this kind of movie. No amount of ADR and CGI can save me from those sunglasses.” This is all without mentioning the craziest part of the entire film: almost every single line the bad guy said was ADR’d. It’s like Val Kilmer in The Snowman level of craziness. This. Movie. Rocked.

Hot Take Clam Bake! I’m willing to say it… I don’t think she’s blind at the end. I also think she can walk. She is a super spider woman. She survived death without a scratch earlier in the film. We are meant to believe that suddenly spider powers mean nothing? Spiderman can be thrown around like a ragdoll and is fine and Cassie gets some sparklers in her eyes and she’s donzo? I don’t think so. She just wanted to cruise around in that wheelchair and rock those sunglasses. Who wouldn’t? She sits around all day with a trio of babes bringing her chinese food and saying “your sunglasses are so cool,” (presumably). Sign me up. Hot Take Temperature: Fireworks.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about my mother studying spiders in the Amazon right before she died?! Let’s go!

Oooooooooooooooooh hell yeah. Like Argylle? Whatever. A weird film. Good to get a Vaughn in since he genuinely seems like one of the weirder “Blank Check” directors around at the moment. But this? This is glorious. This might as well be Cats it is such a bizarre strange delight. Great to see it in theaters live.

People attempt to deny it, but I feel like there is something undeniably intriguing about Dakota Johnson as an actress … I don’t know what it is. But the almost deadpan delivery, and amusing detachment, it is hard to describe, but it just comes across as kind of cool and elevating. It is no exception here. She is one of the only bright spots of the film I feel like.

The second is Sydney Sweeney who is the best actress of the three young ladies in the film, and kind of for the same reason. Like … there is something that shouldn’t work with how she delivers lines. But it works in almost everything I’ve seen her in.

The bad guy … woooooooooof. They ADRed everything and it was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it was just because of some weird reason where they didn’t like his strange Peruvian accent he was affecting or something. It was weird.

Great use of Toxic by Brittany though.

And the ending at a literal fireworks factory was also a faintly amusing touch.

And of course we get to see baby Spiderman and secret Uncle Ben as well.

And then the film ends with her in a wheelchair with no joke the craziest pair of sunglasses I’ve ever seen. YOU HAVE TO SEE THESE FUCKING SUNGLASSES!!

What a very strange but very entertaining and weird film. What a great addition to the annals of BMT. Dare I suggest … a Hall of Fame film?

I do love the several instances of Product Placement (What?) involving Pepsi including at the (real life) giant Pepsi sign in Queens (apparently). And obviously a hilarious Worst Twist (How?) on the reveal that Madame Web owns a hilarious pair of sunglasses. Wait, that isn’t it, it was that the Ben we knew and loved throughout the film was indeed THAT Uncle Ben. This movie is BMT through and through, it is great.

Read about the sequel that will never be made in the Quiz, Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Halloween Kills Recap

Jamie

You better believe it’s time to finally put to rest the Halloween series and end its BMT reign of terror. Much like Michael Myers it is an unstoppable force of lore. Even when you think they are rebooting the franchise they can’t escape the lore that weighs heavy on their souls. That sums up the first of the reboot films, once again titled Halloween, which appears to serve a singular purpose: to tell everyone that Laurie Strode is in fact NOT Michael Myers’ sister. Literally every other dumb thing in the franchise? We love it and you also love it so that’s how we’ll make the movie. We shall construct the entire film of references. Is it Spring? Cause I’m finding all these easter eggs in my movie. Yummy yummy. But you better forget Laurie Strode being Michael Myers’ sister. That’s not an easter egg. That’s duuuuuummmbbbbbbbb. Sorry, I didn’t even like the first film in this reboot… and that got great reviews! I’m sure the second will be better.

To recap, Michael Myers is back, Jack! This time he’s surviving a big ol’ fire and starting back up on his rampage. Laurie Strode is in the hospital and everyone just wants her to get better (awww). So when they hear that Myers actually survived they want to keep it from her. But her granddaughter Allyson is like ‘F that fo sho,” and joins up with Tommy Doyle (just can’t stop, won’t stop bringing everything back) to hunt him down. Once Laurie wakes up she finds out about Michael and is all like “He’s definitely coming here because he targets me for some unknown reason even though I’m not even his sister cause that would be dumb.” Everyone gets all jazzed to the point when a different escaped asylum patient stumbles his way into the hospital they all chase him to his death. It’s hilarious (no, no really. It’s unintentionally hilarious). Oh right, I forgot, Michael is still killing people this whole time, but it’s random. Tommy, Allyson and the gang catch up with him. Guess what? He kills some of them. They then track him to his old house where he kills them some more. Eventually Laurie’s daughter Karen is able to lure him to his “death.” So that’s about that. Or is it? It’s not, come on. He wakes up and kills a bunch more people. THE END.

Oh nooooo! It wasn’t better at all. In fact it was way worse. The scene in the middle of the film where a different escaped mental patient is being chased by a mob and eventually jumps to his death is peak unintentional comedy. They could have played it during I Think You Should Leave and I wouldn’t have blinked. The first film had me thinking “we get it, Laurie Strode isn’t Michael’s sister. Give it a rest,” and it’s like the filmmakers heard me and said “Oh yeah, watch this.” The entire second act of the film seems to be made expressly to hammer home that Laurie isn’t special at all. That everyone assumed Myers had a reason for his kills, but he doesn’t. Great… so why did you spend so much time going on about how everyone thinks Michael and Laurie are connected? Why in this world would that even be a thing? It feels very Scream-ish… as if the whole series of films exist in this world and so everyone is trying to guess Michael’s next move based on their years of accumulated knowledge about him… but he’s just an old dude who escaped once before and killed some people. The meta-ness of it broke my brain and my spirit. I really did not like this movie. What have you done to my sweet, dear Halloween. Don’t you remember when you were young and full of hilarious lore? Why have you forsaken me?!!!!

Hot Take Clam Bake! You guessed it. Halloween.. You doth protest too much. Methinks Laurie Strode is in fact Michael Myers’ sister. Let’s look at the facts. First, you protested far too much. I didn’t even think she was his sister until you brought it up. Second, we don’t have any proof that he isn’t her sister. Have you seen a genetic test? Didn’t think so. So why are you doth protesting so much? Are you afraid of what the truth will reveal? Finally, have you thought about how funny it would be if in the third film they were suddenly like “you know what… fuck… she actually is his sister.” Just for that it’s got to be true. It’s just too good. Hot Take Temperature: A house aflame. 

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about people tricking fans into thinking Halloween was back Jack, when in reality it was just as out as it has ever been? Let’s go!

While watching the Rob Zombie Halloween I didn’t find that vision particularly compelling, but at least it was something. The second of his seemed to be intentionally provocative and a bit more annoying as he seemed to clearly not want to do a sequel.

But compared to this one? At least it had something to say. I guess a brief discussion of the first in the Green trilogy is warranted. That one positions itself as a direct sequel to the original (interesting) and explicitly throws out Laurie being Michael’s sister (excellent). After that though for the most part the film once again fails to have anything interesting to say. It tends to just reheat a bunch of leftovers from the now deprecated sequels (e.g. the gas station bathroom scene which is pretty much directly from the sixth I think). The only thing I would say is it ends on something of a high note as a coordinated effort by Laurie and her daughter manage to trick and trap Michael in a way that I found both surprising and delightful.

Now as for this one … it all turns to ashes in my mouth.

The movie is not scary, and seems to have too many characters moving all about Haddonfield with call backs to the original 70s film and the first Green film galore.

It then also has, bar none, perhaps the most embarrassing sequence in Halloween film history. This is for a franchise where the Cult of Thorn creates a zombie Michael Myers to yada yada yada something about Celtic lore and living forever maybe (or was that the third film …). The scene in the hospital where the mob is chasing the other mental patient who ultimately commits suicide … it is like a parody film. It is shot like shit, the music is shit, the idea is shit. If that bit wasn’t in the movie it is maybe passable, but right there the movie shows its hand a bit: when introducing novel elements to the franchise it flails about completely. It really can only reheat and reserve the elements we already know, and that is either inevitable for a franchise with 13 films now, or the unfortunate product of having Green as writer/director … his track record now suggests it might be the latter.

Anyways, the film was lame. So was Exorcist: Belieber. Why can’t people get these reboots even close to being right?

I did end up watching Halloween Ends. I have to say, at least it was somewhat inventive? I don’t really like what it was putting down. In a way, it is a bit like that Friday the 13th film where it turned out it was a copycat the whole time. It feels like a cheat to have a lot of the kills being done by not-Michael Myers. But I appreciate the interesting twist. It is an idea that skirts alongside the genetic connection with the niece in the original later sequels, but it is something I feel like the Halloween franchise needed to broach. It was okay.

Obviously an always great Settings as a Character (What?) for Haddonfield, Illinois. An A+ Holiday Film (When?) for Halloween of course. And a terrible no good Worst Twist (How?) for the dumb bit where people fuck around and find out that Michael Myers is an unstoppable killer and he kills everyone and gets away, dumb. I think this is a dumb Bad film, blah.

Read about the sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Argylle Recap

Jamie

BMT Live! Always a bit of calculus goes into picking these films. Do we hit up all the horror films that our hearts desire? Do we gobble up whatever Liam Neeson (aka The Neese) is up to these days? Do we wait for Statham to roll the dice on the seventeen films he’s starring in to figure out which one comes up snake eyes (but not Snake Eyes the Nic Cage film (or Snake Eyes the G.I. Joe picture))? These questions get us all twisted into knots until we find ourselves in the theater for a $200 million Apple film starring Bryce Dallas Howard that doesn’t even have “Jurassic” in the title. So maybe catching Argylle in the cinema was a mistake. Only time will tell. But at least we didn’t burn up a film that would have been an easy connection to the year-end Chain Reaction entry. That we are still in search of.

To recap, Elly Conway is the author of the Argylle series of books about a super spy. She, however, is not a super spy… or is she (she’s not… at least not yet). After punting on the ending of her latest entry, her parents implore her to come home and hash out the ending there. On the way, though, she finds herself seated with a mysterious man, Aiden, who claims that her books tell the future and that super spies are going to be coming in to kill her. Wha-wha-what? That’s crazy. Not as crazy as all the super spy shit that happens right after. They escape and go to London in search of a masterkey that her books are apparently leading the way to. There she ends up finding out that her parents are part of the group of people trying to get her. In fact her whole life seems to have been a set up for writing these books in hopes of leading the baddies to this MacGuffin. Ultimately, Elly finds out that she and Aiden were involved… sexually. She also finds out that she was a double agent and at one point was helping the baddies do their bad shit, but then she stole the key and lost her memory. That very clearly and obviously explains all the twists. No problem. She uses this to her advantage as she is able to flip the script on the bad guys and send the key to the former CIA director. All kinds of real kooky fighting stuff happens, but it doesn’t matter because the good guys win the day and Elly and Aiden smooch… hard. THE END.

This is some real Hypnotic starring Ben Affleck shit going on in this $200 million Apple film. It’s kind of the same movie. An agent hides a MacGuffin and then their memory is erased. They then are put through elaborate mind games to try to get the agent to naturally lead them to the MacGuffin. But not so fast, the agent actually uses this against them to prevent them from getting the MacGuffin. Then in a midcredits sequence the crowd goes wild as Jeff Fahey/Henry Cavill (the Jeff Fahey of his era) appears to be alive. So imagine Hypnotic except at one point Bryce Dallas Howard slaps some knives on her shoes and skates around a room where the floor has been covered in oil. That happened. It’s mega stupid. Straight dumb. It’s like Kingsman but real dumbo for real. As an in-theater experience it was kind of horrible. Not because the movie was dumb or anything (at times that helped), but rather because it is 140 minutes long and all those responsible for that should be arrested. Hypnotic was only 94 minutes… you taking notes, Argylle?

Hot Take Clam Bake! Seems obvious to me that Elly actually was just an author with the ability to see the future that was then hypnotized into having super spy skills so that they could then double hypnotize her into being an author again. Then they could go through the ruse of revealing the original ruse (which wasn’t a ruse at all) which would trick her into using her fake spy skillz to get the masterkey (which is worthless) and handing it over Samuel L. Jackson (who is actually Samuel L. Jackson hired to portray a former CIA agent in the context of the film). This then prompts her to go back to her life as an author and write her next book which will reveal the vital secrets about the future that the bad guys are hoping to inspire her to write using the original double ruse. That then makes it obvious why the real Agent Argylle shows up at the end. He’s always been real because the books are telling real amazing stories of the future… I mean… duh, right? Hot Take Temperature: Jeff Fahey. 

Patrick? 

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about the worst trailer I’ve ever seen and dumb bullshit involving spies and ice skating?! Let’s go!

Jesus, where to start. The beginning of this film is quite fun I suppose, although any moment with John Cena and/or Henry Cavill is painful. It then takes a turn that … well we’ll get to that.

The whirly bird dance might also be the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I see what you are doing Vaughn, and I don’t find it amusing or clever or whatever you are thinking with this bullshit.

The entire middle of the film when she doesn’t know she’s an agent is a decent conceit if quite poorly executed and looking like shit. The idea that a mystery writer kind of vaguely stumbles onto a story that is reminiscent of real life spycraft and so they kidnap her. And then she has enough experience to kind of pull it off and crack the case? That’s almost like Miss Marple or Murder, She Wrote. An interesting concept I think. Unfortunately …

That isn’t the actual story. You see, actually the whole twist’em’up is that Bryce Dallas Howard was a spy who lost her memory in an explosion and the whole book thing was actually a way for the (evil) spy system to try and get her memory back before she exposes them all … dumb.

And of course it ends on a giant dumb looking set piece complete with (gulp) an ice skating scene in oil in which Howard kills a bunch of people with a knife.

We of course watched this film live and it is one of those films that begs the question of why it exists. As a matter of fact, why does the entire Kingsmen universe exist? The first was good, the second bad, the third not much better. Now there are like fourteen different Kingsmen adjacent films being made (including this one) and I just can’t quite figure out who will be watching / paying for these. Huge Zach Snyder energy.

Which I guess means I should float my hot take / theory: Matthew Vaughn and Zach Snyder I think maybe are being tricked / intentionally deceiving themselves into thinking their junk is popular? Imagine a world in which a PR person run amok creates a bot army that demands The Snyder Cut / The Kingsmen Cinematic Universe. Now imagine you are a narcissist who reads this PR material on like … r/MatthewVaughn or whatever. Now imagine you are convinced that everyone in the world loves the Kingsmen universe. Armed with this opinion (and the “data” to back it up) something like Argylle is created via a forged blank check. Actually that’s what I will call this: this is a Forged Blank Check film. A clear blank check film but where it doesn’t seem like the person earned it.

I think this is a weird Product Placement (What?) or perhaps more accurately Vertical Integration with the use of the (Apple exclusive I assume) new Beatles song which is, admittedly, quite catchy. We got a Road Trip film (Where?) which is truly an international affair. We have a MacGuffin (Why?) naturally (what spy caper doesn’t?) for the super secret thumb drive containing all the spy secrets that they don’t want to get out. And a final Worst Twist (How?) for the reveal that she is actually a spy and the whole thing was a ruse by the very eeeeeevil Bryan Cranston. I think this movie is Bad, boring, trite, and just plain not very enjoyable (it reminded me a bit of something like The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard).

Read about my cinematic universe in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Dark Tower Recap

Jamie

Now here’s the main event. Everything about The Dark Tower saga was a disaster. We aren’t just talking about a Stephen King adaptation, which historically have been a boon for BMT. We aren’t just talking about a “long gestating project” where every filmmaker under the sun declared the property to be very important to them, wanting to make a multimedia empire of it, and then bailing once the gestation got even longer. We aren’t just talking about a bold reimagining of the property to the point where the filmmakers had to be like “no no no, you don’t understand. It’s not actually an adaptation of The Dark Tower… it’s just another entry in the series.” This is all three of those things. Once aiming to encompass the series in films, TV, Quibi shows (probably), etc. they instead dropped a 95 minute original Dark Tower story right in the laps of the fans of the series. That… didn’t go well.

To recap, Jake Chambers is a boy who dreams about all kinds of crazy things. He dreams of a man in black aiming to destroy the world using the minds of kids like himself. He dreams of a gunslinger who is one of the only ones that stands in his way. He dreams of alien creatures scouring the Earth for… him. This would all be OK if it wasn’t for the fact that they make everyone think he’s crazy. It’s also a little strange that while he’s dreaming these things there appears to be a real life connection to a series of earthquakes in NYC. When his mom and stepdad look to send him to a special school to take care of things he starts to suspect that his dreams are real and those that have arrived to take him away are in the service of the man in black. He makes a run for it and goes in search of a house he saw in his dreams. Once there he is sucked into another dimension… the world that he dreamed of. There he finds Roland, the gunslinger, and he is convinced to help Jake interpret his dreams about the man in black, who Roland knows as Walter. Meanwhile, Walter follows the path of Jake and kills his mother and stepdad after determining that Jake is powerful enough to single handedly achieve his goal: destroying the Dark Tower and consuming Earth. Jake and Roland find out that they have to go back to Earth to get to the Tower and while there Jake is captured by Walter. Before he is taken to the Tower he is able to alert Roland about how to follow and then keeps the portal open so that Walter and Roland have to fight. They do and Roland wins. He and Jake destroy the machine and head off on many adventures we are sure to see in the sequels. THE END.

I’m always a little ready to defend films like this. Just because something doesn’t stay true to the source material doesn’t mean it’s necessarily bad. Maybe by not reading the Dark Tower books it would put me in a position to be like “it’s more different than bad.” Ehhhhhh. They really did take a beloved book franchise by a master of fantasy, science fiction, and horror and turned it into a YA novel. It reads like Harry Potter or The Maze Runner or, god help us, Divergent. It honestly is a lot like what the Platonic Solids series would be (with fewer sexy swamp monsters and phantoms of the opera). Imagine for a second that they made the It film and instead of it being a horror film it was more like Stand By Me with McConaughey playing Pennywise who now isn’t a clown but more like a land developer looking to turn their pops’ soda pop shop into a parking lot… people might have a problem with that. Just to end on a positive note, I did like how short it was and also there was a scene where Idris Elba shoots someone from like a mile away that was cool. He gunslang real good. Otherwise, I already barely remember this movie and fully understand the reviews.

Hot Take Clam Bake! What if… Earth was actually the dreams. Whooooaaaaa. Maybe when Jake was dreaming he was actually awake and when we see Jake on Earth it’s actually the dream. Five seconds after the end of the film it actually ends with a close up on Roland’s eye and it opens. Then Roland’s wife is like “Honey, you OK. Another dream?” and he’s like “Yah… I dreamed about that kid Jake again… I gotta draw it out.” And he rolls out of bed and makes a sick charcoal drawing of Jake and hangs it up on his wall amongst all the other pictures of Jake. Then the movie starts in on a perfect, straight adaptation of The Gunslinger and fans. Go. Crazy. Hot Take Temperature: The Scorch. 

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about yet another Stephen King adaptation except this is for maybe the fourth (?) book in a long running franchise … someone check on Stephen King he might be doing too much cocaine again. Let’s go!

Whoops they accidentally made this a Young Adult novel adaptation.

Because I’ve read the first in the series before and it is a weird and wild western / sci-fi / fantasy oddity. The stuff in this movie I don’t think comes into play until Stephen King almost died in that car accident and then he started to connect all his books via the inbetween worlds from The Mist. I think the big mistake was jumping directly into the middle of the series. If anything, make a prequel movie which then ends with Roland wandering the desert in the first book.

Instead we jump right into a story about the Dark Tower protecting humanity, and the Man in Black, and some kid, etc. etc. etc.

The kid BTW appears to just have a British accent at times. No offense to him but there are zero kids in the US who could have played this part? Are we so lacking in acting talent that you couldn’t at least plug that hole before it broke open. The accent work is quite distracting.

I do somewhat appreciate the lore though, and I also appreciate that the film doesn’t feel the need to twist stuff around to give Roland a love interest or something else weird. It has that YA feel, but more in the vein of father-son bonding rather than high school drama. That is probably at least a decent option out of all the bad YA options available.

Yeah, just a weird start to what was clearly supposed to be the beginning of a franchise. I’m not sure if they were thinking of then jumping backwards, forging a new path forwards, or whether tying up all the loose ends was just a desperate ploy once they realized that this film was not going to be well received and the franchise was dead in the water.

A decent Product Placement (What?) for Coca-Cola in the middle of the film. A bizarre Setting as a Character (Where?) for New York City since I half-expected them to reveal the kid was actually from England since that is how he sounded a lot of the time. The MacGuffin (Why?) of the Dark Tower and The Man in Black and The Gunslinger is mighty close to being that perfect Cradle of Life nonsense I love to see, but doesn’t quite get there. I think the movie is Bad, mostly boring and too YA to be entertaining, just kind of sad.

Read about my sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fist Fight Recap

Jamie

The premise of the year-long cycle is to get a whole mess of great BMT films and feed Franchise Man till he’s big and fat. Unfortunately this is also creating some angst when it comes to the always tricky Chain Reaction entry in the cycle. We have to keep on moving backwards and so how can we be sure to pick up the best of the best when we need to connect Fool’s Paradise to some random film from 2016-2022? It’s one step too far and means that instead of watching the Stephen King catastrophe of an adaptation, The Dark Tower, we instead insist on watching Fist Fight starring Charlie Day… Fist Fight?! Fist Fight. What are we doing here? A double bonus week, that’s what we’re doing. Now you might be saying “Hey wait, aren’t you guys always falling behind? And you’re going to do a double bonus week for no reason?” The answer to that is simple. Yes and yes.

To recap, Charlie Day is a teacher with an expanding family, a lack of backbone, and a tenuous hold on his job. It’s the end of the year and pink slips are being given out at an alarming rate all while Senior Prank Day is going unchecked by the administration. His fellow teacher, Ice Cube, faces this power vacuum by levying out corporal punishment and verbal tirades against the kids in his class to the point where it is upsetting. When Charlie points out a prankster in his midsts, Ice Cube goes nuclear and ultimately Charlie has to tattle on him to try to keep his job. Now the target of Ice Cube, Charlie spends the rest of the last day of school trying to prevent Ice Cube from beating him up in the parking lot after school. This involves attempting to bribe the kid you told on Ice Cube to recant his statement (he does, but the fight is still on) and trying to get Ice Cube arrested (which ends up with both of them in jail). Once back at school Charlie becomes jaded by the lack of care that the superintendent is giving to laying off his fellow teachers and grows a backbone. He lays into him and storms off to be at his daughter’s talent show. There they perform a crude rendition of a song, further cementing Charlie as a “bad boy who doesn’t give a – shut your mouth.” Jazzed up on all this backbone, Charlie heads back to the school where he battles Ice Cube and holds his own. At the end he finds out that his wife is giving birth and he and Ice Cube make up. Using the publicity that the fight generated, Charlie is able to help everyone keep their jobs and gets the school more money. THE END.

Fist Fight is way better than I expected it to be. You can see clearly why someone would read the script and be like “oh yeah, this setup has a lot of potential.” It’s like a spoof film in how far they take the bit about the kids running rampant over the school. We also get Kumail Nanjiani in a funny role and a musical act involving Day and his kid that is actually amusing rather than cringey. The only issue I had was a reliance on improvisation for the script. Someone still has to say something funny once in a while for the improv to work. Apparently people didn’t for long stretches of time. Either that or they were choosing the wrong takes. Still it was better than I thought it would be and the final fight more or less paid off so I’m not sure what happened with the reviews. Maybe critics just didn’t like Day spending a five minute section in the middle of the film shooting a commercial for Apple.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Ice Cube killed Charlie Day in the final fight. He punched him in the face and shattered his skull and Charlie Day died. Notice how everything worked out so well for everyone after he got his skull caved in and he (allegedly) didn’t die? That’s because he (not so allegedly) actually did die. Ice Cube killed him, went to jail, and then the school had to shut down when Day’s wife sued the town for his wrongful death and won a whole boatload of money and everyone lived happily ever after (except Ice Cube (and Charlie Day because he died)). Hot Take Temperature: Macbook Pro 

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about Hollywood megastar and definitely leading man Charlie Day fighting Hollywood megastar and perennial mean-one-in-an-unlikely-movie-odd-couple Ice Cube? Let’s go!

The movie is definitely funnier than expected. Nanjiani and Day in particular are both quite good in their parts, and I laughed more than once. That is an unexpectedly high number of times to laugh during a bad comedy. I usually laugh zero times. Or even worse, somehow a bad comedy peers into my soul and erases previously laughs from my life, making me sadder both now and in the past somehow.

I like that they didn’t pull punches with Ice Cube in the film. He isn’t just kind of mean. He isn’t just kind of rough around the edges. He is a genuine psycho who should definitely have been fired.

If anything one of the major issues of the film is what I’d call the Sandler Effect. In (mostly older) Adam Sandler films there is often a moment where he for one reason or another decides to beat the shit out of someone. Sure this person usually seems to have it coming in some ways, but still, Sandler assaults this person and then (worse) the movie twists itself and bends reality to convince you that this was definitely the correct thing to do, thus doubling down on what is already a bad message.

In this film Ice Cube is a psycho who hacks a desk to pieces and deserves to be fired. After getting his just desserts he turns around and decides to fight Day for the somewhat tenuous reason of “snitches get stitches”. Cool, he’s a psycho so this logically makes sense. But then the twist’em’ups keeps coming. Now Ice Cube figures there is no reason to fight Day because he’s a coward, but he needs to show kids that actions (getting Ice Cube fired for being a psycho) have consequences (beating up Day in front of the school) … uh okay, you’re a psycho so that logic I guess still makes sense. But then in the end Ice Cube even acknowledges that this would be fruitless, but he is still going to beat the shit out of Day because then the world will see how the broken U.S. education system has pitted teacher against teacher and yada yada yada change or whatever. Which is … that is well beyond lunatic behavior and now is into a realm of nonsense all unto itself. But then what does the movie do? Twist itself up and bends reality to vindicate Ice Cube and that is precisely what happens! People see the teacher fight and the school saves its teachers and everything lives happily ever after, hooray! Crazy.

The second weirdest bit is the Apple commercial that occurs in the middle of the film where Day buys multiple Apple MacBook Pros with AppleCare and his wife is like “THIS COMPUTER IS AWESOME!” C’mon now.

So yeah. This film kind of feels like a movie I would have written in creative writing class when I was 16 complete with messy nonsensical third act.

It might win the Product Placement (What?) for the Apple MacBook ad in the middle of the film. I think I’m going with Super Secret Holiday Film (When?) for the last day of school which does come up in other films with some relative frequency. And yeah, I’m going with a Worst Twist (How?) for the inevitable conclusion that Day doesn’t win the fight, but that he does well enough that everyone respects him a bit more. I think the film is closest to Good, I laughed a few times.

Read about my Hollywood-esque sequel to the film in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs