Tag: bmt 2023

High School High Recap

Jamie

This cycle is great because it allows me to just look back in the New York Times listings and really get a feel for the time when a film like High School High was on television (September 1st, 1999). You’d probably think High School High was some afternoon affair, but no. It was on primetime on Fox going against The Man Without a Face (spoiler alert, he actually has a face). This is probably because early September is rerun time, so gotta get your ratings from a Jon Lovitz laughfest. If I had to highlight one other film it would be The Escape starring Patrick Dempsey. Still about 3 years from Sweet Home Alabama the film is probably the nadir of Dempsey’s career. I’m more interested in the fact that everywhere you look for a synopsis of the film you find essentially the same, boring thing: wrongfully convicted man escapes prison after 10 years of misery. Not NYTimes, though, no. “A prison security chief pursues a convict that escaped with hopes of opening a jazz nightclub.” No mention of wrongful conviction there… but gotta make sure the jazz nightclub makes the cut. Amazing.

To recap, Dick Clark (ha!) is a rich boy fed up with the silver spoon he was born with. He wants to test his novel teaching ideas (basically, “try”) outside of the private school his father runs. When he shows up at Marion Barry High School, though, he is shocked to find the conditions are horrible, the kids don’t listen, and there is an ongoing drug war. But no matter, Dick uses his plucky go-getter attitude to dive into the midst of it all. He identifies Griff as an underachiever and once he’s on board (and aspiring to college) the rest of the class follows suit. Dick even starts a relationship with his fellow teacher, Victoria. Things are looking up! But the drug gang and their mysterious crime boss, Mr. A, are having none of it and tamper with the students’ test scores. After everyone fails the students give up and Dick is fired. Griff, now disillusioned with school, joins the gang to sell drugs. When Victoria and Dick find out that the tests were messed with they rush to Griff’s rescue. They find out Mr. A is none other than the eeevil principal of the school (what a twist!) and a fight ensues. Once that’s wrapped up they get everything corrected, Dick becomes principal, the students head off the college, and Dick and Victoria smooch a bunch probably. THE END.

If that sounded like a rather sweet and serious film rather than a spoof of the sweet and serious films it’s meant to be mocking you aren’t wrong. High School High certainly starts out with a bunch of jokes. Mostly they are somewhat clever visual gags, which are part of why I have a vague recollection of liking the film when I saw it as a kid. The weird thing is that once we get into the meat of the plot it veers into something that is largely indistinguishable from something like Dangerous Minds. The mistake is that Lovitz’s character is just too sweet and good natured. Ultimately he has a happy ending because he’s on the right side of everything. He’s not even a buffoon or nothing. Just a good guy. I would think the real spoof of the genre would be to turn the ‘white savior’ trope upside down and make the guy kind of dopey, so dopey in fact that the students realize that if a buffoon like that can become a teacher then they definitely can too. Not the case, though. Fortunately it’s not nearly as offensive as it could be… in fact I think the poster is the most offensive aspect when compared to anything actually in the film. As for Soldier Boyz, hooooooooo doggy. Now that’s a Bring a Friend. That film is wild. It’s about how Michael Dudikoff is tasked with rescuing a woman from a rebel group in Southeast Asia and insists on taking a bunch of juvenile delinquents along with a promise of freedom for any who survive. That… that’s simply deranged. The whole film is deranged. I can’t believe it exists. If you are looking for something real dumbo to watch then check out this one. It’s a gem.

Hot Take Clam Bake! You know what guys? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Jon Lovitz and Tia Carrere… not gonna make it. I know, I know. Hard to believe, but it’s true. The real issue that will come up is that Lovitz just cares too much (which is also, coincidentally, my biggest flaw). So he’s gonna be looking around and thinking “if it worked here, it can work anywhere,” and that’s a slippery slope to “if it worked here, it can work EVERYWHERE.” If you’re trying to make something work everywhere you just don’t have time for your lady love. Soon she must say goodbye and find love with someone who can give her the love and attention she needs. Alas… alas. Hot Take Temperature: Jon Lovitz.

Patrick? 

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Wait a minute … are we talking about Jon Lovitz in the leading role of an over-the-hill Zucker spoof-that-seems-more-earnest-than-a-spoof? Let’s go!

This film seems how-you-say … racist? But I’ll let film scholars debate the merits of High School High’s commentary on the public school system and race via spoof.

And yeah, this movie has a plot so similar to prior BMT film Dangerous Minds that it makes you wonder by the end whether they got cold feet and made it earnest on purpose or what. Because the back third of this film is kind of just a film about Lovitz getting through to these kids and teaching them the value of an honest education.

The beginning is decently funny. Some funny gags and they do an okay job with making the school ludicrous. The back half of the film on the other hand … well, we already went into the earnest part, but the real crime is the film just completely stops being funny once it needs to have a little heart at all.

I should mention that I’ve seen this film a few times. It was on Comedy Central quite a lot when we were growing up. I don’t remember it being funny then though. So I guess it isn’t quite an Ace Ventura scenario in that sense.

This was well and truly the last gasp of Zucker as well. He would write Baseketball (but that isn’t a spoof really), and then start working on G.O.P. ad campaigns a few years later and that was all she wrote.

Now as for our Friend this week Soldier Boyz, hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo doggy (to borrow a phrase from Jamie, but mine is better because it was longer). Uh … this movie is how-you-say … racist? Was there something wrong with us in the 90s … you know what, this is a larger conversation we don’t need to get into, focus. This movie is insane. Imagine a film where the actual message is “how do I get through to these literally murderer teenagers … I got it! Take them on a life-or-death mission to Vietnam and have them pretend to be soldiers (boyz) to win a ticket to freedom! We did it, gang!” It might just be the craziest idea I’ve ever seen. It is ludicrous. All the people (including Dudikoff) are bad people. But yet I can’t look away, there is just something so bizarrely 90s about it. A- I think. Just some of the best-worst acting and off the hook plotting for an action film ever. A must for all those dudikated Dudikoff-heads out there.

Let’s see. Product Placement (What?) for the 1959 Chevrolet Corvette C1, don’t even ask, I’m counting it. Setting as a Character (Where?) for California obviously. And Worst Twist (How?) as well for the inevitable reveal that Louise Fletcher was the bad guy all along. Amazing, her first ever role as an evil person. Anyways, this is a Good film, like kind of funny at times, Lovitz is quite charming, it is fine for a 90s spoof, just not very funny, just kinda.

Read all about the sequel to High School High in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

High School High Quiz

Oh boy, so get this. I wanted to prove to my dad that I “had it”, so I went and worked in an underfunded school. Well when I got there I immediately got bashed in the head and now I can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in High School High?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Prior to moving to Marion Berry High, where does Lovitz work and what is his position?

2) Our actual hero is Griff I think. He’s out of the game and has relinquished control of his gang, the school, and the drug trade to Paco. Why has Griff gotten out of the game?

3) What the bad guys show up at the school dance (they aren’t even in school!), Lovitz proposes a solution that everyone agrees is a great idea: A drag race! Who wins?

4) Big Test time, but unfortunately everyone failed! Fine, they all passed, but the bad guys swapped the tests. Why?

5) So who is Mr. A and how did they get into the drug biz?

Bonus Question: So how long does Lovitz and Tia Carrera’s relationship last?

Answers

High School High Preview

September 1st, 1998

Jamie and Patrick are looking dope. Collars? Popped. Jean short? Tight. Coca-cola? Ice cold. It’s nearing the end of middle school and they are grabbing onto one last taste of childhood. Their dad had one word of advice for them on the eve of this momentous year: “Try to watch less bad things, perhaps.” With that he swept his arm in the general direction of the beach and called it ‘nature’s movie.’ Despite this being wrong (Nature’s movie is Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, obviously) they ventured forth and found themselves feeling the sand between their toes and the rays hitting their chest. As a couple of sweet babes walk by they lower their shades and do a patented Twin Double Take, a.k.a. The Quadruple Take. Suddenly they feel a hand on their shoulder. “You guys checking out our babes?” A couple of beefy high school bros asks them. His tone suggests they shouldn’t answer truthfully. They explain that they were simply checking out their swimsuits since they believe they would look great on their girlfriends. They assure them that they will buy said swimsuits for the next time they are in the Niagara Falls area, but this doesn’t fool the beefy bros and Jamie and Patrick find themselves upside down in a trash can. “We can’t abide this!” Jamie says, slamming his tiny fists with a metal clang. The beefy bros’ mistake was insulting their very real girlfriends who happen to live in Niagara Falls. “Time to get even and schoolz these foolz,” Jamie says, pulling out a very cool phrase he coined. With that their eyes glaze over and they enter a patented Twin Memory in order to recall the last time they had to pound some high school fiends. That’s right! We are back in the saddle of the Daddio cycle for High School High. It’s a Dangerous Minds style parody film starring Jon Lovitz that aired on TV on September 1st, 1999. I recall seeing it as a kid, but don’t remember much about it. It aired the same day as the Michael Dudikoff film Soldier Boyz. It’s a film that I honestly can’t believe is real. Let’s go!   

High School High (1996) – BMeTric: 40.1; Notability: 48

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 12.0%; Notability: top 7.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 19.7%; Higher BMeT: Barb Wire, Kazaam, Striptease, Bio-Dome, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Crow: City of Angels, Ed, Hellraiser: Bloodline, The Stupids, Spy Hard, Mr. Wrong, Poison Ivy II, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Solo, The Glimmer Man, First Kid, Eddie, Chain Reaction, Dunston Checks In, Maximum Risk, and 10 more; Higher Notability: The Fan, Jingle All the Way, Spy Hard, Chain Reaction, Daylight, Up Close & Personal, Mulholland Falls, Eddie, The Associate, Dear God, Eye for an Eye, Sgt. Bilko, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Crow: City of Angels, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Space Truckers, Larger Than Life, Girl 6; Lower RT: The Dentist, Big Bully, Ripe, Bio-Dome, Kazaam, Ed, Faithful, Mr. Wrong, Spy Hard, Eye for an Eye, Bulletproof, Solo, Celtic Pride, Curdled, House Arrest, The Glimmer Man, The Crow: City of Angels, In Love and War, Larger Than Life, Down Periscope, and 26 more; Notes: Played 38 times, premiering on December 5th, primetime on Showtime. Some oddities: Spy Hard played 0 times on television despite coming out in 1996, that seems odd, but I’m 99% this is true. Daylight also played once, but that makes more sense since they were holding big films for rental by that point.

RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – High School High” opens with a big laugh (“Produced by the producer formerly known as David Zucker”) and goes downhill. Zucker, associated with the “Naked Gun” movies, wants to do the same thing here for the urban high school genre, but the movie makes two mistakes: (1) It isn’t very funny, and (2) it makes the crucial error of taking its story seriously and angling for a happy ending.

(Oh … was that the big laugh? The first third of the film is decent. Not funny, but pretty amusing at times, and Lovtiz I think is a surprisingly good leading comedy actor. The second part makes sense though, I do mostly remember it getting pretty earnest in the end.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ZUi1mEbG0/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4ZUi1mEbG0/

(Ha the Dangerous Minds start is great. I remember this trailer so well. It feels like it should be funny. But it also feels like it is going to be super duper racist.)

Directors – Hart Bochner – ( Known For: PCU; Just Add Water; BMT: High School High; Notes: He appears to have become an actor almost exclusively after this, including ten episodes of The Starter Wife. He was Ellis in Die Hard, who I think was the coke guy, which is hilarious.)

Writers – David Zucker – ( Known For: Airplane!; The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!; Top Secret!; Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; BASEketball; The Kentucky Fried Movie; Future BMT: An American Carol; BMT: Scary Movie V; High School High; Notes: He’s tried a few spoof films more recently and they don’t really work (I’m looking at you American Carol). It seems like his career got sidelined a bit when he started to explicitly work on Republican ads.)

Robert LoCash – ( Known For: Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; BASEketball; CB4; Bad Girls from Valley High; BMT: High School High; Notes: He wrote a bunch of the Zucker spoofs. He also wrote the iOS game The Naked Gun: I.C.U.P. which is maybe intriguing, although I assume it is basically lost to time at this point.)

Pat Proft – ( Known For: Real Genius; The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!; Hot Shots!; Bachelor Party; Hot Shots! Part Deux; Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Moving Violations; Brain Donors; Lucky Stiff; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; Scary Movie 4; Wrongfully Accused; Mr. Magoo; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Scary Movie V; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; High School High; Notes: The rumor was Zucker and him were going to make a new Naked Gun, although I wonder if that was right around when Scary Movie V was released and the fact that that was a huge catastrophe basically stopped that from happening.)

Actors – Jon Lovitz – ( Known For: Matilda; A League of Their Own; Big; The Wedding Singer; Happiness; Three Amigos!; Hotel Transylvania; Rat Race; Hotel Transylvania 2; The Producers; Southland Tales; Cats & Dogs; The Brave Little Toaster; I Could Never Be Your Woman; Sandy Wexler; An American Tail: Fievel Goes West; Extinct; Small Time Crooks; Hamburger: The Motion Picture; Casino Jack; Future BMT: Coneheads; The Stepford Wives; Loaded Weapon 1; My Stepmother Is an Alien; Jumpin’ Jack Flash; Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star; Mr. Destiny; Eight Crazy Nights; Mom and Dad Save the World; Trapped in Paradise; City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold; BMT: Grown Ups 2; Little Nicky; The Ridiculous 6; Mother’s Day; The Benchwarmers; North; 3000 Miles to Graceland; High School High; Lost & Found; Notes: Obviously well known for his years on SNL, and also for voicing The Critic. What I know of him now he basically has his comedy club in L.A. and does stuff there. Nominated for two Emmys as part of SNL.)

Tia Carrere – ( Known For: True Lies; Lilo & Stitch; Wayne’s World; Wayne’s World 2; Showdown in Little Tokyo; Easter Sunday; You May Not Kiss the Bride; Wild Cherry; My Teacher’s Wife; Hard Breakers; Zombie Nightmare; Showdown in Manila; The Immortals; Gutshot Straight; Merlin: The Return; Aloha Summer; Top of the World; Hollow Point; Back in the Day; The Legend of Hallowaiian; Future BMT: Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man; Jury Duty; Kull the Conqueror; BMT: Rising Sun; High School High; Notes: Mostly a television actress now. She was discovered in a grocery store in Hawaii. Sang on the soundtrack of Wayne’s World.)

Louise Fletcher – ( Known For: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Cruel Intentions; Exorcist II: The Heretic; The Player; Two Moon Junction; 2 Days in the Valley; Blue Steel; Brainstorm; Grizzly II: Revenge; The Cheap Detective; Thieves Like Us; The Lady in Red; Strange Invaders; A Map of the World; Return to Two Moon Junction; Big Eden; Strange Behavior; A Gathering of Eagles; Cassadaga; The Last Sin Eater; Future BMT: Flowers in the Attic; Mulholland Falls; Invaders from Mars; Best of the Best; Gone Fishin’; BMT: Virtuosity; Firestarter; On Deadly Ground; High School High; Notes: Won the Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She died in 2022. I’ll let you get into her personal life “controversies” if you want, they seem mild by today’s standards.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $21,302,121 (Worldwide: $21,302,121)

(That isn’t bad, but probably wasn’t actually considered good at the time for an SNL alum. Sandler was already hitting decent numbers at this point. Still, most than I would have expected.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 19% (3/16)

(Oh good a consensus: A one-joke movie, and that joke isn’t very funny anyways. That about sums it up.)

NY Times Short Review: Senseless plot, blunderbuss comedy.

Poster – High School Sigh

(Oooooohhhhhh boy. I gotta give that an F out of principle. My word.)

Tagline(s) – There’s a new teacha in the hood! (F)

(Nope. No. Not a chance.)

Keyword(s) – daddio

Top 10: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Godfather (1972), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Back to the Future Part II (1989), Dead Poets Society (1989), Citizen Kane (1941), Platoon (1986), The Game (1997), Dumb and Dumber (1994), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Future BMT: 78.9 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 61.2 Pet Sematary II (1992), 58.9 Jury Duty (1995), 57.4 The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), 57.0 Ghost Dad (1990), 50.8 Getting Even with Dad (1994), 49.2 My Girl 2 (1994), 47.7 Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990), 46.4 Daddy Day Care (2003), 44.5 Man of the House (1995), 43.6 The Final Conflict (1981), 41.6 My Baby’s Daddy (2004), 41.5 Speed Zone (1989), 41.0 Iron Eagle (1986), 38.2 My Father the Hero (1994), 37.9 Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), 36.9 Desperate Hours (1990), 35.8 Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), 35.7 I Got the Hook Up (1998), 34.7 Leviathan (1989)

BMT: Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), Troll 2 (1990), Super Mario Bros. (1993), Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), Poltergeist III (1988), Cyborg (1989), Shanghai Surprise (1986), Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), The Lawnmower Man (1992), Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), Fire Birds (1990), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Virtuosity (1995), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Navy Seals (1990), Rambo III (1988), High School High (1996), Ernest Goes to Jail (1990), Clifford (1994), Man Trouble (1992), Hard to Kill (1990), Universal Soldier (1992), Days of Thunder (1990), No Mercy (1986), The Postman (1997), The Marrying Man (1991), Wild Bill (1995), Hackers (1995), Lock Up (1989), Magic in the Water (1995), The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

Best Options (Comedy): 78.9 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 58.9 Jury Duty (1995), 57.0 Ghost Dad (1990), 50.8 Getting Even with Dad (1994), 49.2 My Girl 2 (1994), 46.4 Daddy Day Care (2003), 44.5 Man of the House (1995), 41.6 My Baby’s Daddy (2004), 41.5 Speed Zone (1989), 40.0 High School High (1996), 38.2 My Father the Hero (1994), 37.9 Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), 35.8 Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), 35.7 I Got the Hook Up (1998), 34.3 Man’s Best Friend (1993), 34.2 Spring Break (1983), 34.1 Father Hood (1993), 33.3 Drop Dead Fred (1991), 33.3 Mom and Dad Save the World (1992), 33.2 The Jerky Boys (1995), 32.2 It Takes Two (1995), 31.9 High Spirits (1988), 31.2 Arthur and the Invisibles (2006), 30.9 Another You (1991), 30.3 Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989), 29.7 Spaced Invaders (1990), 28.7 About My Father (2023), 28.0 Fools Rush In (1997), 26.1 Airheads (1994), 26.1 Baby’s Day Out (1994), 26.0 Feds (1988), 24.6 A Low Down Dirty Shame (1994), 24.4 A Fine Mess (1986), 24.4 Sibling Rivalry (1990), 23.1 Clean Slate (1994), 22.6 Moonlight and Valentino (1995), 20.1 Art School Confidential (2006), 19.1 Folks! (1992), 18.9 Threesome (1994), 18.8 Moving (1988), 17.8 Brewster’s Millions (1985), 17.3 Hexed (1993), 16.7 Mr. Destiny (1990), 16.0 Opportunity Knocks (1990), 11.6 With Honors (1994), 8.0 Let It Ride (1989)

(Oh … Jury Duty. But no, fine we don’t need to do that won … but like Jury Duty though? Why didn’t we do Jury Duty again? I do love the plot. The 00s films are all “Dad” or “Father” films basically. Just kind of funny in that it is two different plots smushed together.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 18) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tia Carrere is No. 2 billed in High School High and No. 3 billed in Rising Sun, which also stars Wesley Snipes (No. 2 billed) who is in Demolition Man (No. 2 billed) which also stars Sylvester Stallone (No. 1 billed) who is in The Expendables 3 (No. 1 billed) which also stars Jason Statham (No. 2 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 3) + (2 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 18. If we were to watch Trapped in Paradise we can get the HoE Number down to 12.

Notes – The film is dedicated to Elisabeth Leustig and Lexie Bigham, both of whom were involved in the movie’s production and died in automobile crashes shortly after filming was completed. Bigham acted in the film, and Leustig was the film’s casting director.

Mekhi Phifer and Malinda Williams, who play love interests in this film, would later marry and have a son together. They divorced in 2003.

The car race (aka “Chicky Run”) between Griff (Mekhi Phifer) and Paco (Guillermo Diaz), where both drivers race to the edge of a cliff, with the first person jumping out of the car is considered the “chicken”, is similar to the race in the legendary film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Ironically, actress Natalie Wood who played Judy, the Chicky Run starter in the latter film, is the mother of actress Natasha Gregson Wagner, who played Julie Rubels, the pregnant teenage in Mr. Clark’s classroom, in this movie.

The film is dedicated to Elisabeth Leustig and Lexie Bigham.

Trey Parker turned down the chance to direct this movie even when he was a Hollywood unknown

Retribution Recap

Jamie

It’s been a wild ride for BMT Live! this year. Our qualification system is built for yesteryear and there are two compounding things occurring in films right now. One is that the way films are released is rapidly changing. Things go to streaming way quicker now (our last Live, Meg 2, is already there) and so often have very limited releases, which makes it way harder to understand what a “wide release” even is. Additionally (and more insidiously) films are just better reviewed now. There is some recent reporting from Vulture that reveals some of why that is, but the why is less important than the simple fact that we are rapidly approaching a critical point. There might very well be a year where we don’t even get 13 films with reviews poor enough to qualify for BMT (a minimum quota). I’m sure we’ll write a lot more about this in the future as there is only one word that adequately describes this dire situation: tragedy. Fortunately Liam Neeson is working diligently to help our cause. We thank him for his service (and hope that we don’t find out that we’re dealing with a Bruce Willis scenario).

To recap, Liam Neeson is a kind of skeezy hedge fund manager whose wife wants to divorce him and kids think is just a workaholic liar. They are correct as we find that his fund is in deep shit. But he’s about to find himself in even deeper shit when he gets a call and is told that a bomb has been placed under his car seat and will blow up if he tries to leave. Forced to follow the directions of the anonymous voice (and fearing for his kids’ lives, who also happen to be in the car) he drives his way around Berlin witnessing other cars explode from the comfort of his luxury Mercedes. Mercedes… if you can’t leave your car for fear of exploding, you better make it a Mercedes. First it’s a coworker of his and then it’s his partner, Anders. Additionally, he’s forced to have his wife pick up some money during which he finds out about the divorce. During one of the explosions his daughter is seriously injured and he becomes enraged. He turns into The Neeson and Tokyo Drifts his way into a tunnel where the lack of cell phone service allows him some separation from the voice. After allowing for his kids to be rescued, The Neeson Tokyo Drifts his way out of the tunnel and back in pursuit of the baddie. After luring him into the car it’s revealed to be Anders (what a twist!). He faked his death and is doing it for those sweet dollar dollar bills y’all. The Neeson is like “oh yeah?” and crashes his car in the perfect way to allow for him to escape and Anders to explode. Hooray! Although, he probably still gets divorced. THE END.

There are two things amusing about this film. One is just how similar it is to the BMT classic Getaway. Anonymous voice, vast conspiracy, family in trouble. We were both hoping beyond hope that this film would end in a similar way to that one: the voice reveals that it was all a ruse in order to allow Neeson to realize that he can still pursue his auto racing career. But alas, the twist here is much less goofy. The second is obviously the inevitable comparisons to the other recent Neeson action dreck. Interestingly, this came out pretty favorably in that regard. Blacklight is terrible and Memory has some interesting things in it (but is still pretty terrible). This moved everything along quick enough to not feel trapped in the movie theater (high praise, I know). Sure the acting is horrible and it’s dumb as rocks, but it doesn’t upset me like Meg 2: The Trench. If this is the direction (and director) they go with then maybe Neeson still has a few more in him.

Hot Take Clam Bake! Uh, I think you know what happened here. Liam Neeson is a bad dad. He’s a bad dad banking dad. Everyone hates him. He hates himself. He sees on the news in the morning that there was a car bombing. He starts to day dream. It’s a world where his kids are trapped in a car with him and they are threatened. Ultimately he saves the day and they say they love him and he gets to be the big hero that kills that asshole Anders (fucking Anders). As the film ends we zoom into Liam Neeson’s eye to reveal that this was all a dream. His wife is telling him that he better hurry if he wants to get the kids to school on time, which he does… and then he gets back to cheating people out of their money. His retribution was but a dream. Hot Take Temperature: the sizzling remains of a blown up Mercedes.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! I have a new joke for you. You know how old Liam Neeson is? (How old is he?! You all cheer). Oh man, Liam Neeson is so old he now spends 90% of an action film literally sitting down and not being allowed to get up under threat of death! Let’s go!

Boy oh boy. We do sometimes make some odd choices for Lives don’t we?

In our defense this time, this film was inevitable. This wasn’t Keeping up with the Joneses where we had no business watching this and could have just forgot it existed. A new Liam Neeson film? Welp, we have to watch that.

It is a bit perplexing. Other actors, of course, have done this. Done a bunch of schlock at the tail end of their careers for retirement cash. There is nothing wrong with that. The confusing bit is how are they getting wide releases? I really don’t get it. I would have thought Blacklight and this in particular would have gone the Ice Road route and been straight to streaming.

If I had to rank Blacklight, The Ice Road, Memory, Retribution, and The Commuter (to get an even 5) it would be: (1) The Commuter, a real movie and quite fun; (2) The Ice Road, entertaining for what it is with some decent actors; (3) Retribution, sure nothing is super novel here, but it is an entertaining idea at least, good for a stream; (4) Memory, I’ve come around a bit on this, even though I still don’t like the subject matter and I think Neeson’s acting choices are odd, they at least go for something; (5) Blacklight, useless garbage.

So mid-table for recent choices by Liam Neeson (that I’ve seen), which sounds right. The son isn’t a super great actor, and the twist is pretty dumb. But it goes at a good clip, and the underlying story feels a little thought through.

As I said, it was inevitable that we’d see it so it was unavoidable.

Theater review – As usual, quite good. I hear a lot about bad experiences these days, and I’m sure there are for Friday night horror films which would attract a lot of teens, but the days/times we go seem to be pretty light and I haven’t had a bad experience in the theater in quite a while. This was no different, although I was shocked that anyone was in the theater for a 2PM Labor Day showing of Retribution.

Obviously the film was huge on car Product Placement (What?) which included Neeson’s 100 thousand Euro Mercedes, and Modine’s Maserati. Great European Setting as a Character (Where?) for Berlin, which ended up being vital to the plot, what with their famously punctual train system. And a Worst Twist (How?) obviously for the reveal that Modine faked his own death in order to steal the 200 million Euro finance fund and frame Neeson for it. This is a Bad film, just not enough there to sustain any sort of BMT interest.

Read about my prequel to Retribution in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Retribution Quiz

Oh man, so get this. I was in my car when I got a call and the guy was like “hey, don’t get out of your car or else for real.” But I was like don’t believe you, got out, and it exploded in my face. Now I can’t remember a thing (and I have no face, it’s a real Johnny Got His Gun situation up in here). Do you remember what happened in Retribution?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) Well, this should be an easy one. What is Liam Neeson’s job in the film?

2) And then a mad bomber attacks! How many people, ultimately, did the bomber kill with his bombs?

3) Early in the film the car Liam Neeson is driving is behind followed by a motorcycle which he thinks is the bomber. Who was actually on the motorcycle though?

4) What is the bomber after in actuality and why does this look super suspicious to the authorities?

5) In the end there is a big twist. How did the actual bombing culprit almost get away with it?

Bonus Question: Right at the end, yet another mysterious phone appears and Liam Neeson gets a call. Who is it?

Answers

Retribution Preview

As they sit at their parents’ large dining room table in the cavernous guest breakfast nook, Jamie and Patrick reminisce about their youth. We see their eyes glaze over and enter a patented Twin Memory.

September 1, 1999.

Jamie and Patrick are looking fly. Hats? Backwards. Jeans? Baggy. Bubblegum? Poppin’. They’re entering 7th grade and it’s time to run the show. Their dad had one word of advice for them on this last week before the end of summer: “Maybe watch something good for once.” With that he swept his arm in the general direction of the forest and called it ‘nature’s movie.’ Despite that being wrong (nature’s movie is Microcosmos, obviously), they ventured forth and now found themselves breathing fresh air and basking in the sunshine filtering through the trees. “This isn’t nature’s movie, that would be Microcosmos, but it’s still pretty nice,” Jamie says, but before Patrick can agree with him (particularly about how Microcosmos is nature’s movie), they find themselves upside-down. Apparently, while they were busy thinking about nature’s movie, Microcosmos, they inadvertently sprung some sort of trap. Out from the forest rains a volley of pinecones and pebbles. Once the attack is over, the rope holding their legs is cut and they crash to the ground, laughter ringing out from the trees around them. Even in their dazed state, Jamie and Patrick know that this could only be the work of one group… the eighth graders. Their big mistake was leaving time for Jamie and Patrick to get retribution and cement their place atop the social pyramid. “Time to get even and rulez the schoolz,” Jamie says, pulling out a very cool phrase he coined. With that their eyes glaze over and they enter a patented Twin Memory in order to recall the perfect revenge. That’s right! We are getting our own retribution against ourselves by forcing us to watch the new Liam Neeson film, Retribution, in theaters. Take that, us! It was unexpectedly difficult to determine whether this film was a wide release or not, but rest assured, it is. Although not for very long. Let’s go!

Retribution (2023) – BMeTric: 14.9; Notability: 15

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 13.2%; Notability: top 7.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 11.2%; Higher BMeT: Knights of the Zodiac, Meg 2: The Trench, The Black Demon, 65, The Ritual Killer, The Out-Laws, Insidious: The Red Door, White Men Can’t Jump, Hypnotic, House Party, Heart of Stone, Maybe I Do, Your Place or Mine, Ghosted, Beautiful Disaster, Fool’s Paradise, The Tutor, Mafia Mamma, Paint, The Old Way, and 13 more; Higher Notability: Fool’s Paradise, Ghosted, House Party, Heart of Stone, Spinning Gold, Haunted Mansion, The Out-Laws, Meg 2: The Trench, Vacation Friends 2, 65, Your Place or Mine, White Men Can’t Jump, Insidious: The Red Door, About My Father, Love Again, One True Loves, Hypnotic, A Little White Lie, God Is a Bullet; Lower RT: Confidential Informant, Dead Man’s Hand, The Ritual Killer, Assassin Club, On a Wing and a Prayer, The Tutor, Fool’s Paradise, The Out-Laws, Vacation Friends 2, Robots, Fear, Mafia Mamma, Knights of the Zodiac, God Is a Bullet, One True Loves, Love Again, Ambush, Ghosted; Notes: For the BMeT ones we’ve seen two of the top 5, but obviously most of the real bad ones are streaming. The notability is suitably low, but that BMeT is going to rise for sure.

RogerEbert.com – 1.0 stars – “Retribution” is a dud destined to be erased from our cultural memory once it presumably departs theaters in a couple of weeks. According to the press release, the film promises “an immersive ticking clock thriller that straps audiences in for a high-octane ride of redemption and revenge.” It pretty much fails to deliver on all counts.

(Awesome. I’m so excited to watch this in a presumably empty theater. Sure to be pure and utter trash considering Blacklight and Memory from last year.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxyzdo-RBKc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxyzdo-RBKc/

(Looks like garbage. But at least they don’t make Liam Neeson run in this one (presumably). I’m sure it is very tense and not awful at all though, but I guess I’ll just have to see.)

Directors – Nimród Antal – ( Known For: Predators; Vacancy; Metallica Through the Never; Control; Armored; The Whiskey Bandit; BMT: Retribution; Notes: Very much a sci-fi guy I feel like, so this seems … like an odd choice. But I assume it is a pure money / work thing prior to a sci-fi film he’s currently working on.)

Writers – Alberto Marini – ( Known For: The Communion Girl; Fatum; Sleep Tight; Retribution; Extinction; Hard Hit; Your Son; Romasanta; El Lobo; Second Name; BMT: Retribution; Notes: Italian and it looks like he wrote the original film.)

Christopher Salmanpour – (BMT: Retribution; Notes: Basically no credits because it looks like he worked on the FBI series, so he’s not in TMDb yet.)

Actors – Liam Neeson – ( Known For: The Dark Knight Rises; Schindler’s List; Batman Begins; Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace; Taken; Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs; Love Actually; Non-Stop; Gangs of New York; Excalibur; The Lego Movie; The A-Team; Ted 2; Silence; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; Breakfast on Pluto; Widows; Future BMT: Kingdom of Heaven; The Huntsman: Winter’s War; Marlowe; Men in Black: International; A Million Ways to Die in the West; Entourage; Taken 2; Krull; Taken 3; The Marksman; Daddy’s Home 2; Before and After; High Spirits; The Nut Job; BMT: Retribution; Battleship; Memory; Clash of the Titans; Blacklight; The Haunting; Wrath of the Titans; Notes: Y’all know Liam. The seventh film, but amazingly we’ve watched five of those in the last year. Plenty to go including the one that started them all (for the back half of his career), the Taken sequels. Krull is fun though.)

Noma Dumezweni – ( Known For: The Little Mermaid; Mary Poppins Returns; The Kid Who Would Be King; The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind; Dirty Pretty Things; BMT: Retribution; Notes: I was going to say, I just saw her in Only Murders in the Building season 3. She was actually quite good in a very small (so far) part, so that’s fun.)

Lilly Aspell – ( Known For: Wonder Woman; Wonder Woman 1984; Extinction; BMT: Retribution; Holmes & Watson; Notes: Oh wow, she was Diana age 8 in the film. For a kid actor quite a good performance if I’m remembering right. I like the cast of this film.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $4,567,118 (Worldwide: $6,754,216)

(Yeah, it’ll maybe hit $20 million, although probably a bit of a stretch. But given the bona fides as a genuine dad film I’m sure it’ll make a mint on streaming.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 26% (18/69): Retribution may prove mildly diverting for hardcore fans of films depicting Liam Neeson as a parent in peril, but in most respects, this thriller is strictly standard stuff.

(Yeah, that sounds right. I mean, the trailer looks like trash pure and simple.)

NY Times Review: When will this genre escape its own tropes of sepia-tinted skies, italicized poster fonts and titles seemingly chosen by plopping a finger onto a page of the Old Testament? 

Poster – Just Don’t Make Me Run

(“This time he’s sitting” would be the tagline I put on this poster. After mercilessly making fun of the movie magic required to make it look like Neeson is running in his last couple BMT films, he really got us good by being like “oh yeah, this time I only sit.” I’m glad this is reflected in the poster. It’s actually better than I thought it would be. A little plain on the color and font side of things, but more interesting than I expected. C+.)

Tagline(s) – None

(F. You gotta have a tagline. If only to differentiate it from the 4 or 5 other Liam Neeson revenge films coming out this year.)

Keyword(s) – Year 2023

Top 10: Oppenheimer (2023), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Barbie (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), The Flash (2023), Pathaan (2023)

Future BMT: 81.3 Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), 42.9 Insidious: The Red Door (2023), 42.4 Hypnotic (2023), 42.1 House Party (2023), 36.3 Fool’s Paradise (2023), 34.0 Mafia Mamma (2023), 28.7 About My Father (2023), 28.5 The Machine (2023), 28.1 Love Again (2023), 23.0 Fear (2023), 20.3 Haunted Mansion (2023), 7.9 Sweetwater (2023), 0.6 The Hill (2023)

BMT: 65 (2023), Meg 2: The Trench (2023), Retribution (2023)

Best Options (Liam Neeson): 11.4 Retribution (2023)

(Bah, so Marlowe is actually a 2023 film, but it is listed as 2022 for IMDb so it doesn’t show up. But I thought it would be funny to be like I’m going to go with the year 2023 and it must be a Neeson film … we have two options! Anyways, the future BMT options look rough. Not looking forward to any of those.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Liam Neeson is No. 1 billed in Retribution and No. 1 billed in Memory, which also stars Guy Pearce (No. 2 billed) who is in Justice (No. 3 billed) which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 6 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (2 + 3) + (1 + 1) + (6 + 1) = 16. If we were to watch Marlowe we can get the HoE Number down to 12.

Notes – The third remake of Spain’s Retribution (2015) after Germany’s Don’t. Get. Out! (2018) and South Korea’s Hard Hit (2021) but the first to use the original’s English title.

Liam Neeson and Embeth Davidtz had worked thirty years before in Schindler’s List, which came out in 1993.

Clifford Recap

Jamie

At times Patrick and I have been fascinated by different aspects of the NY Times TV listings. One such interest was the HMS primetime block. HBO, MAX (Cinemax) and SHO (Showtime) would almost always show a film starting at 8pm. So you could get a surefire movie marathon by just looking at a random day. But September 1st, 1995 isn’t random (it’s when Clifford and Ski School played on TV together, obviously) and it almost hits a BMT Triple with Police Academy: Mission to Moscow on Cinemax, Getting Even with Dad on Showtime, and Black Rain on HBO. Black Rain is just a little too mediocre for our tastes. But that’s a tasty triple feature. It could have even hit a coveted Grand Slam as the Emilio Estevez stinker Wisdom was playing on basic cable at 8pm (in the NYC area). Oh how I’ve begged that we watch Wisdom for BMT. The film is the worst.

To recap, Martin is a successful architect ready to settle down with his GF Sarah. Unfortunately, he’s been too shortsighted to realize that Sarah wants kids and it’s a dealbreaker. In order to convince her of his seriousness about kids he takes his brother up on an offer to take care of his nephew, Clifford. Turns out Clifford is a sociopathic monster dead set on ruining the lives of anyone who stands in the way between him and his beloved Dinosaur World. It should all go swimmingly, especially since Martin also happens to have designed the premier ride at Dino World. But, uh oh! Martin’s boss has his eyes set on both Sarah and making Martin’s life hell. Bogged down with a boatload of work Martin has to break it to Clifford that they won’t make it to DW. Clifford? Unamused. Hijinks? Ensuing. First Clifford tries to run away. Then he ruins a big anniversary dinner for Sarah’s parents. He gets Martin arrested, tricks him into taking a train to SF, throws a big party in Martin’s house, and then convinces Sarah that Martin has been mistreating him. This all culminates in Clifford sabotaging Martin’s big presentation at work, which gets him fired. Driven insane, Martin takes Clifford to Dino World after hours and tortures him by forcing him to go on his favorite ride at increasingly dangerous speed. When the ride breaks, Martin realizes how wrong he’s been and saves Clifford. We are then told that ultimately, after much pleading, Martin forgave Clifford and let him be part of Sarah and his wedding. THE END.

We’ve been watching a lot of films from our youth recently (The Great Outdoors better watch out). I’m always curious to find out whether something I have fond memories of has curdled with time. I’d actually say that Clifford came out largely unscathed in the sense that as a kid I enjoyed Martin Short’s antics as a grown man pretending to be a little boy. As an adult I still think it’s an amusing visual gag. If you’re not in on that joke, though, then he’s super annoying, in your face 100% of the time, and it’s just the same joke over and over. But really the standout for me was something I didn’t appreciate at all as a kid: the final scene at Dino World. It’s amazing! They built a giant Dino roller coaster set and made some beautiful matte backdrops for the climax of the film and you have to give them credit for that. I guess I shouldn’t oversell the movie, which is admittedly mostly devoid of laughs, but given how brutal the reviews were I’d say that it’s better than a totally unfunny annoyance.

As for Ski School, buckle up… I loved this movie. It’s the kind of T&A comedy I’m here for. They are in on the joke. They try to be serious at times and then turn to the camera and say ‘nah’ and go right back to partying. How do they get in trouble? Partying. How do they cope with their fall from grace? Partying. How do they win the day? Partying. It’s just a beautiful piece of fluff. I could do without the intense gay panic scene, but… it was a different time. Overall, this is what the Bring a Friend category was made for. L-O-V-E-D I-T.

Hot Take Clam Bake! I didn’t mention much about the bookends of the film. It’s Clifford in 2050 telling the tale of his youth in order to convince a trouble maker to reform his ways and learn to apologize. My take? This is all bullshit. None of the film actually happened. The old priest or monk or whatever we see is indeed Clifford, but the story never happened. He was a good boy who grew up to be a good man who has one bad characteristic: he lies to little boys about his own life to convince them to be good. In fact, I bet Clifford 2 would open with the end of this film and then he’d turn around, find another kid, and make up some other bullshit. Hot Take Temperature: Hot Fiery Breath of Larry the Scary Rex.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about Martin Short playing a 10-year-old and doing … no wait, I think that is the one joke in the entire film. Let’s go!

The reviews for this film are vicious. Ebert’s entire review is basically that he was in a theater full of critics and not one (other) person laughed. He apparently laughed once and then he thinks someone else laughed at him laughing once.

I don’t think it is quite so bad. The deconstruction of Grodin throughout the film as it slowly dawns on him that he’s dealing with a genuine 10-year-old sociopath sometimes enters the sublime, in particular the moment that he demands that Clifford look at him like “a real human boy” and is flabbergasted when he is unable to do it.

And the little moments where Clifford’s eyes go completely blank shows off what Short would eventually perfect as he went through Glick and other characters over the years.

The main issue (besides the film not actually being funny very often) is that they pick up and drop storylines so often that it is obvious that they edited this thing to pieces as Orion went under. You never see Clifford’s family again. They very rarely touch on Clifford being a genius (even though it is obvious that that is necessary for the story to make sense). There is no explanation of how Grodin got out of his bomb threat, or what happened to his job, or the amusement park. There is just an odd bookend which ultimately gives everyone a happy ending. You never see Grodin’s father-in-law again, even during the wedding scene, despite them making a big deal about him hating Grodin. And most egregiously, they never once mention the house Grodin bought in the beginning of the film … I suppose we are to believe he ultimately sold it?

If I were to attempt to “fix” a bit of the film, I would get rid of the bookends and instead open with something that shows how similar Grodin and Clifford are, something about them both working on something, but Grodin’s is the model he’s building, and Clifford’s is a giant model of Dinosaur World. At the end, after Grodin saves Clifford, I would then show him forgiving Clifford, and ultimately selling the house and marrying his girlfriend. I would end with a grown up Clifford voiceover saying he didn’t see his uncle much after that because they soon had a kid … and that he was even worse than him. Ultimately setting up the possibility of a sequel where Short plays Grodin’s now 10-year-old child who is (effectively) Clifford as well.

The movie as it stands is basically a bad-to-mediocre SNL movie. It is a sketch which you can imagine sustaining 2 minutes of a “comedic bad seed” premise as Clifford makes awkward comments and frustrates his father / uncle / guardian for a short time at a dinner / amusement park / museum. And then overstaying his welcome in the 5 or 6 sketches as they run out of ideas for places for Clifford to go. They then make a 90 minute movie which boils down to a single joke: Martin Short is a 10-year-old. That’s it, there isn’t much else to it, and the “sketch” is often not funny beyond this single simple premise.

Lucky for us we got to watch a genuinely amusing Friend this week in Ski School. Sure, there are problematic aspects to any film of the T&A Porky’s era. Some serious gay panic and non-serious female characters. But overall the film was fun and Dean Cameron was pretty incredible. One of the more amusing segments was the characters teaching everyone the Lambada (the Forbidden Dance!) which indeed, was a big deal in the late 80s when this was made, and a year later there would be not one, but two Lambada films (called Lambada and The Forbidden Dance, naturally). Would recommend to pair with the It’s Always Sunny episode (also starring Dean Cameron) where they go skiing, one of the best episodes of the series. A+, I would watch friends like these all day.

I kind of like the idea that there is Product Placement (What?) for Amtrak which allows Grodin to get to San Francisco toot sweet. Definitely Setting as a Character (Where?) for L.A. which gets a lot of play in the house he buys and also as a stopover on the way from Chicago to Hawaii. And I like the borderline MacGuffin (Why?) for Dinosaur World, which is Clifford’s motivation throughout the film. Closest to Bad unfortunately, it just doesn’t have enough jokes to really sustain itself.

Read about the Clifford sequel in the Quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Clifford Quiz

Oh man, so get this. I was taking care of my 10-year-old nephew (who looks 40, long story), and it turns out he’s a psycho (clinically). He smashed my head in with a brick when I told him I had to postpone a trip we had planned. Now I can’t remember a thing (including our plans, he’s furious!). Do you remember what happened in Clifford?

Pop Quiz Hot Shot!

1) In the beginning of the film Clifford is an old old man in 2050 and trying to help a wayward youth (like he once was) to realize that being intelligent doesn’t mean you can manipulate people and get your way, that forgiveness is the way to earn the respect and love of those around you. Anyways, what crime did the little boy commit that he’s trying to help out?

2) Flashback to a story about Clifford as a 10-year-old. He’s on a plane with his awful parents just as it passes Dinosaur World (hooray!). Naturally Clifford causes an in-flight emergency that necessitates an emergency landing. Where was the plane headed though initially?

3) Well, lucky for Clifford’s parents his uncle is in town and (coincidentally) looking for a young boy to take care of to prove to his girlfriend that he is a family man. What is Martin’s job? What is his girlfriend’s job?

4) Clifford does four things to embarrass Martin at his future-father-in-law’s house in increasing aggravation. Name all four.

5) Naturally, once Clifford blows up Martin’s model, Martin goes insane and attempts to murder Clifford at Dinosaur World. What does Clifford do to ultimately earn the forgiveness of Martin?

Bonus: Question: At the end of the film old man Clifford walks away from the home for wayward youths a happy man … but oh ho, he gets a call. From whom?

Answers

Clifford Preview

Jamie and Patrick are dropped back at the Apologies Tour brought to you by Tim Horton’s. Metaphorical Kyle says some final words but Jamie and Patrick aren’t listening. It’s time to pound some dweebs, not time to listen to some ghost. They look around at the concert and are shocked to see most of the audience are either asleep in their seats or teetering on the edge of exhaustion. “How long have we been gone?” they mumble and Metaphorical Kyle indicates that it’s been about two days since they left. They look back at the stage and marvel at Pitbull still going strong. “No wonder they call him Mr. Worldwide,” Jamie says and they all laugh and laugh. Once they finish laughing they get back to the task at hand. As they head backstage they are startled to find that the Dudikoff’s are already there, arms full of merchandise and cash from the boffo box office. Matt McGoo must have warned them in the time they were gone. Fucking Matt McGoo. The Dudikoff’s drop their ill-gotten gains and stick their hands in the air. “You got us, Bad Movie Twins. Do your worst,” Drake says with a quavering voice. “You wanted to be our fathers,” Jamie and Parick say, “But you’ll never be.” With that they lunge towards the Dudikoff’s and embrace them in a hug. “But you’ve helped us realize that we need to get past the Bakulas and Dudikoffs of the world. So, thank you.” 

A week later they stand nervously at the door of a fancy ski chalet. They ring the bell and shuffle their feet as they hear the noise echo out through the cavernous interior. The door opens and there stands a butler. “Clifford,” Jamie and Patrick acknowledge. “Sirs,” Clifford says and shows them in. That’s right! We are going back to another classic in Clifford starring Martin Short as a 10-year-old menace. It was a film I had a real fondness for as a kid, but only later realized that people kind of hated it. We pair that with Ski School, a true blue T&A comedy (and not the Summer Job kind of dreck), so I’m pretty excited about it. Let’s go!

Clifford (1994) – BMeTric: 37.2; Notability: 50

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 16.0%; Notability: top 8.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 14.5%; Higher BMeT: Street Fighter, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, Junior, The Next Karate Kid, Double Dragon, It’s Pat: The Movie, On Deadly Ground, The Flintstones, North, The Fantastic Four, Leprechaun 2, 3 Ninjas Kick Back, Exit to Eden, In the Army Now, Color of Night, Richie Rich, Car 54, Where Are You?, Getting Even with Dad, Beverly Hills Cop III, Blank Check, and 20 more; Higher Notability: The Flintstones, Wyatt Earp, The Shadow, Beverly Hills Cop III, Love Affair, Ready to Wear, North, I Love Trouble, Radioland Murders, The Pagemaster, Little Giants, Exit to Eden, Street Fighter, Drop Zone, D2: The Mighty Ducks, On Deadly Ground, Speechless, Junior, The Scout, The Puppet Masters; Lower RT: Death Wish: The Face of Death, Wagons East, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, It’s Pat: The Movie, House Party 3, The Silence of the Hams, Holy Matrimony, Erotique, Car 54, Where Are You?, Getting Even with Dad, A Low Down Dirty Shame, Major League II, Exit to Eden, Lightning Jack, Leprechaun 2, In the Army Now, The Next Karate Kid, Trial by Jury, Blank Check, Intersection, and 14 more; Notes: I’m going to use this space to point out the NYT Review for Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (played 52 times, “Help yourself”) and Silence of the Hams (played 11 times, “Help yourself”). That’s right, both have the key phrase “Help yourself.” Stay tuned. There might be a cycle here. A 50 notability for Clifford is amazing, but also makes sense, it seemed to be a major comedy of 1990 … and yeah, it was shelved for a while. 

RogerEbert.com – 0.5 stars – To return to the underlying causes for the movie’s failure: What we have here is a suitable case for deep cinematic analysis. I’d love to hear a symposium of veteran producers, marketing guys and exhibitors discuss this film. It’s not bad in any usual way. It’s bad in a new way all its own. There is something extraterrestrial about it, as if it’s based on the sense of humor of an alien race with a completely different relationship to the physical universe. The movie is so odd, it’s almost worth seeing just because we’ll never see anything like it again. I hope.

(I think that is a thumbs down. This review is pretty funny, arguably funnier than the movie. He’s 100% right, the film is mostly aggravating, not traditionally funny, which makes me wonder if it was merely 15 years early.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNF-yVRGnsI/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNF-yVRGnsI/

(It is a little stunning how much of a no-laugh trash comedy this apparently is all things considered. Like, the bit where Grodin is like “look at me like a human boy” is genuinely funny. I always want to think something like this was ahead of its time, but I think me as a 10 year old watching it on Comedy Central just probably accepted “an adult man playing a child in a movie” was 100% all that was needed to create a successful comedy film. Objectively funny concept = definitely funny film, right? In reality I’m sure it runs like a 90 minute SNL skit (which it basically is. Although SCTV instead of SNL).)

Directors – Paul Flaherty – ( Future BMT: Who’s Harry Crumb?; 18 Again!; BMT: Clifford; Notes: Nominated for 14 Emmys, won three times (for SCTV twice, and Muppets Tonight). Obviously worked closely with Short including on Primetime Glick.)

Writers – William Porter – ( Known For: Avenging Angelo; Krystal; The Space Between; Black Cadillac; Stealing Cars; Notes: TMDb only knows him as Will Aldis, but he seemed to have written under a number of pen names over the years. He is credited on Back to School and Stealing Home on IMDb for example. I think Porter is his real name.)

Steven Kampmann – ( Known For: Back to School; Future BMT: Stealing Home; The Couch Trip; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for WKRP in Cincinnati. Was credited for this as Bobby von Hayes. Worked on SCTV and closely with Rodney Dangerfield.)

Actors – Martin Short – ( Known For: Mars Attacks!; Three Amigos!; Father of the Bride; Innerspace; Treasure Planet; The Prince of Egypt; Inherent Vice; Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted; The Addams Family; The Spiderwick Chronicles; Frankenweenie; Get Over It; Father of the Bride Part II; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius; The Willoughbys; Mack & Rita; The Big Picture; Mumford; Jiminy Glick in Lalawood; Cross My Heart; Future BMT: Captain Ron; We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story; Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil; The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause; A Simple Wish; Three Fugitives; Pure Luck; The Pebble and the Penguin; BMT: Jungle 2 Jungle; Clifford; Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return; Notes: He’s had several levels to his career. SCTV, then as a pretty big movie star, then things like Jiminy Glick, and now Only Murders in the Building. He also went on tour with Steve Martin. He’s been nominated for 16 Emmys, and won for writing SCTV and for a special tribute to Mel Brooks.)

Charles Grodin – ( Known For: Rosemary’s Baby; King Kong; Midnight Run; So I Married an Axe Murderer; Heaven Can Wait; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; Catch-22; While We’re Young; Heart and Souls; Dave; The Heartbreak Kid; The Great Muppet Caper; Seems Like Old Times; The Humbling; An Imperfect Murder; Sunburn; Last Resort; The Lonely Guy; It Runs in the Family; It’s My Turn; Future BMT: Beethoven; The Woman in Red; Beethoven’s 2nd; The Comedian; Taking Care of Business; The Ex; The Incredible Shrinking Woman; The Couch Trip; BMT: Clifford; Ishtar; Notes: One of those comedy legends who became famous for a younger generation as the guy in Beethoven. Won an Emmy for The Paul Simon Special in 1978. Died in 2021 of cancer.)

Mary Steenburgen – ( Known For: The Help; What’s Eating Gilbert Grape; Book Club: The Next Chapter; Nightmare Alley; Step Brothers; The Proposal; Philadelphia; Book Club; Parenthood; Back to the Future Part III; Elf; Powder; A Walk in the Woods; Inland Empire; The One I Love; Happiest Season; Last Vegas; Life as a House; The Discovery; Nixon; Future BMT: I Am Sam; Four Christmases; The Butcher’s Wife; Nobel Son; Romantic Comedy; BMT: Did You Hear About the Morgans?; Clifford; Notes: Won an OScar for Melvin and Howard, also nominated for an Emmy for The Attic. Is famously married to Ted Danson, as seen on Curb Your Enthusiasm where she is, in fact, happily divorced from Ted Danson (last I checked).)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $7,408,745 (Worldwide: $7,408,745)

(That is quite low. For the 90s I would imagine you’d be looking for like 30 or 40 for a successful comedy. And given the stellar cast that has to be a loss.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 13% (4/31): Ill-conceived and desperately unfunny, Clifford stars Martin Short as a 10-year-old boy. You read that correctly. That’s the joke.

(I mean … pretty funny joke. For an SCTV sketch. Which is probably how it all started anyways.)

NYT Short Review: Man as boy in devil’s clothing. Less lethal version of the bad seed. More stunt than movie, and stolen by Grodin.

Poster – Clifford and his Big Bad Dad

(Oh. My. God. A+++++++++++++. This is as close to BMT perfection as we’ve gotten since The Avengers 1998. Everything about this is grotesque.)

Tagline(s) – A comedy with a lot of laughs. And a ten-year-old terror. (F)

Uncle Martin is suffering from a little problem… (D)

(These are both horrible. The second is at least playing a little with the word “little”… but that’s about it.)

Keyword(s) – canada

Top 10: Suicide Squad (2016), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Venom (2018), The Butterfly Effect (2004), Armageddon (1998), In Time (2011), Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), 2012 (2009)

Future BMT: 90.3 Vampires Suck (2010), 89.9 House of the Dead (2003), 88.7 Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), 79.6 Shark Night (2011), 78.9 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 77.3 Superhero Movie (2008), 74.9 Look Who’s Talking Too (1990), 74.0 The Spirit (2008), 74.0 The Next Karate Kid (1994), 73.2 The Turning (2020), 72.5 Mr. Magoo (1997), 71.8 Dance Flick (2009), 71.7 Zoom (2006), 69.4 College Road Trip (2008), 69.0 Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), 68.9 Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010), 68.8 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), 68.6 Captivity (2007), 68.3 Yogi Bear (2010), 67.3 The Crow: City of Angels (1996)

BMT: Battlefield Earth (2000), Catwoman (2004), Dragonball Evolution (2009), Jack and Jill (2011), Batman & Robin (1997), The Emoji Movie (2017), The Wicker Man (2006), The Cat in the Hat (2003), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987), The Love Guru (2008), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), Crossroads (2002), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Movie 43 (2013), Barb Wire (1996), RoboCop 3 (1993), The Legend of Hercules (2014), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009), Jason X (2001), Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007), Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002), Little Man (2006), Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (2015), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), Freddy Got Fingered (2001), After Earth (2013), The Bye Bye Man (2017), Caddyshack II (1988), Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011), Jonah Hex (2010), Species II (1998), Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), The Animal (2001), Halloween II (2009),… (and many more)

Best Options (daddio): 78.9 Daddy Day Camp (2007), 49.2 My Girl 2 (1994), 41.5 Speed Zone (1989), 37.9 Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), 37.1 Clifford (1994), 36.9 Desperate Hours (1990), 34.1 Father Hood (1993), 30.3 Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989), 20.7 Mad City (1997), 20.1 Art School Confidential (2006), 19.1 Folks! (1992), 17.8 Brewster’s Millions (1985)

(As you can see we had a few options, but the fact that I’ve seen 20% of Clifford on television 100 times means that I really needed to actually watch it straight through once. By which I mean in four pieces on Tubi while waiting for programs to run.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 13) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Martin Short is No. 1 billed in Clifford and No. 2 billed in Jungle 2 Jungle, which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 9 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (9 + 1) = 13. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – Martin Short’s co-stars are usually standing on boxes and next to slightly oversize props.

The writers of the film, Steven Kampmann and William Porter, were so embarrassed by the final cut that they used pseudonyms as onscreen credit, as well as the film’s marketing and publicity.

Martin Short, who plays 10 year-old Clifford, was 37 years old during initial filming in 1990 and age 40 during the priest bookend sequences filmed in 1993.

Although planned for a 1991 release, this was one of several films released by Orion Pictures in 1994, just before their bankruptcy.

The movie was re-edited and re-shot before its 1994 theatrical release, including bookend scenes with Martin Short as an elderly Clifford, now a reformed priest, who tries to prevent a boarding school student, played by Ben Savage, from running away and telling a story to him about his mischievous childhood. These scenes were shot around 1993, three years after the original shoot was completed.

Once Bitten Recap

Jamie

It’s January 30th, 1991. You glance at the front page of the New York Times, but you aren’t here to marvel at the good and bad of the world. You are here on a mission. You want to laugh… hard. You flip to the TV listings. What luck! Right there on Fox primetime is Once Bitten starring Jim Carrey. In Living Color’s so hot right now. But you got a belly full of laughs that you gotta let out. You don’t just need one comedy, you need an all-nighter of comedy. Obvs you’ll catch Summer Job come 3 a.m., but the comedy pickings are slim when the night owls are out hunting for steamy thrills. Don’t worry, though, Lady Luck is with you tonight because at 1 a.m. you got Hot Pursuit starring John Cusack. Phew. And that, my friends, is how you build a big beautiful BMT Triple Feature.

To recap, Mark is your typical high school student just jonesing to lose his virginity. One problem, his girlfriend, Robin, wants it to be special. Oh no! (the opinions expressed in this film/recap do not reflect those of BMT). His friends are like “don’t sweat it, bro. Let’s go to Hollywood and pick up some chicks.” This predictably goes horribly until Mark is unexpectedly picked up by The Countess. She’s an older lady that the viewers know is actually a vampire. Turns out she needs to drink three times from the blood of a virgin in order to retain her immortality and control of her bevy of vampire underlings. Unfortunately, she’s having a terrible time in 90’s LA finding a virgin… you know… because of all the sex having, etc. That night she gets her first drink from Mark. Two more to go. The Countess is surprised, though, that Mark seems intent on making things right with Robin. As time goes on Mark starts to act more and more bizarre. Once The Countess gets her second bite, even Robin notices something is off. A bunch of gay panic ensues, but ultimately she figures out that he’s being turned into a vamp (as the kids say). There is a confrontation with The Countess at a spooktacular dance (best scene in cinematic history) which forces The Countess to kidnap Robin and lure Mark and his pals to her lair for a final showdown. As Mark and Robin attempt to flee it looks like they are going to be trapped by the vampires until Robin and Mark hop in a coffin and make sweet, sweet love to each other. This breaks the spell and The Countess fails. THE END.

I didn’t like this film much, although my recollection from catching it in pieces on TV as a kid was that it was weird and boring like some 80’s comedies are. I wouldn’t necessarily say that my beautiful adult mind now perceives it that way, but it does have a bit of a high concept problem. You have to buy in on the premise of the humor to really buy in on the film as a whole. So is the gender-swapped concept of a female vampire bedding the “last virgin in school” funny to you? Then you might get some goofy laughs out of the antics of his silly friends and a transcendent dance scene (truly wonderful stuff). To me it felt a little overwritten. Oh, and the gay panic in the film was so extreme that it’s hard to laugh past. On a brighter side I did think a couple vampire ideas in the film were presented in a compelling way, particularly the idea that the female vampire used her male familiar to apply makeup. And I thought the actress who portrayed Robin (Karen Kopins) was very cute and quite talented. She’s not the best actress, but it was so early (Carrey was also a bit rough). Acting can be learned and she seemed to have all the natural talent and charisma that could have made for a bigger career.

As for our Friend this week, Summer Job… uh… well, it existed. It certainly was put on film and released in some format. It is total garbage and actually makes me wonder how it is that someone makes something like that and thinks it’s normal or funny or anything at all. Nothing makes sense. It has no plot. All the characters pair off even though they are mostly gross and off-putting. It makes me question the entire Bring-A-Friend premise, except that this film played numerous times on TV in the 90’s! It was worth watching, but not worth the watch, if you know what I mean.

Hot Take Clam Bake! The Countess was actually dead the whole time. JK. I don’t buy for one second that she’s having trouble finding a virgin in LA just because it’s the 80’s. Mark’s two friends also appear to be virgins (one of them for sure). She could also rustle up a few down at the local church I’m sure. It’s all bunk. She just doesn’t want to admit a few things: 1) the virgin she finds would become part of their group and she doesn’t want any lame-o’s. 2) She’s so enthralling that the instant she “beds” an actually cool virgin he would become so empowered that he would bed another lady before she had a chance to drink his blood three times. 3) Even if that weren’t the case, the cool virgin would probably have a cool GF that she’d have to compete with. It’s a problem of her own making and really she should have taken one look at Robin and been like “Nevermind. Onto the next one.” She was Miss Connecticut! Hot Take Temperature: Rocking jazz dance number.

Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are we talking about early Jim Carrey in a T&A comedy about being the last virgin in LA and being hunted by sexy vampires? Let’s go!

That about sums it up actually. While I agree the movie is a bit weird because of how flat Jim Carrey is, you can already tell he’s going to be a star because they seemingly pulled him off the street and he acts circles around all of the young actors in the film. His friends are dire. Not surprisingly neither did much else in their careers.

The love interest was interesting. She was very cute. Miss Connecticut in 1977. Her story is interesting in that she did a number of somewhat odd smaller films (like Jake Speed), and then married her high school sweetheart, had four kids, and still lives in Connecticut.

If this film has any enduring BMT legacy it is the dance scene. It is pretty incredible. Perhaps a life long project of mine will be to collect some of these MonoSklogs and Dance Sklogs on a private server so I can just watch them and appreciate them. They belong in a museum!

Which then prompted me to ask “I wonder if I can see what Karen Kopin’s talent was in Miss America and whether it was dancing.” It was. Jazz dance. But here’s the thing … like all of the competitors’ talents are dance. An inordinate number. If you look at 1975-1984 Miss Connecticut talent was Dance, Vocal, Dance, Vocal, Dance, Piano (+ Vocal), Vocal, Vocal, Vocal, Clarinet. That is basically the same for Miss America, although the preliminary talent winners often seemed to do something different like gymnastics, trampoline, jump rope, or even chemistry. The actual winners tend to sing in the end.

Oh this film has one of the most extreme examples of gay panic in the history of film. For some reason, despite the girlfriend already observing that Carrey has no reflection (super odd), she decides his friends should check for a bite mark near his dick in the showers. Naturally this involves wrestling him and trying very intently to look at his dick. Which naturally makes everyone think they are not only gay but, presumably, violent rapists. Anyways, they lament their soon-to-be ostracization from society for being gay, although instead they end up bedding some vampires and maybe also becoming vampires (results unclear).

The point I suppose is that this film is old fashioned, but because of Jim Carrey and because of the dance scene, if you can look past the occasionally extended scene where people drop f-bombs (and not the good kind) then there is enjoyment to be had.

Oh boy, for this film we ended up picking a small film as a Friend that (1) played on the same date as Once Bitten did on primetime network television (January 30, 1991), and (2) played a lot. Which led us to choose the unfortunate film Summer Job (1989), which yeah, played 39 times in the early 90s. Here’s the thing: this isn’t a movie. We could make this movie. It appears to have used regional actors from Miami, filmed in a few days at a country club in the off season, and hired precisely one reasonably famous person, a Playboy Playmate who has the odd notoriety of having directed a film starring herself and Patrick Dempsey. I’m glad we did this film though. Because we needed to at some point explore this bad movie space. But I don’t think we’ll revisit things like this if we can avoid it. The film is mostly unpleasant, and the acting is horrible. The only fun bit was the band at the end called Outkast which if I didn’t know better I would think the movie was just an extended music video for. F if you watch the whole thing, A+ if you only watch the Outkast music video at the end.

Twin film alert (Who?) for the two characters credited simply as Twin Vampires. I think a decent Product Placement (What?) for Crunch Bar. Setting as a Character (Where?) for LA as well. A very very nice Secret Holiday Film (When?) for Halloween. I think a genuine MacGuffin (Why?) for the virgin which the vampire needs to bite three times to remain young. And you know what? I like the twist that they get out of the jam by having sex. Thems a lot of superlatives. I think this is BMT for the dance scene alone, if you can tolerate or ignore the many many homophobic slurs that are tossed around.

Read about the long time coming sequel to Once Bitten (obviously called Twice Bitten) in the quiz. Cheerios,

The Sklogs