Oh man, so get this. My parents are getting married … again? Whatever, it is a whole thing. And while preparing this like crazy people I fell unconscious from exhaustion and now can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) We back baby. Might as well start here: who is the titular wedding between in this film?
2) What other storylines do we have? Well, the daughter is deciding between two colleges in the film. Which ones?
3) What else … oh yeah, the father is obsessed with the fact that he is specifically a descendant from who? In the end his daughter fakes a genetic test to “prove” her father right.
4) Also in the film the father gets quite badly injured, or at least, has to go to the hospital. Where does he get stuck?
5) When the father gets a bit tipsy in the police car on the way to the wedding the mother gets angry that he isn’t taking it seriously. What special guest at the wedding is there to save the day by convincing her of his love?
Bonus Question: We are remaking this film. What is the story?
The labyrinth is playing tricks on Patrick’s mind. Every time he turns a corner he catches a glimpse of Jamie and his demon lovers, but just as quickly he’s gone. “How are they so fast?” Patrick thinks, but then remembers that they are demons. When he turns the next corner he finds himself in a fancy restaurant. “What thuuuu…” Patrick says dumbly. “What thuuuu… What thuuuuu… cat got your tongue, Patrick?” Patrick hears Jamie say from behind him. “And where’s the wife? I was really hoping the whole gang could be here tonight.” Patrick turns slowly and sees Jamie and the two demons sitting at a table set for five. “She’s, uh…” Patrick says, but he shakes his head. This isn’t real. This is all meaningless. He has to keep a grasp on the real world. He sits down without saying more. “Riiight, well if this is everyone I have a speech.” Jamie says and the demons coo in their creepy demon way. “Before I met you two I was afraid. Afraid of life. Afraid of the future. But now I realize that the only thing I have to fear is fear itself. And that’s a Jamie original quote you can take to the bank.” Everyone in the restaurant applauds at his very original toast. “I love you,” Jamie says and the two demons croak an “I love you” back and it sounds like the voices of a thousand damned souls. “Will you…” Jamie takes a deep breath, “Will you marry me?” The nerdy demon faints and the sexy minx demon smooches Jamie deeply. “What…” Patrick stammers, stumbling backwards, “No… What is this devil…” Jamie smiles too broadly in his direction, his eyes speaking a horror that belies the glee in his Ray Liotta-like mask face. “Demon Wedding!” That’s right! We are partaking in the most damned of BMT weddings. That would be the two (that’s right, two!) Big Fat Greek Wedding sequels. The first was an unlikely smash. The other two? Not as much. Let’s go!
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023) – BMeTric: 38.6; Notability: 28
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 9.6%; Notability: top 2.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 14.4%; Higher BMeT: The Exorcist: Believer, Meg 2: The Trench, Expend4bles, The Black Demon, Knights of the Zodiac, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, 65, The Ritual Killer, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, Maybe I Do, White Men Can’t Jump, Retribution, In the Fire, Hypnotic, House Party, Fool’s Paradise, Heart of Stone, Locked In, and 4 more; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, Expend4bles, House Party, Haunted Mansion, Heart of Stone, The Out-Laws; Lower RT: Confidential Informant, Freelance, The Ritual Killer, 57 Seconds, Assassin Club, Expend4bles, In the Fire, On a Wing and a Prayer, Fool’s Paradise, The Tutor, Vacation Friends 2, Robots, The Re-Education of Molly Singer, The Out-Laws, Knights of the Zodiac, Mafia Mamma, The Exorcist: Believer, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Pain Hustlers, God Is a Bullet, and 10 more; Notes: I think ultimately we did fine for the end of the year cycle, but if things continue this way we’ll probably have to think through a new metric. It was quite a scramble to put things together.
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – The original 2002 “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is one of the most financially successful movies ever made, in terms of cost-to-return, earning over $360 million worldwide on a $5 million production budget. Of course, there would be sequels; the only mystery is why there haven’t been five or ten by now, rather than just two. The films are formulaic, but it’s an appealing formula, like a family recipe for a comfort food dish that isn’t going to win any Michelin stars but satisfies because it reminds you of being loved and taken care of. … This second sequel is escapist in a next-level way: it escapes from drama as well as life. The Greek tourism board is going to love it.
(Yup. That is also a bit confusing but I think ultimately it comes down to: Nia Vardalos didn’t want to do them until she had to / she was ready for MBFGW to maybe be a franchise she churns out. Unfortunately I think they waited too long if that was the plan. It would have made a lot more sense to have already done five and be calling it a day by now. I guess I could see a fourth though with the idea being it is the daughter’s wedding and now they are the weird Greek parents.)
(A lot of things happened … my father passed away. Well that is a downer of start to the trailer. The movie looks quite nice. But also it seems probably like it is not funny.)
Directors – Nia Vardalos – ( Known For: I Hate Valentine’s Day; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: Canadian actually, although her parents are (obviously) Greek. She is a US citizen now though.)
Writers – Nia Vardalos – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Connie and Carla; Future BMT: Larry Crowne; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: Her actual father was in the first two films in a small Greek role.)
Actors – Nia Vardalos – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; For a Good Time, Call…; The Curse of Bridge Hollow; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Connie and Carla; Wonder Woman: Bloodlines; Charming; Helicopter Mom; Dealin’ with Idiots; McKenna Shoots for the Stars; Men Seeking Women; Car Dogs; Future BMT: Larry Crowne; My Life in Ruins; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: Was married to one of the minor stars of the first and second film, Ian Gomez, who plays her husband’s police officer friend.)
John Corbett – ( Known For: Tombstone; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; Serendipity; Volcano; The Silence; To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You; To All the Boys: Always and Forever; 47 Meters Down: Uncaged; Gully; The Burning Plain; Ramona and Beezus; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Dinner Rush; Baby on Board; Elvis Has Left the Building; The Lookalike; Dreamland; All Saints; Bigger Than the Sky; Future BMT: Street Kings; The Messengers; Raising Helen; Raise Your Voice; Flight of the Intruder; God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness; BMT: Sex and the City 2; The Boy Next Door; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: Done a lot of random television, although still Sex in the City. And he’s somehow an integral part of the To All the Boys series.)
Louis Mandylor – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; Avengement; Doom: Annihilation; The Doorman; Daylight’s End; Sinners and Saints; One in the Chamber; Wrong Turn at Tahoe; The Game of Their Lives; Code of Honor; Night Walk; Renegades; Not Another Not Another Movie; Take; Antidote; Gang of Roses; Suckers; The Prometheus Project; Betrayal; Sorority Party Massacre; Future BMT: Mafia!; Necessary Roughness; BMT: Rambo: Last Blood; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; Memory; The Quest; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: Wait … he got third billing? His storyline in this is while. He has a crazy bad fake tan, and whitens his teeth, and dyes his hair and looks crazy. Reminder: this film is supposed to take place like six months after the original … yeah. Notably played “Joey’s Twin” on Friends.)
(You know what? That ain’t bad. I would guess the film still cost around $20 million to make because I bet Greece itself paid a bunch for the location. So it might have actually turned a profit.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 29% (27/94): Amiable and sunny if often unamusing, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 repeats much of what audiences loved the first time around but suffers from diminishing returns.
(It got better reviews than the second one! That is kind of weird. That rating is pretty much in line what I would have expected as well.)
Reviewer Highlight: The script functions like a recipe for its own opening shot of baklava; flattened and bland, Toula exists only to constrain the nuts. – Amy Nicholson, New York Times
(I’m just going to give this a C and move on. It’s the same as the second. Same as the first but doesn’t work as well because without the family trying to bust in from the side the spacing just seems weird.)
Tagline(s) – They’re Headed to the Homeland
(Sure. C-. I mean, you can’t just say what it is and get it by me. I’m pretty strict when it comes to grading the taglines.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Flash (2023)
Future BMT: 84.4 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 66.6 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 50.0 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), 47.9 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 43.3 House Party (2023), 43.0 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 37.0 Paint (2023), 32.9 Freelance (2023), 31.4 The Machine (2023), 28.1 Haunted Mansion (2023), 27.4 Love Again (2023), 19.8 The Marsh King’s Daughter (2023), 18.3 Nefarious (2023), 9.1 Camp Hideout (2023), 8.2 Sweetwater (2023), 7.9 Back on the Strip (2023)
BMT: Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Expend4bles (2023), 65 (2023), Retribution (2023), Hypnotic (2023), Mafia Mamma (2023), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), About My Father (2023), Fear (2023)
Best Options (Romance):36.4 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), 27.4 Love Again (2023)
(The only real good option. Looking at the ones we’ve done this year though … we did pretty well! I’m surprised.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Lainie Kazan is No. 4 billed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 and No. 4 billed in Gigli, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (4 + 4) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 16. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – Michael Constantine passed away in 2021. This movie is dedicated to his memory.
Michael Constantine, Bruce Gray, and Constantine Vardalos all passed away after My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. This film is dedicated to them.
First film that doesn’t feature Ian Gomez.
This movie only takes one year after the events of My Big Fat Wedding 2.
Elias Kacavis (Aristotle) wears a shirt that says “The Second City Chicago”. Nia Vardalos was a member of The Second City comedy group at the beginning of her career.
The labyrinth is playing tricks on Patrick’s mind. Every time he turns a corner he catches a glimpse of Jamie and his demon lovers, but just as quickly he’s gone. “How are they so fast?” Patrick thinks, but then remembers that they are demons. When he turns the next corner he finds himself in a fancy restaurant. “What thuuuu…” Patrick says dumbly. “What thuuuu… What thuuuuu… cat got your tongue, Patrick?” Patrick hears Jamie say from behind him. “And where’s the wife? I was really hoping the whole gang could be here tonight.” Patrick turns slowly and sees Patrick and the two demons sitting at a table set for five. “She’s, uh…” Patrick says, but he shakes his head. This isn’t real. This is all meaningless. He has to keep a grasp on the real world. He sits down without saying more. “Riiight, well if this is everyone I have a speech.” Jamie says and the demons coo in their creepy demon way. “Before I met you two I was afraid. Afraid of life. Afraid of the future. But now I realize that the only thing I have to fear is fear itself. And that’s a Jamie original quote you can take to the bank.” Everyone in the restaurant applauds at his very original toast. “I love you,” Jamie says and the two demons croak an “I love you” back and it sounds like the voices of a thousand damned souls. “Will you…” Jamie takes a deep breath, “Will you marry me?” The nerdy demon faints and the sexy minx demon smooches Jamie deeply. “What…” Patrick stammers, stumbling backwards, “No… What is this devil…” Jamie smiles too broadly in his direction, his eyes speaking a horror that belies the glee in his Ray Liotta-like mask face. “Demon Wedding!” That’s right! We are partaking in the most damned of BMT weddings. That would be the two (that’s right, two!) Big Fat Greek Wedding sequels. The first was an unlikely smash. The other two? Not as much. Let’s go!
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (2016) – BMeTric: 30.8; Notability: 36
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 21.2%; Notability: top 13.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 20.9%; Higher BMeT: Fifty Shades of Black, Cell, Zoolander 2, Yoga Hosers, The Forest, Exposed, Cabin Fever, Meet the Blacks, Max Steel, The Darkness, Dark Crimes, God’s Not Dead 2, Blair Witch, Independence Day: Resurgence, The 5th Wave, Shut In, Gods of Egypt, Get a Job, The Boss, The Other Side of the Door, and 33 more; Higher Notability: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, Zoolander 2, Independence Day: Resurgence, Alice Through the Looking Glass, The Brothers Grimsby, Warcraft, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, Allegiant, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Ice Age: Collision Course, Now You See Me 2, Ben-Hur, The Legend of Tarzan, The Great Wall, Criminal, Live by Night, Assassin’s Creed, Gods of Egypt, and 13 more; Lower RT: True Memoirs of an International Assassin, Max Steel, Dark Crimes, Hacker, Cabin Fever, The Darkness, Fifty Shades of Black, Shut In, Misconduct, Mother’s Day, Exposed, The Do-Over, Get a Job, I.T., I Am Wrath, God’s Not Dead 2, The Forest, Dirty Grandpa, Cell, The Choice, and 32 more; Notes: We are five for ten on the higher notability count, but otherwise on BMeT and RT we aren’t looking so hot. Although the only one I would say I’m super excited for is eventually watching Max Steel.
RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – The original “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” was a fluke. A charming, warmhearted fluke, but a fluke nonetheless. It was broad and sitcom-y but it resonated with a wide array of moviegoers, despite the peculiarities of its cultural specificity, and it made a mind-boggling $369 million worldwide in 2002 … Her script is a mess, and no amount of Windex can clean it up.
(Wow, that is way lower than I would have expected. The film isn’t good, but it also isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Mostly it is just aggravating. This franchise oddly grew out of the era of horrible awkwardness and this film is now exception.)
(The jokes are terrible and honestly the “Why do you want to leave me!” is maybe the worst line of the series. It makes her look like a lunatic … which maybe the character is? But at least we have a story that seems somewhat fun and makes sense.)
Directors – Kirk Jones – ( Known For: Nanny McPhee; Everybody’s Fine; Waking Ned Devine; BMT: What to Expect When You’re Expecting; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; Notes: I think he might be retired. I wonder if this film was basically one last check to get him into a relatively early retirement (he was early 50s at the time). He was somewhat famous for advertising.)
Writers – Nia Vardalos – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Connie and Carla; Future BMT: Larry Crowne; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: She’s the main actress in the series and eventually directs the third. She’s done a lot of random stuff over the years, but almost certainly can just live off of My Big Fat Greek Wedding if she wanted to.)
Actors – Nia Vardalos – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; For a Good Time, Call…; The Curse of Bridge Hollow; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Connie and Carla; Wonder Woman: Bloodlines; Charming; Helicopter Mom; Dealin’ with Idiots; McKenna Shoots for the Stars; Men Seeking Women; Car Dogs; Future BMT: Larry Crowne; My Life in Ruins; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: The first movie started as a one woman play and Rita Wilson saw it and got Tom Hanks to produce a movie out of it.)
John Corbett – ( Known For: Tombstone; My Big Fat Greek Wedding; To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; Serendipity; Volcano; The Silence; To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You; To All the Boys: Always and Forever; 47 Meters Down: Uncaged; Gully; The Burning Plain; Ramona and Beezus; I Hate Valentine’s Day; Dinner Rush; Baby on Board; Elvis Has Left the Building; The Lookalike; Dreamland; All Saints; Bigger Than the Sky; Future BMT: Street Kings; The Messengers; Raising Helen; Raise Your Voice; Flight of the Intruder; God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness; BMT: Sex and the City 2; The Boy Next Door; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3; Notes: I would have guessed his Emmy nom was for Sex in the City, but nope, he got a nomination in 1992 for Supporting Actor for Northern Exposure. He was Aiden Shaw in Sex in the City which IIRC was basically the “other guy” Carrie could have ended up with in the end. He shows up in the second movie.)
Michael Constantine – ( Known For: My Big Fat Greek Wedding; The Hustler; My Life; Prancer; Deadfall; Hawaii; Voyage of the Damned; The Reivers; If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium; Pray for Death; Skidoo; The North Avenue Irregulars; In the Mood; Don’t Drink the Water; Peeper; Beau Geste; Justine; The Last Mile; Island of Love; Forty Days of Musa Dagh; Future BMT: Thinner; The Juror; BMT: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2; Notes: He was quite old in the second film and ultimately died in 2021. He won an Emmy for Room 222 in 1970.)
Budget/Gross – $18 million / Domestic: $59,689,605 (Worldwide: $90,632,641)
(That still ain’t bad. I’m a little surprised they managed to keep the cost below $20 million. Given the success of the first they could have blown it out for some destination version which they ultimately did for the third.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (48/175): My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 is as sweet and harmless as the original, but its collection of sitcom gags and stereotypes never coalesces into anything resembling a story with a purpose.
(Yeah, that sounds about right. I mean, that was the same with the first, but at the time that felt at least somewhat fresh and original.)
NY Times Review: Even those who have spent the last 14 years pining for a sequel to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” – by most accounts, the highest-grossing American romantic comedy – will rue that longing when they experience “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Time
(I like the blue. Like the font. Obviously just redoing the first poster with whatever changes are necessary. Doesn’t work as well as in the first because you don’t really know what this is about. First was good, this one retreats back to being mediocre. C.)
Tagline(s) – People change. Greeks don’t. (B)
(I like it. Short, sweet, and we know we are in for the retread. Sure there are differences, but the important stuff will be the same. Good enough for a tagline.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Flash (2023)
Future BMT: 84.4 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 66.6 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 50.0 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), 47.9 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 43.3 House Party (2023), 43.0 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 37.0 Paint (2023), 32.9 Freelance (2023), 31.4 The Machine (2023), 28.1 Haunted Mansion (2023), 27.4 Love Again (2023), 19.8 The Marsh King’s Daughter (2023), 18.3 Nefarious (2023), 9.1 Camp Hideout (2023), 8.2 Sweetwater (2023), 7.9 Back on the Strip (2023)
BMT: Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Expend4bles (2023), 65 (2023), Retribution (2023), Hypnotic (2023), Mafia Mamma (2023), My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), About My Father (2023), Fear (2023)
Best Options (Romance):36.4 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), 27.4 Love Again (2023)
(Yeah not very many good options this year. If I had my druthers we wouldn’t have even done this since it ended up dragging the second along with it was which a bit of a chore.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Lainie Kazan is No. 5 billed in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 and No. 4 billed in Gigli, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (5 + 4) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 17. If we were to watch Raising Helen, and Two for the Money we can get the HoE Number down to 16.
Notes – Nia Vardalos’ husband in real life at the time of filming, Ian Gomez was also in this film as Mike. They later divorced.
This sequel took over 13 years to be made and contains mostly all of the cast and crew from the first My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).
Filmed in Canada in Toronto’s Greektown area.
Mana-Yiayia speaks English for the first time in this film. In the previous film, she only speaks in Greek.
Third film that John Corbett and Nia Vardalos have been in together.
Fear is fantastic. Life changing really. All this time I was walking around not understanding the world. Like FDR stated to the nation “the only thing we have to fear is… fear itself.” I’m like, sure, but what about a vampire, FDR? Pretty scary stuff. But now I understand. He wasn’t talking about “fear” as a concept. He was talking about Fear the movie. Now I’m vibing, Frankie D. And take Star Wars. Yoda is all like “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” I’m like, yo, yoda, hold up. I’d be pretty scared of a Wookiee. He’d rip my arms off if he loses (and I always win). That won’t lead to the Dark Side. That’s just common sense. But now I’m back on Team Yoda. Fear definitely leads to anger, hate, suffering and the Dark Side. Yoda man, yoda. So there we go. Even before they made Fear, two of the greatest Americans of all time were lining up against it. Let’s see if they were right.
To recap, a bunch of dummies travel up to a closed resort in the middle of the pandemic in order to celebrate a birthday (and an engagement if the main character Rom would stop chickening out). His girlfriend, Bianca, has asthma and is skeptical about why they are up there. Rom is an author and everyone’s a little suspicious that maybe they are up there as part of research for his next book. He’s like “no, no” but really that’s exactly why they are there. Some spooky stuff starts happening, like the creepy resort owner feeds them garbage wine and their minds play some tricks on them, but really the scariest thing is Lou. You see, Lou is coughing a bunch and they are afraid he’s got Covid. Shortly thereafter they see a news report that a new super deadly strain of Covid is out and that everyone needs to stay inside. They throw Lou in the basement and one of their friends rushes out to be with her kid against their protests. When people find out what they did with Lou they go down to free him, but find him dead. Soon everyone is dying in a bunch of uninteresting ways vaguely connected to their own worst fears. By the end Bianca escapes to town where she finds that everything is OK and it was just the resort being a silly goose and pranking them. You done been Punk’d. THE END.
Woof. This movie is terrible. What a waste of time and potential. I could think up a million different ways that this could have worked. The first way was to make the fears interesting and then actually have them die that way. Claustrophobia, drownings, spiders, snakes, heights, etc. etc. etc. Now have a giant spider eat one of them. Instead they all die in super boring ways after we wade through a full hour of no one dying at all. It’s just a bunch of people fretting about Super Covid and bad mouthing T.I. There was a brief moment in the beginning where I thought we were going to get an old school slasher film like April Fool’s Day… but then it droned on and on and was just a dumb supernatural horror film. I hated this.
Hot Take Clam Bake. We shouldn’t have watched this. I know doing BMT is all about watching bad movies like this but, sigh, this wasn’t worth our time. We shouldn’t have watched this at all. We just shouldn’t have. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could go back and not watch this. It makes me question what we are up to. Does something need to change? How is it that we ended up having to watch this? Is BMT broken? Did we err in some way at some point? We just… we shouldn’t have watched this. Hot Take Temperature: Volcano.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Remember when horror films were scary or had any interesting ideas or (frankly) reasons to exist. Pepperidge Farm remembers. Let’s go!
This. Is. The. Worst. Film. I’ve. Seen. This. Year.
This film isn’t funny, charming, entertaining, nothing. This movie is garbage. It is a net negative. I cannot believe this was screened to producers and audiences and they went fuck it, release it, horror just prints money right?
Like, as we were watching this film we realized with growing fear (ha!) that we made a horrible mistake … obviously we should have done Five Nights at Freddy’s. This is a non-movie and doesn’t even deserve to be watched. This is the kind of movie where we are like “wait … are we somehow doing too many movies for BMT? Can we tweak the qualifications so that this specifically doesn’t qualify in the future?”
That would be my fear death. I would drink the fear juice and then later I would go into a trance and find myself in a theater watching Fear and being like “NO! I can’t watch this movie again!” And then ultimately I would walk over and like smash my face into a trashcan in the theater and in real life and die.
I’ve just been making fun of this movie. But there really isn’t anything redeemable here. The concept is stupid (an author drags his friends to a hotel with allegations of a witch coven based on fear, yada yada yada they all die from fear nonsense except the two that leave). The entire relationship to the pandemic is stupid (I don’t know if there are people in real life as stupid as the people in this movie are … I sure hope not). And it isn’t scary, the cardinal sin of horror. There is truly nothing about this movie I would call a kernel of an idea. It is all quite bad. And that is why it is the worst film of the year for me.
But even that is somehow being generous. There is no reason this should have been released to theaters. It should have been on Shudder where horror fans could have gone “meh” and I could have ignored it.
I’m going to go with Worst Twist (How?) for the obvious reveal that the entire second pandemic was fake news brought to you by the Lying Witch Coven of Strawberry Lodge. Sorry, the Strawberry Lodge witches merely subscribe to alternative facts, specifically that there is a severe airborne threat and you should all hang out in Strawberry Lodge. This movie is bad bad bad bad bad bad bad, and I really hope I don’t even give it the Bad award for BMT because it was too bad even for that.
Oh jesus, can I make a sequel to this … of course I can! One word: baby. Cheerios,
You just won’t believe this. So I was at the Strawberry Lodge for a long weekend, when I drank some of this dank fear juice and now I’m tripping balls. Unfortunately my biggest fear is forgetting what quizzes are about … do you remember what happened in Fear (2023)?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Why is the whole gang assembled at the Strawberry Lodge? Be specific, this is the reason given to the fiance.
2) But like … why are they reeeeeeeally at the Strawberry Lodge? Be specific, this is the reason the rest of the gang thinks is the case.
3) But like … what is the super duper secret reason they are at the Strawberry Lodge? Be specific, this is the reason the author actually suggested the place.
4) Welp, this place fucking sucks. Best get out of here. Except no one (except that one person) wants to. Why?
5) In the end the only thing they really had to fear was fear itself! Thanks FDR. Who survives the weekend at Strawberry Lodge?
Bonus Question: A year later we meet up with Bianca. What is she up to?
Jamie and Patrick look around them. They are no longer in the Antiquities Room. They don’t appear to be in a room at all. Instead it seems they’ve been transported to a dark, mysterious labyrinth. Screams of terror and pain (or is it pleasure?) surround them. They look forwards and then back, but the maze looks identical no matter where they look. “Should we just start…” Jamie begins but stops. A figure has appeared in front of them. They nervously turn back the other direction and… uh oh, another figure has appeared there as well. Jamie squits and after a moment of recognition his face turns bright. “Demon #1, my love, how are you?” he says to the first demon, who appears to be a nerdy lawyer he could grow old with. “And Demon #2, my darling, still having trouble with the truth?” he says, turning to the second demon, who is a sultry minx that Jamie could love, even though he knows she’d be bad for him. “Your hunky, muscle-bound guys have return,” he finishes with a debonair flourish. The demons appear to be taken aback. It looks like they want to says something to Jamie, but it’s hard to tell if they can talk. What would happen if they opened their mouths? Patrick doesn’t want to find out. They approach and Patrick readies a patented Twin Chop, but instead of sucking them into an otherworldly dimension they each grab one of Jamie’s arms and begin to coo in a loving and very disturbing way. They begin to pull Jamie through a side entrance in the maze (“Was that there the whole time?”, Jamie wonders). “They want us to go this way,” Jamie calls over his shoulder cheerily. Despite his intense fear, Patrick quickly follows the trio. That’s right! We are indeed watching Fear, a long delayed horror film made in the pandemic. By all accounts this delay made for a strange and very bad film. It’s a wonder they took it wide the theaters at all. Why not just dump it somewhere? Time to find out. Let’s go!
Fear (2023) – BMeTric: 26.0; Notability: 15
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 16.8%; Notability: top 12.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 6.3%; Higher BMeT: Expend4bles, The Exorcist: Believer, Meg 2: The Trench, The Black Demon, Knights of the Zodiac, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, 65, The Ritual Killer, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, Best. Christmas. Ever!, White Men Can’t Jump, Maybe I Do, Retribution, Hypnotic, In the Fire, House Party, Fool’s Paradise, Heart of Stone, and 22 more; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, Expend4bles, House Party, Haunted Mansion, Heart of Stone, The Out-Laws, Meg 2: The Trench, Old Dads, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, 65, Your Place or Mine, Vacation Friends 2, White Men Can’t Jump, The Exorcist: Believer, About My Father, Insidious: The Red Door, Pain Hustlers, Love Again, Genie, and 11 more; Lower RT: Confidential Informant, The Ritual Killer, 57 Seconds, Assassin Club, Expend4bles, In the Fire, On a Wing and a Prayer, Fool’s Paradise, The Tutor, Vacation Friends 2, Robots, The Out-Laws, Knights of the Zodiac; Notes: This movie is quite perplexing. In reality we should have done Five Nights at Freddy’s though. Bigger deal, and an actual horror film. We’ll get that back though.
Richard Roeper – 3 stars – It’s the perfect storm for the group to start turning on one another, even as the supernatural elements boil and bubble to the surface, and the blood starts to spill. Way to pick a vacation destination, Rom. What, the Overlook Hotel was booked?
(Amazing. He actually mostly says that the film revels in its unoriginality and he kind of respects it for that. Ridiculous as that might sound.)
(Yeah … this looks horrible. They shouldn’t have shown the terrible death effect. Because it looks dumb and they should have hidden that from the audience for as long as possible.)
Directors – Deon Taylor – ( Known For: Black and Blue; Fatale; Chain Letter; Supremacy; Dead Tone; The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2; Nite Tales: The Movie; Future BMT: Meet the Blacks; Traffik; BMT: The Intruder; Fear; Notes: Has a few upcoming projects including one called All-Star Weekend which has the description of “Two buddies form a rivalry over their favorite American basketball player,” which sounds ludicrous.)
Writers – John Ferry – (BMT: Fear; Notes: Basically he appears to be a production assistant for at first Trank (on Chronicle) and now Taylor, and this is the first film he got a credit for writing with him.)
Deon Taylor – ( Known For: Nite Tales: The Movie; Future BMT: Meet the Blacks; Traffik; BMT: Fear; Notes: Writes a lot of the films he directs. Also produces them as well, so he is kind of a younger Tyler Perry in a way.)
Actors – Joseph Sikora – ( Known For: Shutter Island; Jack Reacher; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Ghost World; Charlie Wilson’s War; Safe; Trust; Night Skies; BMT: The Watcher; The Intruder; Fear; Notes: He’s older than I would have thought, 47 years old. To the point where he had a whole other acting life as a bit part acting in major films. He was in over 60 episodes of a tv show called Power recently, and does a lot of television.)
Andrew Bachelor – ( Known For: Greenland; To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before; The Babysitter; Holidate; When We First Met; The Babysitter: Killer Queen; Game Over, Man!; Vacation Friends; Rim of the World; Coffee & Kareem; The F**k-It List; Airplane Mode; Love, Weddings & Other Disasters; Where’s the Money; The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2; National Champions; Family Switch; Future BMT: We Are Your Friends; Meet the Blacks; BMT: Fifty Shades of Black; Fear; Notes: Known as King Bach apparently. Was a world class high jumper in college, and also holds (and will forever hold) the record for most followers on Vine at 15 million which is how his career started.)
Annie Ilonzeh – ( Known For: Percy Jackson: Şimşek Hırsızı; Erkekler Ne Söyler Kadınlar Ne Anlar; Agent Game; Til Death Do Us Part; Future BMT: İntikam Meleği; All Eyez on Me; BMT: Miss March; Fear; Notes: Primarily she was a decently long running actor on Chicago Fire appearing in 42 episodes of that show.)
(Yeah quite terrible. My guess is the movie cost around $5 million to make. I don’t think it is possible to really make even a low budget horror fit for wide release for less. Just the cameras and salaries probably get over the $1 million you’d need to have this be profitable.)
(I can’t believe this has this high of a rating. If I were to make a consensus it would be: Lazy in its metaphors for the pandemic, lazy in its oscillation between various horror sub-genres, and lazy in its concept. Yet the biggest crime is it isn’t scary.)
Reviewer Highlight: It is frustrating to watch Fear carelessly oscillate between creature feature, haunted house movie, and folk horror. – Matthew Monagle, Austin Chronicle
(Ha. I mean it looks cool. But I don’t understand the question mark. Is the film called “Fear?” I didn’t think so. Like the yellow but neads better font. C-.)
Tagline(s) – Your Mind is the Trap (C+)
(I guess this is intriguing. Like… the horror film where your mind is used against you. You think a murderer is trapping you but you are trapping yourself. Again, it’s a cool concept, like the post is cool looking, but it doesn’t work completely.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Flash (2023)
Future BMT: 84.2 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 63.3 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 49.8 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), 47.8 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 43.2 House Party (2023), 41.9 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 37.6 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), 36.7 Paint (2023), 31.3 The Machine (2023), 28.0 Haunted Mansion (2023), 27.2 Love Again (2023), 18.3 Nefarious (2023), 15.7 Freelance (2023), 14.3 The Marsh King’s Daughter (2023), 8.4 Camp Hideout (2023), 8.1 Sweetwater (2023), 6.0 Back on the Strip (2023)
BMT: Expend4bles (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), 65 (2023), Retribution (2023), Hypnotic (2023), Mafia Mamma (2023), About My Father (2023), Fear (2023)
Best Options (Horror): 84.2 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 63.3 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 49.8 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), 47.8 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 26.4 Fear (2023), 18.3 Nefarious (2023)
(Do not fear (get it?) we will be watching The Exorcist: Believer. And also do not fear (get it?) we’ll NEVER watch Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Ever. I refuse.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 21) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Joseph Sikora is No. 1 billed in Fear and No. 2 billed in The Intruder, which also stars Meagan Good (No. 3 billed) who is in The Love Guru (No. 5 billed) which also stars Jessica Alba (No. 2 billed) who is in Mechanic: Resurrection (No. 2 billed) which also stars Jason Statham (No. 1 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (3 + 5) + (2 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 21. If we were to watch Underworld: Awakening we can get the HoE Number down to 16.
Notes – Terrance Jenkins was the host of 106 and Park and his hotel room was 106
What a journey with our boy Hypnotic. You would think a wide release Robert Rodriguez film starring Ben Affleck released in May would be available on every corner for our BMT pleasure. Wrong. Even seven months later the film was not out on DVD. What a crock! This is not total cinema. This isn’t even partial cinema! What are you up to, Robert Rodriguez? But ultimately you can tell what he was up to just by looking at the credits of the film. This was a Rodriguez family affair, much like the Patriots are now a Belichick family affair. I’m not sure he much cared where this film was available. Does the film exist? Was his family employed in its making? Yes? Well then, mission accomplished.
To recap, Ben Affleck is a police officer (or is he?) recovering from the kidnapping of his daughter (or is he?) who is back on the job (or is he?) tracking an impending robbery of a bank safe deposit box (or is… enough of that). At the robbery he gets the feeling he knows that something’s off and gets to the box and finds a message “Find Lev Dellrayne.” A man, Dellrayne himself, was the orchestrator of the robbery and tries killing Ben before making an escape. The tip for the robbery came from a hypnotist that Ben teams up with. He finds out about a secret group of hypnotics who can make you believe things are happening for their own devices. They end up going on the run when Dellrayne, the most powerful hypnotic in the world, turns both friends and foes against them. There is some MacGuffin that they want, but really they want to find answers and that comes in the form of a hacker named River. That’s because once Ben is seeing all the info that River uncovers he has an epiphany… none of anything in the film is real. It’s all hypnotic bullshit (what a twist). Turns out his daughter was the progeny of him (also a powerful hypnotic) and the hypnotic he teamed up with. When the government wanted to start using her as a weapon, Ben hid her away and erased his memory. He’s been in a never ending cycle of hypnosis as they try to figure out what “Find Lev Dellrayne” means. But Ben is able to break the cycle this time and heads out to a ranch where his daughter has come of age and has full control of her powers. Teamed back up with his wife and daughter they defeat the agency and escape (or do they? (They don’t, but it doesn’t matter cause there won’t be a sequel (or will there be? (there won’t)))). THE END.
This is as close as we’re going to get to M. Night Shyamalan Presents: Twist: The Movie. Right from the opening, where a therapist methodically taps her pencil against a pad of paper, you can’t help but think, “None of this is real.” So then, when other events, characters, objects enter the swirling orbit of the amorphous (and terrible looking) film, you just sigh. “I get it, speed it up,” was my thought every 5-10 minutes. It’s not at all surprising that Rodriguez talks candidly about how his children did VFX, music, editing, etc. on the film. Certainly looks and sounds that way. I don’t blame him, really. Making a movie seems pretty darn hard and making it with your family would probably make it more enjoyable, but the product will probably suffer (and it did). So all this led to the greatest crime a BMT film can commit. By the time Jeff Fahey showed up on screen I was so over the film that I didn’t even look to see if there was a motorcycle for him to have sex on or a lawnmower for him to push. Booooooooo.
Hot Take Clam Bake! In a post credit stinger we see that William Fitchner hasn’t died, but rather tricked people into killing Jeff Fahey instead. This promises a sequel, right? Wrong! Jeff Fahey didn’t die (you idiots). He’s actually the main character and the titular Hypnotic (you dopes). You didn’t get that? (What dummies). Jeff Fahey? International superstar? Didn’t you see “Ben Affleck” riding a motorcycle in the film. Didn’t that strike you as odd given Jeff Fahey’s history with motorcycles? (Stupid idiots) What’s hypnosis but a mental form of virtual reality. They claimed that they went Beyond Cyberspace for Lawnmower Man 2 but they were wrong. THIS is Lawnmower Man 2 (fucking dumb dumbs). Obviously, Jobe’s War?… get it?… Dellrayne is Jobe. Jobe is Dellrayne. (you dumb idiot stupidheads). Hot Take Temperature: Woman of Desire.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about too-jacked Ben Affleck looking like a triangle and making low-rent Inception? Let’s go!
Oh boy is this movie a mess.
Affleck seems completely checked out, which is almost certainly because this was a random movie he did to keep himself in the mix as a headliner while he was (presumably) directing and acting in Air, a far more financially worthwhile film.
The concept of the film is interesting for about five seconds before they botch it. Kind of cool: a villain who hypnotizes people to make them commit crimes for him. It is almost a Batman villain (wait, Batman? Affleck? Talk to me people!).
Not cool: a secret society of hypnotists who can actually create elaborate inception like worlds and convince people that they aren’t who they think they are because two of the hypnotists had a baby who is a super hypnotist who can like … kill the world or something?
But this movie did deliver one thing that make me forgive everything: Jeff Fahey. Let the Fahey-ssaince begin!!
For real though. Parts of this film look kind of cool. Parts of it are interesting. But mostly it is a whole lotta nothing produced by a director who is quickly being known for producing a whole lotta nothing.
And that director also has officially made his productions a family affair and that experiment is so far off to a rocky start.
The only surprised about this film was that it was released to enough theaters to qualify. Bizarre.
You would think there would be more product placement for a film like this, but I just looked it up and there is surprisingly little and nothing really of note. I do like a true blue MacGuffin (Why?) involving the search for the secret daughter. And the obvious Worst Twist (How?) where the entire film is (obviously) a hypnosis, because why the hell not. This movie is complete trash, Bad through and through.
Oh boy, you best believe I’m completely undoing this movie with the classic sequel opening twist. Patent pending. Cheerios,
Oh man, so get this. Turns out my entire life was actually me being hypnotized. Also turns out this level of hypnotism is basically just the equivalent to getting kicked in the head a bunch. So yeah, I have a massive concussion and can’t remember a thing. Do you remember what happened in Hypnotic?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) We open with our hero in his therapist’s office. Why is he there?
2) Well, they are off to a bank robbery. How does the robbery go down?
3) How mysterious. Pray tell how did they hear about this robbery?
4) Yada yada yada what is this all really, like what is the actual deal with Affleck and his daughter and junk?
5) But … why do the hypnotists want Affleck’s daughter so much? Why is she important?
Bonus Question: I guess we know the sequel set up, Fichtner is going to come and yet them … right?
Jamie and Patrick shield their eyes as they get off the airplane. It’s hot on the tarmac under the Tuscan sun. It’s been ages since their mother moved to Tuscany to take over the family’s failing olive oil business and things appear to have turned around. “Things have turned around,” their mother’s valet confirms and takes their bags to a waiting stretch hummer. “All this from olive oil?” Jamie whispers as they turn a corner and espy the family’s newly restored Tuscan manor. Patrick is skeptical… and increasingly concerned. For several minutes they wait in the foyer and both look with a smile as the door at the top of the stairs opens up. But rather than their mother they find themselves staring at Luigi, the company’s former manager. “What are you doing here?” Patrick asks in disgust. Everyone knew that Luigi’s corruption was what got the company into dire straits in the first place. A brief grimace crosses Luigi’s face before being replaced by a smile. “I guess you were too busy with your bald movie thing to hear that your mother hired me back when she realized that she needed someone around who knew olive oil.” Jamie turns beet red and gets right up into Luigi’s face. “You know it’s BAD movies, not BALD movies. We’re not idiots. You’re an idiot.” Luigi smiles and nods in acquiescence. “Your mother will be back shortly,” Luigi assures them and shuttles them into an adjacent room. “Why don’t you preoccupy yourself with the Antiquities Room while you wait,” and with that he leaves. Patrick looks around at the treasures that surround them. “We shouldn’t touch anything until we…” he begins, but when he looks over at Jamie he is staring intently at a Puzzle Box. Suddenly Patrick feels very tired. That’s right! We are watching the Ben Affleck classic Hypnotic… you know, the film that everyone knew about. Definitely totally normal that this film never got a DVD release… don’t even worry about it. Let’s go!
Hypnotic (2023) – BMeTric: 45.0; Notability: 19
StreetCreditReport.com –BMeTric: top 5.6%; Notability: top 8.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 15.2%; Higher BMeT: Expend4bles, The Exorcist: Believer, Meg 2: The Trench, The Black Demon, Knights of the Zodiac, 65, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, The Ritual Killer, Five Nights at Freddy’s, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, White Men Can’t Jump, Maybe I Do, Retribution; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, Expend4bles, Haunted Mansion, Heart of Stone, The Out-Laws, Old Dads, Meg 2: The Trench, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, Foe, 65, Your Place or Mine, White Men Can’t Jump, The Exorcist: Believer, About My Father, Pain Hustlers, Dashing Through the Snow, Insidious: The Red Door, Love Again, Genie; Lower RT: Freelance, The Ritual Killer, 57 Seconds, Assassin Club, Expend4bles, Fool’s Paradise, The Out-Laws, Knights of the Zodiac, Mafia Mamma, The Good Mother, The Exorcist: Believer, Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, Pain Hustlers, Foe, God Is a Bullet, Finestkind, Ghosted, White Men Can’t Jump, Love Again, Meg 2: The Trench, and 12 more; Notes: Given how much money Five Nights at Freddy’s made I’m shocked that it would have a relatively high BMeTric. Like I get it is popular, but shouldn’t the fans who seem to like it a lot and “get it” be driving the rating up? The movies we are getting this time around have such low Notability. Maybe it is a pandemic thing. A way to reduce the number of people on set at any given time. Plausible.
RogerEbert.com – 2.5 stars – There’s a lot of empty space in “Hypnotic,” a doofy, though never boring sci-fi thriller about a Texas cop, played by Ben Affleck, who stumbles upon a conspiracy of mind-controlling crooks. Or he seems to stumble upon them. Reality buckles and warps around our troubled hero, whose daughter has already gone missing before the movie starts.
(And oh yeah, spoiler alert, all that is bullshit and he is himself a mind controlling crook and the entire movie is just twist after twist until you realize that there is basically no moment of the film in which you are watching the 100% god’s honest truth. Great.)
(The reviews pretty much call it a poor man’s Inception which is exactly what it looks like. The effects looks okay. Fichtner on the other hand…)
Directors – Robert Rodriguez – ( Known For: Sin City; From Dusk Till Dawn; Alita: Battle Angel; Grindhouse; The Faculty; Spy Kids; Desperado; Planet Terror; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; Machete; Spy Kids 3: Game Over; Spy Kids: Armageddon; Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams; Four Rooms; Once Upon a Time in Mexico; We Can Be Heroes; Mimic; El Mariachi; Shorts; Red 11; Future BMT: Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World; Machete Kills; The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D; BMT: Hypnotic; Notes: Wow, our first official Rodriquez, although he have very few surprisingly. I have actually seen Machete Kills though, it is awful.)
Writers – Robert Rodriguez – ( Known For: Sin City; Grindhouse; Spy Kids; Desperado; Planet Terror; Machete; Spy Kids 3: Game Over; Spy Kids: Armageddon; Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams; Four Rooms; Once Upon a Time in Mexico; We Can Be Heroes; El Mariachi; Shorts; Red 11; Future BMT: Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World; Machete Kills; The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D; UglyDolls; BMT: Hypnotic; Notes: Long time friend of Quentin Tarantino as they both broke into the business with low budget indies around the same time. This film has one son as producer, and another composed the music, they are becoming family affairs.)
Max Borenstein – ( Known For: Kong: Skull Island; Godzilla; Godzilla vs. Kong; Godzilla: King of the Monsters; Worth; BMT: Hypnotic; Notes: He wrote and created the Laker show which was just unceremoniously dumped by HBO a few months ago without resolution.)
Actors – Ben Affleck – ( Known For: The Flash; The Last Duel; Gone Girl; Dazed and Confused; Triple Frontier; Good Will Hunting; Air; Deep Water; The Accountant; Zack Snyder’s Justice League; The Town; Argo; Dogma; Field of Dreams; State of Play; Shakespeare in Love; He’s Just Not That Into You; Daredevil; School Ties; The Sum of All Fears; Future BMT: Surviving Christmas; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Smokin’ Aces; Live by Night; 200 Cigarettes; BMT: Hypnotic; Suicide Squad; Armageddon; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Justice League; Pearl Harbor; Reindeer Games; Paycheck; Gigli; Phantoms; Runner Runner; Notes: He’s had a bit of a renaissance after going through marital, alcohol-related, and being-too-jacked troubles over the past decade. Has a famously bad tattoo, and was shaped like a triangle in Air and looked ridiculous. I’m happy to report he looks like a normally proportioned human being in this film. It is nuts what being Batman can do to a man.)
Alice Braga – ( Known For: The Suicide Squad; City of God; Soul; I Am Legend; Predators; Elysium; On the Road; Blindness; Crossing Over; The Duel; Lower City; Redbelt; Kill Me Three Times; Journey to the End of the Night; O Cheiro do Ralo; Sólo Dios sabe; City of God: 10 Years Later; Ardor; Latitudes; Future BMT: The New Mutants; The Shack; BMT: Hypnotic; The Rite; Repo Men; Notes: Her mother and aunt were in Kiss of the Spider Woman and she was a kid actress via them before braking out herself.)
JD Pardo – ( Known For: F9: The Fast Saga; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2; The Contractor; Snitch; Havoc; The Burning Plain; Future BMT: A Cinderella Story; BMT: Hypnotic; Supercross; Notes: Played Dom Toretto’s father in flashbacks in F9. I have not seen the later Fast and Furious films. I can’t bring myself to do it.)
Budget/Gross – $65 million / Domestic: $4,500,169 (Worldwide: $15,697,752)
(I don’t believe that budget. I just don’t. There is nothing in this film which suggests it needs to or did cost this much. That is absurd.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 32% (36/113): Although Hypnotic isn’t without glimmers of inspiration, the ultimate effect of this often clunky crime caper will be to leave you feeling rather sleepy.
(Yes, I 100% agree with this. The issue is that there are interesting bits and bobs, but you know you are watching bullshit and it makes you sleepy. Nailed it.)
Reviewer Highlight: The reality is that, not unlike an Escher painting, the damn thing keeps tying itself into knots. This isn’t the mesmerizing neuro-noir you want it to be. It’s closer to Inception for Dummies. – David Fear, Rolling Stone
(Nolan-ing it up, are we, Rodriguez? Kind of bland. Hate the font. Unexpected D grade poster.)
Tagline(s) – Control is an illusion. (D)
(Ah well, they tried. Not clever, not interesting, not even sure it makes a huge amount of sense in context.)
Keyword(s) – Year 2023
Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Barbie (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023), The Flash (2023)
Future BMT: 84.2 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 63.2 The Exorcist: Believer (2023), 49.8 Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023), 47.8 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 41.6 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 37.4 My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023), 31.2 The Machine (2023), 27.9 Haunted Mansion (2023), 27.1 Love Again (2023), 18.3 Nefarious (2023), 15.6 Freelance (2023), 12.4 The Marsh King’s Daughter (2023)
BMT: Expend4bles (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), 65 (2023), Retribution (2023), Hypnotic (2023), Mafia Mamma (2023), About My Father (2023)
Best Options (Action):44.8 Hypnotic (2023), 31.2 The Machine (2023), 15.6 Freelance (2023)
(Freelance came out of nowhere. I hadn’t even heard of it. I’m a little skeptical it actually qualified. But I guess Box Office Mojo doesn’t just make up wide release films (quite the opposite actually))
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 8) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Ben Affleck is No. 1 billed in Hypnotic and No. 1 billed in Pearl Harbor, which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 8. There is no shorter path at the moment.
Notes – Robert Rodriguez had written the initial screenplay for Hypnotic back in 2002, calling it one of his favorite stories.
The joke that the security guard tells his partner, about the man betting a bartender he can pee in a glass, is also featured in Robert Rodriguez’s earlier film ‘Desperado’ in which it was delivered by Quentin Tarantino.
In April 2022, Rodriguez confirmed that, similar to his previous films, he and his family members collaborated on the project. His son Rebel Rodriguez (full-time composer), Racer Max (co-writer/producer), Sid Rodriguez (special effects technician) daughter Rhiannon (storyboards) and his other son (Rocket) is doing the editing with Rodriguez.
Originally scheduled to be filmed in Los Angeles and throughout California in 2020, all locations were scouted and sets were built at Santa Clarita Studios when the Covid shutdown halted production and did not resume until the following year in Texas.
The first film directed by Robert Rodriguez to be primarily filmed in the anamorphic format. He previously used the format on The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
Mamma Mia! That’s not this. It’s Mafia Mamma! Mamma Mia! Enough of that. This might turn out to be the year of the comedy comeback. Or maybe more accurately the year of the BMT comedy comeback. It seems like we had minor comedies out the wazoo being released to >2000 theaters. We just did About my Father. We have a couple other (potential) entries later this year. Where were the bad horror films? Where were the star-studded comedy flops? Everything seems so quaint and filled with fresh faces ready to be fallen on or old faces… uh… also ready to be fallen on. It’s going to make for a wild ride down the home stretch. Mamma Mia indeed.
To recap, everything is going wrong in Kristin’s life. She just sent her only child off to college and has simultaneously found out her loser husband has been cheating on her. So a call from Italy requesting her attendance at the funeral of her grandfather couldn’t come at a better time. Under the guise of a work trip she heads off with a express mission to eat, pray, fuck. She immediately runs into the man of her dreams, but is distracted when she finds herself under fire at the funeral. It’s soon revealed that her grandfather was a mafia don and she just inherited the family. Gulp. Members of the family are concerned and try to just get her to agree to a truce. The rival family, though, aims to kill her and ultimately through luck Kristin ends up killing the head of that family instead. Double gulp! She starts seeing the man she met, Lorenzo, as she tries to turn the business legit. The other family won’t quit, though, and soon she has killed another assassin and ended up getting fired from her job. With that she throws herself fully into the family business and soon has it humming with a mix of legal business and illegal (but moral) business. Soon her husband and son show up being like “WTF, mate? Put some more shrimp on the barbie,” and she decides to retire and return home. In the process of retiring, the police bust in to arrest everyone. Turns out Lorenzo was an undercover officer! Oh no! She goes to trial, but is found innocent and survives one last assassination attempt. With the confidence of her family she takes over as don to (presumably) continue to turn it into a legal enterprise. THE END.
One of my favorite podcasts reviewed this film and (mostly) liked it. There appeared to be a bit of celebration that a traditional rom com came out into theaters. I agree in that sense. We have a really charming and good actress in Toni Collette helming a goofy romantic film. That’s good. The film? Not that good. She’s great, but several of the supporting actors are pretty irritating (particularly Fabrizio). It’s also unusually gruesome (which some could see as a positive, but I didn’t understand the point of), actively offensive against Italians, and interminably long. The point is that I liked About my Father quite a bit more.
Hot Take Clam Bake! I was feeling the sparks between Toni Colette and numerous characters in the film… just not the ones she was paired with. Monica Bellucci and her were rolling all up in some beds together. But that would be counterintuitively a cold take, because their chemistry was so apparent it would be played out to pair them up. No, I’m thinking her and her bodyguard Aldo are gonna get it on. She’s helped him out with his mother’s hard to find medicine and soon he’s guarding more than just her body. Or… wait… he’s doing more than just guarding her body… whatever. Hot Take Temperature: Tuscan Sun.
Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about taking an Italian vacation and calling it a movie? But like … forgetting to write jokes and stuff? Let’s go!
Absolute peak “none of this is funny but everyone seems to be having fun which is itself maybe okay” film.
Because Toni Collette seems like she is having a blast here with Catherine Hardwicke.
Oh yeah, robot leg. Add this to the Robot Leg / Arm series along with I Know Who Killed me because Monica Bellucci definitely had a full on robot leg. They try to be like “This? This ain’t a regular human leg … uh, it is just like the most fancy prosthetic you’ve ever seen. Yeah, that’s it!” Which definitely means it is a robot leg.
The film is obviously quite scattershot. Isn’t that how bad comedies operate these days. A bunch of random encounters and situations, a bunch of improv, and then hope enough of it comes out in the wash to form a movie.
But did it form a movie? Like … did it?
The storyline is just Suburban Mamma goes to Italy and becomes Mafia Mamma, survives a few assassination attempts, survives going on trial in Italy (famous for their incredibly not-corrupt trial system …), and then makes a pharmaceutical / mafia empire the end.
The only thing that kind of worked for me was the constant references to The Godfather and how perplexed everyone is that our Mafia Mamma has never seen it (she just can’t carve out three hours, c’mon! I can relate).
I’ll leave it there. Kind of fun film that is almost entirely worthless. Even if it was good it would be mostly worthless.
I’m going to make up a new category of Disgruntled Number Two (Who?) for this film because I feel like they needed that trope for this film to function. Wait a second, Restylane, the pharmaceutical they specifically run an ad for is real and is Product Placement (What?) … huh. Obviously Setting as a Character (Where?) for Italy. And why not, a Worst Twist (How?) for the reveal that our Mafia Mamma is good at her job. This movie is probably closest to Good although I personally didn’t like it much.
Oh god do I actually have to make a sequel to this film? Fine. Read about it in the quiz. Cheerios,
Bad Movie Twins 