Tag: BOMB

The Fly II Preview

“I guess we’re having a little trouble with #4,” Jamie says, hoping to get some Good Movie insight from their new elderly friend. It seems right up his alley since it has to do with friendship: Rule #4 – Animal Friends/Animal Enemies. But the old man isn’t listening, he just keeps staring at a door at the back of the train that has a big money sign painted on it. “Why are you staring at the train’s treasure room?” Patrick asks, once again suspicious of this stereotypical old man. “Oh, I don’t know…” the old man starts before dramatically pulling off his disguise and drawing a gun on them. “Maybe because you’re gonna help me rob this train of its jewels,” he finishes. “He’s got a gun!” a nearby passenger screams. Panic ensues and the passengers flee, leaving the train car empty except for them. The young man explains how he saw them at the train station and knew it was his opportunity to use them to help him get away with his heist. He says something about forcing them to dance in order to distract the train police, but at that point Jamie and Patrick have stopped listening. They half-heartedly twin chop the gun out of his hand and backflip their way between him and the treasure room. “No, we’re not going to help you with this scheme. We’re not even going to get ourselves wrapped up in some complicated quest to stop you and your dastardly deeds. That was the old Movie Twins. The Bad Movie Twins. Now we’re the Good Movie Twins. In fact, we’re not just Good…” Patrick says and Jamie finishes, “We’re fly. And that’s exactly what you’re about to do.” At that they Twin Kick the faux geezer out of the moving train. That’s right! We are picking up a classic… and then we’ll watch that classic’s dumb sequel. It’s The Fly and The Fly II. The first one is a Cronenberg classic. The second is the one directed by the dude who did the creature effects for the first film… I’m not joking… that’s what happened because they probably thought, “whatever, this is just a cash grab anyway.” Let’s go!

The Fly II (1989) – BMeTric: 56.0; Notability: 33

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.2%; Notability: top 14.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 19.1%; Higher BMeT: Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, Wild Orchid, Cyborg, The Karate Kid Part III; Higher Notability: Tango & Cash, Troop Beverly Hills, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Fletch Lives, Harlem Nights, Leviathan, Listen to Me, Lock Up, Pink Cadillac, Family Business, Millennium, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, Three Fugitives, Dead Bang, Let It Ride, Renegades, Slaves of New York, The Karate Kid Part III, and 16 more; Lower RT: Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, Police Academy 6: City Under Siege, Stepfather II: Make Room for Daddy, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Horror Show, Worth Winning, Night Game, Second Sight, Wired, Dream a Little Dream, No Holds Barred, Wild Orchid, She’s Out of Control, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Millennium, Chattahoochee, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland, The Blood of Heroes, The Lemon Sisters, and 25 more; Notes: We are doing okay with 1989 now I think, just look at the Top BMeT list. This will be 7 of the top 8 watched for BMT, with only Karate Kid III outstanding there. I have a subtle goal which is to watch the top 10 BMeT films of every year from 1980 to now. I think the early 80s can be done if we loosen up the restrictions, but I already have ideas about that.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  A case of “like father, like son”; too bad director Walas isn’t like David Cronenberg. Stoltz, son of deceased Jeff Goldblum, has attained puberty at five with the intellect to match; now he’s being unknowingly exploited by – here’s a novel twist – the scientists in whose care he’s entrusted. Alternatively sull and messy but mostly dull.

(First, double semi-colon. Jesus Christ Leonard, you’d outdone even yourself. Second, like father like son? You talking like Big Momma and his (her?) son? I’m surprised “mostly dull” gets a BOMB. BOMBs are ultra rare.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yS6E2EXlnI/

(Horrible horrible horrible. I hate it. Annoying and not scary or good. The last bit of the trailer does get you a bit amped and teases the puppet at least.)

Directors – Chris Walas – ( Known For: The Vagrant; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: The Vagrant looks absolutely wild. Anyways, he did the makeup for the original Fly (and was nominated for an Oscar for it). This seemed to be his one and only attempt at a truly major release, although he is a genuinely famous special effects artist working on Return of the Jedi, Enemy Mine, and Gremlins.)

Writers – Mick Garris – ( Known For: Hocus Pocus 2; *batteries not included; Nightmare Cinema; Riding the Bullet; Future BMT: Hocus Pocus; BMT: Critters 2; The Fly II; Notes: Very notably was a secretary at the Star Wars Corporation in 1977. He’s a pretty big name horror director from the 80s)

Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat– ( Known For: Pitch Black; A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master; The Silent Scream; After Midnight; The Return; Future BMT: The Chronicles of Riddick; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: Under the fold is the incredible revelation that they are the directors of Ewoks: The Battle for Endor. They are brothers and writing partners.)

Frank Darabont – ( Known For: The Shawshank Redemption; The Green Mile; The Mist; The Blob; Frankenstein; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: I feel like he’s mostly notable for the big issues he’s had with The Walking Dead and getting paid for that … but yeah, also he’s the director for Shawshank. I’m a little stunned all of these credits are for exclusively The Fly II with not credit for the original writers or anything?)

George Langelaan – (Known For: The Fly, Return of the Fly; Curse of the Fly, The Fly; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: They obviously had to credit him for the story and characters. But again, a little crazy that Cronenberg gets nothing on the sequel? It makes no sense.)

Actors – Eric Stoltz – ( Known For: Pulp Fiction; Back to the Future; Jerry Maguire; Fast Times at Ridgemont High; Little Women; Some Kind of Wonderful; Mask; Say Anything; The Prophecy; The Rules of Attraction; Singles; Kicking and Screaming; 2 Days in the Valley; Memphis Belle; Rob Roy; Her Smell; 5 to 7; The House of Mirth; The Wild Life; Killing Zoe; Future BMT: The Butterfly Effect; The Honeymooners; Fluke; Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer; BMT: Anaconda; The Fly II; Notes: Famously the original Marty McFly in Back to the Future (still uncredited there presumably because he’s still included in some wide shots?). Mostly does small things and television spots, but was also a star of the Battlestar Galactica spinoff Caprica it looks like.)

Daphne Zuniga – ( Known For: Spaceballs; Vision Quest; The Sure Thing; The Initiation; Modern Girls; The Dorm That Dripped Blood; Staying Together; Last Rites; Heartbeats; Gone Missing; Charlie’s Ghost Story; Mad at the Moon; Who’s Driving Doug; Enemies of Laughter; Summer Forever; Future BMT: Gross Anatomy; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: I obviously know her from Spaceballs. She’s continued to do a lot of stuff, mostly guest spots on television, but she was also on 40 episodes of One Tree Hill.)

Lee Richardson – ( Known For: Network; The Exorcist III; Prizzi’s Honor; Prince of the City; Brubaker; Q&A; Daniel; Middle of the Night; Tiger Warsaw; I Am the Cheese; Future BMT: The Believers; A Stranger Among Us; BMT: The Fly II; Notes: Uncredited as FDR in the Truman television movie. Was nominated for a Tony Award for Vivat! Vivat Rgina! In 1972. Died in 1999.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $20,021,322 (Worldwide: $38,903,179)

(That seems bad considering how much must have went into effects. A little odd that there is no info at all about how much this movie costs seemingly.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 29% (5/17)

(Oh a consensus: Often horribly graphic and … well just horrible, The Fly II exchanges the creepy for the just plain gross.)

Reviewer Highlight: Worthless sequel to a very good film – Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress

Poster – The Fly II: Superfly

(Christ, they just knocked off the first film’s poster. Really was a cash grab. Although then again there is a rich history of just trotting out the same thing for a sequel. Back to the Future comes to mind. I like the tone, wish the font was a little better, and can’t give it much of a score since it is a knockoff. C.)

Tagline(s) – Like father, like son. (F)

(We talking Big Momma’s House 3? I sometimes wonder when we have a tagline this generic whether we could build a trilogy of films with the exact same tagline.)

Keyword(s) – good

Top 10: Good Will Hunting (1997), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), The Great Gatsby (2013), Hot Fuzz (2007), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Man on Fire (2004), The Nice Guys (2016)

Future BMT: 67.3 Phat Girlz (2006), 63.2 Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015), 60.6 Like a Boss (2020), 51.7 Playing with Fire (2019), 51.6 The Boss (2016), 51.0 Johnny Be Good (1988), 50.6 The Hot Chick (2002), 49.9 Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), 48.4 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), 47.1 Barney’s Great Adventure (1998), 45.1 Fly Me to the Moon 3D (2007), 44.9 Fantastic Four (2005), 40.4 No Good Deed (2014), 39.4 Good Burger (1997), 37.2 The Great Wall (2016), 37.0 Stroker Ace (1983), 36.3 Milk Money (1994), 34.6 Mad Money (2008), 34.3 Mo’ Money (1992), 32.1 Good Deeds (2012)

BMT: Epic Movie (2007), Fantastic Four (2015), The Ridiculous 6 (2015), Cool as Ice (1991), Cool World (1992), A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), Hot Pursuit (2015), The Fly II (1989), One for the Money (2012), Fire Down Below (1997), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Fire Birds (1990), Good Luck Chuck (2007), Be Cool (2005), Chill Factor (1999), Money Train (1995), Hot to Trot (1988), The Golden Child (1986), Righteous Kill (2008), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Wizard (1989), Hunter Killer (2018)

Best Options (Horror): 56.2 The Fly II (1989), 40.4 No Good Deed (2014)

(Yeah, no very good options here, until you pulled in some Thrillers. At the very least The Good Son would have been an option … but spoilers, we are doing that later.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Eric Stoltz is No. 1 billed in The Fly II and No. 4 billed in Anaconda, which also stars Jennifer Lopez (No. 1 billed) who is in Gigli (No. 2 billed) which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Pearl Harbor (No. 1 billed) which also stars Josh Hartnett (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 3 billed) => (1 + 4) + (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (3 + 3) = 16. If we were to watch Jack, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – Chris Walas wanted Geena Davis to reprise her role as Veronica Quaife for the birth scene at the beginning of the film. Geena Davis declined, because she had found the maggot-baby dream sequence in the original film emotionally upsetting and was replaced by Saffron Henderson, despite being 10 years younger than Davis.

The first videotape of Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) (where he theorizes that the teleporter improved him) is actually part of a deleted scene from The Fly (1986). The scene was slightly edited for this film, and Veronica’s (Geena Davis) voice was dubbed over by Saffron Henderson (who plays Veronica at the beginning of The Fly II (1989)).

The Telepod props from The Fly (1986) were destroyed after filming was completed and had to be rebuilt.

John Getz (Stathis Borans) is the only actor reprising a role from the The Fly (1986).

The green flashes of light between each credit in the title sequence were actually borrowed from an alternate, unused title sequence for The Fly (1986).

In at least one draft of the script, Martin was going to see yet another videotape of Seth Brundle (this time nearing the end of his transformation), in which Seth talks about his “cure”. This would have required brand-new footage of Jeff Goldblum in makeup from the previous film, and the concept was subsequently dropped from the script.

The movie was originally given an X rating by the MPAA because of the graphic scene where Hargis’ head is crushed underneath an elevator. Director Chris Walas appealed the decision, and the MPAA gave the film an R rating without any edits to the scene.

In some US states, theaters playing The Fly II (1989) had a nurse on hand for the audience’s reactions to its content.

Mel Brooks suggested to Chris Walas that Daphne Zuniga play Beth Logan, after Zuniga starred as Princess Vespa in Brook’s “Star Wars” spoof Spaceballs (1987).

The book next to the sleeping technician in the control room at the beginning of the film is “The Shape of Rage”, an anthology of writings about the films of David Cronenberg, who directed this film’s predecessor.

A scene was taken out of the film which reveals the reason why Bartok and his scientists can’t get the Telepods to work is because Stathis took the operating disc from the Telepods and all the research on it to ensure the Telepods couldn’t cause any more damage than they already had.

Although “The Fly III” never happened, a comic book sequel, “The Fly: Outbreak” by Brandon Seifert, was published in 2015. “Outbreak” takes place years after The Fly II (1989) and it follows Martin Brundle attempting to cure Anton Bartok of his mutant condition.

Originally, writer Mick Garris’s script was about Veronica being convinced not to abort her baby by a religious cult who would keep and raise Martin after he was born. The rapidly aging Martin is joined by a group of kids with their own unique abilities or deformities and Martin could discover he could communicate with insects and would lead the kids to escape the cult and live in the outskirts of L.A.. This premise was abandoned for being too strange and family friendly. Another draft included Bartok scientists using cloning technology to resurrect Seth Brundle, still stuck as BrundleFly at first, and would discover that his son Martin (who was originally meant to be a child/teenager throughout the film) could communicate with him. Chris Walas disliked this version of the story as he thought it was too odd of a premise to the point where it came off like a family-friendly horror film about a boy and his bug monster. He even threatened to walk off the project if the script wasn’t changed, so the Fox executives relented and hired Frank Darabont to overhaul the script.

There had been a change in management at Fox between The Fly (1986) and this sequel, and the new head of Fox hadn’t even seen the previous film. Director Chris Walas claims that they wanted the film to explore themes of defying destiny and what it means to be a son, but the Fox executives ordered them to ditch the existential themes and make the film a standard, gory movie that teens could enjoy on their date. Mel Brooks would later remark that he had never seen so much studio interference on a movie before.

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Imposter Preview

“You senseless idiot!” Patrick says in dismay. Kyle was their last chance to save the world. He had already come to the conclusion that the HoE dimension was so powerful that it would burn out any time machine that found its way there. Kyle’s story only confirmed it. Now they were all stuck here. “Well that’s OK, Patrick, it’s really not so bad here. Unexpectedly pleasant in fact,” Kyle says, sharing a sweet moment with his beloved Rachel. Rachel smiles back, but after a second her smile starts to waver and she begins to weep. Kyle is shocked. “It’s just so wonderful here. What if we go back and our family can’t…” Rachel’s voice breaks. Kyle reassures her that they don’t have to go anywhere, but Jamie and Patrick have a job to do. “We have to help them if we can. Isn’t that why we went back in the first place?” She nods and tells them about the Hallston Academy building. Kids come and go, real baseball games during the day, imaginary baseball games at night. “Classic high school stuff, go on,” Patrick encourages. But when Rachel picks up the kids at school she’s noticed another building. One down by the lake. No one ever comes. No one ever goes. “And armed guards are always nearby,” Rachel finishes, her voice now a whisper. But Kyle sadly shakes his head, “it’s been fifteen years, Rachel, I can know when you are holding back. You need to tell them.” She takes a deep breath. “There are two people I’ve seen come and go. I’m sorry I never told you, dear, but I didn’t want to spoil our dream. Those people were…” and suddenly she looks straight at Jamie and Patrick, “the bad movie twins!” Kyle turns to them, enraged. “Imposters!” That’s right! We are watching the classic *checks notes* Gary Sinise vehicle… wait, that can’t be right… alright, well the Gary Sinise sci-fi vehicle we all know and love. He’s an imposter… or is he? You better believe they’re gonna try to twist us up. Let’s go!

Impostor (2001) – BMeTric: 23.7; Notability: 67

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 25.6%; Notability: top 1.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 22.2%; Higher BMeT: Glitter, Jason X, Freddy Got Fingered, Driven, The Animal, Ghosts of Mars, Black Knight, Valentine, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Soul Survivors, Monkeybone, The Musketeer, Corky Romano, Scary Movie 2, The Wedding Planner, Bones, Summer Catch, The Order, Say It Isn’t So, The Wash, and 44 more; Higher Notability: Pearl Harbor, Monkeybone, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Hannibal; Lower RT: Texas Rangers, Soul Survivors, Glitter, Corky Romano, The Forsaken, Summer Catch, The Wash, Out Cold, Say It Isn’t So, Joe Dirt, Head Over Heels, Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?, Freddy Got Fingered, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles, Perfume, The Musketeer, Valentine, Double Take, Original Sin, and 33 more; Notes: I’m not surprised at how high the rating is here. I am shocked by how high the Notability. Jeez Louise! It is on Hannibal or Tomb Raider levels! That’s nuts.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Is Sinise an alien spy impersonating a scientist married to Stowe in 2079? The movie’s distributor apparently didn’t think anyone cared enough to find out, because this malnourished Philip K. Dick adaptation sat on the shelf for more than a year. Most interesting features are the near home appliances in the early scenes, which include a voice-activated wall-screen TV that shuts off on command. You should be so lucky when watching this movie at home.

(Wow! Harsh. I would have never expected this to get a BOMB from Leonard. It seems maybe light-fare or boring, but he’s given really terrible horror films 1.5 just being like “I didn’t vomit while watching this film which is a plus.” But this is malnourished? A BOMB it is I guess.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh6xFG7l8ss/

(The trailer is very weird. It makes it look incredibly cheap and poorly put together. Which is maybe why Leonard gave it a BOMB I suppose.)

Directors – Gary Fleder – ( Known For: Runaway Jury; Homefront; Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead; The Express; Future BMT: Don’t Say a Word; BMT: Kiss the Girls; Impostor; Notes: Hmmm, he still does a lot of television (and maybe movies, although I’m skeptical his In Production work will be actually released in the end). In particular he did a Lincoln Rhyme television series which is basically the Bone Collector, which is rather intriguing … although me having never heard of it is probably a bad sign for its quality.)

Writers – Philip K. Dick – ( Known For: Blade Runner 2049; Blade Runner; Minority Report; Total Recall; The Adjustment Bureau; A Scanner Darkly; Radio Free Albemuth; Natural City; Morning Patrol; Barjo; Future BMT: Next; Screamers; BMT: Paycheck; Impostor; Notes: Probably a top ten most famous sci-fi writers ever. He won a Hugo Award for The Man in the High Castle, and was nominated for five Nebula Awards. Given that we’ve almost completed his BMT filmography with two films, his work tends to produce good films as well.)

Scott Rosenberg – ( Known For: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle; Jumanji: The Next Level; Con Air; High Fidelity; Beautiful Girls; Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead; Highway; Future BMT: Venom; Disturbing Behavior; BMT: Gone in 60 Seconds; Kangaroo Jack; Impostor; Notes: He mostly does blockbusters, and he did a lot of television from 2000-2015. Good friends with Fleder who he went to Boston University with. Somewhat notably was the “other person” involved in a bar brawl where Steve Buscemi was stabbed three times.)

Caroline Case – ( BMT: Impostor; Notes: Was a television writer on The Tom Show and The Army Show, but besides that she mostly did script and continuity work on Gary Fleder films. He also produced her documentary on William Goldman.)

Ehren Kruger – ( Known For: Top Gun: Maverick; The Ring; Ghost in the Shell; Scream 3; Dumbo; Arlington Road; New World Disorder; Future BMT: Transformers: Dark of the Moon; Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; The Skeleton Key; The Brothers Grimm; Blood and Chocolate; BMT: Transformers: Age of Extinction; The Ring Two; Reindeer Games; Impostor; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Screenplay for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2010; and Nominee for Worst Screenplay in 2012 for Transformers: Dark of the Moon; and in 2015 for Transformers: Age of Extinction; Notes: The writer of the biggest movie of the year! He is a blockbuster machine, and that will likely continue to be the case given that Top Gun 2 is going to make more than a billion dollars.)

David Twohy – ( Known For: The Fugitive; Waterworld; Pitch Black; Riddick; G.I. Jane; A Perfect Getaway; The Arrival; Below; Warlock; Grand Tour: Disaster in Time; Arrival II; Future BMT: The Chronicles of Riddick; Warlock: The Armageddon; BMT: Critters 2; Terminal Velocity; Impostor; Notes: Wait they got the writer of the Fugitive to get involved with this? That’s nuts. He has a film coming out called Ice Moon Rising which seems insane.)

Actors – Shane Brolly – ( Known For: Spread; Room 6; Flypaper; Rennie’s Landing; Devil’s Highway; 48 Angels; Future BMT: Underworld; Underworld: Evolution; Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; BMT: Impostor; Notes: Wow, it’s been a while since we got someone who is definitely not a lead actor sneaking into a preview. I’m going to leave it. He wrote a book called “You’d Think There Would Be More Suicides Around Here”.)

Vincent D’Onofrio – ( Known For: Jurassic World; Full Metal Jacket; The Magnificent Seven; Sinister; The Unforgivable; The Eyes of Tammy Faye; Men in Black; Ed Wood; Adventures in Babysitting; JFK; The Cell; Escape Plan; The Judge; The Player; Mystic Pizza; Strange Days; Run All Night; The Salton Sea; Chained; Kill the Irishman; Future BMT: The Break-Up; The Thirteenth Floor; Dying Young; Feeling Minnesota; BMT: Death Wish; CHIPS; Rings; Impostor; Stuart Saves His Family; Notes: Somewhat notable now as Kingpin and being one of the rare examples of an actor crossing from the Netflix Marvel series (Daredevil) into the Disney canonical series (Hawkeye). He was nominated for an Emmy for Homicide: Life on the Street, and then spent a decade as the lead in Law & Order: Criminal Intent.)

Gary Sinise – ( Known For: Forrest Gump; The Green Mile; Apollo 13; Captain America: The Winter Soldier; The Quick and the Dead; Joe Bell; Of Mice and Men; Ransom; I Still Believe; Open Season; Snake Eyes; The Human Stain; Albino Alligator; The Big Bounce; A Midnight Clear; A Wedding; SGT. Will Gardner; Bruno; All the Rage; Future BMT: Mission to Mars; The Forgotten; Jack the Bear; BMT: Reindeer Games; Impostor; Notes: I’m willing to bet a huge number of people know his exclusively from Forrest Gump (for which he was nominated for an Oscar), but he is an extremely notable actor (from things as lauded as Of Mice and Men for example). He was nominated for two Emmys (and won one of them) for Truman and George Wallace as the titular characters in both. He was the lead in nearly 200 episodes of CSI: NY and for the single season of Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders.)

Budget/Gross – $30,000,000 / Domestic: $6,285,176 (Worldwide: $8,694,320)

(Horrible. It sat on the shelf for a year, probably because they didn’t know what to do with it or how to advertise it. I bet the $30 million figure it accurate given the behind the scenes stuff I saw, it seemed really expensive from a set perspective. But I’m sure they just dumped it with no advertising campaign at all as well.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 24% (23/96): With its low production value and uninspired direction, Impostor comes off as a mixture of The Fugitive and Blade Runner, only not as good or as involving.

(Yeah, it does seem like it is just a future Fugitive with less compelling leads. And if the trailer is to be believed it definitely looks cheap as well. So fair all around.)

Reviewer Highlight: Pushes the same old cliches in Blade Runner packaging. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Poster – Alium Copycat

(I find this poster both nicely made and hilarious. Nicely made because the artistry of it is interesting, the color scheme is good, and it hits in a nice “classic poster” kind of way. Hilarious because of the tiny Gary Sinise running out of an explosion. If I wanted a funny poster based project to embark on it would be posters like this where an actor appears more than once. Double Sinise. Font is bad, which is a shame. B-.)

Tagline(s) – In the Future, not everyone is who they seem to be. (F)

(My God, unacceptable. Usually something that is total nonsense is at least fun cause it’s nonsense. This is boring nonsense. Booooo.)

Keyword(s) – dimension

Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)

Future BMT: 86.6 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.5 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 77.0 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 59.0 Apollo 18 (2011)

BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween II (2009), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Boys and Girls (2000), Texas Rangers (2001), Reindeer Games (2000), Halloween (2007), Senseless (1998), Impostor (2001), Mindhunters (2004)

Best Options (future): 33.0 Fortress (1992), 23.7 Impostor (2001)

(The question kind of is whether we’ll ever watch a 2005 or 2006 film … Looking at the list the prognosis is negative. We just love the 90s and early 2000s so much! You might be shocked (shocked!) that we didn’t pick the Christopher Lambert future prison movie classic, Fortress, but no worries, that is next week.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 17) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Gary Sinise is No. 1 billed in Impostor and No. 2 billed in Reindeer Games, which also stars Ben Affleck (No. 1 billed) who is in Gigli (No. 1 billed) which also stars Al Pacino (No. 7 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (7 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 17. If we were to watch Pearl Harbor we can get the HoE Number down to 11.

Notes – Young Spencer Olham is played by Mac Sinise, Gary Sinise’s son.

The adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Impostor” was originally planned to be one segment (about forty minutes) of a three-part science fiction movie. The production company liked the early “dailies” so much, that the idea was fleshed out into a feature-length film. The other segments grew into the features Mimic (1997) and Alien Love Triangle (2008).

In the opening scene of the movie, footage of soldiers is taken from the 1997 film Starship Troopers (1997); and footage of a crater, with other explosions is taken from the film Armageddon.

A street scene is filmed in a courtyard of Cal Poly Pomona’s administration building, the same one used for Jude Law’s apartment building in Gattaca (1997). Several students and staff of Cal Poly Pomona were used as extras for this scene.

Spencer Olham is said to be “very good at integral and differential calculus.” This is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical “Pirates of Penzance” from the famously silly patter-song “Modern Major General.” (The line from the song is, “I am very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of being animalculus…”)

The operating room set was also used in Logan’s Run.

Maya Olham watches a televised news report that refers to a Ballard space institute – a reference to J.G. Ballard, the British science fiction writer.

The helmets that security forces wears are also the helmets worn in Starship Troopers (1997).

The film takes place in 2079.

Originally intended to be Miramax’s big Christmas movie for 2001, the film got delayed to January just days before it was set to open due to last-minute edits on Kate & Leopold (2001), which forced that film to take this film’s original date.

Halloween II (2009) Preview

“Looks like New Years come early for you two,” Officer Mash says with a smirk as he clangs the jail door shut. Jamie and Patrick beg them to listen to their story. Sure it sounds totally crazy, but they have to trust them. They are there for a reason… to change someone’s life… to help. But Bongo and Mash scoff at the suggestion. “Nothing is wrong in this town. It’s perfect,” Bongo says matter of factly. “Yeah, perfect,” agrees Mash, “you know, except for…” But before he can finish Bongo shushes him and reiterates that the town is a perfect example of perfection. Jamie and Patrick see their opening, but no matter how much they try to explain, it’s like talking to two rule-abiding walls. Mash chuckles at their attempts and silently mocks them to his partner. “I don’t know what kind of yuletide cheer you’ve gotten into, but there isn’t anything wrong with the town. Rules are just rules. So you boys just stay right there. We gotta go patrol the Halloween Jamboree.” Jamie and Patrick look at each other in confusion. Halloween? Didn’t he use the phrase ‘yuletide cheer’ just a second before? Officer Mash rubs his hands together in anticipation. “I heard this year they got Mikey Myers (of the Mikey Mikes fame) to perform and they are doing some spooktacular novelty songs.” Jamie and Patrick leap up. “Wait!” shouts Jamie, “We’re the Mikey Mikes.” Patrick nods his head excitedly and just as Bongo and Mash are about to wave them off he blurts out, “We can prove it! Let us give you a sneak peak at a double dose of spooktacular novelty songs!” Bongo and Mash look at each other and finally relent, “Ehhhh, OK. But just don’t make them too scary.” That’s right! We are doing a double dose of spooktacular action with both of Rob Zombie’s Halloween films. We are well ahead of schedule in our Halloween franchise pursuit with only Halloween Kills (currently qualifying) left. Let’s go!

Halloween II (2009) – BMeTric: 70.7; Notability: 69

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.2%; Notability: top 4.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 16.5%; Higher BMeT: Dragonball Evolution, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Stan Helsing, S. Darko, The Unborn, Dance Flick; Higher Notability: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, 2012, Angels & Demons, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Terminator Salvation, The Lovely Bones, Nine, Fast & Furious, Confessions of a Shopaholic, Surrogates; Lower RT: Labor Pains, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Miss March, Old Dogs, All About Steve, Whiteout, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, Echelon Conspiracy, Post Grad, My Life in Ruins, The Unborn, Couples Retreat, Bride Wars, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, The Stepfather, S. Darko, The Pink Panther 2, I Love You, Beth Cooper, The Ugly Truth, Year One, and 20 more; Notes: Man we have a lot of high BMeTric films on the table … can’t same I’m super excited about any of those though. Nearly 70+ for both BMeTric and Notability is pretty impressive though.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Michael Myers is back on the gory warpath in this lumbering sequel to Zombie’s 2007 Halloween. There are pitifully few genuine scares … just a lot of blood and utterances of the “f” word. Unrated director’s cut runs 119m.

(That’s what I’m talking about Leonard! YES! I think this might be the first BOMB in the actual series, the only other one being Halloween III (which is now a cult classic). Stunning that it managed it when even Halloween: Resurrection didn’t.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXkcgqmKZ2Y/

(This trailer makes it look a lot more normal that I think this film actually is. I’m pretty sure this film is a gross film I don’t like. But this makes it look like an actual slasher film (a genre I generally like). So that’s confusing.)

Directors – Rob Zombie – ( Known For: 3 from Hell; The Devil’s Rejects; Grindhouse; 31; The Lords of Salem; Future BMT: House of 1000 Corpses; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Notes: Real name Robert Cummings. Was most well known as a singer headlining the heavy metal band White Zombie.)

Writers – Rob Zombie – ( Known For: 3 from Hell; The Devil’s Rejects; Grindhouse; 31; The Lords of Salem; Future BMT: House of 1000 Corpses; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Notes: Is writing and directing the horror-comedy film version of The Munsters.)

Actors – Scout Taylor-Compton – ( Known For: 13 Going on 30; Chariot; The Runaways; An American Crime; The Long Night; Return to Sender; Flight 7500; 247°F; Love Ranch; Triple Dog; Ghost House; An Intrusion; Wicked Little Things; Love at First Hiccup; Andover; Get the Girl; Future BMT: Sleepover; Obsessed; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Notes: Was a teen actress as she was only 15 when she was in 13 going on 30.)

Tyler Mane – ( Known For: Troy; X-Men; The Scorpion King; The Devil’s Rejects; 247°F; Victor Crowley; Gunless; Black Mask 2: City of Masks; Compound Fracture; Devil May Call; Future BMT: Joe Dirt; Playing with Fire; BMT: Halloween; Halloween II; Notes: A former wrestler, his ring name was Big Sky.)

Malcolm McDowell – ( Known For: Father Stu; A Clockwork Orange; Caligula; O Lucky Man!; Bombshell; Easy A; The Book of Eli; Blue Thunder; Doomsday; The Player; In Good Company; 31; Bolt; Cat People; The Artist; Star Trek: Generations; Hidalgo; Excision; Time After Time; American Satan; Future BMT: Tank Girl; Milk Money; Mr. Magoo; Just Visiting; Sunset; Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius; Delgo; BMT: Halloween; Silent Hill: Revelation; Halloween II; I Spy; Notes: He’s in a million things at this point. The most intriguing upcoming project is Wizardream where he plays the role of The Wizard Mangodor.)

Budget/Gross – $15,000,000 / Domestic: $33,392,973 (Worldwide: $39,421,467)

(Actually, still not that bad. But I’m sure the reception was less than warm and ultimately they began looking for a new direction to take the rebooted series after this one.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 22% (18/81): Zombie shows flashes of vision in the follow-up to his Halloween reboot, but they’re smothered by mountains of gore and hackneyed, brutal violence.

(That is way way way higher than I would have thought! I legit would have thought there would have been wholesale rejection of the Hastel-esque direction Zombie took with full creative control, but 20% isn’t that bad.)

Reviewer Highlight: Let’s float a notion: Rob Zombie is the greatest horror-movie director never to make a great movie. – Keith Phipps, AV Club

Poster – Hostel-ween 2: Even Hostel-ier

(Certainly shocking and so it’s doing its job. I can see that hanging in a theater and it grabbing the right people’s attentions. I don’t love all the gray, but the orange pops and the font is good. I think it’s good. Better than the first in its simplicity. A-.)

Tagline(s) – Family Is Forever (C+)

(Boy oh boy. They just don’t seem to care about these tag lines and that’s a shame. Slightly better than the first. Even though it’s generic there is a whiff of cleverness… “family is forever” is a wholesome phrase and they turn it around. But I don’t really appreciate just stating a generic phrase ironically. Gotta do something with it.)

Keyword(s) – dimension

Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)

Future BMT: 86.5 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.4 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 76.9 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 58.9 Apollo 18 (2011)

BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween II (2009), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Texas Rangers (2001), Halloween (2007), Mindhunters (2004)

Best Options (Horror): 70.6 Halloween II (2009), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 58.9 Apollo 18 (2011), 58.6 Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992), 56.9 They (2002), 45.9 Darkness (2002), 36.9 The Amityville Horror (2005), 33.6 Halloween (2007)

(Apollo 18 is one of those films that has been on the tip of BMT forever. Probably because it came out the year we started BMT. So it was always there, but we obviously had the classics to get through and he didn’t have as sophisticated an infrastructure to identify the merde de la merde of bad movies. Anyways, missed again, but we’ll get there.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 19) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Scout Taylor-Compton is No. 1 billed in Halloween II and No. 1 billed in Halloween, which also stars William Forsythe (No. 8 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 5 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (8 + 5) + (3 + 1) = 19. If we were to watch Sunset, The Jackal, Nights in Rodanthe, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 16.

Notes – John Carpenter was offered a cameo in the film by Rob Zombie, but he turned it down.

First Halloween movie to include Michael clearly walking around without his mask on.

Daeg Faerch filmed scenes reprising his role of Young Michael Myers but was replaced and the scenes reshot after it became apparent that Faerch had noticeably grown up since the last installment and no longer looked the same age.

Rob Zombie originally stated he would never do a sequel to Halloween (2007), until the studio decided to make it. Then he signed on to write and direct, because he didn’t want someone else to ruin his vision.

While writing Sam Loomis for the sequel, Rob Zombie based his egotistical and self-absorbed personality on Dr. Phil and his talk show.

Malcolm McDowell quotes Alex Delarge, the character he played in A Clockwork Orange (1971), during the press conference when he says “Let’s get things nice and sparkling clear”.

The decision to give Laurie the name ‘Angel’ as her real name was meant to emphasize her as an extreme opposite to Michael. Laurie Strode’s birth name in the original films was Cynthia Myers.

Tyler Mane is only the second actor to portray Michael Myers twice. George P. Wilbur previously portrayed Michael in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) and Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). Mane is the first actor to portray Myers two movies in a row.

In the scenes shot at the exterior of the hospital parking lot, the location of the emergency room entrance to the hospital was actually the entrance to the Spinal Cord Injury Clinic at the now-defunct Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital in the San Fernando Valley, California.

The characterisation of Dr Loomis as a greedy, unlikeable egotist was Malcolm McDowell’s idea. He told Rob Zombie he didn’t want to give the same performance from the first film.

In addition to the studio interference that compromised production, Rob Zombie also strongly suspected that crew members were actually stealing money from the film’s production budget.

Rob Zombie had nearly every main character killed off in the ending, including Michael Myers and Laurie (though she only dies in the Director’s Cut), to finally ensure that another film could not be made. Despite this, Dimension Films insisted on a third film and Zombie walked away from such plans, not wanting to be involved with it. This film ultimately underperformed financially and was panned by fans and critics alike, casting doubt on a sequel. After years of no development, Dimension Films and The Weinstein Company finally surrendered the rights to the franchise to Universal Pictures and Blumhouse, resulting in Halloween (2018).

My Boss’s Daughter Preview

When the time machine settles, the crew look at each other in trepidation. What the hell just happened? One second it looked like they were gonna make it home and now… where are they? Outside appears to be none other than… “Rallston Academy?” Patrick says in disbelief. They all recognize the legendary front gates of Kelley Morse’s private high school from Here on Earth. But when they look closer the gates don’t say “Rallston” at all. They say “Hallston.” Weird. In the distance they see the husk of what was once a place called Table’s Table, now burned down. Just outside are two young men, shirtless and scarfing down some sandwiches. Just a couple of best friends without a care in the world. “No, no, no, this is all wrong! Hallston? Table’s Table? Kelley and Jasper are supposed to hate each other! We have to go back!” Jamie screams, but as he attempts to mash the buttons of the time machine he realizes that the whole thing is as burned out as Table’s Table, the local… table shop? “Maybe this is OK.” Patrick says hopefully, “See? There’s the sheriff. He’s probably going to give Kelley a real once over about dating his daughter Sam.” But after piling out of the time machine and making their way over to Table’s Table they are appalled by what they find. Not one but two sheriffs. Opposite, and yet both so against the rulez. On their chests gleam badges with the names “Bangers” and “Mash” in big gold letters. And they’re not insisting Kelley and Jasper can’t date their daughters… they’re insisting that they DO date their daughters (both of course named Sam). Jamie’s eyes are wild, looking for an escape, but Patrick stops him. “This is why we’re here,” he says calmly. That’s right! While Jamie and Patrick are dealing with some Sheriff daughter problems in another dimension, we are dealing with My Boss’s Daughter, an early 2000’s laugh riot from Dimension Films starring Ashton Kutcher. Looks like a hoot (spoiler alert). Let’s go!

My Boss’s Daughter (2003) – BMeTric: 68.5; Notability: 43

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 3.6%; Notability: top 15.6%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 3.4%; Higher BMeT: The Room, Gigli, House of the Dead, The Cat in the Hat, Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, From Justin to Kelly, Kangaroo Jack, Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde; Higher Notability: The Matrix Revolutions, Bad Boys II, Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Brother Bear, Scary Movie 3, Timeline, Hollywood Homicide, Gods and Generals, Tears of the Sun, The Cat in the Hat, Paycheck, The Haunted Mansion, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Cradle 2 the Grave, Duplex, Wonderland, Agent Cody Banks, The Jungle Book 2, Dreamcatcher, and 19 more; Lower RT: Dorm Daze, The Foreigner, Hangman’s Curse, Gold Diggers, House of the Dead, Gigli, Kangaroo Jack, From Justin to Kelly; Notes: Wow, still three pretty excellently bad films left from 2000 with a higher BMeTric. This is a very high BMeTric. Not surprising, just a bit off the radar since I can’t think of another time I thought of doing this film. Really high Notability for a comedy as well I think.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Smitten with the title girl of his dreams (Reid), Kutcher is trapped into house-sitting for her wealthy father, a clean-freak who warns him against letting the inevitable happen: the thorough trashing of the family mansion. The leads have no chemistry in this trendily crude comedy that makes a short running time seem longer than the uncut Greed. This sat on the shelf for a couple of years before being dumped on the market.

(Greed is a 1924 film by Erich von Strodhein based on the novel McTeague. The original cut was nearly 9 hours long, but is now lost, sometimes claimed to be the greatest film ever made (at least by that time). A four hour reconstruction was created in 1999. Oh … this film? It looks like trash, but amazing that Leonard pulls in a ref to Greed while reviewing My Boss’s Daughter starring Tara Reid.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kubIMUboWs/

(The music! Oh boy they spoil the only good joke in the film with the owl names OJ after OJ Simpson while being oblivious to him being accused of murder. And yeah, looks like unfunny garbage of course.)

Directors – David Zucker – ( Known For: Airplane!; The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!; Top Secret!; BASEketball; The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; Ruthless People; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; Scary Movie 4; An American Carol; BMT: Scary Movie V; My Boss’s Daughter; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for Police Squad! As is obvious he was the BIG name in spoof films in the 80s, but ultimately his career craters in the 90s.)

Writers – David Dorfman – ( Known For: Anger Management; BMT: My Boss’s Daughter; Notes: I forgot that they made an Anger Management television series starring Charlie Sheen a few years ago.)

Actors – Ashton Kutcher – ( Known For: No Strings Attached; Spread; Open Season; Guess Who; A Lot Like Love; Bobby; Personal Effects; Coming Soon; Future BMT: The Butterfly Effect; Annie; Dude, Where’s My Car?; Just Married; Reindeer Games; BMT: Cheaper by the Dozen; Killers; The Guardian; What Happens in Vegas; New Year’s Eve; Valentine’s Day; Jobs; Down to You; My Boss’s Daughter; Texas Rangers; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actor in 2011 for Killers, and Valentine’s Day; Nominee for Worst Actor in 2004 for Cheaper by the Dozen, Just Married, and My Boss’s Daughter; and in 2014 for Jobs; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple for What Happens in Vegas in 2009; Notes: His last feature film that actually came out was in 2014. He seems like he is basically a venture capitalist at this point. He does have a few different films slated to come out in the next few years though.)

Tara Reid – ( Known For: American Pie; The Big Lebowski; American Pie 2; Cruel Intentions; American Reunion; The Hungover Games; Josie and the Pussycats; The Crow: Wicked Prayer; A Return to Salem’s Lot; Body Shots; Dr. T & the Women; Ouija House; Charlie’s Farm; Girl; Last Call; Devil’s Pond; I Woke Up Early the Day I Died; The Fields; Knots; Andy the Talking Hedgehog; Future BMT: Van Wilder; Just Visiting; BMT: Urban Legend; Alone in the Dark; My Boss’s Daughter; Notes: Her brother has his own production company. She’s basically just in terrible non-films like Sharknado now.)

Andy Richter – ( Known For: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby; Madagascar; Marcel the Shell with Shoes On; Blades of Glory; Elf; Penguins of Madagascar; Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted; Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa; The Cat Returns; Big Trouble; Dr. Dolittle 2; Girlfriend’s Day; Cabin Boy; Run Ronnie Run; Dr. T & the Women; Lenny the Wonder Dog; Seeing Other People; The Thin Pink Line; Frank McKlusky, C.I.; Future BMT: Scary Movie 2; Semi-Pro; Pootie Tang; Aliens in the Attic; BMT: New York Minute; My Boss’s Daughter; Notes: Long time co-host for Conan, he had quite a few television shows of his own, including Andy Barker P.I. As part of Conan he was nominated for seven Emmy awards, although never won.)

Budget/Gross – $14,000,000 / Domestic: $15,550,605 (Worldwide: $18,191,005)

(I mean, that is terrible. No wonder we never got that hotly anticipated sequel to My Boss’s Daughter. That would have definitely been My Boss’s Granddaughter right?)

Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (6/74): Offensive, incoherent, and ineptly acted and directed.

(Oh boy. Offensive is the worst. How many slurs do you think I hear while watching this film. Over/under an even dozen?)

Reviewer Highlight: Zucker … directs this mess like a substitute teacher soldiering through a day’s work for a day’s pay at a decertified school. – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

Poster – Tom Stanfield’s Great Owl Adventure

(This is like a poster for a kids movie… but worse. I dare say nothing about this is good other than the fact that it doesn’t burn my eyes like acid. D-.)

Tagline(s) – There are some things you just don’t do. (D+)

(Oh boy… I mean this one hurts. No, I understand it. It’s just really a poor choice aesthetically. It honestly doesn’t even work in the way that they want it to. Like I think it’s one of those taglines where you are meant to read it along with the title and they mix together to create a beautiful stew. But the “you” in the tagline and the “My” in the title are like oil and water. Boooooo. There is just enough cleverness here to save it from really basement level stuff, but barely.)

Keyword(s) – dimension

Top 10: Sin City (2005), Spectre (2015), The Others (2001), Scream (1996), Equilibrium (2002), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Mist (2007), Death Proof (2007), 1408 (2007), Scary Movie (2000)

Future BMT: 86.5 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.4 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 76.9 Superhero Movie (2008), 70.6 Halloween II (2009), 70.1 Black Christmas (2006), 68.6 Pulse (2006), 66.9 The Crow: City of Angels (1996), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005)

BMT: Scary Movie V (2013), Halloween: Resurrection (2002), Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994), Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), My Boss’s Daughter (2003), Highlander: Endgame (2000), Dracula 2000 (2000), Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996), Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998), Phantoms (1998), Texas Rangers (2001), Mindhunters (2004)

Best Options (Comedy): 86.5 The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D (2005), 82.8 Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), 77.4 Who’s Your Caddy? (2007), 76.9 Superhero Movie (2008), 68.6 My Boss’s Daughter (2003), 64.9 Scary Movie 4 (2006), 61.8 Cursed (2005), 58.6 Scary Movie 2 (2001), 55.3 Fame (2009), 51.4 Scary Movie 3 (2003), 49.3 Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), 44.6 Boys and Girls (2000), 41.7 Bad Santa 2 (2016), 37.0 The Brothers Grimm (2005), 35.3 I Got the Hook Up (1998), 33.1 School for Scoundrels (2006), 30.5 Gunmen (1993), 27.3 Senseless (1998), 18.2 Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996)

(And there we are again, hitting up probably the best actual film for the category. Who’s Your Caddy is like a fake film. Really cleaning up that ‘00 to ‘05 era of Dimension.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 15) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Tara Reid is No. 2 billed in My Boss’s Daughter and No. 6 billed in Urban Legend, which also stars Alicia Witt (No. 1 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 2 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 6) + (1 + 2) + (3 + 1) = 15. If we were to watch Must Love Dogs, and The Glass House we can get the HoE Number down to 14.

Notes – The 16 March 2001 draft of the screenplay lists David Zucker and Peter Tilden as writers. Tilden is not credited in the final film and Zucker only receives a directing credit.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Ashton Kutcher, 2004)

Bio-Dome Preview

And just as suddenly as it started, they stopped falling. “Where…where are we?” stammers Jamie, disoriented from their final plunge. Patrick doesn’t know where they are either, and even worse, he doesn’t know why. To travel somewhere in time to deconvolute their lives? To destroy the Dongle at the source? To warn their past selves about the perils of stealing the Dongle in the first place? “Where’s not the question,” Patrick concludes after these scattered thoughts, “it’s why. So keep your head on a swivel and go with the flow.” With that Jamie and Patrick press a button and exit their tiny time travel dome and find themselves in… a much larger dome? “What thuuuuuu…” Jamie exclaims, “this must be the future! The world has devolved into a hellscape no longer able to support human life. My god,” he wails in anguish, “do you think this all happened because we had the Dongle stolen from us?” He grips Patrick shirt hard, pleading for him to tell him it isn’t so. “It isn’t so,” Patrick reassures him. There is something vaguely familiar about where they are. Something from their youth, something comforting. Within the dome they are surrounded by a dense jungle. Patrick points to a river and they begin to follow it. At a nearby hill he parts some shrubbery to get a better look at their location and notices a small placard on the ground. ‘Samanthius Kellibronicus,’ it reads, ‘The Lover’s Knot.’ With that, Patrick’s first impression is confirmed. They aren’t in the future. They actually aren’t very far in the past either. He points it out to Jamie. “Wait, is this…” Jamie starts and Patrick nods his head. “The gardens of the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant,” Patrick finishes. No wonder it looked so familiar. That’s right! We are finishing 2021 and starting 2022 off hot with a classic from our youth. The theme for this cycle is Short & Sweet a.k.a. films under 90 minutes. Bio-Dome sure does fit the bill and was marking its 25 year anniversary in 2021 to boot. Let’s see how this one holds up. Let’s go!

Bio-Dome (1996) – BMeTric: 72.1; Notability: 42

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 1.6%; Notability: top 14.8%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 1.7%; Higher BMeT: Barb Wire, Kazaam, Striptease; Higher Notability: Eraser, The Fan, Jingle All the Way, Spy Hard, Chain Reaction, Daylight, Mulholland Falls, Eddie, The Associate, Up Close & Personal, Dear God, Sgt. Bilko, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Eye for an Eye, The Crow: City of Angels, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Space Truckers, In Love and War, Larger Than Life, The Glimmer Man, and 17 more; Lower RT: The Dentist, Big Bully, Ed, Ripe; Notes: You love to see the clean sweep on the BMeT for the year. We are pretty close to hitting up the top 10 for that year if I recall correctly. And 70+ BMeTric? Yes please, that is the highest in recent memory. I honestly find it a bit odd the rating for this one isn’t in the 3’s, that is where I would expect it.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Two lay-abouts from Tuscon are sealed up for a year inside a Biosphere-like experimental habitat and drive the scientists in charge bonkers. A good comedy premise is trashed through crude writing, inept plotting, and having as heroes two worthless jerks we’re supposed to find lovable.

(You better believe this is a BOMB. There was a 0% chance Maltin would like it. Fun fact, this film has a 1 on Metacritic … a 1!)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EWikCCfHJw/

(Wow the soundtrack … yeah as bad I remember it. This movie is a hilarious catastrophe. I can’t wait to watch it again.)

Directors – Jason Bloom – ( Known For: Viva Las Nowhere; BMT: Bio-Dome; Notes: In mostly a television director. He directed four episodes of Veronica Mars and nine episodes of iZombie.)

Writers – Adam Leff – ( Known For: Last Action Hero; PCU; BMT: Bio-Dome; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Last Action Hero in 1994; Notes: He has a story credit for some animated short based on Last Action Hero.)

Mitchell Peck – ( BMT: Bio-Dome; Notes: He produced the film Priest.)

Jason Blumenthal – ( BMT: Bio-Dome; Notes: A huge producer including the television show Dr. Death and the upcoming Masters of the Universe film.)

Kip Koenig – ( Known For: How to Make the Cruelest Month; BMT: Bio-Dome; Notes: Wrote three episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and as a producer was nominated for two Emmys for that show.)

Scott Marcano – ( Known For: Sanitarium; BMT: Bio-Dome; Notes: Became a pretty big documentary filmmaker it seems, writing 10 short documentaries in 2015. They seem to be focused on police reform.)

Actors – Pauly Shore – ( Known For: A Goofy Movie; How It Ends; Sandy Wexler; Guest House; Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge; Lost Angels; Opposite Day; Pauly Shore Is Dead; The Big Trip; Adopted; Future BMT: Encino Man; Son in Law; Class Act; The Wash; For Keeps?; 18 Again!; Jury Duty; BMT: Bio-Dome; Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star; In the Army Now; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actor in 1996 for Jury Duty; and in 1997 for Big Bully, Bio-Dome, Carpool, and The Stupids; Winner for Worst New Star of the Decade in 2000 for Bio-Dome, Encino Man, and Jury Duty; Winner for Worst New Star for Encino Man in 1993; and Nominee for Worst Actor of the Century in 2000 for Bio-Dome, Encino Man, and Jury Duty; Notes: The Weasel! He was a big presence on MTV from 1990 and then a movie star from 1992 to 1997. He really didn’t appear in a major motion picture after that, it was a surprisingly short period of time that he was famous.)

Stephen Baldwin – ( Known For: The Usual Suspects; Born on the Fourth of July; Casualties of War; A Simple Twist of Fate; The Beast of War; The Sex Monster; Last Exit to Brooklyn; Magi; Sky Kids; I’m in Love with a Church Girl; Friends & Lovers; Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; Bitter Harvest; Mercy; The Least of These: The Graham Staines Story; Six: The Mark Unleashed; Homeboy; Faith of Our Fathers; Back to the Jurassic; Fall Time; Future BMT: Fred Claus; The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas; Half Baked; Threesome; 8 Seconds; Posse; Fled; BMT: Bio-Dome; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas in 2001; Notes: Now maybe most famous as Justin Bieber’s father-in-law (lol). Asked his brother Alec whether he should do this movie and Alec told him it would likely end his career and he did it anyways.)

William Atherton – ( Known For: Die Hard; Die Hard 2; Ghostbusters; The Girl Next Door; The Last Samurai; Real Genius; The Pelican Brief; The Sugarland Express; Looking for Mr. Goodbar; Hoodlum; The Hindenburg; Clinical; The Day of the Locust; Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie; The Crow: Salvation; Into the Sun; The New Centurions; Class of ’44; Jinn; Frank & Jesse; Future BMT: Oscar; Mad City; BMT: Bio-Dome; No Mercy; Notes: Known for playing scoundrels, he was born on the exact same date as Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

Budget/Gross – $8.5 million / Domestic: $13,427,615 (Worldwide: $13,427,615)

(Whoops, terrible. You can’t really make money without making like $20 million with actual actors in a film, right?)

Rotten Tomatoes – 4% (1/25): Like its two obnoxious protagonists, this dreadfully unfunny Pauly Shore vehicle should remain separated from society.

(I honestly can’t believe it has any good reviews. I have to read this thing … boo, it isn’t really available. Remove it from the record Rotten Tomatoes, if you don’t you’re cowards.)

Reviewer Highlight: Brain-dead. Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin are slackers who drag their junk-food lives into the Bio-Dome, an experiment in ecologically correct living in Bio-Dome. On the scale of bottom-dwelling ne’er-do-wells, these two would have to rank somewhere between Beavis and microbial fungus. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Poster – Bio-Sklog

(It does feel like Pauly Shore either had some level of control in making the film, or the people making it at least attempted to understand the appeal of Shore’s stardome. There is no other explanation for this poster. It’s wild, but is trying to mimic the comedy stylings of Shore in a way that is at least interesting. Hate the colors, like the font, and everything else is insane. C-.)

Tagline(s) – Your dome away from home. (A+ for kookiness. D cause it’s literal nonsense.)

(Wooooahhhhh. Yeah! Hell yeah! This is going for it. So weird and I don’t get it, but yeah, give me more like this any day. It is terrible though… we all get that, right?)

Keyword(s) – environmentalism

Top 10: Avatar (2009), 21 Jump Street (2012), Holiday in the Wild (2019), Waterworld (1995), Point Break (2015), The Green Inferno (2013), Before Sunset (2004), The Pelican Brief (1993), Apostle (2018), First Reformed (2017)

Future BMT: 54.4 The Green Inferno (2013), 34.8 Hoot (2006), 31.1 Larger Than Life (1996), 11.3 Once Upon a Forest (1993)

BMT: Point Break (2015), Bio-Dome (1996), Fire Down Below (1997), Furry Vengeance (2010)

Matches: Bio-Dome (1996), The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), The Last Winter (2006)

(Is it just me or do they only release these films when Democratic presidents are in office … whatever. Hoot is a legendary film, I think it is one of the lowest grossing major releases ever. It made $8 million and was released to 3000 theaters.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 24) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Pauly Shore is No. 1 billed in Bio-Dome and No. 1 billed in In the Army Now, which also stars Art LaFleur (No. 7 billed) who is in Cobra (No. 6 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) => (1 + 1) + (7 + 6) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 24. If we were to watch Encino Man, and Extraordinary Measures we can get the HoE Number down to 13.

Notes – Alec Baldwin told his brother, Stephen Baldwin, that doing this movie could end his acting career.

Kylie Minogue has called this film her “worst career move”. She said it’s the only thing she has done in her professional life that her father ridicules her for.

In real life, Jack Black and Kyle Gass perform together as the musical group Tenacious D.

The Biodome compound is the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys, California, which has been used in dozens of other movies and television shows.

The motto of the community college Jen and Monique attend is “nothing to be ashamed of.”

According to an interview on Last Call with Carson Daly: Episode dated 5 November 2008 (2008),Dana Gould and Harland Williams were the original stars of this film.” As Williams described it, “…They did an open-ended cattle call for Bio-Dome. And I guess Dana and myself were kind of like the emerging funny guys around town … they whittled it down, wildfingers, and it got down to me and the wildcat over here. . . We were locked in, and then me and Dana would go over to some diner on Larchmont, sit in the booth, and eat corned beef, and recite our lines.” Gould and Williams recall a deal memo for them to have the job, and the two were deep in planning for the roles. Williams bought fake bugs to practice for a bug eating scene and Gould simply dreamed of “What will it be like when we’ve done it – when we’ve made it!” Gould expanded on Williams’ testimony, saying, “It was a new director, I think his name was Steven Brill.” It is unclear from the interview if Gould remembered the name incorrectly or if plans for a director changed. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do this movie, and you guys are going to be it, you’re like unknowns, we’re going to break you and it’s going to be great!’ And then what apparently happened was that he went to the studio and said, ‘I’ve got these two unknowns…’ and they went, ”Naw, we have these guys to deals,’ and he went, ‘Okay!’ “

Roger Clinton: Professor Bloom, who presumably teaches at the film’s fictional college, Arizona Tech. He is wearing a shirt with the phrase “Thriving on Chaos” written on top of caricatured drawings of Bud and Doyle. After Jen autographs his shirt, he mentions to her and Monique that he’s writing a song about Bud and Doyle.

During the final sequence with the remote control and the exploding coconuts, the timers on the remote and the computer sync up with the time in the film.

Awards – Winner for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Pauly Shore, Tom Arnold, 1997)

Bulletproof (1996) Preview

“Welcome to Raccoon City!” exclaims, Lou, the head of the Raccoon City Apartment Complex Welcoming Committee (RCACWC). He smiles at both Jamie and Patrick and then frowns a little at Kyle. “Uh, is he OK? You look a little green around the gills.” Kyle shrugs and Jamie and Patrick explain that he’s just a little love sick. “No need to worry. It’s not some big time zombie virus.” At that they all laugh and laugh and laugh. “But seriously, Mr. Cash, we need a little help. We need a little adventure. We just sit around this apartment all day and our heads are spinning. Can the RCACWC help?” Lou Cash smirks, reminiscing about the last great adventure he had. “The year was 1998,” he begins and proceeds to launch into a very long story about his days on the police force and a time that he had to investigate an old rich person’s house. “Were there ghosts?” Jamie asks out of nowhere. “Uh, no,” Lou responds confused and Kyle yawns in disappointment. Reading the room, Lou speeds through the latter half of his story, “and so you see, adventure is what you make of it and perhaps… it’s been staring you in the face this whole time.” He smiles and waits expectedly. But Jamie, Patrick and Kyle are now in the mood for ghosts and are already plucking their copy of Ghost off the shelf. Perhaps the rare combination of Patrick Swayze’s guide to love and a high stakes thrill-a-minute money laundering plot line will solve all of their problems. Lou is left forgotten at the door. He throws his hands up in exasperation and pulls a gun out of his pocket. “He’s got a gun!” screams Jamie. They wanted adventure and now Lou Cash is delivering. That’s right! We are going back 25 years to pick up an early Adam Sandler. It’s an old school buddy cop(ish) storyline with a Sandler/Wayans flair. Let’s hope its just as offensive as I think it might be. Let’s go!

Bulletproof (1996) – BMeTric: 37.4; Notability: 40

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 15.2%; Notability: top 17.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 3.3%; Higher BMeT: Barb Wire, Kazaam, Striptease, Bio-Dome, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace, Ed, The Crow: City of Angels, Hellraiser: Bloodline, The Stupids, Mr. Wrong, Spy Hard, Poison Ivy II, Solo, The Glimmer Man, Eddie, D3: The Mighty Ducks, Maximum Risk, Jingle All the Way, Bordello of Blood, and 18 more; Higher Notability: Eraser, The Fan, Jingle All the Way, Spy Hard, Chain Reaction, Daylight, Mulholland Falls, Eddie, The Associate, Up Close & Personal, Dear God, Sgt. Bilko, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Eye for an Eye, The Crow: City of Angels, The Adventures of Pinocchio, Space Truckers, In Love and War, Larger Than Life, Joe’s Apartment, and 23 more; Lower RT: Big Bully, The Dentist, Ed, Ripe, Bio-Dome, Kazaam, Mr. Wrong, Spy Hard; Notes: I do like it when films remind me that IMDb did something in 2014 on the new year to make some films’ ratings jump a ridiculous degree. Anyways, you can tell we still have a ton of work to do on 1996 when we have Bio-Dome and Big Bully sitting on the table.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  A racial inversion of 48HRS. without the redeeming craft. Undercover cop Wayans teams up with Sandler, the crook he’s trying to bust. Their fortunes and ambitions are unified – often acrimoniously – by a vindictive drug kingpin/car dealer played by a pitifully hammy Caan. Once great cinematographer Dickerson squanders his talent here directing a sociopathic mix of graphic violence and slapstick. A catastrophe of continuity to boot.

(First, I’ve never seen a review go so hard on continuity in a film. But “sociopathic mix of graphic violence and slapstick” is one of the greatest things I’ve ever heard. Honestly, I think a lot of action films these days are getting pretty close to that as well. Shoot someone in the face and sprinkle in some quips, boys.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfzAGAQvsz8/

(The guitar licks at the end!! It looks really terrible. Quips by Sandler, way too much punching, and just seems like a worse version of Midnight Run.)

Directors – Ernest R. Dickerson – ( Known For: Juice; Ambushed; Double Play; Blind Faith; Future BMT: Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight; Surviving the Game; Bones; BMT: Bulletproof; Never Die Alone; Notes: Worked as the cinematographer for Spike Lee for his early films, whom he bet at Howard University.)

Writers – Joe Gayton – ( Known For: Faster; Uncommon Valor; Sweet Jane; Shout; Warm Summer Rain; BMT: Bulletproof; Notes: His brother is also a screenwriter, they both wrote on Hell on Wheels and have written a few movies together.)

Lewis Colick – ( Known For: October Sky; Unlawful Entry; Ladder 49; Ghosts of Mississippi; Beyond the Sea; The Dirt Bike Kid; Future BMT: Charlie St. Cloud; Judgment Night; Domestic Disturbance; BMT: Bulletproof; Notes: He wrote a ton of films in the 80s and 90s. His last film was in 2010, but he is attached to both the Flaming Hot Cheetos movie and the Chicken Soup for the Soul film.)

Actors – Damon Wayans – ( Known For: Last Action Hero; Beverly Hills Cop; The Last Boy Scout; Roxanne; Earth Girls Are Easy; Colors; I’m Gonna Git You Sucka; Bamboozled; Hollywood Shuffle; Punchline; The Great White Hype; Farce of the Penguins; Future BMT: Major Payne; Look Who’s Talking Too; Celtic Pride; Blankman; Mo’ Money; Marci X; BMT: Bulletproof; Notes: As part of In Living Color he was nominated for three Emmys. His family is filled with comedians including his three brothers and his son.)

Adam Sandler – ( Known For: Uncut Gems; Punch-Drunk Love; The Wedding Singer; Murder Mystery; Happy Gilmore; Billy Madison; Hotel Transylvania; 50 First Dates; Hubie Halloween; Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation; Anger Management; The Do-Over; Reign Over Me; Funny People; The Meyerowitz Stories; Hotel Transylvania 2; Spanglish; The Cobbler; The Week Of; Sandy Wexler; Future BMT: The Longest Yard; Eight Crazy Nights; Mixed Nuts; The Waterboy; Big Daddy; Click; Coneheads; You Don’t Mess with the Zohan; The Hot Chick; Mr. Deeds; Airheads; Men, Women & Children; The Animal; Bedtime Stories; Dirty Work; BMT: That’s My Boy; Grown Ups; Just Go with It; Grown Ups 2; Blended; Pixels; Little Nicky; The Ridiculous 6; Jack and Jill; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Zookeeper; Going Overboard; Bulletproof; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Screenplay, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, and Worst Screen Couple for Jack and Jill in 2012; Winner for Worst Actor in 2000 for Big Daddy; in 2012 for Just Go with It; and in 2013 for That’s My Boy; Nominee for Worst Screenplay in 2000 for Big Daddy; in 2001 for Little Nicky; in 2012 for Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star; and in 2014 for Grown Ups 2; Nominee for Worst Actor in 1997 for Bulletproof, and Happy Gilmore; in 1999 for The Waterboy; in 2001 for Little Nicky; in 2003 for Eight Crazy Nights, and Mr. Deeds; in 2008 for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; in 2014 for Grown Ups 2; in 2015 for Blended; in 2016 for Pixels, and The Cobbler; and in 2021 for Hubie Halloween; Nominee for Worst Screen Combo in 2016 for The Cobbler; and in 2021 for Hubie Halloween; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple in 2008 for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; in 2012 for Just Go with It; and in 2013 for That’s My Boy; Notes: Our 15th Sandler film for BMT and we have 15 to go … my god, he’s made so many. Someday Sandler, someday we will complete your filmography!)

James Caan – ( Known For: Elf; The Godfather; The Godfather: Part II; Misery; Santa’s Slay; A Bridge Too Far; Dick Tracy; Dogville; Queen Bees; Get Smart; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; 1941; Bottle Rocket; Detachment; Thief; El Dorado; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2; The Yards; Middle Men; The Tale of The Princess Kaguya; BMT: That’s My Boy; Eraser; Bulletproof; Notes: Played football for Michigan State and is the father of Scott Caan. Was apparently on the professional rodeo circuit for nine years.)

Budget/Gross – N/A / Domestic: $21,576,954 (Worldwide: $22,611,954)

(That seems okay for 1998. You’d want more, but that doesn’t seem too catastrophic as Sandler at the time must have been relatively cheap.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 8% (3/39): In addition to its ability to deflect gunfire, Bulletproof proves sadly impervious to humor, logic, or worthwhile viewing.

(Shots fired. That seems to be the general gist of things. That it is just a preposterous story with negative laughs.)

Reviewer Highlight: The film’s action elements are so preposterous that the sequence of events seems almost improvised. – Stephen Holden, New York Times

Poster – Bulletproof to the Head

(Classic poster. I can even imagine walking by it in the hallway of a theater. That’s mostly what it has going for it cause the color scheme is nonexistent and the font boring. I think the framing is the most interesting aspect. Looking down that long desert highway. C.)

Tagline(s) – Tough cop. Hostile witness. (C-)

(Yeah and? I’m not sure if this is a play on something and I’m missing it? Just seems like they are pointing out that one is a tough cop and the other is a hostile witness, which is indeed the plot of the film. Doesn’t offend my senses though.)

Keyword(s) – undercover-cop

Top 10: Baby Driver (2017), Spiral (2021), 21 Jump Street (2012), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Sin City (2005), Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Bad Boys for Life (2020)

Future BMT: 59.8 The Mod Squad (1999), 54.2 Spiral (2021), 49.3 Showtime (2002), 46.9 Cop Out (2010), 45.3 Tomcats (2001), 41.5 Boiling Point (1993), 41.0 Brick Mansions (2014), 38.1 Fled (1996), 37.7 Action Jackson (1988), 36.5 Death Warrant (1990)

BMT: The Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast & Furious (2009), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Gangster Squad (2013), Ride Along (2014), Hard to Kill (1990), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Exit to Eden (1994), Exit Wounds (2001), Ride Along 2 (2016), Stone Cold (1991), Bulletproof (1996), No Mercy (1986)

Matches: Reservoir Dogs (1992), The Fast and the Furious (2001), Fast & Furious (2009), City of Lies (2018), Street Kings (2008), A Scanner Darkly (2006), Undercover Brother (2002), Exit to Eden (1994), Nighthawks (1981), Rush (1991), Superfast! (2015), Bulletproof (1996), The Mod Squad (1999), Renegades (1989), Ten Violent Women (1982), Bloodsport: The Dark Kumite (1999), The Proposal (2001), Jill Rips (2000), Lowball (1996), Strapped for Danger II: Undercover Vice (2020), Narx (2011), Black Lightning (2008)

(Done a bunch of these now. Given we are about to watch another JCVD film I’m pretty excited to eventually watch Death Warrant.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 11) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Adam Sandler is No. 2 billed in Bulletproof and No. 1 billed in Jack and Jill, which also stars Al Pacino (No. 3 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 11. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – James Caan said of working with the leads, “playing the heavy between these two clowns took a lot of serious concentration.”

Colton’s mansion is the same one used in Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Damon Wayans had a minor role in that film as the server who gave Eddie Murphy the bananas.

Director Ernest R. Dickerson was very critical about the movie, saying the movie was “castrated” because of the producers.

When Damon Wayans hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) in 1994, Adam Sandler had an idea to do an action movie together. A year later, he sent Wayans the script for this film.

James Woods was originally chosen to play Frank Colton. He had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).

Producer Robert Simonds knew Damon Wayans could be a leading man after seeing The Last Boy Scout (1991). “That’s what we needed, a leading man who could get the laughs when he had to.”

Ernest R. Dickerson said that film was trying to be 48 Hrs. (1982) for the 1990s.

Body Count: 26.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Adam Sandler, 1997)

Fire Birds Preview

Patrick sips his mai tai and looks lazily around the bar in Party Town, USA. He and Kyle could no longer say how long they had been trapped in this never ending stream of party fun. For a while he kept reassuring Kyle that it was all a simulation, but his long bushy beard was now snow white and he had given up. They’d probably die here. Just like how the Vice President (who they rescued the day they arrived) had grown old and died peacefully a few years back. “Come on out here and party, dude,” Kyle yells to him, all the while dancing with one of the numerous bodacious bades that populated the city. Patrick waves him away with a sigh and gets back to his mai tai. Kyle plops down on the stool next to him. “Bro, I can always tell when you’re ready to poop on a party. You get that sad, party-pooper look in your eyes. You feeling blue?” Patrick nods. “Is it because we’ve been trapped in this party bar for 30-50 years?” Patrick nods again and sighs, “Yeah, sorry, man. I hate to rain on your parade.” Kyle shrugs and pats him on the shoulder, “You could never rain on my parade, bro. In fact, it never rains here at all. That’s what makes Party Town so great, right?” Suddenly Patrick looks around… that’s true. In 30-50 years it has never rained. Rain… water… mainframe. My god! He suddenly leaps up and looks around frantically before he sees it. The alarm. He looks up and sees the sprinklers Kyle had installed when he took over ownership of the bar. Just practical business sense he said… or a stroke of genius! “Fire,” Patrick whispers and Kyle just looks at him quizzically. “FIRE!” He screams. That’s right! We’re watching the Nic Cage/Tommy Lee Jones/Sean Young classic that we all remember, Fire Birds. It’s the helicopter knock-off of Top Gun that we were all clamouring for at the time and I can only assume it delivered on those points. Let’s go!

“Fire.” Jamie hears the whisper and pulls away from his steamy make out session with Lindsey. Was that Patrick he heard? Fire.. water… mainframe. “Where does that pipe lead?” He asks Lindsey, pointing at their steamy water pipe. “Uh,” she thinks, “up, I guess.” That’s right! We are starting in on our Bring a Friend cycle (the best cycle) with a little Guttenberg special, the 1998 film Airborne which is about a plane… or maybe a virus… I don’t know, but it def got the Gutes. Let’s go!

Fire Birds (1990) – BMeTric: 45.8; Notability: 25

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 4.4%; Notability: top 21.2%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 4.6%; Higher BMeT: Captain America, Look Who’s Talking Too, Rocky V, Ghost Dad, Graveyard Shift, Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, Repossessed, Soultaker, Problem Child, Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection Higher Notability: RoboCop 2, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Predator 2, Days of Thunder, Jetsons: The Movie, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Air America, Captain America, Young Guns II: Blaze of Glory, Marked for Death, The Rookie, Rocky V, 3 Men and a Little Lady, Stella, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Revenge, Bird on a Wire, Ghost Dad, Another 48 Hrs., Mr. Destiny, and 33 more; Lower RT: Problem Child, Death Warrant, Graveyard Shift, Repossessed, Coupe de Ville, Loose Cannons, Madhouse, Funny About Love, Soultaker, Ghost Dad, Spaced Invaders; Notes: The BMeTric is a lot higher than I would have expected since it only have around 6K ratings which is amazing low. We have obviously left a lot on the table as far as 1990 films are concerned. Very interesting that Soultaker gets a shoutout.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  High-tech Apache helicopters (with an assist from their pilots) take on South American drug cartels from the air. Standard military issue with a ruptured-duck script and no romantic chemistry between professional rivals Cage and Young. Jones doesn’t evoke memories of Gregory Peck in Twelve O’Clock High when he pep-talks Cage into a “full-tilt boogie for freedom and justice.”

(I’m having a hard time pinning down a definition for “ruptured-duck”. It has to do with a pin given to those honorably discharged in WWII, that much is for sure. So I guess he’s saying the film is ho-hum (standard issue) and the script is either old-school or maybe just bad (i.e. discharged)? Fascinating turn of phrase, Leonard.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uOcWJ9ae5A/

(Yeah that is Top Gun for helicopters. All it is missing is Nic Cage buzzing the tower. Also as insane as it sounds that shows the entire climax of the film which is pretty nuts.)

Directors – David Green – (Known For: Buster; Car Trouble; BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: British, he directed a load of Emmerdale Farm episodes (a British Soap). IMDb claims he has two new directorial efforts in production, but somehow I doubt that.)

Writers – Step Tyner – (BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: Yeah so if you look around and search his name with Belvoir (Swensson’s production company) you can find that they were West Point classmates and Tyner wrote the original script, and Swensson marketed it. So that is how they are associated.)

John K. Swensson – (BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: I found his profile. It even mentions Fire Birds as just like a three year period of his life, strange.)

Dale Dye – (Known For: Occupation: Rainfall; BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: Apparently a military advisor on a number of films which he often gets bit parts in. This is no different, he plays A.K. McNeil in the film.)

Nick Thiel – (Known For: White Fang; Shipwrecked; The Experts; Future BMT: V.I. Warshawski; The Associate; BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: A producer for a ton of television which he also writes for. From 1987 to 1996 he wrote feature films. Nominated for an Emmy for Magnum P.I.)

Paul F. Edwards – (Known For: Trackdown; High-Ballin’; BMT: Fire Birds; Notes: Wrote a bunch of television including the show Wizards and Warriors.)

Actors – Nicolas Cage – (Known For: Pig; Prisoners of the Ghostland; Willy’s Wonderland; The Rock; The Croods: A New Age; Fast Times at Ridgemont High; World Trade Center; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; Kick-Ass; Mandy; Color Out of Space; Leaving Las Vegas; National Treasure; Raising Arizona; Face/Off; Snowden; Con Air; Jiu Jitsu; Adaptation.; The Croods; Future BMT: Knowing; National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Next; 8MM; Windtalkers; G-Force; Trapped in Paradise; Amos & Andrew; BMT: Gone in Sixty Seconds; Ghost Rider; Drive Angry; Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance; Left Behind; The Wicker Man; Season of the Witch; Trespass; Captain Corelli’s Mandolin; Justice; Bangkok Dangerous; Fire Birds; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor in 2007 for The Wicker Man; in 2008 for Ghost Rider, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Next; in 2012 for Drive Angry, Season of the Witch, and Trespass; in 2013 for Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, and Seeking Justice; and in 2015 for Left Behind; Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for Snowden in 2017; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple in 2007 for The Wicker Man; and in 2012 for Drive Angry, Season of the Witch, and Trespass; Notes: Won an Oscar of Leaving Las Vegas and was nominated for Adaptation. You know Nic Cage, he is apparently going to play Joe Exotic in a tv show about Tiger King, but somehow I doubt that will ever actually be produced.)

Tommy Lee Jones – (Known For: Captain America: The First Avenger; The Client; No Country for Old Men; Space Cowboys; Ad Astra; Wander; Jason Bourne; Men in Black; The Fugitive; Natural Born Killers; The Comeback Trail; Lincoln; JFK; Men in Black 3; Under Siege; Small Soldiers; The Missing; Love Story; The Homesman; Shock and Awe; Future BMT: Criminal; Men in Black II; Double Jeopardy; The Family; U.S. Marshals; The Hunted; Blown Away; Man of the House; Rules of Engagement; Just Getting Started; Savage Islands; BMT: Batman Forever; Mechanic: Resurrection; Fire Birds; Notes: Won and Oscar for The Fugitive and was nominated for three more. One of his first roles was 21 episodes of One Life to Live in the 1975.)

Sean Young – (Known For: Dune; Blade Runner 2049; Blade Runner; Bone Tomahawk; Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; Wall Street; Stripes; No Way Out; Cousins; Attack of the 50 Foot Cheerleader; Escape Room; Mockingbird Don’t Sing; Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; The Pit; A Random Encounter; Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde; Poor White Trash; Darling; The Boost; Parasomnia; Future BMT: Sugar & Spice; Once Upon a Crime…; Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend; A Kiss Before Dying; Young Doctors in Love; Love Crimes; BMT: Fatal Instinct; Fire Birds; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actress, and Worst Supporting Actress for A Kiss Before Dying in 1992; Nominee for Worst Actress, and Worst Screen Couple for Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde in 1996; Nominee for Worst Actress for Love Crimes in 1993; and Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress in 1993 for Once Upon a Crime…; and in 1995 for Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; Notes: I kind of wish they had tossed a cameo into the new Dune for her. Instead she is making a film called Planet Dune in which is basically just a horror version of Dune? You can’t make this stuff up.)

Budget/Gross – $22 million / Domestic: $14,760,451 (Worldwide: $14,760,451)

(Ooooooof that is brutal. They thought they were getting Top Gun 2?! They were getting like … a straight-to-video Seagal war film.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 10% (2/21): Despite the talent on board, Fire Birds is little more than a subpar military adventure sporting video game-like action, outdated philosophy, and uneven acting.

(Yup, yup, and yup. Much like Tackleberry’s “I can’t believe they won’t let me murder innocent people anymore” speech from Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, the gung-ho jingoism of the military films of yesteryear was never going to play well in the 90s.)

Reviewer Highlight: The action here is more like something you’d expect to pop a quarter in a machine for. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

Poster – Rage Cage and Tommy Lee Bones

(That poster cannot be denied. Man, that’s fire (birds). Nice orange color, dope helicopters, fading those face sooooo sweet. Hooo weeee. If only they really leaned into some font work. Then we’d really have something. B.)

Tagline(s) – The best just got better. (A+ x 10)

(Ha. Yeah, I mean. Yes. I like that because it sounds like words but in fact is meaningless. You heard about the best? Yeah… well, guess what? They just got better. It gets funnier the more I think about it.)

Keyword(s) – helicopter-pilot

Top 10: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Army of the Dead (2021), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Fast & Furious 7 (2015), Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), Jurassic World (2015), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Extraction (2020), Spectre (2015), American Sniper (2014)

Future BMT: 44.3 Home Fries (1998), 35.9 Air America (1990), 29.2 Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), 27.6 Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), 27.3 The Thing (2011), 26.7 American Assassin (2017), 19.4 Terminator Salvation (2009), 18.4 Crazy People (1990), 14.8 Angels & Demons (2009)

BMT: Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), The Predator (2018), Fifty Shades Darker (2017), CHIPS (2017), Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), The Darkest Minds (2018), Cradle 2 the Grave (2003), Fire Birds (1990)

Matches: Fire Birds (1990), Dance of the Dwarfs (1983), Avalanche (1999)

(Cooool plot. The little lines tell you how many films (and how big they were) basically. Not sure why helicopters were a huge thing in the 10s, I guess it is most likely that just big films got keywords around then. I am very excited to continue the helicopter 1990s train rolling with Air America some day.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 8) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Nicolas Cage is No. 1 billed in Fire Birds and No. 1 billed in The Wicker Man, which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (1 + 1) + (5 + 1) = 8. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – K. Monty Jordan, one of the stunt team, was a real U.S. Army helicopter pilot in Vietnam, and retired as a Colonel after Operation: Desert Storm.

The enemy jet fighter is portrayed by a Swedish SAAB J 35F ‘Draken’ (Dragon).

Some of the exterior shots of “Fort Mitchell” were filmed at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona, and the inn, where Billie and Preston go, is actually The Tack Room, also in Tucson which was, at the time, a 5-star restaurant.

The “Scorpion” attack helicopters are actually Hughes MD-500D Defenders.

The bar scene was filmed at VIP Showclub located at 5120 E Speedway in Tucson, which was a topless bar at the time. The club was made to look like a regular nightclub with a live band, as seen in the movie. Filming took place over three days. Location is currently Ten’s Showclub.

The music that plays during the first half of the film’s original theatrical trailer is 80s classic “Nowhere Fast” composed for and made famous by the movie Streets of Fire (1984).

Some of the scenes were built on a set inside the Tucson Convention Center.

The flight simulator motion base is actually a AH1 flight weapons simulator (cobra helicopter) located at the Western Army Aviation Training Site in Arizona.

The original title of the film was “Night of the Apache”

The Catamarca Desert is specifically located in Argentina.

Infamously known among critics as Top Gun (1986) with helicopters.

Police Academy 6: City Under Siege Preview

Having jacked in to hack jack port, Patrick swims through cyberspace like a beautiful otter. “Have you done this before?” asks Kyle, struggling to figure out the physics of this strange new world. “Yeah,” starts Patrick, remembering back to Rich and Po3: Dark Web 3D, “kinda… when Jamie and I were Rich and Poe,” he continues but stops and shrugs. It’s all pretty confusing at this point. Their task, on the other hand, should be pretty simple, just find the trash folder (probably) and hack the planet and get Kyle’s website approved as an official reviewer. But as they look around they suddenly hear a booming voice, “Bad Movie Twin, where is your stupider half? Or are you the stupid one, I always forget.” A bead of sweat forms on Patrick’s forehead. I can’t be. “What is it?” asks Kyle, eyes wide. “Gruber,” Patrick says in a whisper as Gruber’s laughter begins to echo through cyberspace. Patrick clenches his eyes closed. “It can’t be. He’s not real. He was never real.” He lets out a bellow and when he opens his eyes he finds himself in a police station. On his chest is a name tag, “Rich.” Kyle is pale with fear and jumps when a man angrily screams for Rich and Gruber to get the hell in his office. Kyle holds up his own name tag, “Gruber,” and Patrick’s mouth runs dry. “It’s just a simulation, playing on my fears” he reassures Kyle (but mostly himself), “we just have to break the mainframe and everything will be OK.” When they get to his office, the Captain throws a couple of pieces of paper at them. Airline tickets… to Party Town, USA? The captain scowls, “The city’s under siege… and the Vice President has been taken hostage.” That’s right! We are doing double duty this week by watching not one, but three Police Academy films! We are officially finishing the series with Police Academy’s 5, 6, and 7, all three of which got a BOMB rating from Leonard and the last of which (Mission to Moscow) failed to make it to a wide theatrical release. It is perfection for the Bring a Friend entry in the cycle. Let’s go!

Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989) – BMeTric: 75.0; Notability: 44

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.0%; Notability: top 4.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.0%; Higher Notability: Tango & Cash, Troop Beverly Hills, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Fletch Lives, Harlem Nights, Leviathan, Pink Cadillac, Family Business, Lock Up; Notes: Only 124 films with BMeTrics above 75, and we’ve seen about 70% of them. This series is just a bounty of incredible cred.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Those wacky cops are back to solve a crime wave perpetrated by a trio that makes The Three Stooges look like Nobel laureates. This entry is only – repeat only – for those who thought Police Academy 5 was robbed at Oscar time.

(Or it is for people who are watching the entire series in a weird weekly bad movie thing …)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f52e7LNT474/

(The return of the monster truck! They really do just need a few things to make one of these. A rag-tag group of police officers, and something to drive around at the end for a big chase scene. That’s it.)

Directors – Peter Bonerz – (Known For: Nobody’s Perfekt; BMT: Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for directing Murphy Brown. And yeah, everyone notes that the guy who directed Police Academy 6 is names “Bonerz”.)

Writers – Neal Israel – (Known For: Real Genius; Bachelor Party; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Moving Violations; Americathon; Tunnel Vision; Future BMT: Look Who’s Talking Too; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Again, just has a character credit from the first film. The move recent thing he has a writing credit for is Jinxed a TV movie from 2013.)

Pat Proft – (Known For: Real Genius; The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!; Hot Shots!; Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; Bachelor Party; Hot Shots! Part Deux; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Moving Violations; Brain Donors; Lucky Stiff; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; Scary Movie 4; Wrongfully Accused; Mr. Magoo; High School High; BMT: Police Academy; Scary Movie 5; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: And again, just has a credit for the first film. Interestingly, he wrote several episodes of Police Squad!)

Stephen Curwick – (BMT: Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Wrote five episodes of Family Ties. Interestingly, given the credits on the film, it would appear that the sixth film only has characters who appeared in the original Police Academy.)

Actors – Bubba Smith – (Known For: Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Gremlins 2: The New Batch; Black Moon Rising; The Silence of the Hams; The Naked Truth; Full Clip; Down ‘n Dirty; The Wild Pair; Future BMT: Stroker Ace; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Again, a former NFL player turned actor. Refused to appear in the seventh film because they wouldn’t bring the character of Hooks back.)

David Graf – (Known For: The Brady Bunch Movie; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Guarding Tess; Irreconcilable Differences; Fist of Legend; Citizen Ruth; Georgia’s Friends; Suture; Love at Stake; The Enforcer; American Kickboxer 2; Future BMT: Rules of Engagement; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Did a good amount of voice work including Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, and several Star Trek video games.)

Michael Winslow – (Known For: Spaceballs; Gremlins; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Nice Dreams; Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie; Grandview, U.S.A.; The Great Buck Howard; Killing Hasselhoff; Starchaser: The Legend of Orin; Tag: The Assassination Game; Alphabet City; Think Big; The Trumpet of the Swan; Lovelines; Gingerclown; Robodoc; Far Out Man; Going Under; Lenny the Wonder Dog; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Still tours. You can effectively see his original Gong Show skit near the end of this film.)

Budget/Gross – $15 million / Domestic: $11,567,217 (Worldwide: $11,567,217)

(Yeah, that explains the fact that they didn’t initially try to extend this to the 90s. That is a pitiful take and suggests the franchise was a money loser in general from that point forward.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/8)

(Time to make a consensus: The franchise was never really that funny, but now even the action scenes are boring.)

Reviewer Highlight: oof… One more to go. – Letterboxd review by Mario

(There aren’t really any critical reviews of note here. And I would like to wrap in more Letterboxd reviews whenever possible because they are often amusing for a soundbite (like this one). It certainly reflects my attitude towards the franchise.)

Poster – Cop School: Bad Guys, Lies, and Thighs

(This is even better than the last one. Look at that silhouette with the cityscape. Beautiful. I’m giving this one a full A despite the faults. Someone drew this and I want to know who… on an initial pass it seems maybe Morgan Weistling, who also did the Innerspace poster amongst many others. It’s cool stuff.)

Tagline(s) – The Grads are going undercover in the city to unmask the mastermind of crime. (D-)

(Somehow both terrible and yet better than the fifth one’s tagline. It should still be an F, but I’ll give it a D- just for that fact. God, this are really terrible.)

Keyword(s) – police-academy

Top 10: The Departed (2006), 21 Jump Street (2012), Police Academy (1984), The Snowman (2017), CHIPS (2017), Judge Dredd (1995), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Ride Along (2014), Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), Empire State (2013)

Future BMT: 45.1 National Security (2003), 27.0 Kuffs (1992)

BMT: Police Academy (1984), The Snowman (2017), CHIPS (2017), Judge Dredd (1995), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Ride Along (2014), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)

Matches: Police Academy (1984), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), Empire State (2013), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994), Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)

(I chose the same keyword as the fifth as well because, honestly, this film in particular doesn’t really doesn’t have any good keywords in my opinion. The two future BMTs are fun, Kuffs in particular is just a totally forgotten police film from the 90s … would have been good to pencil in for the upcoming 90s cycle actually.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 18) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Bubba Smith is No. 1 billed in Police Academy 6: City Under Siege and No. 2 billed in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, which also stars Sharon Stone (No. 4 billed) who is in The Specialist (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) => (1 + 2) + (4 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 18. If we were to watch Surrender we can get the HoE Number down to 15.

Notes – The “monster truck” being driven by Tackleberry is the same type of truck he drove away on his honeymoon in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985). However, it is not the exact same truck, as the one in “Police Academy 2” was the third Bigfoot truck built, known as “Bigfoot 3”. The one in this movie is Bigfoot 7, a slightly bigger and more powerful truck.

Consideration was given to the possibility of shooting this sequel in the USSR, with the working title “Police Academy 6: Operation Glasnost”. However, permission to film in Russia would not be granted until five years later, with the seventh film in the series, Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994).

In an interview, regarding the “Police Academy” movies, G.W. Bailey (Capt. Harris) stated, “There is a place for that kind of silliness, that kind of stupid escapism. But don’t think we didn’t retch when the writers came up with some of those gags for ‘Police Academy.’ We would argue and argue and argue with Paul Maslansky. He would win the war, but we won the battles sometimes.”

At one stage producers considered having the story line revolve around the Academy graduates travelling to England. British comedy writing duo Richard Curtis and Ben Elton (The Black Adder (1982)) were approached with an offer to write the script for “Police Academy 6: The London Beat”, but the pair refused, saying they don’t work to hire.

The first “Police Academy” movie not to place first in the US weekend box office.

According to Proctor and Harris’ stakeout conversation in the opening scene, this film is set in August 1989. Christmas being “four months” away.

In the scene in which Hooks gives a parking ticket to a man, who then rips it up, the two businessmen accompanying him are played by Alan Hunter and Mark J. Goodman, two of MTV’s original line-up of VJs.

Daniel Ben Wilson (Tackleberry Jr.) is the brother of Mara Wilson, of Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Matilda (1996) fame.

Beans Morocco’s second appearance in a “Police Academy” film. He played Bob the Janitor in Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988) (credited as Dan Barrows), and appears in this movie as the bank president.

The following year Paul Maslansky produced Ski Patrol (1990), which he had hoped to follow with future sequels. This did not catch on with moviegoers, and plans for further films were scrapped.

Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach Preview

Having jacked in to hack jack port, Patrick swims through cyberspace like a beautiful otter. “Have you done this before?” asks Kyle, struggling to figure out the physics of this strange new world. “Yeah,” starts Patrick, remembering back to Rich and Po3: Dark Web 3D, “kinda… when Jamie and I were Rich and Poe,” he continues but stops and shrugs. It’s all pretty confusing at this point. Their task, on the other hand, should be pretty simple, just find the trash folder (probably) and hack the planet and get Kyle’s website approved as an official reviewer. But as they look around they suddenly hear a booming voice, “Bad Movie Twin, where is your stupider half? Or are you the stupid one, I always forget.” A bead of sweat forms on Patrick’s forehead. I can’t be. “What is it?” asks Kyle, eyes wide. “Gruber,” Patrick says in a whisper as Gruber’s laughter begins to echo through cyberspace. Patrick clenches his eyes closed. “It can’t be. He’s not real. He was never real.” He lets out a bellow and when he opens his eyes he finds himself in a police station. On his chest is a name tag, “Rich.” Kyle is pale with fear and jumps when a man angrily screams for Rich and Gruber to get the hell in his office. Kyle holds up his own name tag, “Gruber,” and Patrick’s mouth runs dry. “It’s just a simulation, playing on my fears” he reassures Kyle (but mostly himself), “we just have to break the mainframe and everything will be OK.” When they get to his office, the Captain throws a couple of pieces of paper at them. Airline tickets… to Party Town, USA? The captain scowls, “The city’s under siege… and the Vice President has been taken hostage.” That’s right! We are doing double duty this week by watching not one, but three Police Academy films! We are officially finishing the series with Police Academy’s 5, 6, and 7, all three of which got a BOMB rating from Leonard and the last of which (Mission to Moscow) failed to make it to a wide theatrical release. It is perfection for the Bring a Friend entry in the cycle. Let’s go!

Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988) – BMeTric: 72.5; Notability: 38

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.8%; Notability: top 6.4%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.0%; Higher BMeT: Mac and Me, Caddyshack II; Higher Notability: Action Jackson, Sunset, High Spirits, Big Top Pee-wee, Caddyshack II, My Stepmother Is an Alien, Moving, Cocoon: The Return, The Couch Trip, Vibes, License to Drive, Arthur 2: On the Rocks, Hot to Trot, Cocktail, Mac and Me, The Seventh Sign; Notes: The cred on these films are off the hook and only get better and better as the series goes along. We’ve seen the top three BMeTric for 1988. BMeTrics of 70+ are incredibly rare. There are only 184 out of over 2000 qualified films, so less than 10%. Amazingly we’ve seen around 65% of those so far. We legitimately could finish those off in like five years, twelve a year (two a cycle) … easy.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB –  Gaynes is in Miami to receive an award before his mandatory retirement; arch-rival Bailey comes along to gum up the works. Fourth attempt to improve on imperfection is no charm; what can you say about a sequel that Steve Guttenberg won’t even appear in.

(Hey hey hey … Guttenberg for some reason claims he regrets that. I don’t really see why. Also two semi-colons? You know me well Leonard.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKEspwO4vHA/

(Wow, this is quite the 80s comedy spot. Wow they put the fart joke directly into the trailer … I guess you have the lead with your funniest joke (ba-dum-ch). The trailer is just “these zany character you love are doing all the same things you love but in Miami.” I mean … fair.)

Directors – Alan Myerson – (Known For: Private Lessons; Steelyard Blues; BMT: Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Notes: Scottish. Was a huuuuuge television director throughout the 90s. Ended up getting nominated for an Emmy for directing the Larry Sanders Show.)

Writers – Neal Israel – (Known For: Real Genius; Bachelor Party; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Moving Violations; Americathon; Tunnel Vision; Future BMT: Look Who’s Talking Too; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Just has a character credit here. Was a big director as well, directing such classics as Surf Ninjas.)

Pat Proft – (Known For: Real Genius; The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!; Hot Shots!; Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult; Bachelor Party; Hot Shots! Part Deux; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Moving Violations; Brain Donors; Lucky Stiff; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; Scary Movie 4; Wrongfully Accused; Mr. Magoo; High School High; BMT: Police Academy; Scary Movie 5; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Was nominated for an Emmy for the variety special Van Dyke and Company. He worked a ton with the Scary Movie guys (including the last three movies in that series).)

Stephen Curwick – (BMT: Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Claims that he wrote a video game called Bad TV in the 2010s, but it is hard to search for due to the name.)

David Sheffield and Barry W. Blaustein – (Known For: Coming 2 America; Coming to America; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; The Nutty Professor; Boomerang; Future BMT: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps; The Honeymooners; BMT: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Notes: Only wrote the second. I guess the series is interesting since they added characters throughout and so a ton of people get “character” credits.)

Gene Quintano – (Known For: Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Sudden Death; Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold; Making the Grade; Funky Monkey; Comin’ at Ya!; El tesoro de las cuatro coronas; Future BMT: Loaded Weapon 1; King Solomon’s Mines; Operation Dumbo Drop; BMT: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; The Musketeer; Notes: Here’s the main guy for the third and fourth films. He directed Loaded Weapon 1.)

Actors – Bubba Smith – (Known For: Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Gremlins 2: The New Batch; Black Moon Rising; The Silence of the Hams; The Naked Truth; Full Clip; Down ‘n Dirty; The Wild Pair; Future BMT: Stroker Ace; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Played in the NFL prior to his acting career. He believed that Superbowl III was rigged.)

David Graf – (Known For: The Brady Bunch Movie; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Guarding Tess; Irreconcilable Differences; Fist of Legend; Citizen Ruth; Georgia’s Friends; Suture; Love at Stake; The Enforcer; American Kickboxer 2; Future BMT: Rules of Engagement; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: In interviews he talked about how he was struggling financially when he got the part in the first film, and so he never refused to appear in any of the subsequent films.)

Michael Winslow – (Known For: Spaceballs; Gremlins; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; Nice Dreams; Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie; Grandview, U.S.A.; The Great Buck Howard; Killing Hasselhoff; Starchaser: The Legend of Orin; Tag: The Assassination Game; Alphabet City; Think Big; The Trumpet of the Swan; Lovelines; Gingerclown; Robodoc; Far Out Man; Going Under; Lenny the Wonder Dog; BMT: Police Academy; Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach; Police Academy 6: City Under Siege; Notes: Still performs standup and has a multitude of apps which emit Winslow-produced sound effects.)

Budget/Gross – $14 million / Domestic: $19,510,371 (Worldwide: $19,510,371)

(This isn’t so bad. I could definitely see why they thought they just needed to being it back to “nameless city” and allow the gang to hit the streetz again to get the money rolling in … they were wrong, but I could see why they may have thought that.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/8)

(Consensus time: The usual, except now it reeks of desperation, resorting to fart jokes with a neon-pink Miami background.)

Reviewer Highlight: Miami field trip only brings a pastel backdrop to the insipid infighting of the boobs in blue. – Variety Staff

Poster – Cop School: Destination: Tokyo

(Still got it, baby! This style of poster never really went out of style. Look at the details. It’s really a work of art. Makes me want to find out who drew it. In some respects it doesn’t totally work as a poster (color scheme, all the white space), but it’s hard for me not to like it. B.)

Tagline(s) – Hold everything! The cadets are dropping in on Miami Beach for an all new adventure. (F)

(No.)

Keyword(s) – police-academy

Top 10: The Departed (2006), 21 Jump Street (2012), Police Academy (1984), The Snowman (2017), CHIPS (2017), Judge Dredd (1995), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Ride Along (2014), Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), Empire State (2013)

Future BMT: 45.1 National Security (2003), 27.0 Kuffs (1992)

BMT: Police Academy (1984), The Snowman (2017), CHIPS (2017), Judge Dredd (1995), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Ride Along (2014), Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)

Matches: Police Academy (1984), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986), Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach (1988), Police Academy: Mission to Moscow (1994)

(I’ve changed this plot up, and I think it is a lot cooler. The y-axis is the total notability for each year. Blue is all films, green is wide release films, red is qualifying films (with the filled in portion being films we’ve seen), and gold is the amount being filled in by the film this week (in this case both BMT films this week). “Matches” at the bottom are films with the keyword in the IMDb plotline, so it isn’t a surprise that we’ve now seen all “police academy” films. Fun that we’ve seen another legit film in CHIPS.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 18) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Bubba Smith is No. 1 billed in Police Academy 5: Assignment: Miami Beach and No. 2 billed in Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol, which also stars Sharon Stone (No. 4 billed) who is in The Specialist (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) => (1 + 2) + (4 + 2) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 18. If we were to watch Surrender we can get the HoE Number down to 15.

Notes – Steve Guttenberg turned down the lead role and gave a firm “no” to any other Police Academy sequels that might turn up (and they did). He turned them all down. Two decades later, he expressed in an interview that he regretted turning down the chance to star in the later sequels, and was among the main people trying to make another Police Academy movie.

When Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987) was released, acerbic critic Rex Reed swore, “If they make another Police Academy movie, I’ll leave the business.” At the time, Paul Maslansky said, “Reed’s one of the reasons I’m making Police Academy 5. I expect him to be a man of his word.” To Maslansky’s disappointment, Reed was not.

Regarding his experience working on this film, Rene Auberjonois (Tony) stated, “Why I choose to do things is a mystery to me sometimes. I’ve done things that, on the face of it, you think, ‘why would anybody do Police Academy 5?’ I had to look at the role, and see if there’s a reason to do it. I did it because it was an opportunity to play a character that nobody else was ever going to let me play. I had a great time doing it, don’t regret it for a moment, and I’d do it again in a minute.”

Had Steve Guttenberg agreed to appear in the movie, his character Mahoney was to be promoted to Lieutenant at the end of the film. (Instead it was Hightower)

Bobcat Goldthwait did not reprise his role of Zed due to not being able to come to a financial agreement with the producers. Because of this, the filmmakers believed that there was no point in bringing back Sweetchuck without Zed, and so Tim Kazurinsky ended up not being involved either. Bobcat later said that he skipped this sequel because the script lost focus and his character “would never talk like that.”

The movie’s script and some promotional materials list Tony’s full name as Tony Stark. The surname was edited out of the film after Warner Brothers discovered that “Tony Stark” was a registered trademark owned by Marvel, for use in their Iron Man comics.

The book that Captain Harris is seen holding whilst “congratulating” Commandant Lassard on his mandatory retirement is a hardback copy of “3 Cheers for Me”, the first novel in the Bandy Papers series written by Donald Jack.

Janet Jones (Officer Kate) wed hockey player Wayne Gretzky four months after this movie’s release.

Michael Winslow (Jones), David Graf (Tackleberry), and George Gaynes (Commandant Lassard) are the only actors who appeared in all seven Police Academy movies. Winslow also had a regular role on Police Academy: The Series (1997).

Matt McCoy’s character of Commandant Eric Lassard’s nephew, Nick, marks the fourth member of the Lassard family to be in a Police Academy movie. Previously, we’ve seen Lassard’s wife in Police Academy (1984) and Lassard’s brother, Captain Pete Lassard in Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment (1985).

Early drafts featured a canine character called Clancy, a Miami police dog.

At one point, David Spade’s Kyle Rumford character from Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987) was being considered as a possible replacement for the departing Steve Guttenberg.

Wild Orchid Preview

“Lindsey Appleton, hardscrabble investigative reporter from the Brooklyn Gazette Tribune,” Lindsey says, flashing her RTHQ badge. The officers at the gate peer at the badge, which denotes her status as a “full-blown journalist” and nod their heads, but just as Jamie, Patrick and Kyle walk through the gate the K-9 units start to bark wildly. Suddenly suspicious, the officers ask Lindsay who the bozos are tagging along. “These are my cameramen and audio technicians, Jerry, Lee and Lewis… and their baby” The officers narrow their eyes at the three men and a baby but eventually relent. The plan has worked! “Oh and Ms. Appleton,” the head officer notes, “We’ve had reports of some highly dangerous hang gliding terrorists attempting to infiltrate The Rock (as we call it). We are advised to shoot on sight. Would hate for your pals to get caught in the crossfire.” Lindsey coolly nods her head and ushers them inside, but Jamie and Patrick look at each other in shock. Someone tipped them off! The cyborgs are closer than they imagined. “We should split up,” Patrick says, “it’ll give us the best shot of finding the, and excuse the technical term, hack jack port that Niall needs to hack into the system.” Seeing that the adrenaline of the heist seems to have put a wild spark into Jamie and Lindsey’s eyes, Patrick suggests maybe Kyle and Lindsey pair up. There is no time for thrills, erotic or otherwise. But Jamie and Lindsey are already off and running. Patrick sighs and communicates with Rachel via earpiece to find the quickest way to the hack jack port… it’s now up to him and Kyle. Jamie and Lindsey are lost to an adventure of the senses. That’s right! We are indeed watching the ultimate adventure of the senses: Wild Orchid. A real classic erotic thriller film and it should go without saying that it’s been on our radar for a very, very, very long time (if you know what I mean). Gross. Anyway, it should be fun in a probably unpleasant way. Let’s go!

Wild Orchid (1989) – BMeTric: 59.8; Notability: 18

StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 1.6%; Notability: top 71.7%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 0.7% Higher BMeT: Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child; Higher Notability: Troop Beverly Hills, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, Fletch Lives, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Harlem Nights, Leviathan, Pink Cadillac, Lock Up, Three Fugitives, Dead Bang, Renegades, Let It Ride, Millennium, Slaves of New York, The Karate Kid Part III, Who’s Harry Crumb?, Cookie, Gross Anatomy, Her Alibi, and 26 more; Lower RT: Wired; Notes: Back to back 1989 films huh? That’s interesting. Sub-5.0 is amazing as usual. Hmmm maybe we should watch Wired at some point … seems depressing though.

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Prim lawyer Otis, employed by banker Bisset, gets assaulted by Rio de Janeiro carny-time temptation: semi-public fornicators, limousine raunch, and the right of earringed Rourke in deep bronze makeup. Notorious simulated sex scene caused a stir, but it’s all for naught; this picture is enough to make any two bananas roll over in Carmen Miranda’s grave. Followed by a sequel.

(Semicolon? You know what I like to see Leonard. I kind of get the Carmen Miranda reference I guess … I think I do at least. It is kind of super weird if I’m being honest. Basically every review mentions the rumors about the final sex scene which notoriously some thought (incorrectly) was unsimulated.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StwWLUzLbg8/

(“A man … struggling to unleash his emotions.” Ha! That’s an understatement. Having watched the film I have to say I wasn’t expecting them to so openingly state the plot as “A woman discovering her desires … a sociopath who can’t feel.”)

Directors – Zalman King – (Known For: Two Moon Junction; Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue; Delta of Venus; Pleasure or Pain; In God’s Hands; Wildfire; BMT: Wild Orchid; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Nine 1/2 Weeks in 1987; Notes: Notoriously was an erotic films producer / director in the 90s and 00s, including the television program Body Language which he produced.)

Writers – Patricia Louisianna Knop (written by) – (Known For: 9½ Weeks; Delta of Venus; Siesta; Lady Oscar; The Passover Plot; Silence of the North; BMT: Wild Orchid; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Nine 1/2 Weeks in 1987; Notes: She was the wife an collaborated for Zalman King. She was a producer on Red Shoe Diaries.)

Zalman King (written by) – (Known For: 9½ Weeks; Two Moon Junction; Wild Orchid II: Two Shades of Blue; Pleasure or Pain; Return to Two Moon Junction; In God’s Hands; Roadie; Wildfire; BMT: Wild Orchid; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Nine 1/2 Weeks in 1987; Notes: He was an actor in the 60s and 70s including starring in the television show The Young Lawyers.)

Actors – Mickey Rourke – (Known For: Iron Man 2; Body Heat; Sin City; The Expendables; Immortals; The Rainmaker; The Wrestler; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; Once Upon a Time in Mexico; 9½ Weeks; Angel Heart; Buffalo ’66; Rumble Fish; Heaven’s Gate; 1941; Girl; The Pledge; Spun; Diner; Year of the Dragon; Future BMT: Domino; Desperate Hours; Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man; Man on Fire; BMT: Double Team; Wild Orchid; Get Carter; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actor in 1991 for Desperate Hours, and Wild Orchid; Notes: Notable went back to professional boxing in 1991 well into his career as an A-list actor where he sustained severe facial injuries. He’s gotten extensive plastic surgery in an attempt to correct the issues.)

Jacqueline Bisset – (Known For: Bullitt; Murder on the Orient Express; Casino Royale; The Deep; L’amant double; Airport; Day for Night; 9/11; Blue Night; Dangerous Beauty; Miss You Already; Latter Days; The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean; Two for the Road; Death in Love; Backstabbing for Beginners; The Detective; The Man from Acapulco; Cul-de-sac; Under the Volcano; Future BMT: Domino; When Time Ran Out…; Class; Inchon; BMT: Wild Orchid; Notes: Nominated for an Emmy for Joan of Arc. Is Angelina Jolie’s godmother, as she was asked while working with Jon Voight on End of the Game.)

Carré Otis – (Known For: Exit in Red; Going Back; BMT: Wild Orchid; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst New Star for Wild Orchid in 1991; Notes: Famously married Rourke in 1992, a romance that has fueled (unfounded) rumors that the final sex scene was unsimulated.)

Budget/Gross – $7 million / Domestic: $11,060,485 (Worldwide: $11,060,485)

(Not super great obviously, but not a complete bomb maybe. The budget is so low though, must basically be all salary for the actors at that point.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 7% (2/29): Body Orchid is a tease-too-long, with overblown editing with an already slipping Mickey Rourke and unexperienced actress Carrie Otis.

(I had to look it up, and no, nowhere was the film called Body Orchid … is it just a weird play on words or something? Maybe they are mashing the title with Body Heat? Reviewer Highlight: What I couldn’t believe was the chemistry between Rourke and Otis, whose passion is supposed to shake the earth but seemed more like an obligation imposed on them by their genitals. – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

Poster – Wild Sorkin

(Wild Sorkin is the high school comedy about Aaron Sorkin’s wild youth. This poster is… not that. It makes me feel sweaty and dirty, so mission accomplished I assume. I do like the font and the color scheme fits what I would call “nude,” which is probably the point. Anyway, it could be better. C+)

Tagline(s) – An adventure of the senses. (C-)

(Grosssss. No thanks. Those words on that poster is just… just the worst. Leave my senses out of this garbo. It’s certainly telling you exactly what you can expect in just a few words, but it’s not something I want.)

Keyword – erotica

Top 10: American Beauty (1999), Call Me by Your Name (2017), Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Sin City (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Don Jon (2013), Coyote Ugly (2000), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), Body Double (1984), Showgirls (1995)

Future BMT: 71.2 Showgirls (1995), 60.5 Obsessed (2009), 54.1 Bolero (1984), 49.4 In the Cut (2003), 46.2 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002), 43.7 Coyote Ugly (2000), 41.3 Addicted (2014), 41.0 Jawbreaker (1999), 37.8 Never Talk to Strangers (1995), 33.0 Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016);

BMT: Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Fifty Shades Freed (2018), The Boy Next Door (2015), Basic Instinct 2 (2006), Striptease (1996), Cool World (1992), Good Luck Chuck (2007), Color of Night (1994), Wild Orchid (1989), Fifty Shades of Black (2016), The Specialist (1994), I Know Who Killed Me (2007), Miss March (2009)

(I had to try this one out. We have a few left, and a bunch of those are, in reality, not erotica. But Bolero and Showgirls definitely are. I’m pretty surprised that the notability plot is as stable as it is. I would have thought it would have dropped off a cliff after 2000, but that didn’t really happen until 2010.)

Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 11) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Bruce Greenwood is No. 5 billed in Wild Orchid and No. 6 billed in Here on Earth => 5 + 6 = 11. There is no shorter path at the moment.

Notes – Mickey Rourke and Carré Otis were a couple at the time this film was made, and there is a persistent rumor that the sex scenes were not faked.

In a 2004 interview, Carré Otis denied the rumors that suggested the infamous last sex scene was real.

Brooke Shields turned down the role of Emily because she knew that nudity would be required.

Willem Dafoe turned down the role of James Wheeler.

The hotel construction site was actually the skeleton of an abandoned hotel in Salvador, Bahia that was never completed. It was imploded a few years later, after decades of abandonment.

Anne Archer was signed to play the Jacqueline Bisset part, but she had a disagreement with the producers over the scripts R rated content.

Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Mickey Rourke, 1991)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst New Star (Carré Otis, 1991)