Tag: BMT 2017

Are We There Yet? Preview

Onwards and upwards to Chain Reaction. After painting ourselves into a corner last year we finally fully extricated ourselves from the mess by landing on Ride Along 2. This cycle we get to move from that to the Are We There Yet? Series through Ice Cube. While this is not the worst reviewed set of films in history (that would obviously go to Baby Geniuses and Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 with a shocking 2% and 0% RT scores, respectively), this is pretty spectacular in its own right with 11% and 8% RT scores for the two films. Also, it has the strange distinction of having the first film be totally original and then having the second film be a remake of the Cary Grant film Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House (that was in turn based on a book which itself was expanded from a short story). Sometimes you can’t make this shit up. Let’s go! To start the road trip extravaganza:

Are We There Yet? (2005) – BMeTric: 62.5

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(There are two interesting things in these graphs. First, I’m genuinely surprised at how high the BMeTric is. I would have assumed a film with a sequel wouldn’t have been a complete catastrophe. Second, if you ignore the initial uptick the rating is pretty stable over the years and at a surprisingly low 4.2(ish). All signs point to this being a simply terrible film. Can’t wait.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars –  If you wait long enough, just about anything can happen, including Ice Cube turning into Fred MacMurray. Actor Cube isn’t the problem here, but a stale premise is: the child-hating owner of a sports memorabilia store transports two headstrong kids over a long, disaster-prone trip to Vancouver, all to help hottie-mama Lond out of a scheduling ham while getting into her good graces. Before turning in this box-office success, director Levant did Problem Child 2 and Snow Dogs. Forewarned is forearmed.

(So much to unpack here. (1) Forewarned is forearmed? I honestly had never heard the phrase until now and it just seems so strangely out of place to me. And yet looking it up it dates to at least the 16th century and has been used throughout the years and has a quite literal meaning. (2) Calling out the director specifically for Problem Child 2, who do you think you are Leonard … me? (3) Name dropping Fred MacMurray in a review of an Ice Cube family comedy. All bold moves. Something just makes me love this entire review.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn7IPP2bc5c

(Wow the music. I will say this though: this is a straight kids movie, why are we watching this and how are we going to judge it. Also the Paul Bunyan Ax would have seriously injured Ice Cube)

Directors – Brian Levant – (BMT: The Flintstones; The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas; Are We There Yet?; Problem Child 2; Snow Dogs; Jingle All the Way; The Spy Next Door; Beethoven; Notes:  Won the Razzie Award in 1995 for Worst Screenplay for The Flintstones; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1997 for Worst Director for Jingle All the Way; Notable television writer starting his career on the Jeffersons and writing for other huge shows like Happy Days. He wrote Sklog childhood staple Problem Child 2. Egad, imagine doing that for BMT?! Gross.)

Writers – Steven Gary Banks and Claudia Grazioso (story & screenplay) – (BMT: Are We Done Yet?; Are We There Yet?; Notes: Writing duo. Not much about them … but their not-a-movie Family Dude seems to morph into Just Go With It, no? Just in Hawaii with Adam Sandler instead of Montana. That is kind of nuts, they must have landed Sandler and then cut Banks and Grazioso free. As a matter of fact I wonder if they were thinking of Just Go With It as the third Are We There Yet? movie starring Ice Cube as well. Would have had to be a different character though, he doesn’t need to pretend to have a family. But perhaps it was supposed to be Cube’s next PG film and he bailed in favor of better projects.)

David Stem (screenplay) – (Known For: Shrek 2; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; The Rugrats Movie; Rugrats in Paris; BMT: Daddy Day Camp; Are We There Yet?; The Smurfs (BMT); The Smurfs 2 (BMT); Clockstoppers; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Daddy Day Camp; The next two have also been writing partners since 1992. These guys worked on the Nickelodeon classic Roundhouse! Be still my beating heart. Is in the process of writing the sequel to Enchanted with Amy Adams.)

David N. Weiss (screenplay) – (Known For: Shrek 2; All Dogs Go to Heaven; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; The Rugrats Movie; Rugrats in Paris; BMT: Daddy Day Camp; Are We There Yet?; The Smurfs (BMT); The Smurfs 2 (BMT); Clockstoppers; Rock-A-Doodle; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Daddy Day Camp; Before he teamed up with Sterm this guy wrote All Dogs Go to Heaven and Rock-A-Doodle. I’m star struck over here. He’s written several children’s books and both Weiss and Stern were nominated for an Emmy as part of the writing team behind Rugrats.)

Actors – Ice Cube – (Known For: xXx: Return of Xander Cage; 21 Jump Street; Friday; The Book of Life; 22 Jump Street; Boyz n the Hood; Barbershop: A Fresh Cut; Three Kings; Barbershop; Rampart; Higher Learning; Barbershop 2: Back in Business; Trespass; The Glass Shield; The Longshots; BMT: xXx²: State of the Union (BMT); Anaconda; Torque (BMT); Are We Done Yet?; Ghosts of Mars (BMT); Are We There Yet?; First Sunday; Lottery Ticket; Ride Along 2 (BMT); Friday After Next; I Got the Hook Up; All About the Benjamins; Dangerous Ground; Ride Along (BMT); Next Friday; The Players Club; Notes: Slowly creeping up the ladder of BMT legends. Obviously most famous for being part of NWA and in my opinion he has made an incredible transition to acting. Seeing xXx 3 as non-BMT makes me sick to my stomach. Disgusting.)

Nia Long – (Known For: Friday; Keanu; Boyz n the Hood; Boiler Room; Alfie; Soul Food; The Best Man; The Best Man Holiday; Lemon; Roxanne Roxanne; The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy; BMT: Big Momma’s House 2 (BMT); Are We Done Yet?; Are We There Yet?; Big Momma’s House (BMT); Made in America; Premonition; The Single Moms Club (BMT); Held Up; Stigmata; Notes:  Against all odds these two movies will be the second and third Nia Long movies we’ve watched in this cycle alone! If only she had appeared in Big Momma Like Father Like Son. The younger half-sister of comedian Sommore)

Also stars Aleisha Allen (who was in School of Rock)

Budget/Gross – $32 million / Domestic: $82,674,398 (Worldwide: $97,918,663)

(That is a pretty significant success so not shocking they made a sequel. Anything near $100 million is quite good for a comedy.)

#10 for the Comedy – Fish-Out-of-Water Father genre

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(This comes in right above a recent BMT (Cheaper by the Dozen) and far above Hall of Fame inductee Old Dogs. Naturally right at the peak of as genre which may or may not attempt a comeback soon. The fact that zero films have been placed in this genre on Box Office Mojo since 2013 makes me think the odds aren’t good.)

#10 for the Comedy – Road Trip genre

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(I love it! I feel like we haven’t seen a “novel” trend in one of these in a while. Here the genre was put to quite the long term test from around 2000-2010. Given how there was an intense burst with Dumb and Dumber in 1995 and then the genre slowly climbed its was back to reasonable box office returns, I’m surprised by the lull in 2010. If I were to guess it is, like many other things, a genre that kind of got pushed to the side as tentpoles were being hastily assembled. It is nice to see that it has recovered and has not been relegated to VOD forevermore … although recent ones have not been great including the sequel to the aforementioned Dumb and Dumberer. This came in near the reviled Tammy. BMT classic Wild Hogs came in number one, where’s my sequel?!)

Rotten Tomatoes – 11% (13/116): This supposed family comedy staring [sic] the usually blameless Ice Cube and Nia Long has provoked most critics to write, “Is it over yet?”

(Hilarious type in the consensus. Not actually as uncommon as you would think. For an initial movie in a two part series that score is very very low. Supposed comedy is a little concerning. Sounds … boring.)

Poster – Are We Sklog Yet? (C-)

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(There is a whole class of posters that a similar to this that I just hate, hate, hate. Too much empty space and not enough stylization of the characters on the poster. Here the font is OK and the visual tells me a story so not a total loss. For the record: it would still be really easy to make Are We Sklog Yet?)

Tagline(s) – 24 hours. 350 miles. His girlfriend’s kids. What could possibly go wrong? (D-)

(That is for real the tagline for this film and it is terrifying. Like the worst. Can’t give it an F though cause it does give me some tantalizing details about the plot. What could possibly go wrong indeed.)

Keyword(s) – car fire; Top Ten by BMeTric: 62.5 Are We There Yet? (2005); 62.3 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013); 59.9 Cell (I) (2016); 56.7 The 5th Wave (2016); 55.7 Spring Breakers (2012); 53.2 Cold Creek Manor (2003); 49.9 Point Break (2015); 46.1 Sleepwalkers (1992); 42.1 The Black Dahlia (2006); 41.6 Southland Tales (2006);

(Thinking about it I can’t wait to watch Southland Tales. Somehow that has just flown under the radar for years. Otherwise a sparse list with the 5th Wave seeming particularly weak … kind of amazing it is near 60 BMeTric at the moment)

Notes – Ice Cube’s first PG-rated movie. (And I think this series is his only foray into that genre. Prob will stay that way I would think)

Actor Ice Cube stated on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1993) that this film was originally intended as an Adam Sandler vehicle. (Jeez, that makes a ton of sense)

Despite the film’s title, “Are We There Yet?” is only said once in the film. (Small blessings)

Kevin said his mom (Nia Long) thinks Nick is better looking than Taye Diggs. Nia Long and Taye Diggs played love interests in The Best Man and The Best Man Holiday. (fun facts)

When Nick is asked what Suzanne’s kids names are, he answers ‘Theo and Rudy [Huxtable]’ from The Cosby Show (1984). (ooooof that joke has not aged well to say the least)

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous Recap

Jamie

What?! Gracie Hart is back! After the exploits of the first film Agent Hart is too famous for field work. However, when her friends Stan Fields and Miss United States are kidnapped in Las Vegas, Gracie hears the call of duty. Can she save the girl (and make some lifelong pals along the way) before it’s too late? Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous!

Why?! After watching the first film (where Gracie stops a terrorist threat live on national television) I immediately thought, “how in the world did they make a sequel to this film?” I couldn’t figure how Gracie Hart could make it back into the field as an agent. She would be super famous. Lo and behold the screenwriters thought the same thing and wrote in a plot where Gracie had shifted to a PR role within the FBI due to her fame. In the end, though, the motivation for getting back into the field (the kidnapping of her friends) is so great that she can’t help but do it. The motivation for the kidnapping itself is obscured throughout the film to the point where a viewer may not pick up on (or even really care) what it actually is. Turns out that Stan Fields has a gambling problem and got himself in deep with the Vegas mob. The mob decides to kidnap Fields so they can get a ransom for him and pay off his debts.

How?! The mobster hires a couple of loan shark thugs (with a background in Vegas showmanship) to kidnap Fields so he can extort payment via ransom. When the thugs accidentally grab the reigning Miss United States in the process they realize that the amount of money for the kidnapping is too good to give up to the mobster so they take the hostages themselves and proceed to fuck it all up through incompetence. Seriously, after they strike out on their own, the plan starts to make no sense. They send a couple of half-assed ransom videos, give up immediately, and decide to kill their hostages at Treasure Island on the strip (a place that apparently did the kidnappers wrong in the past). Not sure what the killing of the hostages actually gains for the baddies. Like… you didn’t get any money. All you seem to get is some vengeance on Treasure Island. It’s bizarre. And yet they go about it with absolute glee.

Who?! Diedrich Bader is the obvious Planchet here (although his role might be a bit too big for a true Planchet). He was the extra flamboyant replacement for the medium flamboyant Michael Caine of the first film with jokes and jokes and jokes to spare. His most offensive was when the FBI told him that he had to give up the location of Gracie Hart (who had gone rouge) or else he’d go to jail for obstruction. To which he paused and then replied, “which jail?”… as if there was a jail that his character would be OK with because he’s gay. Weird and wild stuff.

Where?! Vegas, baby! It would have been a load of fun for us to have watched this a couple weeks ago before we went to Vegas ourselves. We stayed right across the street from Treasure Island! We could have gone on a Miss Congeniality 2 tour around the strip. Sigh. A shame. Also a pretty nice, but short, opening in New Jersey/New York. B+.

When?! This is kind of a hard one. We immediately get a relative time frame compared to the first film as right before the kidnapping we are told that Miss United States is about to give up her crown, setting the events of this film at almost exactly one year after the first. However, neither the first or second film actually have a specific date. There is a scene in the second film where a character is reading a January 2004 Time Out New York magazine, but that doesn’t totally jive with the first film in which we see the twin towers (along with other evidence that sets the film somewhere in 1999-2000). Soooooooo, I guess it just sucks. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous?! More like Miss Congeniality Dog Poo Right in my Face! We watched a sequel to what seemed like an unsequelizable film, what could possible go wrong? Dog poo in my face, that is what could go wrong! Let’s get into it:

  • The Good – It is genuinely shocking they made a legitimate sequel to a movie that seemed like it couldn’t have a sequel. How they went about it was genuinely impressive. I liked Nick Offerman’s character (although I think there was more they could have done with him, see below).
  • The Bad – The movie might as well not have a script. There are scenes where Shatner is literally sitting there waiting for Bullock to tell him what to do, as if he has no written lines. The back half is a complete mess. The relationship between Bullock and King is grating and they should have dumped the project the instant Bratt didn’t want to return. Speaking of which: Bratt has an incredible break-up-over-the-phone scene eliminating his character from the series without having to pay him a dime! All characters in Las Vegas were completely useless and could have been cut. Let’s bring back a classic since I’m learning French at work: Chien caca dans mon visage.
  • The BMT – Oh yeah. I would give this a solid 50-60 suffering only because it is kind of boring. I’m willing to bet if you watched this film 100 times you would slowly go crazy and be convinced it is brilliant. There is just so many bad things to unpack. Are you ready for the challenge Jamie?

And finally a little Sklogification: Basically the one easily fixable flaw in the film I think is that there is an entire storyline by which it is revealed that Shatner’s limo driver was paid by a Dolly Parton drag queen to park away from the curb to allow the kidnapping. Now I was convinced it was going to be Nick Offerman’s character in drag. He was always talking about his Vegas show that was cancelled and that is why he had to pursue a life of crime. What a twist it could have been to have him and his brother be part of a drag queen act and the entire plot being part of their revenge on the casino that spurned them? Already a little bit better, and it makes sense as to why the other FBI agents couldn’t crack the case, they were incorrectly looking for a woman accomplice!. I would have written: “Nice twist, even though I predicted it” in my notes, but alas. I would also consider a third film starring Benjamin Bratt (no Bullock as well) … by the way, his character moved to Miami. I like to think that he then “broke bad” and morphed into the villain in Ride Along 2. Unexpected Sequel!

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Miss Congeniality 2 Armed and Fabulous Preview

Very disappointing week in the world of BMT. I fully expected to be announcing the first BMT Live! of the year as xXx: The Return of Xander Cage was released. Alas. Somehow it was able to garner 42% on RT due to a plethora of “Good for what it is” type reviews. Fuck that. Sigh. Instead we’ll wait on some other obvious choices later this month and move right onto the Girls Night Out. Only two real options for the category: Sex and the City 2 or Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. Patrick hasn’t gotten through the entire series of Sex and the City in prep for the film (unfortunately that is not a joke) so we are going for Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. I’m actually excited about that. Great title. Let’s go!

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005) – BMeTric: 61.3

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(This is the greatest 2011 inflection ever. I think it is because you literally see it go from 0 votes to 53,000 (the first data point has 71 votes!). That is why the rating fluctuates so much in the beginning too, it was just shit on by those 71 people, and then it jumped immediately to 6.0 (early fans of the original), and then is faded to where it belonged. This is a very “sustained excellence” plot, which I think means this is going to be a classic. Nary a regression to the mean to be seen and high 4 / low 5 is genuinely terrible for IMDb. Getting excited.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars –  Bullock returns as FBI agent Gracie Hart, for public relations purposes, becomes the “face of the FBI.” When Burns and Shatner are kidnapped, the bureau’s beauty and her bodyguard (King) abandon PR duties and try to find the hostages. Forced (and redundant) sequel has only a couple of bright moments and never hits a comedic stride. Several celebrities have bit parts.

(You finished writing your novel yet, Leonard? That last statement is real vague. Just some celebrities popping in… to let you know.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZZ-rWnoGbk

(Jesus Christ. So let’s go through a few things. (1) Benjamin Bratt is removed from the sequel with an off screen phone call. (2) Cameo by at least Regis. (3) The audacity to claim that all of a sudden Bullock’s character is some undercover wonder. (4) Set in Las Vegas. Roll all that up together with that fact that literally everything good from the original (Bratt and Caine at least a little bit) just are no longer there and this is a recipe for disaster. I’m excited.)

Directors – John Pasquin – (Known For: The Santa Clause; BMT: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; Jungle 2 Jungle; Joe Somebody; Notes: Basically Tim Allen’s personal director. He even directs and co-produces Allen’s current show Last Man Standing.)

Writers – Marc Lawrence (characters & written by) – (Known For: Miss Congeniality; Music and Lyrics; Two Weeks Notice; The Rewrite; Forces of Nature; BMT: Did You Hear About the Morgans?; Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; The Out-of-Towners; Life with Mikey; Notes: And this guy’s like the personal writer for Sandra Bullock and Hugh Grant. He wrote 4 Bullock films and 4 Hugh Grant films, including one (Two Weeks Notice) where they both appear. Weird. Nominated for an Emmy for producing Family Ties.)

Katie Ford (characters) – (Known For: Miss Congeniality; BMT: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; Notes: Wrote on Family Ties with Lawrence. Mostly has written for TV. Only feature is Miss Congeniality with a character credit on the sequel.)

Caryn Lucas (characters) – (Known For: Miss Congeniality; BMT: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; Notes: Wrote with Lawrence on a short lived sitcom Pride & Joy. Jesus, this guy must be the king of the Rolodex. Pulling out his contacts to make all these films and shows.)

Actors – Sandra Bullock – (Known For: Gravity; Crash; The Proposal; Minions; A Time to Kill; Miss Congeniality; Speed; The Heat; Demolition Man; The Prince of Egypt; Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close; Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood; While You Were Sleeping; Two Weeks Notice; The Vanishing; Infamous; Forces of Nature; The Thing Called Love; Wrestling Ernest Hemingway; Lisa Picard Is Famous; BMT: Speed 2: Cruise Control; All About Steve; Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; The Net; Premonition; Love Potion No. 9; Stolen Hearts; 28 Days; Hope Floats; Murder by Numbers; Gun Shy; Practical Magic; Our Brand Is Crisis; Loverboy; In Love and War; The Lake House; Notes:  Won the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple for All About Steve; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1998 for Worst Actress for Speed 2: Cruise Control; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1998 for Worst Screen Couple for Speed 2: Cruise Control; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1994 for Worst Supporting Actress for Demolition Man. Won an Oscar for The Blind Side and nominated for Gravity. My favorite fun fact about her is that she was once engaged to Tate Donovan.)

Regina King – (Known For: Friday; Jerry Maguire; Boyz n the Hood; Enemy of the State; Ray; Mighty Joe; Planes: Fire & Rescue; Higher Learning; The Ant Bully; This Christmas; How Stella Got Her Groove Back; Year of the Dog; BMT: Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde; Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; Daddy Day Care; Down to Earth; Our Family Wedding; A Cinderella Story; Poetic Justice; A Thin Line Between Love and Hate; Notes: Won a couple Emmy’s recently for her role on American Crime.)

William Shatner – (Known For: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Miss Congeniality; Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan; Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; Star Trek: The Motion Picture; Over the Hedge; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; Judgement at Nuremberg; Star Trek: Generations; Osmosis Jones; Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; Airplane II: The Sequel; A Christmas Horror Story; Kingdom of the Spiders; Big Bad Mama; Incubus; Free Enterprise; BMT: Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; Showtime; The Wild; The Devil’s Rain; Escape from Planet Earth; Loaded Weapon 1; Notes:  Won the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Actor, and Director for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2000 for Worst Actor of the Century; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1995 for Worst Supporting Actor for Star Trek: Generations; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Screenplay for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier; His daughter Lisbeth was Miss Golden Globes. Classic fun fact.)

Budget/Gross – $60 million / Domestic: $48,478,006 (Worldwide: $101,393,569)

(That … actually doesn’t seem that bad. But dropping from a $100 million dollar comedy to about half of what it raked in a few years earlier obviously meant the end to the franchise. And the end to Bullock’s romantic comedy career for a bit. She would come back with the one-two punch of the very successful The Proposal in the same year as the widely panned (BMT) All About Steve.)

#35 for the Action Heroine genre

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(Near future BMT Resident Evil Extinction, which makes sense. We last saw this during the Hall of Fame preview for Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li. This film did substantially better and really came right before the genre collapsed. Since then it has clawed its way back very successfully. This plot doesn’t count Rogue One so it’ll continue to grow as well.)

#14 for the Cinderella Complex genre

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(Ooooo right near BMT favorite The Prince and Me. Such an odd genre. And I’m sensing a trend, this also collapsed right around 2005. I think 2005 was a point in time: a point when the studios realized if they were just a tiny bit more careful they could just print money. So they relegated this to straight-to-DVD Disney affairs (I assume).)

#62 for the Comedy – Sequel (Live Action) genre

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(So … We finally discovered the root of the sequel collapse. Hollywood wasn’t replenishing their comedy coffers, they literally just couldn’t function for a bit between 2005 and 2010. That year basically marks a collapse across the board in certain “bad movie genres” as they hibernated and started to mull on the next big hit. 2008 was Iron Man, so they didn’t have to wait too long. But Miss Congeniality 2 Armed and Fabulous seems like something special. It sat on the edge of the abyss and dared people to look at it, see what our hubris wrought as critics whispered “The horror! The horror!”.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 15% (22/145): Sandra Bullock is still as appealing as ever; too bad the movie is not pageant material.

(Blech, “pageant material,” RT? That’s the best you can do? If this came out this year I bet it would get a 42% and everyone would just say “It’s dumb as a box of hair, but it delivers on what it promises.” God, I’m just so angry about xXx: The Return of Xander Cage.)

Poster – Miss Congeniality 2 Armed and Sklogulous (D-)

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(Violates everything I hold dear: too much white, weird framing, no dominant coloring, and (worst of all) no tagline! Only thing it does OK is have a fairly unique font. Would be hard to spoof.)

Tagline(s) – None! (F-)

(I need to collect together all the films that don’t have a tagline on their poster and start a letter writing campaign to shame the producers. Unacceptable behaviour and we don’t have to stand for it. Theory: Some producer thought the tagline Armed and Fabulous was so good that it needed to be a subtitle.)

Keyword(s) – female protagonist; Top Ten by BMeTric: 89.6 Catwoman (2004); 85.0 Date Movie (2006); 84.7 Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997); 80.5 The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009); 79.5 Crossroads (I) (2002); 78.6 Sex and the City 2 (2010); 78.5 BloodRayne (2005); 78.3 Ultraviolet (2006); 76.7 Spice World (1997); 73.1 Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009);

(Phew, I thought Bullock was going to go for a two-fer with Miss Congeniality 2 sneaking in at the end. Catwoman is incredible, and honestly this is a really fun list. Imagine watching those ten movies in a row! I’m in, let’s do it.)

Notes – Eileen Brennan, who plays Stan Fields’ mom, is actually a year younger than William Shatner, who plays Stan Fields. He was born in 1931, she was born in 1932. (wot?)

In Miss Congeniality (2000), there was supposed to be a storyline where Gracie Hart’s mother was killed in the line of duty. The storyline was included in this sequel.

A Miss Congeniality (2000) poster can be seen in the background at the Las Vegas airport during the scene where Gracie is supposed to be flying back to New York. (wot?)

An entirely different sequence was filmed wherein the limo driver was portrayed by Jeffrey Tambor. (That fact is fun!)

The “Las Vegas FBI HQ” building used in the film is actually the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse located in Downtown Las Vegas.

Friday the 13th Part III Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back (for the second time, not the third… or at least not as the killer… it’s weird) and ready to kill again. After surviving his machete wound from Part II, Jason is targeting a group of regional theater actors (I presume) that take an ill-timed vacation in the woods. Will these sexed-up, weed-smoking teenagers be able to survive their encounter with evil? Friday the 13th Part III!

Why?! I love horror films. The motivation is quite simple: Jason is made to kill and teenagers are made to try to survive (usually ineffectively). There are a couple of interesting subplots for the characters though. One is an aspiring actor, there is a couple that is young and pregnant, and the main girl organized the entire trip to try to confront her demons regarding a traumatic experience she had at the lake house. Coincidentally that traumatic experience involves Jason who just happened to wake up from a 5-year hiatus the day before the film takes place. Ouch. Bad luck.

How?! Uh… in like a thousand different ways. Jason’s MO is generally to sneak around a place and slit people’s throats or bury an axe or machete in their head. No different for this film. This is the entry where creative kills became a thing, particularly a harpoon death, death by red hot poker, a guy getting his head crushed and having an eye pop out, and easily the goriest scene of the franchise thus far where someone is chopped in half. Don’t worry though, most of these things are more hilarious than actually scary.

Who?! Friday the 13th hadn’t totally embraced how ridiculous they all were quite yet, so the jokesters in the first three films aren’t quite true Planchets. This film almost got there, though, with the character of Shelly. Shelly is a fat, fro-sporting aspiring actor (who is easily the worst actor in the film). He plays pranks by pretending to get killed and be a murderer. It would be meta and somewhat funny if the character wasn’t such a downer. He spends nearly the entire film being like “you all hate me cause I’m ugly and fat. Waaaaa!” At least be funny once in awhile, man. Otherwise it’s no fun for any of us.

Where?! It’s clear through the first three films that we are located at or very near to Crystal Lake. Several indications tell us that we’re in New Jersey in the first film, and it’s confirmed in the second film. Thank God, because this was the first film to be (very clearly) filmed in California. But it gets a New Jersey tally as it is near Crystal Lake. C-.

When?! As noted in Part II’s recap we know that this film takes place in 1984 and is set in June or July. We can be pretty sure this film starts on a Friday as the group of teenagers are off to the lake house for a weekend getaway (starring Selena Gomez). This leads to one of the most commonly cited timelines for the series with this film taking place on Friday, July 13th into the 14th. This means the first film takes place July 10th-13th. Apparently the move to July is rooted in the script which states explicitly that the film takes place on Friday the 13th (which could only occur in July). Fine whatever. I would prefer it was set in June and they didn’t worry about the exact days of the week, as June 13th is Jason’s birthday and it would make more sense that he kills on or around that anniversary. This timeline made me sad. C-.

Those are the W’s, but there are only three letters we care about here at HQ. Whether this film was B-M-T.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part III? More like Copying Halloween Part III! That’s right, I watched the first three in arguably Hollywood’s worst horror mega-franchise, could three times be the charm? … In a way, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – The lore in this series is strong and, when you compare it to Halloween, it definitely shows more promise than where Halloween 4, 5 and 6 ended up. Not exactly fair because I assume Friday the 13th Part 5 is really where things just go off the rails. Still, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this series. It gave me a new appreciation for the slasher genre (not joking) which I still didn’t quite understand with Halloween. We’ll get into that a bit later.
  • The Bad – The 3D nonsense was insane, you can kind of see how terrible and beholden they were to it at the time. I mean … Shelly. The franchise itself suffers from one big issue in parts 2 and III: they seem to go all out for the first kill and they just nothing but nothing for at least 30 minutes afterwards. Then they are stumbling all over themselves to kill off at least 10 people in the films. If I were to rank the classic tropes this movie created or fell into: (1) Terrible young actors, (2) obsession with gruesome kills over genuine tension, (3) too many kills such that the movie grinds to a halt to just murder people in clusters, (4) too many Chekov’s red hot pokers such that the movie became very linear and predictable. Again, we’ll get a bit more into the pros and cons in a bit.
  • The BMT – Honestly, no. Not any of the three. Shelly gets you close, but he’s just on the correct side of tongue in cheek I think. The budgets are too small, the lore is too good, and the films are just a bit too self aware. I assume that the fourth (the final chapter) kills Jason and I assume zombie Jason represents the franchise crossing the Rubicon. And seriously, I can’t wait to sit down and watch two or three more. I understand slasher obsession a bit now.

I’ve already written a lot, but here I think I need to go into a bit of Sklognalysis. The main reason being that the lore of this film is kind of incredible. The first three in this franchise see the evolution of the bad guy from Jason’s mother, to a bag-wearing monstrous mamma’s boy in the woods, to a psycho man in a mask. Each film involves a lake (from which one can oddly assume Jason draws his power), each film occurs in about a single day, each film has 10+ kills, each film has a variety of weapons, and each film culminates with a storm. The films start with a replay of the previous film, and in each a single person survives and has a horrible dream to end the film, and is driven insane and taken away by the perplexed police. In the recap for part 2 I rewrote this trilogy a bit, but even without the rewrite I think the franchise may stand alone in showing evolution while being true to its lore and predecessors. They evolve the killer while stopping short of explicitly falling back to supernatural explanation. I don’t know … I kind of loved this first trilogy, even if all three are objectively poorly made films. There is something about them. Lucky for everyone there is eight other main franchise films to destroy its legacy.

I am genuinely excited to watch the entire series and then watch the Crystal Lake Memories (it is a 7 hour long documentary!).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back!… er… I mean, Jason is here for the first time! It’s five years after the massacre at Crystal Lake committed by Jason’s mother and now Jason (back from the dead or whatever) is out for revenge. A new set of camp counselors are on the scene, but the result is basically the same. Can they survive the encounter with a new monster? Friday the 13th Part II!

Why?! The horror genre is interesting because the motivations have traditionally been vague or nonexistent, especially in the early franchises. Mike Myers was pure evil and out to kill his family, Freddy is pure evil and haunts the dreams of teenagers in his hometown, Leatherface is pure evil and kills those that stumble upon his crazy family. Friday the 13th is a bit different, whereby Jason’s mother kills all who attempt to reopen the camp where her son drowned through negligence. Part II continues the trend in that Jason isn’t just pure evil out to kill anyone who disturbs his peace at the camp, but rather he worships his (now dead) mother and kills those near the lake. He has no ability to discriminate between those that killed his mother five years ago and those that come to the lake in this film. As a result he goes on a rampage. It’s actually a pretty interesting backstory. The motivation for the campers is always the same: survive.

How?! Like, how did Jason kill the campers? In this one there isn’t a huge amount of variety. Mostly it’s stabbing people in the torso or neck. The best kill is the double spear kill through the bodies of two counselors making whoopee (and it gives me the opportunity to use the phrase “making whoopee.”). The third film is really when they started getting creative with the kills.

Who?! Each of the films has a Planchet of sorts. The guy who’s always joking around. This one is no different with Ted played by Stuart Charno, who has bright orange hair and is super skinny. Besides his jokes on jokes on jokes, the most interesting thing about the character is that he survives. Since the setting of the film is a functioning training camp there are like 25 people there. Instead of killing them all they wrote in the fact that most of the crew go out on the town the night of the massacre and don’t return until after the killing has stopped.

Where?! The first film pretty firmly establishes that the camp is located in New Jersey. The setting is bolstered in this one through the name of the training camp: Camp Packanack. This is clearly a play on Lake Packanack located in New Jersey. C+.

When?! The timeline for the series is legendarily screwed up. We know by reference that this film takes place five years after the first. It’s known from the fourth film (apparently) that the first film takes place in 1979. So we have the year of 1984 (which is fun because that means that the film was set in the future as it was released in 1982). I would presume that it’s June give that it’s a training camp for counselors for the upcoming camp season, but fans like to put it in July so that the third film takes place on Friday the 13th. Whatever. That’s what you can get from this film. Look towards Part III’s recap to get a better idea of the exact date. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part 2? More like Just Like Halloween 2! We watched the first trilogy of one of the three horror mega franchises, could it live up to the standard set by the first installment of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street? Let’s just say it gets off to a rocky start. Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – If you like lots of kills, and inventive kills this is the franchise for you it turns out. Halloween had less kills and more tension, and Myers for the most part slashes people (it worked well when he was a kid, why change anything ten years later you know?), and Kruger has that whole supernatural dream thing going. But otherwise … this guy was probably actually my least favorite of the three.
  • The Bad – This installment is a mess. You want to think the ending is a dream? Then did Paul survive? If not what happened to him? Who is Jason, a grown up version of the boy in the lake? Did he not actually die? Is this another boy Mrs. Voorhees raised in the woods? What happened to the kids who went off to the townie bar, I presume they just survived. Why is this never mentioned ever again? For all the low budget gore and dozen or so kill shots, there are so many loose ends after the movie sprints through the last seven teenage deaths that it is a wonder the editor cobbled the madness together.
  • The BMT – Out of the three I honestly think the second is the worst, but no. Too low budget. They made these things on a dime at the time. The entire trilogy predates Elm Street so the only real comparisons you got are things like Halloween 2 which kind of also looks like crap. Elm Street stands with The Thing as far as practical effects are concerned, so for the slasher genre that was (unfortunately a terrible) turning point. Here though they grabbed good looking young actors off the street and filmed it over a weekend basically. And what they made is actually pretty impressive.

Quick Sklogification in honor of this movie just being a mess. Out of the many admirable things in this franchise, one of the best things is watching the evolution of the character of Jason and the lore surrounding the film. But it ended up leaving things a little messy upon reviewing. Is Jason the (un)dead boy from the first film? Is there a psychic aspect to the series with the multiple dream sequences throughout? It is hard to tell. So If I were to propose a rewrite of the original trilogy (and, no, I haven’t seen the remakes) it would go a little like this: Ten years after a massacre at Crystal Lake closed the camp for good a new camp director wants to push against the ghost stories and start anew. But uh-oh, Jason won’t allow this and a massacre on a fateful Friday the 13th occurs. Turns out the instigating event was the death of his mother Mrs. Voorhees at the camp when he was but a boy of ten and he massacred them all and fled to the woods presumed drowned and dead (a little twist on the plot of the original). The lone survivor of the present massacre is taken to a hospital for recovery thinking Jason was killed by a machete. Jason, adopting this machete as his weapon of choice, follows her to the hospital on Saturday the 14th and, as a nod to Halloween 2, goes on a late night murderous rampage through the hospital. Naturally there is a hockey goalie there getting bandaged up after a local game and Jason snags that along the way. The lone survivor is killed, and Jason, again presumed dead, ultimately slinks off into the woods. In the third installment a manhunt has begun for Jason by the local police. Two deputies come across the injured killer and one is killed and the other wounded. The wounded deputy crawls to a cabin inhabited by oblivious teenagers having a party. Jason, in a rage, attacks the house and is ultimately killed by the deputy, the lone survivor of the bloody weekend. Throughout the trilogy the movies start where the predecessor ends, and there is a scattered powerful storm raking across the Crystal Lake region.

Now I’m not saying this is somehow better or the best, but nods to the original, a tighter narrative and lore, nods to Halloween as well (as was initially intended in fact), and no muddled need for the supernatural. Makes me wonder what the remakes are actually like.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part III Preview

The horror genre should be the bread and butter of the Squeakuels cycle. There are a lot of directions we could go. The abhorrently titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, Jaws: The Revenge, or perhaps Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (if only for this hilarious scene). God knows I wish we could just rewatch Silent Hill: Revelation. But alas we cannot. Instead we went for a classic in order to try to take a bite out of what is largely considered the worst of the major horror franchises. That’s right, we’re watching Friday the 13th Parts II and III. Nearly all of the Friday the 13th qualify for BMT other than the first and the sixth. So here we’ll knock off 25% of the series in a go. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th Part III (1982) – BMeTric: 35.1

fridaythe13thpartiii_bmet

fridaythe13thpartiii_rv

(I am a little shocked, this is basically the same story as for Part 2 except drop the rating by 0.5 thus adding 10 to the BMeTric. It has the same regression to the mean, 2011 inflection, and recent drop in BMeTric. I wonder if the whole series kind of holds the same trend. Probably a little overrated rating wise, a ton of votes. It just takes me by surprise, I was expecting much more from Part III)

Leonard Maltin – 2 stars –  Strictly amater night in terms of acting and writing, but this entry deemphasizes explicit gore in favor of shocks, and delivers a few – especially in 3D and widescreen.

(What?! This shows what Leonard really thinks about horror. Thank god there isn’t any explicit gore in this entry. Instead let’s go for some fun 3D shocks! What a weirdo. Just enjoy the kills and effects man. Funny enough Leonard is known to only like Part III and Jason Takes Manhattan… which everyone else hates, hates, hates.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHbki5fKvU

(That was much better than the trailer for Part 2. Seems like there are some fun looking kills in this one and the hockey mask makes an appearance. This is actually oddly promising.)

Directors – Steve Miner – (Known For: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Lake Placid; Forever Young; House; Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken; Warlock; BMT: Big Bully; Friday the 13th Part III; Soul Man; My Father the Hero; Texas Rangers; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Was an associate director on the first Friday the 13th and then transitioned to director for Parts II & III. Also worked as an editor for Wes Craven early in his career (although credited as a P.A. for Last House on the Left).)

Writers – Martin Kitrosser (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: A long time Hollywood script supervisor working closely with Tarantino on his films.)

Carol Watson (screenplay) – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Notes: Ha! Both her and Kitrosser are credited with writing the story for Meatballs Part II. Interesting that they seemed to have a short lived collaboration.)

Victor Miller (character creator) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Freddy vs. Jason; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Jason X; Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He claims to have only seen the first Friday the 13th as he doesn’t like the idea of Jason being the killer.)

Ron Kurz (character creator) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He gets character credits for the series from here on. Interesting to note that he wrote a couple smaller films under the name Mark Jackson. Not sure if that’s his real name or the pseudonym he started with.)

Sean S. Cunningham (characters) (uncredited) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He was the director for the first one. Also directed DeepStar Six which might end up in BMT in the future.)

Petru Popescu (uncredited) – (Known For: The Last Wave; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: He claimed in an interview that casting for the film was based entirely on looks and nothing to do with acting ability (I’m sure it shows).)

Actors – Dana Kimmell – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: Mostly a TV actress in soaps and the like. Retired from acting.)

Tracie Savage – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; The Devil and Max Devlin; Notes: Long time reporter in the LA area, she has won three LA area Emmy’s for her work. She even reported on the OJ Simpson trial and had to take the stand regarding information she reported from an anonymous source. Wow.)

Richard Brooker – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Notes: He portrayed Jason in the film. Died of a heart attack a few years back. Very interesting guy if you take a look at his IMDb.)

Budget/Gross – $2.3 million / Domestic: $36,690,067 (N/A)

(Still punching well above its weight. This is still the fourth highest grossing in the series. All the films nearly go down in gross in order before bottoming out with Jason X.)

#22 for the Horror – Slasher genre

slasher_22

(I found this plot to be interesting enough I’ll just copy my notes from the Part 2 preview: This guy sits right in the middle of the pre-85 horror genre at around $20 million. Blockbuster horror is still somewhat unique, at least with slashers. Only 11 films have over $50 million domestic! The Scream series holds the top three and are the only films to gross over $100 million. I had to kind of hack my program for this because they didn’t record the number of theaters for this movie, that’s why the dashed line isn’t really on the graph. The big peak is Scream. The genre saw a resurgence in the late 2000s … and now it is VOD. All Horror will be VOD soon beyond, currently, the Babadooks of the world. I am convinced there will always be a place for people to come together to be scared as a group, but it just is very small potatoes. Kind of sad to see the genre get swamped in the late 80s and then collapse in the 90s. That’s the story of horror though.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 12% (3/25): No consensus yet.

(Generally regarded as the second worst in the series. However it’s hard to tell as rankings are all over the place depending on what the ranker likes in a horror film. I believe the consensus would go a little something like this: Heavy on gimmick, light on scares. This entry may finally kill a series that was already on life support. I like that fake consensus because it would end up being so very, very wrong.)

Poster – Sklogday the 13th Part III (B+)

fridaythe13thpart3

(There is something fun and artistic with these posters. I like the framing and dark colors with contract. Take a look at that crazy title font to boot!)

Tagline(s) – A New Dimension In Terror… (B)

(Flows nicely and tells a bit of the story. Not as good as the Part II tagline, but still pretty good.)

Keyword(s) – serial killer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 72.9 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 72.7 Basic Instinct 2 (2006); 72.3 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 72.1 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 69.4 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005); 69.1 Feardotcom (2002); 67.2 Species II (1998); 65.3 Zoolander 2 (2016); 65.2 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993); 62.9 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989);

(Some of these are not like the other, some of these do not belong. Hilarious list due to the comedies stuff in there. Otherwise pretty expected. Someday we’ll complete all of the major horror franchises, you’ll see.)

Notes – This was the first of the Friday the 13th films to use the iconic hockey mask, which has been in every sequel since. (Yup, watching the first three in a row the transformation of the killer is actually rather shocking considering how iconic Jason became)

The original plan for the film involved Ginny (Amy Steel) from the previous film being confined to a psychiatric hospital. Suffering from the trauma inflicted on her during the ordeal with Jason, she eventually finds that, intent on revenge, he has tracked her down, and he begins to murder the staff and other patients at the hospital. Steel ultimately declined the offer to return to the series as she was busy with other projects, but has since said that she thinks she should have accepted. (That is the plot of Halloween II, just a mental hospital not a hospital)

To prevent the film’s plot being leaked, the production used the fake title “Crystal Japan,” after a David Bowie song. This began an on-again, off-again tradition of giving “Friday the 13th” films David Bowie song titles during filming. (gross, who cares about the plot of a microbudget horror film?)

This film actually takes place the day after the events of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), making it Saturday, the 14th. While the beginning takes place on the evening of Saturday, the 14th, when the store owner and his wife are killed, the majority of the film takes place on the following day, making it Sunday, the 15th. (Oh snap Jamie, are you ready for some temporal settings? [Jamie’s note: I don’t think this is accurate according to what I read online])

Larry Zerner was cast as Shelly when the producers spotted him handing out fliers for a horror movie and asked him if he’d want to star in one himself. (Jesus. When did they start taking this stuff seriously?)

The 3-D version contains a title card not seen in 2-D home video releases (for obvious reasons): after the Paramount Pictures logo fades out, the card reads “Ladies and gentlemen: The first few minutes of this picture are not in 3-D. However, you will need the special 3-D glasses.” The film then continues as normal with the recap of the ending of Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), presented in 2-D. The 3-D begins with the shot of Jason removing the machete from his shoulder. (Kind of wish I could watch that shitty 3D honestly)

Although it appears sunny and warm, the film was shot during a January/February winter. Several night scenes were trimmed in order to conceal the actors’ visible breath appearing on screen. (huh fun fact)

Friday the 13th Part 2 Preview

The horror genre should be the bread and butter of the Squeakuels cycle. There are a lot of directions we could go. The abhorrently titled I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, Jaws: The Revenge, or perhaps Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (if only for this hilarious scene). God knows I wish we could just rewatch Silent Hill: Revelation. But alas we cannot. Instead we went for a classic in order to try to take a bite out of what is largely considered the worst of the major horror franchises. That’s right, we’re watching Friday the 13th Parts II and III. Nearly all of the Friday the 13th qualify for BMT other than the first and the sixth. So here we’ll knock off 25% of the series in a go. Let’s go!

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) – BMeTric: 23.6

fridaythe13thpart2_bmet

fridaythe13thpart2_rv

(Perfectly average. For the BMeTric the average is basically exactly 25 for big movies (which I usually define as movies that get 10 or more reviews on rotten tomatoes … for now). This guy just kind of floats around there. And regression to the mean is the name of the game. Having been doing the Hall of Fame previews it is pretty clear that to be legendary you have to basically buck the regression to the mean (it is probably the same the other way, the best movies probably don’t lose their superior rating as votes come in). The Wicker Man comes to mind as a legendary bad horror. This one probably isn’t, but we’ll see.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  More nubile campers, more bloody executions. If you loved Part I…

(Wow, Leonard not giving this film the time of day. He notoriously hates horror films so I don’t totally trust his opinions on them. He was pretty open to the fact that in later editions of his book he had one of his employees review the horror films. He hates gore.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqmj12n7yYc

(This has got to be one of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen. Why are you showing all kills?! And just counting randomly upwards. Yeesh.)

Directors – Steve Miner – (Known For: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Lake Placid; Forever Young; House; Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken; Warlock; BMT: Big Bully; Friday the 13th Part III; Soul Man; My Father the Hero; Texas Rangers; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: He directed Texas Rangers!? And episodes of Dawson’s Creek? He’s basically me (a.k.a. a Van der Beek super fan).)

Writers – Ron Kurz (written by) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; BMT: Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Apparently he wrote most of the later drafts for this installment, although Victor Miller is often credited. Seems wrong since IMDb gives Miller characters which usually means he was just not involved anymore. He started out as a novelist. Here’s his debut which is not in print anymore.)

Victor Miller (characters) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Freddy vs. Jason; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Jason X; Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan; Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Ended up being more well known for his soap opera work on Guiding Light, All My Children, One Life To Live, and Another World. He indeed was only involved in the original, although he apparently has been writing two horror films, Eden Falls and Rock Paper Dead, both set to release this year.)

Sean S. Cunningham (characters) (uncredited) – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI; BMT: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning; Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood; Friday the 13th Part III; Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter; Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: His IMDb compared him to Ed Wood! (in that he works fast and cheap). Claims he isn’t a fan of the horror genre, although he was a producer for many iconic horror films of the 70s and 80s. He too is only associated with the first film in reality, although he has credits for all of the sequels.)

Actors – Betsy Palmer – (Known For: Friday the 13th; Mister Roberts; The Long Gray Line; The Tin Star; BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1981 for Worst Supporting Actress for Friday the 13th; Most famous for this role. Probably my favorite note is that she lived with James Dean for 8 months. She made it pretty clear later in her career that she didn’t exactly appreciate the iconic role, even turning down reprising her role in Freddy v. Jason saying it was beneath her. Also her being first billed is an odd quirk of IMDb I think, but she was interesting enough to include her because of the first film I decided not to replace her with the actual third billed, or more appropriately Jason himself.)

Amy Steel – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; April Fool’s Day; Notes: Began her career in modelling and commercials. She has since begun a career in therapy, although she has worked in television all the way up to last year. She was offered a starring role in the third film, but her agent advised her to turn it down. What a strange series. The survivor from the first and second film turned down their potential starring sequels. You could have been Scream Queens! You got to Jamie Lee Curtis that up)

John Furey – (BMT: Friday the 13th Part 2; Notes: Both he and his wife Denise Galik have basically been doing one episode stints on television since 1990. He actually used to do a ton of crappy Sci Fi films like Island Claws.)

Budget/Gross – $1.25 million / Domestic: $21,722,776 (N/A)

(Well…. That is a lot of money on not a large budget. I’m kind of surprised it didn’t get bumped up after the first. Although I guess this came out the same year as Halloween II, so maybe big budget horror just wasn’t a thing yet. Still kind of just made them in the woods on a dime.)

#39 for the Horror – Slasher genre; Note: Many slasher movies from the ’70s and ’80s have no box office records, and, hence, do not appear on this chart.

slasher_39

(This guy sits right in the middle of the pre-85 horror genre at around $20 million. Blockbuster horror is still somewhat unique, at least with slashers. Only 11 films have over $50 million domestic! The Scream series holds the top three and are the only films to gross over $100 million. I had to kind of hack my program for this because they didn’t record the number of theaters for this movie, that’s why the dashed line isn’t really on the graph. The big peak is Scream. The genre saw a resurgence in the late 2000s … and now it is VOD. All Horror will be VOD soon beyond, currently, the Babadooks of the world. I am convinced there will always be a place for people to come together to be scared as a group, but it just is very small potatoes. Kind of sad to see the genre get swamped in the late 80s and then collapse in the 90s. That’s the story of horror though.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 34% (11/32): No consensus yet.

(I get to make a consensus (I’m singing that I’m so happy): A carbon copy of what was already a middling affair as far as the classic slasher go, this second film is a new set of campers who seem a whole lot like the old set of campers, with a villain who doesn’t bring much to the table. Forgettable. That is kind of the story of the series actually. At best it was low budget schlock. At worst it was a slap in the face. I’m excited. Honestly.)

Poster – Sklogday the 13th: Part 2 (C)

fridaythe13thpart2

(If this was a wholly original poster I would be pretty taken with it. Bold black with contrast and unique font. However, this is basically the same poster as the first one (but less artistic).)

Tagline(s) – The body count continues… (B+)

(They are super into the whole counting thing. I don’t think this is a bad tagline. Tells you what it is, does it concisely, and it flows nicely with the alliteration.)

Keyword(s) – pitchfork; Top Ten by BMeTric: 48.2 Halloween 5 (1989); 47.1 Eight Legged Freaks (2002); 45.2 Seventh Son (I) (2014); 45.1 The Messengers (2007); 38.1 Husk (2011); 37.7 Wrath of the Titans (2012); 36.7 Critters 2 (1988); 35.1 Friday the 13th Part III (1982); 33.8 Gymkata (1985); 32.9 The Brothers Grimm (2005);

(Ohhhh Gymkata. The list is more eclectic than I thought it would be. I figured pitchfork would just be horror. Nope. We got a few horror, a fantasy, action, adventure. Weird group. I kind of dig it. Imagine watching all of those films in a setting. Bonkers.)

Notes – Originally, the sex scene between Sandra and Jeff was longer and it included full frontal nudity from actress Marta Kober, but when Paramount studio discovered that she was underage, the scene was deleted completely (What!?!??! In what universe do you shoot a scene like that without knowing that?!)

Following the release of Friday the 13th (1980), Adrienne King had numerous encounters with an obsessive fan. The situation escalated into a stalker case, and she decided to avoid any further acting opportunities. She has not done any on-screen film work since, but has done voice over work on several films more than 15 years later. (Jeez. I wonder if she could have become a true Scream Queen like Jamie Lee Curtis. Sounds like they wanted to get her for at least one more film. Could have been more)

The actors stayed in the cabins on-set. John Furey, Bill Randolph and Russell Todd came to Lauren-Marie Taylor’s cabin to play a prank on her. They scratched on her screen window and she hyperventilated until she fainted. (hahahaha, terrifying and really not okay!)

The first Jason scene in the movie is a shot of Jason’s legs walking across the street toward Alice’s house. This is the only time in the series Jason was played by a woman. Jason’s legs belonged to Ellen Lutter, the film’s costume designer.

A shot of the infamous double-impalement was cut to avoid an “X” rating, yet a gory still photo of this censored shot appears on the back of the videocassette box. (ha!)

Jason in this film is dressed to look exactly the same as the hooded, burlap sack killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976). The only difference is that the burlap sack he wears has only one eye hole, and his shirt has a slightly different plaid design. (For some reason I know this despite not having ever seen that film. The design seemed oddly familiar. I think it is from the poster. Serious question: why intentionally steal a design?)

Adrienne King filmed all of her scenes in one night. According to King, there was no script for her scene which is why she didn’t know her character died. She showed up to set, found out Jason was going to kill her, and that they needed her to completely improvise a phone conversation. So, everything with Alice talking to her mom on the phone about struggling to move on with her soon-to-end life was unscripted.

Norbit Preview

A small note prior to this post: Last July we decided to take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the fourth in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Norbit (2007) – BMeTric: 81.2

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(Sweet 2011 inflection. It is definitely a strong trend. Yet again, despite thousands and thousands of votes coming it the movie’s rating doesn’t regress to the mean. It is generally unusual, but three out of the four Hall of Fame movies exhibit this unusual trend. Old Dogs was the only exception which is also very interesting. I suppose as a fairly innocuous family comedy it managed to evade the bad movie cultists that surround the more popular fair.)

Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – As in Coming to America and the Nutty Professor vehicles Murphy plays several characters: Norbit a meek young man brought up by Chinese restaurant owner Mr. Wong and stuck in a terrifying marriage with the hideously overweight Rasputia. All three are in search of a script. Murphy shows his comedic range but is let down by the material, which includes all of the fat jokes the writers (including Murphy his brother Charles) could come up with. Prophetic ad line for the movie asked, “Have You Ever Made a Really Bad Mistake?”

(I like the idea of Murphy getting all pissed about the writers failing to live up to his comic genius and then realizing that he wrote the movie. I’m also genuinely shocked Mr. Wong’s mind-blowing racism isn’t mentioned alongside the (seemingly) unlimited store of fat jokes the Murphy brothers could muster. I’m skeptical Leonard watched this film … this review is low on detes. I’m onto you Leonard.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmSZJ17ppEQ

(So she punches him in the face and she throws him through a window in the trailer. This trailer is aggressive, it is in your face. They use that song Don’t Cha by the Pussy Cat Dolls like five times. I don’t like the trailer, it hints that it might be the worst thing you’ve ever seen … but it does manage to hide the fact that the movie is more horror film than comedy. So congrats.)

Directors – Brian Robbins – (Known For: Varsity Blues; BMT: Norbit (BMT); The Shaggy Dog; Meet Dave; Ready to Rumble; Good Burger; The Perfect Score; A Thousand Words (BMT); Hard Ball; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Director for Norbit; Good Burger?! Say What? He was a main character on the show Head of the Class appearing in all 114 episodes. He got his start directing with Kenan & Kel and Good Burger, and many Murphy projects. He is also an extremely accomplished producer in both television and streaming services.)

Writers – Eddie Murphy (screenplay & story) – (Known For: Coming to America; Beverly Hills Cop II; Boomerang; BMT: Norbit (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; Another 48 Hrs.; Harlem Nights (BMT); Notes: See below for Razzie Notes; He doesn’t write as many of his starring roles than I personally would have expected. He didn’t seem very enthused about directing with Harlem Nights, so maybe he’d rather riff on screen and doesn’t really care to write? He hadn’t done it in years before Norbit (1995 was his last feature prior to Norbit in 2007).)

Charlie Murphy (screenplay & story) (as Charles Murphy) – (BMT: Norbit (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Norbit; Funny he was going by Charles Murphy … perhaps this suggests the screenplay was written long before the movie came out? Chappelle’s Show was in 2003-2006, and at that point he would have been far more well known as Charlie Murphy. Perhaps he got credited from an original draft written years before. It also perhaps resolves the curiosity that Eddie Murphy seemingly didn’t write a movie for all those years … huh, this movie was probably written in like 2000 wasn’t it?)

Jay Scherick and David Ronn (screenplay) – (Known For: Guess Who; BMT: Norbit; Zookeeper; I Spy; The Smurfs; The Smurfs 2; Serving Sara; National Security; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Screenplay for Norbit; The writers for the upcoming Baywatch adaptation (the trailer looks pretty funny). These guys’ filmography make me a bit skeptical, but maybe they are punch-up artists? … I was just thinking that maybe they are like Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon … who it turns out also wrote Baywatch. Two other dudes got final credit. Yeah, Baywatch clearly fired those two writing teams during production. Wow.)

Actors – Eddie Murphy – (Known For: Shrek; Shrek 2; Shrek the Third; Mulan; Coming to America; Beverly Hills Cop; Trading Places; Dreamgirls; Tower Heist; Shrek Forever After; Beverly Hills Cop II; 48 Hrs.; Doctor Dolittle; The Nutty Professor; Life; Dr. Dolittle 2; Bowfinger; Boomerang; Imagine That; BMT: Norbit (BMT); Nutty Professor II: The Klumps; Pluto Nash (BMT); Vampire in Brooklyn; The Haunted Mansion; Meet Dave; Holy Man; I Spy; Beverly Hills Cop III; Showtime; Daddy Day Care; Metro; Another 48 Hrs.; The Golden Child (BMT); A Thousand Words (BMT); The Distinguished Gentleman; Harlem Nights (BMT); Notes: See below for Razzie notes; There isn’t much more to say about Murphy. He is both a legend in his own right, and a BMT legend. Since maybe 2000 his legacy has been marred by poorly reviewed films, bitterness, and poor public relations. The thing recently I remember was his awkward appearance at the SNL 40 celebrations.)

Thandie Newton – (Known For: Crash; RocknRolla; The Pursuit of Happyness; Mission: Impossible II; Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles; W.; Run Fatboy Run; Beloved; Vanishing on 7th Street; BMT: Norbit (BMT); The Truth About Charlie; 2012 (BMT); Good Deeds; For Colored Girls; Jefferson in Paris; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; The Young Americans; The Chronicles of Riddick; Notes:  Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2001 for Worst Supporting Actress for Mission: Impossible II; Actually has an incredible filmography, including the recent HBO smash hit Westworld. Grew up in England and her accent limited her early work. She is vegan, and was even named the Sexiest Vegan of 2014!)

Terry Crews – (seen in Scary Movie 5, The Ridiculous 6, White Chicks, The Benchwarmers, Gamer, The Single Moms Club, The Expendables 3, Blended … that’s more than Neil McDonough!)

Eddie Murphy Razzie Cred – Won the Razzie Award in 2010 for Worst Actor of the Decade; Won the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Actor, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress for Norbit; Won the Razzie Award in 1990 for Worst Screenplay for Harlem Nights; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2008 for Worst Director and Screenplay for Norbit; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2013 for Worst Actor for A Thousand Words; in 2010 for Imagine That; in 2009 for Meet Dave; and in 2003 for The Adventures of Pluto Nash, I Spy, and Showtime; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2009 for Worst Screen Couple for Meet Dave; in 2008 for Norbit; in 2003 for Showtime, I Spy, The Adventures of Pluto Nash;

Budget/Gross – $60 million / Domestic: $95,673,607 (Worldwide: $159,313,561)

(That’s actually not that bad. Looking through his boxofficemojo he had had bombs before, and I remember comments surrounding The Haunted Mansion, Daddy Day Care, and The Adventures of Pluto Nash concerning his turn in quality. But I also remember that it wasn’t really until Meet Dave that faith was completely lost. That completely bombed and it was then three years before Tower Heist was supposed to get him back into the comedy game. We’ll see about the new Beverly Hills Cop I suppose.)

#11 for the Comedy – Fat Suit genre

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(Better than Big Momma’s House 2 and Big Momma Like Father Like Son. Only a shade below the original Big Momma’s House as well. Obviously a major player in the genre, Eddie Murphy was a trailblazer with the Nutty Professor franchise. Is it crazy to say that this movie marked the end of the Fat Suit Era of Hollywood? I can think of two reasons why. First, the genre is garbage. Second, they can kind of pull it off with cheaper CGI it seems (see Central Intelligence).)

#29 for the Romantic Comedy genre

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(Man … the romcom genre kind of sucks. No joke, there are like 300 films in this list and the 31st is Sex in the City 2. Gross. Once again this graphic is interesting. Such a major genre you can kind of see Hollywood grow through the 90s and reach saturation in about 2000 and then it just holds steady. Nothing really causes the fall. The movies just seem to consistently not make money. Thinking of a 2000 theater release $24K per theater is $50 million dollars. Since the 80’s only 80 or so movies have broken that mark, and only 28 broke $100 million. Plus I’m sure, given the cultural restrictions on romance in particular, these movies perform quite poorly if at all overseas. My guess is that, yet again, this is a genre destined for VOD release going forward.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (11/123): Coming off his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls, the talented-but-inconsistent Eddie Murphy plays three roles in Norbit, a cruel, crass, stereotype-filled comedy that’s more depressing than funny.

(Less than 10% on rotten tomatoes is incredible. Cruel (yep), crass (yep), stereo-type filled (yep) those are the things I remember about this film on my first viewing. It made me feel gross and it seems like 91% of critics also felt gross while watching it.)

Poster – Bore-it … get it? (C+)

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(I know Jamie would be hating on this poster because it is basically just white. I actually think it does an adequate job at highlighting literally the only thing you want from this movie: Eddie Murphy as a big ol’ fat girl. I gave it b-b-b-b-bonus points because of how they squeezed the title. Very hard to spoof if I wanted to.)

Tagline(s) – Have You Ever Made A Really Big Mistake? (C-)

(I was going to give this an F, but then I envisioned Rasputia on th eposter and thought, ah, big mistake. I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it, and it makes sense for them movie. So I merely declared this below average.)

Keyword(s) – orphan; Top Ten by BMeTric: 90.6 Epic Movie (2007); 86.3 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 83.6 Fantastic Four (2015); 81.5 Alone in the Dark (2005); 81.2 Norbit (2007); 78.0 The Room (2003); 77.5 Super Mario Bros. (1993); 74.1 Prom Night (I) (2008); 73.8 Superhero Movie (2008); 64.3 The Next Karate Kid (1994);

(Huh, interesting list. I’m shocked the Next Karate Kid is so loathed actually. I never did get around to that. Besides that Alone in the Dark is the only other must see, although a 70+ horror film in Prom Night does hold some allure.)

Notes – One scene shows Rasputia watching a talk show with a paternity test theme. Eddie Murphy endured a paternity scandal before the film’s theatrical run, involving Spice Girl Melanie Brown. A DNA test confirmed the actor was the baby’s father.

The set used in the film is the same one that “Gilmore Girls” (2010) used as Stars Hollow in their 7 season run. (awesome. I’ll have to look out for that on my watch of Gilmore Girls)

The car wash scene is a parody of a TV ad featuring Paris Hilton. (oh alright, that’s didn’t hold up)

For security purposes, early prints were shipped under the title ‘Jupiter’, an apparent allusion to Eddie Murphy’s film Pluto Nash (2002). (fun facts)

This is the second film that Cuba Gooding Jr. played in, that starred Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters. The first film was Coming To America (1988), he had a small non- speaking role, as boy in barber shop chair.

WatchMOJO lists Norbit number 10 on its top worst comedy movies list. (Number 10?! Let me see this fucking list: Norbit, Chairman of the Board (BMT), Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (Seen it), Little Nicky (Seen it), Freddy Got Fingered (BMT), It’s Pat. Son of Mask, Master of Disguise (BMT), Bio-Dome (Seen it), Jack and Jill (BMT). Alright … that’s a pretty legit list.)

Awards – Nominated for the Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup (Rick Baker, Kazuhiro Tsuji)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Eddie Murphy)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Eddie Murphy)

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Cuba Gooding Jr.)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Eddie Murphy)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Brian Robbins)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Eddie Murphy, Charlie Murphy, Jay Scherick, David Ronn)

RoboCop 3 Recap

Jamie

Trying to catch up. No probs. Just gonna kick the shit out of this email just like RoboCop does with the bad guys. Woooooo.

What?! RoboCop is back and looking good. Almost as if a totally new actor took over the role. OmniCorp is trying to clear Detroit to make way for Delta City (still), but has to move all the poor people out before it can happen. Can our beloved cyborg hero stop the unjust evictions before the entire city is left as rubble? RoboCop 3!

Why?! As always OmniCorp is trying to build Delta City. This time though there is added motivation as OmniCorp is in deep shit and is getting bought out by a Japanese company. The merger will save the company from complete collapse, but hinges on OCP clearing out Detroit in time to start construction on Delta City. RoboCop’s motivation changed this time… jk! Still the same: Chew bubblegum. Run out of bubble gum. Kick ass. Also, he wants some sweet, sweet retribution for the unfortunate death of his partner, Nancy Allen, who really didn’t want to be in this film (but still wanted to get paid for filming a death scene).

How?! Since OCP has proven to be super inept at building all but one crime fighting cyborg they are just using a group of British(?) mercenaries to clear the city. Unfortunately a band of rebels are making their lives a living hell. They also make a terrible mistake by killing RoboCop’s partner, which leads him to join the rebels in their fight. In the end it’s OCP on one side and the police and rebels on the other. Guess who wins? You’re right! The one with the cyborg killing machine with a shiny new jetpack (a.k.a. shiny new action figure accessory). In the end RoboCop defeats OCP (and a random Japanese cyborg that is 5000x better than RoboCop but still loses) and the city is given independence by the Japanese company. It really wraps up the whole saga in a neat little bow.

Who?! While he wasn’t really comic relief, Bradley Whitford makes an appearance as an OCP executive. Clearly he was honing his Eric Gordon character for Billy Madison because he basically plays the same person. He was the best. In fact, there are a lot of things you can say about RoboCop 3 but it has a pretty dope TV actor cast.

Where?! How many times do we have to say it. RoboCop is Detroit. Detroit is RoboCop. Shouldn’t even have called it Delta City in the film. It’s RoboCop City. Because he owns it. A-

When?! As noted for RoboCop 2, the creator of RoboCop has continually said that the year is the “near future” for the first film and true to form the sequels also seemed to take this approach. Very little about the year the film takes place is provided. We know from the first two that this is in the general vicinity of the late 80’s and early 90’s. More fun is the fact that RoboCop 3 represents the first of the year’s random Xmas films! Yay! This film very clearly takes place around Christmas. Not only are there Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE, but the parents of one of the characters are killed at the beginning of the film and their day of death is shown as December 7th. Perhaps with a very close watch a year could be gleaned like in the first one, but I couldn’t find it. Despite that, this is probably my favorite temporal setting of the three films. C+

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! RoboCop 3? More like RoboCrap-py!!!! (Wow, that just falls right out of it huh?). I watched both RoboCop and RoboCop 2 on a ten hour flight to Vegas (just as the director intended the movie to be consumed, via iPad). Would my gamble of watching the third on the return flight instead of sleeping pay off? Nope, busted. Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – Woof. I’m surprised by how much Robert John Burke looked like Peter Weller once the mask was on. I was happy to see the returning actors as well. This series isn’t something to scoff at, it could have been serious business if it was handled properly.
  • The Bad – Basically everything. The story makes little sense. None of the characters are particularly believable or motivations made clear. The finale is horrible, ditching the bread-and-butter practical effects for a special effect ending that just looks like garbage. RoboCop comes across as much less likeable in this installment. Less robotic somehow.
  • The BMT – This one, yes. For sure. I can kind of see why it is reviled. I would probably put it around 40. If there were more sequels I bet that is where it ends up to be honest. Being the only really bad installment of an iconic series has its downsides.

Here I will go Sequel. They tried and failed to do the remake. Time to go RoboCop 4. Let’s cast, yes the 69 year-old retired PhD, Peter Weller again as the now old RoboCop. Of course he ages! He has a human … face or whatever. He’s too old for this shit, but when Detroit comes under fire by a series of, what appears to be, terrorist attacks, the officers of the Metro West go into the basement and dust off the, now, behind the times relic. Recruiting youthful hackers from a rambunctious gang they retrofit RoboCop with some new toys, and soon he is fit as a fiddle, directive free, and ready to kick some terrorist ass. Can the obsolete become cutting edge? Could the remnants of OmniCorp, scattered to the wind oh so long ago, somehow be connected to this new attack on old Detroit? Can RoboCop find … love? RoboCop 4 (no subtitle, get out of here!), coming next June!

I would watch it. Cheerios, and back to you Jamie!

RoboCop 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! RoboCop is back, Jack! And ready to attack the smack that’s taking over the streets. That’s right! There’s a new drug in town, Nuke, and while the (non-cyborg) police are on strike, no one’s there to stop its rise. OmniCorps aims to use the crisis to launch Delta City with a updated version of RoboCop to patrol the streets. Just hope RoboCop 2 isn’t some insane cyborg killing machine (hint: he is). RoboCop 2!

Why?! The entire aim of the film is for OmniCorp to gain control of Detroit and built Delta City. It’s funny because that’s basically the motivation of all the RoboCop films. They can’t seem to get the goddamned city built. RoboCop’s motivation is the same as well: Kick ass. Take names. Not necessarily in that order.

How?! In the original RoboCop OmmiCorp signed a contract with Detroit to take over the police department and privatize it. Turns out that contract had a clause whereby OminCorp could foreclose on the entire city if it defaulted on the contract. Uh oh! So OmniCorp’s entire plan is to undermine Detroit’s credit, wait for the city to default, stop paying the cops, allow crime to run rampant while they’re on strike, and call it a loss to justify knocking it all down to build Delta City. And the plan would have worked too if it wasn’t for that damned RoboCop. Seriously. They needed more RoboCops to patrol the streets of their shiny new city but couldn’t figure out the secret sauce that made the first one work so well. This time around they try using a newly captured Nuke kingpin as the brain for the robot and feeding his addiction as a means of control. Not a great idea as it goes beserk at the sight of Nuke and RoboCop has to save everyone (obvs). Unfortunately, they decided not to write in how RoboCop beating up a robot in any way solves the city’s financial crisis. We can only presume OmniCorp still ended up owning the city after everyone stopped high fiving and the credits rolled.

Who?! No true Planchet here, but I want to give a shout out to Belinda Bauer, an Australian actress with an unknowable accent. I really couldn’t tell if she was supposed to be American in this film or what. It was one of the worst (read: best) accents we’ve had in a while. Also Willard E. Pugh consumed any and all scenery as the bonkers Mayor of Detroit. Enjoy:

Where?! Detroit, duh. It’s fucking RoboCop. There’s a reason the city is going to have a statue dedicated to him (if the artist ever finishes making it). It’s really the only thing they didn’t mess up with the sequels and remake. In this world there is nothing that can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and RoboCop being set in Detroit. A-.

When?! According to the writer it is set in the “near future” but there is a clear January 1986 calendar in the precinct. There is some evidence presented online about it being set in 2044, but it’s from the book so noncanonical. I prefer the calendar. The month being January also lines up with the fact that the scientists are seen celebrating New Years in the three month span during which RoboCop is built. Why bring up the first film? Because at the Delta City presentation at the end of the second film the president of OCP says that “about a year ago we gave you RoboCop.” From that perspective we can presume that it’s either late 1986 or early 1987. Not incredibly specific but we got something. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! RoboCop 2? More like RoboSlop! Boo! (ohhhhh yeah). We watched the sequel to one of my favorite movies (with some of the best practical effects in the biz), could it hold up to such praise? Nope! Let’s get into it!

  • The Good – Their hearts are in the right place. They tried to make a good follow up. To an extent the story is solid, and it does an okay job of taking a new subject (drugs) and running with it. And the practical effects seem pretty okay.
  • The Bad – The villains are not good enough to carry what is a ludicrous story. In the first the villains are just bad people. They fill that supervillain mold from Cobra but also in an interesting manner (with Kurtwood Smith looking as natural in a suit in OmniCorp headquarters as in a trenchcoat blowing Peter Weller’s hand off). In the second, Cain is just kind of a weirdo. They had an interesting villain (Gabriel Damon) in a pre-teen psycho, but waste him in an overly sentimental and brief stint at the top. The entire middle makes you wonder “what is the point?” after much is made of rewriting RoboCop’s directives, only to have him reverse the damage in a matter of seconds.
  • The BMT – Naw. At best it is borderline. As I said, the film isn’t terrible. Just heavy handed, with bad villains, and a precursor too good to live up to. It is interesting to read stuff about the series. It does seem like they were desperate to make RoboCop a franchise. Just never really came together properly.

Hmmmm. Tough to figure out games when I usually do sequels and prequels … this movie already has both. I think I’m going to make up a new game. This I’m going to call Sklog-light. It is something from the movie just watched which perfectly exemplifies something from my recap. This time I’ll flesh out something in the recap which perhaps was not expounded upon enough: RoboCop 2 is heavy-handed. At the end of the film OmniCorp is presenting RoboCop 2 (the evil Cain as a cyborg monster) and we catch a nice glimpse of their new flags:

ocp-nazi

… snazzy. Those couldn’t possibly be alluding to anything. They probably aren’t a crazy Godwin’s Law directly in the viewer’s face. We get it RoboCop 2 writers … OmniCorp is a fascist corporate-government hybrid. Could have toned down the flag. I assume Hitler existed in the RoboCop universe. For a company who seems obsessed with public relations this seems … like a snafu.

I got a whole other recap to write! Plus we are a bit behind. So I’ll leave it there.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs