Tag: 6Ws

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Recap

Jamie

What?! Hansel and Gretel are all grows up and ready to take out some witches. Called to action in the town of Augsburg, it soon becomes clear that this isn’t just a case of missing children; a witch gathering is afoot and spells doom if it comes to fruition. Can Hansel and Gretel stop the witches’ dastardly plan before it’s too late? Find out in… Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters!

Why?! Cue The Flintstone’s garbage disposal pterodactyl looking into the camera and declaring, “it’s a living.” Cause that’s what this is to Hansel & Gretel. They are employed as witch hunters and that is what they will goddamn do whether or not the local sheriff approves. This motivation doesn’t change much even when the witches’ scheme grows grander and scarier. They are simply looking to rescue some kids and take out some witches. As for the antagonists of the story (witches, if you hadn’t pick up on that yet), they’re motivations are more complex. They hope to perform a ritual known as the Blood Moon Sabbath where they sacrifice 12 children, take the heart of a white witch, and create powerful magic to make witches immune to fire (and thus immune to Hansel & Gretel’s skillz). In order to do this they must lure Hansel & Gretel to town and capture Gretel, as they are aware that [SPOILER ALERT] Gretel is actually a white witch herself! Oh my GAAAWWWWD:

How?! The first half of the film plays out pretty linearly. Hansel & Gretel are there to save the day and they run around killing witches and unveiling the secrets of the Blood Moon Sabbath. Just as they realize the role they play in the plan (after they find out that their mother was a uber white witch herself and so Gretel is as well), Gretel is kidnapped and Hansel must save her. Using their mother’s extra strong white magic power he creates super weapons that make it all but futile for any witch to oppose him… which is exactly what happens. Seriously, the climax is him just systematically mowing down a hundred witches who stand no chance. In the end Hansel & Gretel both survive and walk the Earth evermore hunting witches in numerous sequels to come… wait, they didn’t make like eight sequels to this a la Fast and the Furious? Oh well.

Who?! Planchet alert! This is one of the best Planchets we’ve had in awhile. He is so Planchet that if we had watched this film before The Three Musketeers the trope would be called a Walser. Ben Walser is a Hansel & Gretel superfan who is basically just dismissed and made fun by his heroes for the entire movie. Only at the end, when Hansel needs anyone he can find to help save Gretel, does he finally allow this lame weirdo to join in the fun. He is a Planchet. A Planchet is he.

Where?! It is very clearly set in Augsburg, which I can assume is in Germany since that’s the name of one of the oldest cities in the country. If I can’t assume that then we don’t know where it is since it’s never mentioned. Pretty typical “meh” setting you sometimes get with a fantasy film. C

When?! This is a solid F. There is no indication of time other than an implication that it is probably somewhere in the 1350-1650 range (when witch hunts were the rage)… belied by the fact that Hansel & Gretel carry advanced weaponry and even play a record on a record player at one point. But that’s steampunk for you… and steampunk is an F temporal setting type of genre.

Wow, I breezed through that. Now let’s get an idea of how BMT the film was. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters? More like Hansel & Gretel: Niche Blunders! You’ll get it in a second. Hansel and Gretel are a steampunk set of buddy cops in the wild west of Grimm’s Germany … it was probably a better idea than that gives it credit for. Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – There are bits and pieces throughout which are arguably the best the steampunk genre has to offer. Three Musketeers and Wild Wild West are two of the notorious examples of steampunk. Snow White and the Huntsman and Red Riding Hood are the same kind of dreary fairy tale film. This is better than all four of those. It is at times fun, Renner is very funny, the makeup and effects are great (even if the accompanying soundtrack isn’t my cup of tea), especially Edward the Troll, who I insist looks like a hulking Aaron Eckhart:Edward_by_the_springEven if you don’t quite see it I was so convinced when I was watching the film that I had to look it up on IMDb. Like “wait … maybe Aaron Eckhart did play Edward the Troll” … he didn’t. Great stuff.
  • The Bad – The storyline is a mess. More of a mess than you could ever really describe. The film is a comedy … and yet there is literally heads exploding left and right. There is a sex scene which is literally just there for the sake of a sex scene. There is a full blown rape scene. And if all of that doesn’t turn you off, then the third act should be enough to turn you off. It is weak.
  • The BMT – Huge BMT film. Easily in the 75th percentile and only because this film is so fun to watch in a perplexed fashion, and has enough to like that you’d probably grow to like it a bit more than you feel comfortable with (like a Underworld or Resident Evil, a real cult film). It has steampunk, it has the second best Planchet in BMT history, it rocks random sex scenes, ultra violence, and a heavy metal soundtrack. It has a ton to love and is real dumb to boot. This is what I meant by niche blunders, it goes wrong in all of the best BMT ways. It makes me proud to say this albatross of a film followed through so well. I’m looking at you now 10,000 BC, it is time to deliver.

And naturally I think this is a prime Sequel territory. The problem with doing a prequel is it would be pre-combinatorial gang explosion (by the end of the first film their witch hunting posse was up to four people, I guarantee with me at the helm I’ll have that number up to twenty hilarious characters hanging around) so it is Hansel, Gretel, Planchet, and Edward the Troll globetrotting and witch hunting. I think what the series needed was a sense of the world, so let’s take them to China (dat sweet Chinese box office bucks too, oooo that is nice). I’m thinking Jackie Chan maybe as a Chinese witch hunter, and the investigation concerns a pair of ninja witches attempting to steal a McGuffin from the Forbidden City. Turns out the Imperial Guard has been systematically infiltrated by a coven and Hansel and Gretel have only mere days to stop the ninja-witches before they get the treasure and take control of the Chinese Kingdom. Hansel & Gretel 2: The Forbidden Coven. Honestly I could just dump Hansel and Gretel and go with Jackie Chan, sounds rad (natch).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Car 54, Where Are You? Recap

Jamie

You may ask why we would even care to delve deep into what is essentially just dog poo in our faces… why? Because it’s what we do. Here are the details!

What?! Officer Toody is a fun-loving Brooklyn cop just looking to have a good time. When he and his new uptight partner are tasked to protect a mob witness targeted for a hit, it’s made clear that he needs to shape up or lose his badge. Uh oh! Can they keep the party going while keeping the witness safe? Find out in… Car 54, Where Are You?!

Why?! Talk about a loaded question. Why, indeed? Officer Toody is our main character and the action almost exclusively follows him. His motivation for 95% of the film is to remove the stick up the ass of his new partner by getting him paid and laid. Doesn’t sound like much of a plot, right? It isn’t. Concurrently the station that he works in has struck up a deal to protect a state’s witness against a mob boss. After several nearly successful assassination attempts on the witness’ life the captain decides to hide him with Toody (who would ever suspect?!). Even then Toody doesn’t seem to care much about the witness until he loses him and has to hunt him down or get stripped of his badge. So that’s kind of a secondary motivation… first off, get his partner laid, second save the witness. Even writing this all down is making me sad.

How?! You have the general idea of most of the film from the motivations. There are two other aspects of the plot that play almost no role until the climax. The first is that the police station Toody works in has upgraded to a new computer system called Madd Cop (a play on police brutality? Hard to say), which is a futuristic crime-tracking system… this is strictly a plot device. The second is that Toody is obsessed with a Cops-like show and hopes to be on it one day. This luckily happens a week later when he begins to be followed by a camera crew… this is also strictly a plot device. After Toody has lost the witness, he ingratiates himself with the mob, impersonates a hitman, and goes after the witness. At the same time his partner uses Madd Cop and the tracking devices to locate the witness and goes after Toody. The real mob hitmen see a promo for the cops-like show and figure out that Toody is an imposter and go after both Toody and the witness. They all converge at Coney Island and after a brief chase the mobster is snagged by the police and everyone lives happily ever after. Confusing? No kidding.

Who?! There are a number of interesting musical cameos in the film, which include The Ramones, Tone Loc, and Coati Mundi. But by far the most interesting thing is the Ghostbusters-like rap theme song to the film called “Car 54 Rap.” It is terrible and yet mesmerizing. Unfortunately it’s not available online so you just have to take my word for it. But even that’s not as interesting as the artist that created the masterpiece: legitimate band MMM&S. They seem to be a funk band full of the whitest kids in the world according to the videos I can find:

That’s a banger! Seems like the same story as the Beasties Boys. White kids who started in funk/punk and moved to rap… except they never made it. Weird and wild stuff.

Where?! As MMM&S say in their rap, “Brooklyn! Busting out on a hot tip. Two of New York’s finest you can’t diss.” Brooklyn indeed. This is basically as close as you can get to an A without it being part of the title. Drips with Brooklyn and culminates on Coney Island. Perfection. B+.

When?! Secret holiday film alert! There is very little overt indication of the time at which this film takes place. That is until the mob boss laments the fact that his witness isn’t dead yet by opening a newspaper detailing who was killed by mistake. On the opposite page of that headline? A disastrous July 4th fireworks accident! This may in fact be my favorite ever. So fucking random. B+!

I just gave you so much unnecessary detail, let’s find out if it’s BMT. Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Car 54, Where are You? More like Bizarre Shitty Chore, It’s Dog Poo! (In my face … it’s dog poo in my face). Orion Pictures, on the brink of bankruptcy, decides to IP dump a Car 54 movie as a musical starring David Johansen, shelves it for 3 years, and then releases it without the musical numbers and cut to shit. What could go wrong? Sigh. Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – A few of the side actors, O’Donnell and Fran Drescher were solid for sure. The relationship between Rosie and Johansen feels real somehow, and even Johansen for all his over-the-top stage mannerisms (which Jamie pointed out to me was probably the reason he was cast and hardly a knock against him as an actor, the guy already has a starring role in Scrooged, they knew what they were getting) comes across as a genuine guy. There are a few jokes here and there as well including maybe the best spit take I’ve ever seen.
  • The Bad – Parts of the movie look like something I could shoot. The quality is dire. If this movie were to be released today it would have been dumped on VOD and forgotten about. There are basically no good jokes in the film, and the acting throughout from the main players is terrible. I will say that I didn’t necessarily feel bored during the film, but there is a level of wackiness that just doesn’t really work (or maybe it is that it isn’t consistent?). I’m usually not one to harp on things like this but … this movie is like 95% sex jokes strung together by basically no coherent story. Take from that what you will.
  • The BMT – Not since Dino De Laurentiis dumped King Kong Lives and Raw Deal have we seen such a blatant barely-movie widely released to theaters from a dying production company. If there is any legacy to this film it is the opening: if the movie got even close to “okay” for the rest of the film it may have gone down as the one true movie that is ruined by the opening scene (similar to how The Call was ruined by literally the last five seconds, a much more common trope). The opening is legendary, including terrible singing in a dream sequence complete with a cartoon bird dressed as a rapper. Bomb. Thinking about it I would actually give this is a pretty good BMeTric too, because I would definitely watch this again with a crowd. It is just so weird that I’m betting there are a million layers to unpeel.

I mean there is really only one thing to do: Prequel! It might not be pretty but we need to see Car 54, Where Are You? When Toody Met Leo … my god, the title even sounds like When Harry Met Lloyd. Anyways, in the first film we were given what is an oh so tantalizing glimpse of the hilarious (and heartfelt!) relationship between Toody and his partner Leo before they are torn asunder by Leo’s retirement in the beginning of the film. “We want more Leo!” was what I assume the Car 54-heads were screaming in their packed opening day theaters. Bonus, the film will feature a cameo by none other than a person who could pass as a young Rosie O’Donnell to show the early stages of Gunther’s courtship of Lucille. The screenwriter for this film (me) says, “the courtship is much like the Cyclone of Coney Island: A Rollercoaster!”.

Cheerios, 

The Sklogs

Another 48 Hrs. Recap

Jamie

What?! Just as Jack Cates is about to close in on a drug kingpin he’s been tracking for years, it turns out his old friend Reggie Hammond is primed to be the kingpin’s next victim. Can they stop the hit and take the baddies down before it’s too late? Find out in… Another 48 Hrs!

Why?! The biggest question is why the hitmen want to kill Reggie, who at the start of the film has spent the last five years in jail. Turns out the big heist that was the center of the first film involved money that belonged to a drug kingpin, the Iceman. Hearing that Reggie is finally out of jail (and away from the protection that he’s bought within), they set up a hit. However, it’s later revealed that the money is small potatoes. In reality they wanted to kill Reggie because he saw the Iceman’s face and could identify him. As for Cates, if wanting to take down a kingpin wasn’t motivation enough, he is framed for manslaughter after he justifiably takes down a hitman that he knows is connected to the Iceman. So now he needs to catch the Iceman to prove his innocence or he faces jail time. He figures out that Reggie was the target of the Iceman’s hit (what a coincidence!) and recruits Reggie to help take the him down. Obviously Reggie’s motivation is to not die, however he seems fairly unconcerned by the whole affair. He only reluctantly agrees to help after realizing that otherwise Cates won’t give him his money from the first film.

How?! Once Reggie is released from jail, both he and Cates are attacked by the hitmen. They end up in the same hospital and Cates convinces the local police to let him escort Reggie back to SF. They track the hitmen from place to place all while Cates is harassed by internal affairs and comes up empty on every lead. Only after Reggie reveals that he can identify the Iceman do they realize that he must be a cop and that’s the reason Cates is having such a hard time. Before they can catch the bad guy, Reggie is kidnapped and in a twist it turns out that the Iceman is Cates’ friend on the force, Kehoe. The twist is particularly bad as Kehoe was in the first film and as a result it reframes aspects of that film! Ugh. A shootout ensues and the bad guys are taken down in the exact same way as they were in the first film.

Who?! I actually realized this week that the Planchet isn’t the only “Who” obsession to work with. We got cameos, presidents, musicians, athletes, etc. So while watching this film I kept my eyes peeled for any of the above. Lo and behold there was a musical act in the middle of the film. Looking in the credits on IMDb the singer was credited as… former heavyweight pro boxer Michael Anthony Williams? Uh, what? That turned out to be wrong (*gasp* are you suggesting IMDb is wrong?) and it was actually the band Curio. This band had two songs on the soundtrack and yet was so obscure that the only place to find details about them is a rare and obscure music blog. Not obscure enough to not have a music video on youtube, though. Enjoy:

Where?! Just as in the first film, we are set in beautiful San Francisco. It also helps that Nolte is a cop as he’s clearly a detective in the SFPD. While obvious, this setting is not necessarily vital to the plot. Could have been LA, Miami, Chicago, New York, Philly, etc. without missing a beat. B.

When?! Another day, another film that seemingly goes out of its way to not give you an exact date. The first film at least threw you a bone and indicated that it was summer in San Fran, this one doesn’t even give you that courtesy. They even seem to purposefully obscure it as you are shown a close-up of a hospital discharge form for Reggie Hammond where the nurse is blocking the “Date of Admittance” line. What we are shown is that Reggie is 28-years-old and born on October 7th, 1961. So that’s kind of a fun exact date. Interestingly, that is the year that Murphy was born, but not the date (April 3rd is his actual birthday). This “When” is full of fun facts… but I don’t do this section for the fun facts. D.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Another 48 Hrs.? More like Isn’t This Just the First 48 Hrs? Relevant! The first 48 Hrs. was a classic buddy cop adventure with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Why change anything up … at all, is probably what the writers were thinking. Let’s Go!

  • The Good – I thought this movie was rather entertaining if you pretended it was a standalone movie. I liked Nolte and Murphy’s dynamic, I liked the plot from a buddy cop perspective, I liked how gritty it felt. The things that kill it, I think, are easy to look past if this is something like a Tango & Cash, a standalone buddy cop action-comedy. One of the better BMTs we’ve seen in the past few months I would venture.
  • The Bad – This movie is waaaay too similar to the original. I have a theory on this: the movie is a sequel to a buddy comedy from five years prior. I think they felt obligated to reset the franchise after such a long hiatus, and they planned to innovate in the third  installment. That blew up in their faces when the similarities between this and the first were a major criticism upon release. Otherwise there is a horribly ludicrous scene in which Murphy is standing in a bus that then rolls over three times while everyone notes “well that is unlikely” as if the lampshading helps. The reset is aggravating as well since we just spent an entire film with Nolte and Murphy yelling at each other, why do we have to go through that again? Also …
  • The BMT – Jamie pointed this out (to be fair), but it is the claim to BMT fame for this movie. Besides being a quintessential example of a sequel going overboard mimicking its predecessor, the aforementioned twist is … more terrible than I ever realized. Consider: Kehoe is posited to have been the drug kingpin Iceman operating out of the SFPD since prior to the first movie (at least 7 years prior to the second film when Reggie saw him during the heist). But yet, in the first film Kehoe is the one who tells Jack about Reggie in the first place … ultimately this means Reggie will be wandering about the police station with every opportunity to tell everyone that Kehoe is the Iceman. The twist is incredibly bad. What I wouldn’t give to be in the writers’ room when someone remarked “Hey wait a minute … doesn’t this conflict with the first movie?”. And that is why this movie is still BMT, shocking oversights like this.

So in the preview I noted that the director was known for his love of westerns and that genre having a heavy influence on his films. So let’s Sklogify (or Remake) it with a little western rewrite. Jack Cates is a loose cannon among the US Marshals often getting a little rough and tumble when apprehending villains in the wild (wild) west. Reginald Hammond is a gunslinger in prison for bank robbery. When Cates finds an old wanted poster among the wreckage of a manhunt gone wrong, he thinks Hammond might know what is up (and might be able to save him from a hangman’s noose) and so he springs him and they go on the run. Indeed, the notorious Iceman, a vicious train robber and gang leader that many Marshals believe to be more myth than reality, appears to be the potential culprit of a planned kidnapping of Hammond to prevent the Iceman’s secret from getting out: Hammond had discovered years before that the Iceman was a US Marshal using his badge as cover for his ruthless crime spree, and had perpetrated the bank robbery that put him in jail as a means of protection. Now working together the unlikely duo, US Marshal and fugitive, have to take down the dirty US Marshal posse before they meet untimely deaths! Another 48 Hrs. seems like a weird name considering I’m remaking this as a stand alone movie, so it would need something else. Maybe just 48 Hrs., considering I’m not sklogifying the first movie (although I could, call me Netflix).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! Baby geniuses are back, Jack! Bobbin’s World daycare/preschool has hit it big and ready to launch a multimedia empire with media mogul Bill Biscane. Little do they know that he’s got a plan to use the partnership to launch mind control kids TV shows. Uh oh! Can a new generation of baby geniuses stop him before it’s too late? Find out in… Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2!

Why?! World domination, duh. Biscane hopes to get children across the world addicted to his television shows so that he makes gobs of money. And he can’t have it fail because, as we are told several different times, he sunk so much money in the R&D for the mind control technology (reminder: this is a children’s film). What isn’t clear about the entire plan is why he gets Stan Bobbins (little brother of Dan from the first film) involved. Biscane owns the technology… why even involve anyone else (particularly what seems like a company run out of a single location)? Such hubris is ultimately his downfall as the the babies at Bobbin’s World seem to want only one thing: to stop him at all costs.

How?! Alright, so in order to get the children of the world addicted to his television network, Biscane needs only to put a DVD into a DVD player and have it play. Simple, right? Wrong! Not when you only have one copy of the disc and employ bumbling idiots as your goons. Just when they are about to play the disc it falls into the stroller of the babies. Oh no! When the goons attempt to get it back they are stopped by a superhero kid named Kahuna who bears a striking resemblance to Whit and Sly from the first film (but that would make no sense. So why did they use the same actor? Beats me). It turns out that Biscane is actually an East German child kidnapper named Kane and that he has spent his life concocting plans to kidnap/control children only to be foiled by Kahuna every time. Kahuna in turn is a kid who drank a magic potion that has kept him young forever and super strong and smart. You following this? Anyway, now these four babies and some other unimportant side characters are caught in the middle of this eternal struggle of good vs. evil. Kahuna and the babies come up with a plan to stop Biscane, but Biscane foils it and captures Kahuna. Oh no! It must be over. Wrong… Kahuna then… uh… gets the disc back (yeah, that’s the ticket) and then… uh… they duke it out and the babies turn into superbabies and they beat up everyone and everyone is happy and Jon Voight becomes a creepy baby Jon Voight. The end. See, this plot is tight.

Who?! I 100% have to give a shout out to the weird-ass cameos in the film. Not only do we get a dose of Whoopi Goldberg playing herself and thanking Kahuna for saving some kids, but we also get a cameo by the boy band O-Town formed as part of MTV’s Making the Band in 2000 and some canned footage of George W. Bush waiting his turn to speak to Kahuna. This, of course, makes this the best president/musician-as-actor film in history.

Where?! Despite being on the cusp of a multimedia empire it would seem that Bobbin’s World hasn’t yet expanded to outside the LA area. This is confirmed as Kahuna’s hideout is straight up in the ‘H’ of the Hollywood sign. Wow. That’s an unexpected A. Using landmarks to perfect effect.

When?! I don’t recall an exact date coming up at any point (other than the flashbacks, which take place after World War I and in the 1960s), but there is a totally random moment where a side character is disappointed that a boy just wants her to tutor him rather than take her to homecoming. It also specifies that she goes to Fillmore High School which makes sense as Fillmore, CA isn’t too far from LA. Creeping about online it seems like their homecoming is usually end of October. That’s like a B-. Semi-exact but vague. Hoping I’m not flagged on too many FBI lists for the searches I just performed.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2? More like Super Crazy, Sweet Baby Jesuses Too! Amirite? Let’s see, thinly veiled allusions to Nazis in a film starring literally babies using creepy CGI. Could this be real, or is this just fantasy? This was real and it was dog poo in my face! Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – Not much. Actually nothing? Maybe getting the babies to act was impressive enough, although I wouldn’t say it was better than the first movie. There are flashes of humor in Voight’s performance as well, he has a lot of fun with it. That is it though. Let that sink in.
  • The Bad – Nearly everything. Shoddily made. 95% of the film is ADR voice work including Jon Voight’s lines. The story is ludicrous. The sets are ludicrous. The lines people say are ludicrous. It is a poorly thought out and put together film, top to bottom. I’ll save you the trouble and not list out everything individually. I’ll leave you with this: they totally unnecessarily connects the original film to this new one by making Baio the brother of MacNicols … why not just say Baio was MacNicols? Because you needed him to be kind of a sell out horrible person? Why not just write it differently?
  • The BMT – A resounding yes. This movie certainly earns its place on the IMDb bottom 100 (top ten even). It is fascinating that a film like this would be released to over 1000 theaters and even record foreign box office takes. This film probably is the pinnacle of the Bad Kids’ Film genre. This isn’t a genre we typically take part in because early in the history of BMT we watched Dudley Do-Right, and realized it was, one, not that bad, and two, just impossible to make fun of. This earns the place in BMT by sheer force of will and Jon Voight’s tour de force. Really just an incredibly tone deaf and weird to the nth degree acting performance. Steven Paul must have cashed in a few favors to get this made. Considering there is a whole television series after this (released as I think five films) there must have been money to be made, but I find even that unbelievable. In the spirit of the BMT Hall of Fame we introduced recently this would earn its ticket based on the fact that is is the peak of a full genre, the kids’ movie genre. Nothing will ever beat it.

The game this week is tough. I think I’m going to go with a Sklognalysis where I’ll draw a comparison between this movie and a movie in our past. The movie I’m thinking of is pretty niche: The Night They Saved Christmas, a TV movie from 1984. I saw this recently at the bequest of my brother who was feeling very nostalgic about the film. First: would not recommend, the movie is super weird, and mostly boring. But the comparison I made is between the strange North Pole sled depot (with pools of water everywhere and everything just kind of looking like It’s a Small World ride in the Magic Kingdom) and then also with the character of Ed played by Paul Williams (the songwriter … he wrote Evergreen with Barbara Streisand which was nominated for an Emmy, Grammy, and Academy Award) which, in his epic creepiness, operated very similarly to the Kahuna in this film. He has a weird lair, is a 50ish year old man in a child’s body, and puts children in harm’s way for his own selfish desires. They are both so creepy though … watching these movies back-to-back I think would at least make you think “huh, it seemed like we learned our lesson back in 1984 … guess not”. And doesn’t that make this movie at least a bit special in an anachronistic way?

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Baby Geniuses Recap

Jamie

What?! A multinational baby product company, BabyCo, has started experimenting on babies to discover advanced learning techniques. As a control they’ve separated twins, Sly and Whit, to prove the method works. Using his superhuman strength and smarts, Sly is able to escape the lab, leading to the recapture of Whit by mistake. Will the switcheroo be discovered in time to free the babies and bring BabyCo down? Find out in… Baby Geniuses!

Why?! Alright, I know that little synopsis may sound confusing (particularly as a plot to a kid’s film and not a surrealist horror film). Don’t worry, it’s even more confusing when you actually watch it. On the face of it there is a pretty clear reason why BabyCo is flaunting bioethical mores and engaging in baby experimentation: they hope to develop a learning technique so great that everyone will jump at the chance to pay big money to get their kid enrolled. Muddling all this, though, is the fact that both BabyCo and Whit’s father, Dan, are also obsessed with learning the ancient baby language, which purportedly holds all the secrets to the meaning of life (and conveniently explains why all babies secretly talk like adults). I guess BabyCo hopes to use the “babytalk” language to further develop the Kinder method. As for the babies, they’re motivation seems to be freedom and bringing the separated twins back together. Unrightfully separating twins is of course the greatest crime known to man, one that the Atlantic Ocean is guilty of as we speak. Fuck you, Ocean.

How?! Like any good scientist, BabyCo’s chief researcher, Dr. Heep, set up a controlled experiment with twins Sly and Whit so as to definitively prove the Kinder Method is superior to other learning methods. Unfortunately the method works too well (or maybe Sly and Whit are just naturally too smart, it’s never made all that clear) and Sly breaks free to run about town. Coincidentally they corner Sly at the very moment that he and Whit encounter each other for the first time and Whit is taken back to the lab by mistake. Uh oh! Once BabyCo realizes the mistake they know that their little Mengele-like twin experimentation will be discovered and come to an end, so they start to pack it up to jet off to Lichtenstein (this is really the plot). Acting quickly, Sly and Whit organize their baby troops, hypnotize some weak-minded adult helpers, and take down the whole enterprise, all the while spouting odd anachronistic adult-themed jokes delivered by ADR. This very well might be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen.

Who?! Twin film alert! Have to mark it for next year’s Smaddies Baddies. As for Planchets, I have to highlight Kyle Howard’s Dickie (self nicknamed Icepick). He is a teenager who is given a job at Whit’s parent’s daycare as a favor to his parents, given that he can’t hold down any other job (and doesn’t appear to want to). He spends the entire film dressed in bizarre costumes (including a gigantic hoop nose ring) trying to get fired. No dice, though, as he ends up playing a part in saving the babies… which I guess means he cares or something.

Where?! Very nicely takes place in Pasadena, where BabyCo is headquartered. Mentioned outright in the beginning and supported to the very end as the LAPD race to BabyCo HQ to save the day. The Bobbins’ place seems to be somewhere in the LA suburbs not too far away. Pretty solid C+.

When?! Xmas film, alert! When Sly escapes the lab he ends up making it to a mall, where he spends the night. It is very clearly decked out in Christmas decorations, with a mall Santa and everything. We also get a clear “Merry Christmas” from one of the mall security guards. Perfection. B+.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Baby Geniuses? More like Sweet Baby Jesuses! Amirite? We watched a kid’s film literally starring babies. Totally our wheelhouse. Not the antithesis of everything BMT holds desr. What could go wrong … it isn’t like it could ruin my life, right? Right, obviously, baby geniuses didn’t ruin my life, that’s absurd, but it wasn’t very good. Let’s go!

  • The Good – You’d be surprised by how okay the story actually is. It is silly, and it doesn’t make much sense, but if you squint and let it wash over you like a summer rain it isn’t the most unpleasant. My wife actually watched this movie a bit growing up and had fond memories of it. So credit where credit is due. This is probably up there with Master of Disguise now as BMT films where people I know were kind of flabbergasted that the movie was bad. Also, I don’t know how they get babies to act. At times I was just confounded as to how they got them to do certain things. It is incredible. The supporting acting appears bad, but they are also super committed and I kind of loved that.
  • The Bad – Shoddily made. Number one. All the way down to a rented limousine having a tail light out. I would assume a feature film shoot wouldn’t be so tight on budget or schedule that they could request a not-broken limo to be sent, but not in Baby Geniuses. It looks like a movie made in 1993 but it was made in 1999. The finale was creepy enough I didn’t really know how children would watch it without becoming scared for life. Obviously it is really stupid and none of the jokes land.
  • The BMT – Yes, but lower than it is and mainly just because the idea of the movie is really stupid (or at least transparently pandering to very young kids who they knew just wouldn’t care) and the movie shoddily made. But it is like a 50. You can imagine people liking this film. It is possible. Why does this sound like praise? Read my Superbabies Baby Geniuses 2 recap to find out! The legacy of this film will be that it is a great Twin Film, and part of probably the worst film franchise in history.

I’m going Sequel Prequel Remake here and going for a Prequel. I’m much more interested in Peter MacNicol’s character of Dan Bobbins than anyone else. Why is he special in that he can understand baby talk a bit? He suggests it is in the back of his mind, just out of reach. The prequel will explore the extraordinary events of his babyhood that lead to the incomplete crossing-over and residual retention of baby talk. LSD experiments by a young and radical Dr. Heeb related to MKUltra (although you’d have to accept that Heeb is much older (70’s or even 80’s) or MacNicol’s is much younger (30s) than the actors who played them in Baby Geniuses were at the time), drawing a connection between Kane and BabyCo in the process, a manipulation to draw Dan and Robin together to allow Heeb to continue his research through Dan. It’s got it all! Baby Geniuses: Origins, coming this fall to Netflix. Totally, definitely getting picked up by Netflix.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Fifty Shades Darker Recap

Jamie

What?! After their “dramatic” break-up in the first film, Christian Grey realizes that he can’t live without Anastasia Steele. Promising to give up his S&M lifestyle they get back together. Can they make it work? Find out in… Fifty Shades Darker… seriously, that’s all this is about.

Why?! Mostly it’s because Christian Grey is a broken, lonely man who needs to learn to love and he feels like Anastasia Steele is the first thing in his life that truly gives him that opportunity. As for Anastasia it’s oddly about taking control of her life and becoming more assertive about what she wants personally and professionally in part by giving into her desires with Christian (bit of a contradiction, no?). By setting her ground rules and allowing herself to do what she wants, she unshackles herself from societal norms and flies fr… blech… sorry, I just puked all over myself.

How?! Imagine just watching a couple people dating for two hours. That’s this movie. They just go on dates and stuff. Incredibly dramatic things happen to them (she almost gets raped, he is involved in a helicopter crash, she is held at gunpoint by a crazy former lover of Christian’s) and yet five seconds after these things happen they are forgotten and we continue to watch them argue casually over wine. There was a moment where they were having dinner where I actually thought, “Imagine if this never ended? That I had to sit here watching these two boring people go to dinner over and over again.” A cold shiver ran down my spine. That’s how mundane it all was. So yeah… that’s “how” it all went down. Oh, and they got engaged in the end. That was the climax (sigh, I feel like I can’t even celebrate that pun). Thank God the music was dope.

Who?! Ha! Just thinking about a version of this film that included a Planchet is amusing to me. Like if Christian Grey’s chauffeur Taylor was some chubby, bumbling fool that is the brunt of Christian’s constant chiding. That would be cool. As it is, there is no Planchet. So just gonna shout out my girl Kim Basinger. It’s a crime her role is so small this time around, but I heard it’s bigger in 2018’s future BMT film Fifty Shades Freed. Things are looking up for 2018!

Where?! If you didn’t know (but who doesn’t at this point) these books started as Twilight fan fiction. Accordingly, this film takes place in Seattle, Washington. Most notable Anastasia works at SIP, Seattle Independent Press. Also, the Space Needle is basically a character in the film given how many times we see it in establishing shots. B

When?! The major downside of BMT Live! is the inability to try to figure out exactly when the film takes place by analyzing the film frame-by-frame Zapruder-style. One would think that it’s immediately following the last film. It’s implied that they actually didn’t break up for all that long, so probably June right after graduating. This is supported by E.L. James’ assertion that Christian’s birthday is June 18th (perhaps detailed specifically in the book?), so basically they broke up for two weeks, she started her job, and then like two weeks later they got back together and got engaged. The thing that really shoots this in the foot is that you can see Christmas decorations on store windows when they’re walking around Seattle. Come on, guys. Think about the poor children trying to piece this timeline together. Think of the children! D-

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Fifty Shades Darker?! More like Fifty More Movies please! Not really, one more movie exactly please (I feel strangely sad when movie series get cut short, plus the third is already filmed). We had a night at the movies. Was it an entertaining girls night (and Patrick!) night on the town!? Or was it so awkward I wondered if I perhaps had stumbled into a British comedy series?! Spoiler alert: I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. Let’s go!

  • The Good – The music was jamalaming. The film makes you think … more on that later. Dakota Johnson is a fine actress and does an admirable job. I don’t exactly remember the first movie, I know it happened to me but almost no details beyond that there was a sex contract, but I do know the sex scenes in this one came a lot faster and furiouser which I’m sure satisfied many of the target audience in attendance in my sparsely populated theater.
  • The Bad – Dornan is straight awful. Kim Basinger was given way too little to do (I nearly forgot she was in this). Oh, and literally nothing happens in the film. Basically she dumped his ass in the first film, and he comes back being like “You’re so plain I love you so much, I need you, I’m a billionaire” and then they date for a while. There is a stalker but that is dispatched quickly. Anastasia’s boss goes from zero to rape in 1.5 seconds, which was alarming. And Dornan get paid to look like a complete asshole for two hours. All in all it was a perplexing and yet fascinating time.
  • The BMT – Yes. I’m actually pretty sure this is the worst film of the year. I think it is. It is polished, it looks great, it has some decent acting here and there, but it is also boring, and yet consistently and often humorously terrible. I feel like I need to watch this film again, which makes me uncomfortable to my core. If that isn’t a 80+ BMeTric I’m not sure what is. I’m drawn to it like a fly into an electric fly zapper.

Oh my favorite of all the games: BMT Live! Theater Experience. So basically my plan of action for this film was to show up 15 after the official showtime to ensure the theater is dark, and sit near the exit. Great plan in theory. What actually happened was that the theater was still quite bright when I then very conspicuously entered and sat approximately 40 feet from everyone else. Also, since I was right near the exit anyone who entered after me would go around this little wall and kind of come face-to-face with creeper #1 sitting there like a creeper. Once the movie kicked off the rowdiness was sadly kept to a minimum, but I did indeed manage to bolt out of the theater and around the corner before, I think, anyone else even had a chance to get their things. It is the small victories I savor. This was bar-none the most awkward theater experience of my life. As I sat there it was almost a religious experience. A pariah, alone and consuming delights not meant for me. Reacting with disgust, but was it meant to evoke lust or joy? I would not know, for I was not the intended audience. This is something I do love with BMT in a bizarre way, particularly with Madea films. Watching something not meant for me. Wondering if what I was experiencing was intended in any way by the creators. In this case, I don’t think so, this was one for the ladies. Get yo movies, ladies. BMT Live!

Cheerios, 

The Sklogs

Species II Recap

Jamie

Important couple weeks for BMT, so felt like it was key to catch up. Let’s dive right into Species II.

What?! Sil is back, Jack!… JK. She was engulfed in a flaming tar pit at the end of the first Species. She’s dead. Instead astronaut Patrick Ross returns from a mission to Mars having been infected by ancient alien DNA similar to Sil’s. The military has to find and destroy him (perhaps with a little help from Sil’s genetic clone, Eve). Can they stop Patrick before it’s too late?! Find out in… Species II.

Why?! Like Sil before him, Patrick is driven by one thing and one thing only: getting it on with as many ladies as possible (but who isn’t, amirite? Ayyyyyeeeeeeee [hits jukebox]). This is so the alien species can spread its DNA far and wide and overwhelm the earth and its denizens. Press Lennox (still a real name that was written in a script unironically) is once again pressed into action to stop him at all costs. That’s it… there is literally no other motivation here. These films are just gratuitous gore and nudity… wait, is there a reason these films aren’t still being made?

How?! After Patrick is infected, Press and Dr. Baker team back up to try to figure out how to stop him. Unlike in the first film, Patrick was infected as an adult and is far more powerful than Sil was (she still needed to mature and learn the fine arts of seduction, while he’s already a handsome national hero a.k.a. a lady killer… literally). Through their efforts experimenting on Eve we get some further details on how the alien species operates. Many thousands of years ago the alien DNA was sent to Mars (much like it was sent to Earth in the first Species). It infected the Martians that lived there and destroyed everything leaving the once thriving planet desolate (this is only implied, but I love how bonkers it is). As suspected in the first film, the aliens aren’t here to take over the earth, but rather just to exterminate us. The alien hybrids are advanced biological weapons. Furthermore, through their experimentation they figure out that Eve/Sil won’t mate with inferior DNA not by preference for a stronger mate, but because she literally can’t mate with inferior DNA. This allows for one of the astronauts with sickle cell trait to not only be immune from infection, but also makes his blood poisonous to the aliens (which seems like a super terrible fatal flaw of the weapon, right? You’d think they would have R&D’d that shit a bit more before launch). They pack up his blood and go a-alien killing (culminating in a scene where Press stabs the astronaut in the leg with a pitchfork in order to use his freshly squeezed blood to kill the final alien puppet monster. Word.) Don’t try to think through the science of how this all works… seriously, don’t try. It’s horrendous. In fact, while the first film tried hard to keep things coherent, Species II allowed itself to descend into ridiculousness and contradiction almost immediately.

Who?! Definitively no Planchet in this one, so I’ll just give a little shout-out to my favorite minor character: Richard Belzer randomly playing the President of the United States. You read that correctly. Mr. Law & Order himself. So minor that it’s not even listed on the wikipedia page for portrayals of Presidents in film. Maybe I’ll have to go ahead and add it.

Where?! We jump coasts for the sequel and are entrenched in our nation’s capital, where most of the action takes place. We get some nice scenes of the Capitol building, clear license places, etc. Additionally, we get a “Welcome to Virginia” billboard when the characters jump the border, which is my favorite. Overall a solid B.

When?! Booooooooo, no clear indication of the exact date that the film took place. We know it’s not too long after the first film due to returning characters, but that’s all we got. At one point Eve is shown watching an MLB game, so if I were truly insane I would try to figure out what game that was to give us an exact date. Fortunately I’m not that insane (yet). F

I gave you all the pieces of species (ooof, sorry about that), now let’s see how it stood up to BMT analysis.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Species II? More like Cease Please, Too! Amirite? If I seem less excited about that kick ass rhyme that means you didn’t read my recap of Species because I made the same rhyme and my mind melted. Now it is old news. In the second installment of the series we have the vicious besmirching of the name Patrick by the alien/astronaut Patrick Ross. The sequel brings a ton more sex, but let’s just say I thought it got a bit less erotic. Let’s go!

  • The Good – Hmmmmm, I guess I kind of like the idea of continued experiments on Sil and trying to make her a defense against a future alien attack. I did find it a little odd there is just no mention of the fact that a nearby solar system has not only intelligent life, but deadly killer intelligent life (and yet we are happily trotting off to Mars to collect exactly three soil samples, good use of your 16 month journey idiots). This is starting to look like criticism, but there really isn’t much to like in this sequel beyond that it delivers on a few of the promises (what if the alien was a man? We could be doomed!) from the first film.
  • The Bad – Hmmm, well they got rid of what I liked about the first film (a gaggle of alien hunters on the trail of a fugitive alien, Forest Whitaker’s kind of awesome if confounding empath, the learning about the world aspect of Sil) and replaced it with trash. Now we have terrible practical effects instead of terrible CGI. And as I said, the sex is just less erotic, mainly because most of the women in the film eventually burst in half. The movie is slower and a bigger mess. There is nearly nothing to like here.
  • The BMT – And yet, I don’t feel like the movie is completely dog poo in my face … and I can’t really think why. I think this movie is like a 50. Above average, but too shoddily made to jump up to 70ish. It is hard to recommend the film, although back-to-back with its surprisingly superior predecessor I might consider it.

Today Species II has inspired me to dust off the old Ph.D. and get back to Sklogbusting the scientific myths from bad movies. In this episode we look at the starting mission to Mars. In that mission to Mars Patrick Ross becomes the first person to walk on the surface and, ultimately, he collects exactly three soil samples to bring back to Earth. First flag: According to NASA is takes six months to get to Mars (and in the movie I do believe they say it is day 180 of the mission, so that makes sense), but you would have to stay on/at Mars for about 1.5 years in order for the planets to align to make the return trip. In all the mission would take 2.5 years … and yet they snag three soil samples and happily return home. I guess it is all that sweet cash from the advertisements on their ship’s rocket booster (thanks Pepsi, Sprint, and others for the probably billion dollars this wasteful mission cost). So that’s complete horseshit. Second flag, it is later revealed that Dennis Gamble, the only non-infected astronaut on the mission, wasn’t infected because he is a carrier of the sickle cell genetic marker. Now, I know that athletes for example have to be very concerned about playing in Denver with this trait (see the case of Trent Coleman). So could an astronaut be on the first manned mission to Mars with the trait? In fact you are not explicitly barred from becoming an astronaut due to carrying the trait, and since the 1970s the Air Force no longer discharged servicemembers carrying the trait! So indeed it is possible. I’m going partially busted here. No way the mission shook out the way it did, but the personnel seems plausible (even if it is ludicrous that only three people would be involved in a manned mission to Mars). Oh, they were also talking directly to Houston without an eight minute delay. This documentary seems like a load of shit.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Species Recap

Jamie

What?! The US government has secretly combined human and alien DNA to create a hybrid named Sil. After realizing her danger they attempt to kill her only to have her escape to Los Angeles. Can they destroy her before she finds a mate and her DNA spreads like an unstoppable virus?! Find out in… Species.

Why?! Sil is a mating machine. She literally has a single thing in mind: find the ideal mate, get naked, get it on, and kill anyone that gets in her way. The agents chasing her (an all-star cast of Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger, Forest Whitaker, and Alfred Molina) also only have one thing in mind: kill Sil… and also get it on with each other and anyone else that might come along (it’s an erotic thriller after all). That’s it though. The species films are amazing in their single-mindedness.

How?! Once Sil escapes, the team of agents get to work. These are the bounty hunter Press Lennox (a real name written down in a script), Dr. Baker who kinda runs the show on the science side, a useless anthropologist, and Forest Whitaker’s empath, who is a super useful psychic-type who feel deeply about everything (including exactly where Sil is at all times… phew, how lucky). They track her from murder to murder until Sil, learning from avid TV watching (much like a President of the United States I know), fakes her own death and throws them off. Shortly thereafter the unsuspecting (and still useless) anthropologist is seduced by the alien-in-disguise (i.e. a wig) and inadvertently impregnates her (you are so useless!). Fortunately, Whitaker feels her presence in the hotel room and they chase her to a series of tar pits deep under the hotel (conveniently made accessible by the 1994 earthquake). Sil is able to give birth, but she and her baby are almost immediately thrown into a flaming pool of tar, destroying all of their terrible alien DNA… or did it? It’s actually a pretty tight plot as far as horror-scifi-erotic-thrillers go.

Who?! The comic relief is certainly Alfred Molina, however it’s tough to consider him a Planchet. He’s more like the 4th (and least important) Musketeer. He’s also useless, a horndog, and majorly fucks up at the end to almost destroy the Earth. So boo on him.

Where?! Beautiful settings film. The film very clearly starts in Utah, the location of the top secret lab that created Sil. She then catches a train through Salt Lake City and onwards to Los Angeles, where most of the film takes place. This plays on a common theme in film and TV: that taboos are so acceptable in the dangerous world of LA that even a killer alien seductress would hardly make a splash there. B

When?! Near the beginning we are told that in 1993 the alien DNA was sent to earth. You would think that would be it… that is until Sil is hit by a car and hospitalized. Against all rules and regulations of HIPPA we get a full on glimpse of her hospital file and find that Sil was admitted on April 24, 1995. Exact date (although I think it would have to be confirmed with a Blu-Ray copy of the film as it’s hard to make out for sure). Props to the props guy who even had her name as “Jane Doe” in the file. Very thorough. B-

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Species? More like Cease Please! AMIRITE!?!? Woof, I need to catch my breath there, that kick ass rhyme was a bit too much for me. What do you get when you cross the Sci-Fi / Horror wonder of Alien with literally softcore pornography? The rare and wondrous world of the Erotic-Sci-Fi-Horror genre. Shhhh, don’t scare it away, let’s get into it:

  • The Good – I kind of dug The Fugitive crossed with Alien feel of the storyline here. Speaking of which the story is surprisingly coherent: Sil is good at two things. Killing and reproducing. Anyone who gets in the way of her reproducing is gonna get killed. Easy peasy. Gets going fast and goes at a good clip.
  • The Bad – The CGI, woooooof. Not a good choice. I think that might be what held the series back a bit. The alien puppet/CGI in the first two films never fascinates you like the xenomorph or predator does. Not surprisingly Sil’s acting is subpar. And Whitaker’s character, even though I kind of love it, sticks out like a sore thumb (they bring in a biologist, sociologist, manhunter and … a psychic? Like, are we now required to believe this empath stuff is real?). Terrible twist ending where in the end a rat is infested by the alien DNA. Based on what we have just seen on screen this situation would inevitably lead to the end of the world as we know it.
  • The BMT – No, I kind of dug this film. The twist at the end kind of ruins things, and it is silly, but again, totally into The Fugitive crossed with Alien idea. I would give it a 10. Definitively below average and basically underrated by its rotten tomatoes score in my opinion.

I’m thinking Sequel Prequel Remake, but in this case I’m thinking television show. A true crossover between The Fugitive and X-Files. Almost a Men In Black project. You got Press Lennox as the manhunter, Dr. Laura Baker the xenobiologist, Dr. Stephen Arden the sociologist, and Dan Smithson the hyper-observant human lie-detector, all directed by Xavier Fitch the mysterious director of the secret government agency entrusted with hunting down and neutralizing alien threats against Earth. Season 1: The assembly of the team in order to hunt down Sil, the human-alien hybrid developed after a transmission from space is decoded and orders followed. Finale has Sil getting killed, cliffhanger is the development of Eve, the friendly and almost unstoppable clone of Sil. Season 2, Eve is on the team and a new alien threat in the form of national hero and infected astronaut Patrick Ross emerges. This develops into hunting down the offspring he leaves behind in a cross country rampage culminating in the mutual destruction of Eve and Patrick. Later seasons further explore the landscape of these evil alien species, who now know humans as an opposing sinister force on the cusp of long-distance space travel, and the attempt to survive the ensuing galactic war. Species: The Series! Coming this … fall or something on … Netflix or something.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Are We Done Yet? Recap

Jamie

What?! Nick Persons is back and the playa has settled down. With a new job and a growing family it’s time to buy a house in the country. Unfortunately the one they find is more than they bargained for and they are soon overwhelmed with renovation headaches. Can Nick turn it around and make the house their dream home? Find out in… Are We Done Yet?

Why?! Nick was totally content with living it up with Suzanne, Kevin, and Lindsey in his tiny bachelor pad in downtown Portland. However, he gets big news when Suzanne announces she’s pregnant with twins. That just won’t work. That’s why they end up needing to buy a house. The reason why they end up getting in trouble with renovations is classic hubris. Nick thinks he can do everything himself so he impulse buys the house and then skimps on the necessary inspections, opening himself to being taken advantage of by the local contractor. He then has to try to manage the ballooning costs as he’s forced to do a complete overhaul. So basically this is a Greek tragedy with a tragic downfall of our hero Nick… except that it all works out in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. Literally no one else in this film has any motivations or storylines of interest.

How?! While Nick’s hubris is the reason for his renovation disaster, the disaster itself is caused by one evil, manipulative human being played by John C. McGinley. He uses classic sales tactics to take advantage of Nick’s hubris and trick him into buying a dilapidated house. Since he’s also the town’s only certified contracted (and the town’s building inspector) he then stands to profit greatly from Nick’s failure to inspect the house. It is horrific, and yet in the end you grow to love McGinley’s character because… he’s like sad or something… so it’s okay that he steals from people (?)… I think. You know what, don’t worry about it. This film is terrible. By the end of the film Nick endears himself to the townspeople, rebuilds his house, they have their babies, he starts a home renovation themed magazine, and everyone is literally the happiest any people have ever been ever.

Who?! McGinley is waaaay too big a character to be a Plachet (he appears more than Nia Long in the film), but he’s the closest we’ve got. He’s essentially the exact same character as he played in Scrubs… which is really weird. At this point I have to assume that’s what he’s like in real life too. How else would every character he plays end up being exactly the same?

Where?! We are still in Oregon, just instead of Portland we’ve moved out into the boonies. Sadly the location is much less important in this one and there are far fewer instances where two characters stand around discussing the virtues of Portland. C+

When?! This was a double downgrade from Are We There Yet? to Are We There Yet? Not only isn’t this a holiday film (boo), this isn’t even an exact date film (booooooooo). We get very little sense of when the film actually takes place and this becomes even more confusing once you realize that about 5-7 months or so pass during the film… so you don’t get anything to latch onto from scene to scene. Sigh. F

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are We Done Yet? More like Is This Movie Done Yet?! Boom, almost as if it was made for it. A sequel to a family comedy starring Ice Cube? What could go wrong? Considering their intention appears to be cracking jokes about Ice Cube falling off things absolutely nothing it would seem! Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – I mean, I like McGinley even if he plays the same character at this point (and forever will). He’s carved quite the odd niche out for himself hasn’t he? I also think Ice Cube is charming as usual, and hey, Nia Long has a bit more to do this time. Fun fact: This is the second sequel to a comedy we’ve seen this year (!) where Nia Long is pregnant, the other being Big Momma’s House 2.
  • The Bad – Having established that acting isn’t really a problem what is? Well the mere concept of the film kind of. There isn’t a single funny moment, the entire movie is just stressful and not very enjoyable, and the conflicts are ludicrous. The biggest sin though? Incredibly dull. Just a waste of life.
  • The BMT – I mean … no. It is a waste of life. There isn’t a payoff in any way shape or form. Literally the only reasons I kind of enjoyed doing this film for BMT is because (1) It’s got cred given the amazingly low rotten tomatoes scores for both films, and (2) it is a remake of a film from 1948 which in and of itself is ridiculous. But naw, there isn’t a need. It is a kids film, and naturally those rarely pay off.

And, given that this is a remake let’s turn in a little BMT Homework Sklog-signment. We often have homework assignments (books to read, previous installments to watch, television shows to … ignore). This movie though was pretty special, a film from 1948 called Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House starring Cary Grant and Myma Loy (what a name! She lived to the age of 98!). It was also aggressively aggravating and incredibly long. Basically what you are watching is two people flush money down the toilet due to arrogance and stupidity. And just as their lives fall totally apart their black cook saves their asses (don’t worry she gets a raise though …). I did not like this movie for some of the same reasons I knew I wouldn’t like Are We Done Yet? Financial difficulties stress me out even when they are fiction. The only reason I survived both movies without tearing my hair out was that I knew both would have happy endings. And they did. Spoiler alert. Still despite great performances by both leads I wouldn’t recommend Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House either (although I wouldn’t call it a waste of life either, it is kind of fun seeing how perceptions of things like Connecticut have changed in the last 60+ years).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Are We There Yet? Recap

Jamie

What?! Nick Persons is a pure playa living it up in Portland until one day he falls hard for Suzanne, a single mom of two kids whose sole mission in life is to scare off their mother’s potential suitors. When Nick is asked to bring the kids to Vancouver for New Years, he sees an opportunity to get a little closer to her. Can he survive the trip with her two brats and get the girl? Find out in… Are We There Yet?!

Why?! Nick’s motivations are quite pure: he’s in love with Suzanne. For real, he’s like the sweetest dude ever. He drives her to work, takes her to the airport, helps her grocery shop, etc. All while accepting that he might end up deep in the friendzone. And so the motivation for driving her kids to Vancouver is all in the name of love. The kids’ motivation for making the trip a living nightmare (for Nick and the viewer) is also love… for their biological father. Unfortunately he turns out to be a giant doucher.

How?! Well, at first the trip should be super easy. Just fly the kids to Vancouver. A couple hours and boom, Nick’s heading to a baller New Year’s Eve kiss with the woman of his dreams. But things are never so easy in Hollywood. The son, Kevin, brings a corkscrew to the airport and gets them kicked off their flight. Then he has to go to the bathroom and generally fucks around until they miss their train (and seemingly lose all their luggage, though that’s never mentioned again). Finally they just decide to drive, where the kids proceed to destroy his car (for real, it eventually blows up), get him chased by truckers as a potential kidnapper, and delay them so badly that Suzanne is ready to call the cops. In the end, he’s just a good dude though, so despite all the ups and downs Suzanne realizes he’s the man for her. Hooray?

Who?! Super obvious planchet here: the animated Satchel Paige bobblehead that Nick carries everywhere and talks to. You read that right. That is an actual thing in this film. He is voiced by Tracey Morgan and, against all odds, was not scrapped during rewrites.

Where?! There should be a special Smaddies Baddies just for a film that is so perfectly and inexplicably set in a random place in the world. In this case this is set hard in Portland, Oregon. You might be like, “wait, an Ice Cube film set in Portland?” Yup, even the writers were surprised. At one point Nick jokes about how he obviously wasn’t born there, but rather moved there to play minor league baseball before settling down after an injury. They had to explain why it was set there because otherwise it would have been too crazy! A nice secondary setting in Vancouver. B+

When?! Even the temporal setting was random and yet perfect. It’s a holiday film! Nick is driving the kids to a New Year’s Eve event that their mother is working at in Vancouver. Deep down I kinda wish this was a Thanksgiving film, though. I feel like those are rarer. B.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are We There Yet? More like Is It Done Yet? Amirite? There come a time in an actor’s life where they are now believable as a father figure in a family comedy. For Ice Cube that time was 2005. Was it a family friendly laugh riot? Not really. Let’s go!

  • The Good – I do think Ice Cube is a charming and accomplished actor and he manages to reasonably sustain the movie at times. The kid actors are also a lot better than one would expect. I’m always down for a little road trip comedy, kind of a rare thing these days.
  • The Bad – Yet again Nia Long is relegated to the role of fretting actress on the side, spending most of the movie holding one-sided conversations in Vancouver, this is a trend. The plot is ludicrous and requires one of the worst excuses to prevent Ice Cube from simply taking a short plane trip from Portland to Vancouver instead of driving. The movie feels like a series of vignettes as opposed to a cohesive movie. This movie has one of the more ridiculous excuses for a song and dance number I’ve ever seen just to get the young girl to sing a bit. The sequences in Portland in retrospect also seem tacked on and unnecessary.
  • The BMT – All in all I think the movie overshot its rotten tomatoes score. To get an 11% you need to be simply awful. This movie isn’t that awful. If you buy into it and enjoy seeing Ice Cube yell about damage to his precious new car over and over (and over) again, they you’ll probably think it isn’t so bad. I would say maybe a 25 BMeTric, middle of the pack.

I can’t really think of a good game here so I’m going to do a tiny Product Sklog-ment brought to you by McDonald’s. Da-da-da-da-da, we’re lovin’ it! In this case, if there was ever a Planchet in this film, it would be Ice Cube’s precious Lincoln Navigator. He buys it at the beginning of the film and he does not want children playing in it. But despite all his attempts the car is dented, it is stained, it is run off of the road destroying all four tires, and ultimately one of the kid vomits all over the interior and a final wreck results in it lighting on fire and exploding. As the magically bobblehead voiced by Tracy Morgan (and mysteriously missing from the sequel) says: “[His] insurance premiums are going to go through the roof!”, Classic. But this is one of the most in your face full-blown advertisements we’ve seen in a movie in a long while. Sandler-esque.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs