BOMB – Page 5 – Bad Movie Twins

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo Preview

We are Sklogpacking right across Europe and there is literally no other choice for the comedy entry in the cycle than the film for this week. Based on historical evidence this will either be an underrated comedy that he hold close to our hearts… or it will literally be the worst thing we’ve ever seen. That’s right! We’re watching Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo. Obviously watching this critically reviled sequel will involve a bonus viewing of the first film (generally thought to be bad, but at least better than the second film). The sequel took Rob Schneider to beautiful Amsterdam to attempt to figure out who was out killing Male Gigolos across Europe. If it can at least not be a lazy sack of shit then it should come out on top of Strange Wilderness… I’m not holding out hope. Also a reminder that we now have the European mapl.de.map up on the website if you want to check it out. Let’s go!

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005) – BMeTric: 74.3

DeuceBigalowEuropeanGigolo_BMeT

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(A goddamned catastrophe, sub-5.0 with 40K votes is incredible. And it just goes there and sticks for the most part. If that rating hadn’t actually moved over the years I would think we were dealing with a BMT legend, but in reality this film is likely just very very terrible.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Ads for this woefully unfunny sequel show Schneider sitting under a phallic Leaning Tower of Pisa that appears to be protruding from his groin area. This would have been the film’s best joke – except it’s not in the film; nor is any other form of humor. Deuce is sent to Holland to train as a high-end Euro man whore. When he discovers some of his fellow gigolos are being killed, he jumps undercover(s). Can we possibly prevent another sequel? Famous faces appear in cameos, if that matters to you.

(Rough undercover(s) joke there, but, then again, this review was also funnier than this movie. It has been a while since we hit a BOMB from Maltin (especially since we tend to default to RogerEbert.com for recent films, since Maltin’s book is defunct). It is good to see that we definitely hit the worst Amsterdam has to offer us.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDTU4-tLR_g

(Oh wow they used the worst joke in the film (the wine coming out of the tracheotomy) in the trailer and as the closer. That is incredible. Not to tip my hand, but having seen the film … this trailer somehow makes the film look less crass and stupid than it actually is. It is so gross and dumb. Hopefully this trailer dissuaded you from ever watching this pile of garbage.)

Directors – Mike Bigelow – (BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Notes: One and done, one and done. He was a commercial director with quite a bit of acclaim. A tale as old a time, commercial director gets a break, and then doesn’t do any other movies.)

Writers – Harris Goldberg (characters) – (Future BMT: I’ll Be Home for Christmas; Without a Paddle; BMT: The Master of Disguise; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Notes: Was an actor on a show called 30 Dates to a Soul Mate in 2012 which lasted 23 episodes, although it is a little unclear what platform the show was made for.)

Rob Schneider (characters & story & screenplay) – (Future BMT: The Animal; The Hot Chick; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Notes: Has been a writer on both of his recent television shows as well which lasted, together, 24 episodes.)

David Garrett (screenplay) – (Future BMT: Corky Romano; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo in 2006; Notes: Is an accomplished trial lawyer who is (was?) Vice-President of development at Intrigue Entertainment.)

Jason Ward (screenplay) – (Future BMT: Corky Romano; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Screenplay for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo in 2006; Notes: Was a writer on the Fran Drescher television show Living with Fran.)

Actors – Rob Schneider – (Known For: 50 First Dates; Big Daddy; Muppets from Space; Future BMT: Littleman; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; The Animal; Norm of the North; Little Nicky; Knock Off; You Don’t Mess with the Zohan; The Hot Chick; InAPPropriate Comedy; Eight Crazy Nights; Sandy Wexler; Surf Ninjas; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Mr. Deeds; You May Not Kiss the Bride; The Adventures of Pinocchio; The Waterboy; Bedtime Stories; Down Periscope; Big Stan; Click; The Longest Yard; Necessary Roughness; Home Alone 2: Lost in New York; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; The Ridiculous 6; The Beverly Hillbillies; Judge Dredd; The Benchwarmers; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Around the World in 80 Days; Grown Ups; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Demolition Man; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actor for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo in 2006; Nominee for Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo in 2006; Nominee for Worst Actor in 2007 for Littleman, and The Benchwarmers; Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor in 2000 for Big Daddy; in 2008 for I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; and in 2011 for Grown Ups; and Nominee for Worst Actor of the Decade in 2010 for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Grandma’s Boy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Little Nicky, Littleman, The Animal, The Benchwarmers, and The Hot Chick; Notes: Remember the girl selling girl scout cookies in the first Deuce Bigalow movie? That was his daughter Elle King.)

Eddie Griffin – (Known For: The Last Boy Scout; Undercover Brother; Jason’s Lyric; Brain Donors; The Wendell Baker Story; Future BMT: Date Movie; Coneheads; Scary Movie 3; The Meteor Man; House Party 3; My Baby’s Daddy; American Hero; The New Guy; Double Take; Armageddon; Foolish; The Walking Dead; BMT: Norbit; Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; Redline; Pinocchio; Notes: There aren’t many reviews out so far (the one I found was quite positive), but he has a new Showtime stand-up special airing soon, which dominates his newsfeed.)

Jeroen Krabbé – (Known For: Ocean’s Twelve; The Fugitive; EverAfter; The Living Daylights; Dangerous Beauty; Immortal Beloved; Scandal; The Prince of Tides; An Ideal Husband; King of the Hill; The Fourth Man; Kafka; Spetters; Soldier of Orange; Crossing Delancey; Farinelli; Turtle Diary; A World Apart; Future BMT: The Punisher; Jumpin’ Jack Flash; Transporter 3; BMT: Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo; No Mercy; Notes: Dutch, he’s been married to his wife for over 50 years!)

Budget/Gross – $22 million / Domestic: $22,400,154 (Worldwide: $45,109,561)

(That is pretty rough. To just make back the reported budget is bad, but to do it at a time when Sandler was just turning out $100 million comedies like it was the easiest thing in the world probably but a nail in the coffin of Schneider’s leading man career.)

#46 for the Comedy – R-Rated Youth genre

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(I won’t reiterate what I said in the Deuce Bigalow preview, but here the amusing thing is that Deuce Bigalow came out during the American Pie meteoric rise of the genre. This on the other hand sits right at the point where people were just churning out mostly garbage sequels … so it fits right in naturally.)

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

deucebigalow2_comedysequel

(Ha, you can almost convince yourself that this movie actually made producers look at each other and say “alright then, I think that about does that, let’s get some original ideas in here so that we can make sequels again in 5 years”. I always note the wave form of these plots whenever a sequel comes up, which is exactly that I think. Hollywood going through periods of making originals, then making their sequels, rinse and repeat.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 9% (9/99): A witless follow-up to the surprise 1999 hit, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is raunchy, politically incorrect, and not particularly funny.

(Alright … politically incorrect is putting it mildly. Having actually seen this already this is bar-none the most homophobic film you’ll watch anytime soon. They drop the f-word like it is nothing, without a care in the world. It is shocking. Different time and all that, but … if I was in charge of this film I would have pulled as many DVD copies back in to edit some of the shit out and quickly as possible. It just comes across very very poorly.)

Poster – Deuce Bigelow European Gigosklog (D)

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(I do not like this poster for a variety of reasons but I think I’m inordinately bothered by the fact that this features the Leaning Tower of Pisa and yet is almost entirely set in Amsterdam… why? It would be like if the first one had the Empire State Building as a stand in for his penis. It doesn’t make sense and is unacceptable. Oh and nothing else is good about it either.)

Tagline(s) – For the women of Europe… The price of love just got a lot cheaper. (C-)

(Too long and not clever, although at least a bit better than the first one. It’s just so old fashioned.)

Keyword(s) – prostitute; Top Ten by BMeTric: 92.3 Date Movie (2006); 87.4 BloodRayne (2005); 77.8 Basic Instinct 2 (2006); 74.3 Wild Wild West (1999); 74.3 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005); 72.7 Jonah Hex (2010); 66.9 Extreme Movie (2008); 65.3 Baise-moi (2000); 64.7 The Crow: City of Angels (1996); 63.6 The Crow: Wicked Prayer (2005);

(Hopefully we never watch Extreme Movie. But this does remind me of one of the goals of the Bad Movie Twins over the coming months: watch more of the bad movies we had seen before we started the Bad Movie Twins Media Empire. They deserve the treatment we decided, so Wild Wild West here we come.)

Notes – Upon learning that the film received 5 Golden Raspberry (‘Razzie’) Award nominations, Rob Schneider himself took out a full page ad in the trades, boasting that the film was nominated for Worst Picture, Worst Actor – Rob Schneider, Worst Remake or Sequel, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Couple – Rob Schneider and his diaper. Schneider later won the Worst Actor award. (Good for him? If he really wanted to impress though he would have attended and accepted the award in person. People get a ton of props for that every time)

The song that is being whistled throughout the movie is entitled “Something Stupid” (Good to know)

Roger Ebert hated the movie so much that he told Rob Schneider, “Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.” Ebert recounted this incident in his book, “Your Movie Sucks.” Schneider later sent Ebert flowers when Ebert was in the hospital with cancer. Ebert said that he was moved by Schneider’s gesture and that he hoped he’d someday see Schneider in a film he thought was great. (Awww. Kind of heartwarming. Sadly, and I’m really meaning no offense, I don’t think Ebert did ever see him in a film and thought it was great)

Happy Madison moved to Columbia to produce the sequel due to creative differences with Disney. Disney wanted a PG-13 sequel while Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider wanted it to be R-rated like the original. (Hmmm, probably a bad decision on Happy Madison’s part. The first was harmless and kind of charming enough in its own weird way. The second though … woof).

Rob Schneider twisted his ankle while filming the sword fight scene, the footage can be seen in the DVD Making of feature. (I wonder why I don’t get to see this hilarious footage, can’t be hiding those sweet extras from me).

Rachel Stevens, who appears as Louisa, the Dirty Girl, also performs the song heard over the end credits “I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)”. (WOW. I didn’t realize that was a singer, what a strange … cameo I guess you would call that).

Jeroen Krabbé was persuaded to be in the movie by his son, who was a big fan of the original Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999). (Poor choice)

Many of the Dutch extras and bit players in the movie are well-known actors and TV personalities in the Netherlands.

The word “man-whore” and it’s variations (“man-whoring” and “man-whores”) is said 47 times throughout the course of the movie. (Gross!)

The film is included on film critic Roger Ebert’s “Most Hated” list. In his zero-star review of the movie, he called it “aggressively bad, as if it wants to cause suffering to the audience”, and as “a movie that [the film’s studio and producers] should be discussing in long, sad conversations with their inner child.” (YUP)

Awards

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor of the Decade (Rob Schneider)

Winner for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Rob Schneider)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Rob Schneider)

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Remake or Sequel

Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Rob Schneider, David Garrett, Jason Ward)

88 Minutes Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the third in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

88 Minutes (2007) – BMeTric: 37.1

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(Wow, I think this is a first. It regressed down from what appears to be roughly above-average rating on IMDb. No wonder its BMeTric is so low. I cannot believe it has over fifty thousand votes and a rating of around 6.0, that is truly mind-boggling.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Dreadful thriller about a forensic psychiatrist (and professor) who’s received an all-too-palpable death threat from a man he helped send to Death Row (McDonough). Lumbering, heavyhanded theatrics and clumsy attempts at suspense make this a total waste of time.

(aaaaaaaaaye I see what you did there Leonard. 88 minutes … a waste of time. I got you. This is what I live for though. Heavyhanded theatrics. If anything says good-bad thriller or drama it is heavyhanded theatrics. I want dolly zooms all over my film, I want rending of clothes, chewing of scenery. You’ve given me everything I need to know Leonard … this is why 88 minutes is great (from what I recall).)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUCd805JDJk

(The bird’s nest they tricked Al Pacino into wearing on his head is absurd. Tick tock doc. Tick tock! Getting me amped. He got a guuuuuuuun ….)

Directors – Jon Avnet – (Known For: Fried Green Tomatoes; Future BMT: Righteous Kill; Up Close & Personal; Red Corner; The War; BMT: 88 Minutes; Notes: Not sure if this ended his feature directing career, but it was the last film he directed. He produces and directs a lot of television. His filmography is tripping me out, he does a lot of scripted television for his own channel WIGS previously funded by YouTube and digital exclusive, so a lot of his credits are shows I’ve legit never heard of with giant stars in them. Like this.)

Writers – Gary Scott Thompson (written by) – (Known For: Fast & Furious 8; Furious 6; Fast & Furious 7; Fast 5; Future BMT: Hollow Man; BMT: The Fast and the Furious; 2 Fast 2 Furious; 88 Minutes; Fast & Furious; Notes: If you can’t tell he wrote the original Fast and The Furious (the rest are character credits). He also created the show Las Vegas, and wrote the show Taxi Brooklyn (the American show based on the French film Taxi which was remade into the Fallon and BMT classic Taxi!))

Actors – Al Pacino – (Known For: The Godfather; Heat; The Godfather: Part II; Scarface; The Devil’s Advocate; The Godfather: Part III; Insomnia; Ocean’s Thirteen; Donnie Brasco; Scent of a Woman; Glengarry Glen Ross; Dog Day Afternoon; Danny Collins; Dick Tracy; Carlito’s Way; The Insider; Any Given Sunday; Serpico; Cruising; Dabka; Future BMT: The Son of No One; Misconduct; Revolution; Righteous Kill; Two for the Money; Stand Up Guys; Bobby Deerfield; BMT: Jack and Jill; Gigli; 88 Minutes; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Supporting Actor, and Worst Screen Couple for Jack and Jill in 2012; Nominated for Worst Actor in 1986 for Revolution; and in 2009 for 88 Minutes, and Righteous Kill; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Gigli in 2004; Notes: Y’all know Al Pacino. Let’s go with a nice BMT themed fun fact for him: for a bit he was in both the best rated film on IMDb (The Godfather) and the worst rated film on IMDb (Gigli).)

Alicia Witt – (Known For: Dune; Two Weeks Notice; Mr. Holland’s Opus; Last Holiday; The Upside of Anger; Cecil B. DeMented; Citizen Ruth; Liebestraum; Bodies, Rest & Motion; Fun; Playing Mona Lisa; Future BMT: Urban Legend; Peep World; Bongwater; Four Rooms; BMT: Vanilla Sky; A Madea Christmas; 88 Minutes; Notes: Born in Worcester, MA. She is also a rather accomplished pianist and has gone on tour with Ben Folds and others.)

Leelee Sobieski – (Known For: Eyes Wide Shut; Public Enemies; Deep Impact; Never Been Kissed; Roadkill; Max; Walk All Over Me; My First Mister; A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries; Future BMT: Jungle 2 Jungle; Branded; The Glass House; Finding Bliss; BMT: The Wicker Man (HoF); In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (HoF); Here on Earth; 88 Minutes (HoF); Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress in 2009 for 88 Minutes, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: Her filmography is a lot more impressive that I would imagine considering she will have been in four of the first fifteen BMT Hall of Fame films. I think she’s taken a bit of time off from acting as she is now a mother of two. Was previously married to Matthew Davis who is best known as the jerk boyfriend of Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde)

Budget/Gross – $30 million / Domestic: $17,213,467 (Worldwide: $32,593,385)

(Bombtastic. Stunning that they’d spend $30 million on a weird thriller starring Pacino, but he had a bit more … clout at the time I think. Just not good.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (6/122): 88 Minutes is a shockingly inept psychological thriller that expertly squanders the talent at hand.

(“Talent” … Pacino. You are referring to Pacino. I love Leelee and McDonough, but they are BMT all stars. To put in another way: This will be, along with In the Name of the King A Dungeon Siege Tale, Leelee Sobieski’s third Hall of Fame BMT film (Wicker Man is the other). And along with I Know Who Killed Me this is also McDonough’s third (Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li is the other). That is amazing. So the cast might not be the tops … all I’m saying.)

Poster – Eighty-Sklog Minutes (C-)

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(I actually kind of hate this poster. The stylization comes across as cheap and half-assed. The red letters are kind of embossed in a weird way as well. We’ve had posters similar to this before and we came to the same conclusion: it looks cheap.)

Tagline(s) – Jack Gramm has 88 minutes to solve a murder. His own. (D)

(I also kind of hate this. It repeats the title (strike one). It is kind of expectedly inevitable, in that of course the “twist” on the tagline is that it is his own murder (strike two). And I don’t even like the name of the main character. I can’t even figure out why I hate all those things so much. I gave a little bump from an F because it at least tells me something about the movie.)

Keyword(s) – serial killer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 81.0 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 78.9 Basic Instinct 2 (2006); 78.8 Halloween: Resurrection (2002); 78.2 Feardotcom (2002); 76.8 The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1994); 76.2 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 74.1 Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (2005); 73.9 Species II (1998); 73.5 Psycho (1998); 72.9 Zoolander 2 (2016);

(I wonder if the Deuce Bigalow 2 note is a spoiler … is that part of the storyline or a one off joke. I’m intrigued. Otherwise we’ll likely watch all of those .. maybe not Psycho unless we are rolling through a remake cycle of something. Nice list though, those are some real bad horror / thriller films. Shout out to fellow Hall of Fame inductee I Know Who Killed Me.)

Notes – The film runs in “real time” meaning that at the moment Jack Gramm is first told he has only 88 minutes to live, the remaining running time of the motion picture until the identity of the person who set Gramm up is exactly 88 minutes. (yiiiiiiissssss. From what I recall they don’t make a big deal out of this, it was just kind of a fun trick)

The movie trailer of the film reveals parts of scenes that failed to reach the final cut, most obvious of which were flashbacks of the trial convicting Jon Foster. (I wish this movie was called 888 minutes so I could just live inside of it. Let’s get a tv series going, call me Netflix)

Was scheduled for release in 2005 but the release date was pushed back numerous times. (awesome)

Jon Avnet replaced James Foley as director. (Probably at the last minutes, and I thank him for it)

Filmed on campus at the University of British Columbia and in Vancouver, BC, Canada

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Al Pacino)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Leelee Sobieski)

Strange Wilderness Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the second in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

Strange Wilderness (2008) – BMeTric: 48.8

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(So I’m going to dub this trajectory the Teenage Boy Arc. Basically I think what happens is that the only people who want to watch this film when it is difficult to get are people who like this brand of terrible humor. Then once people can watch the film and it is featured on rental sites it drops. And now the only people who watch the film are, again, teenage boys who watch stoner comedies unironically. Not to shit on an entire class of people, but I was a teenage boy, and I had terrible taste in comedy. Just terrible.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Painfully unfunny farce about producers of a ratings-challenged wildlife TV series who desperately seek Bigfoot in the wilds of Ecuador. You can’t help feeling embarrassed or Zahn, as the clueless host, when a wild turkey chomps on his private parts and won’t let go. Shelved for nearly two years before a fleeting theatrical run.

(I forgot it was shelved for years before it was released. The rumor is that Paramount stripped their name off of the film entirely. After watching the movie again the turkey scene is the worst thing I’ve ever seen, so if you are reading this preview before watching the film … enjoy.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKyowLXH8sk

(Yeah, seems about right. That trailer has more of a direction and storyline than the actual film by the way. It is far far less coherent when they try to stretch this out to 90 minutes.)

Directors – Fred Wolf – (Known For: The House Bunny; BMT: Strange Wilderness; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Grown Ups 2 in 2014; Notes: Both of the movies he directed came out in 2008 and he has been doing straight-to-video and shorts since. He is slated to have an Alec Baldwin film, Drunk Parents, out next year though.)

Writers – Peter Gaulke (written by) – (Known For: Ice Age 2: The Meltdown; Future BMT: Black Knight; The Babymakers; BMT: Say It Isn’t So; Strange Wilderness; Notes: I wouldn’t call him the writing partner of Wolf necessarily, but he was a staff writer on SNL at the same time as Wolf and is writing Drunk Parents with Wolf slated for later this year.)

Fred Wolf (written by) – (Known For: I Want Candy; Future BMT: Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star; Joe Dirt; Without a Paddle; Black Sheep; Dirty Work; BMT: Grown Ups 2; Strange Wilderness; Grown Ups; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Grown Ups 2 in 2014; Notes: He was a staff writer for SNL during Sandler’s stint which was his big break. After all of those guys got fired he was asked back to be the head writer and featured player. I can only find one clip with him in it though, a short Weekend Update piece.)

Actors – Steve Zahn – (Known For: War for the Planet of the Apes; Captain Fantastic; Dallas Buyers Club; Diary of a Wimpy Kid; You’ve Got Mail; The Good Dinosaur; That Thing You Do!; Out of Sight; Lean on Pete; Roadkill; Stuart Little; Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days; Rescue Dawn; A Perfect Getaway; Crimson Tide; Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules; Bandidas; Reality Bites; Knights of Badassdom; Stuart Little 2; Future BMT: Daddy Day Care; National Security; Chicken Little; Saving Silverman; Sahara; Race the Sun; Chelsea Walls; Employee of the Month; BMT: The Ridiculous 6; Strange Wilderness; Escape from Planet Earth; Notes: Was born and raised in Minnesota, and trained for stage acting in Boston. He met his wife while they were touring with a production of Bye Bye Birdie. Cool life story.)

Allen Covert – (Known For: Hotel Transylvania 2; Happy Gilmore; 50 First Dates; Big Daddy; Hotel Transylvania; The Wedding Singer; The House Bunny; Never Been Kissed; Anger Management; Future BMT: Little Nicky; Eight Crazy Nights; Sandy Wexler; Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; Mr. Deeds; Bulletproof; The Waterboy; Bedtime Stories; Airheads; The Longest Yard; Heavy Weights; Grandma’s Boy; BMT: Jack and Jill; Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star; Paul Blart: Mall Cop; Grown Ups 2; Strange Wilderness; Pixels; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Just Go with It; Blended; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star in 2012; Notes: Often vaguely seen as a sidekick to Adam Sandler’s characters in his various films. He had a string of writing credits which appears to have ended with Bucky Larson and Jack and Jill.)

Justin Long – (Known For: Jeepers Creepers; Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Idiocracy; Die Hard 4.0; He’s Just Not That Into You; 10 Years; Galaxy Quest; Tusk; Zack and Miri Make a Porno; Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; Drag Me to Hell; Veronica Mars; Herbie Fully Loaded; Funny People; Youth in Revolt; Comet; Going the Distance; Frank & Lola; The Conspirator; For a Good Time, Call…; Future BMT: Crossroads; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel; Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked; Alvin and the Chipmunks; Yoga Hosers; Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip; Jeepers Creepers II; Walking with Dinosaurs 3D; Alpha and Omega; The Break-Up; Serious Moonlight; Planet 51; Trauma; Ghost Team; Accepted; The Lookalike; Best Man Down; Literally, Right Before Aaron; Waiting…; BMT: Movie 43; Old Dogs; Strange Wilderness; Notes: Pretty famous comedic actor, who might still be most well known as the Mac Guy from the Apple ads featuring John Hodgman. His BMT filmography is … formidable.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $6,575,282 (Worldwide: $6,964,734)

(Just no money. Like nothing. An absolute catastrophe. No wonder the director couldn’t really get anything done for a while.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 2% (1/45): Strange Wilderness is a laugh-free comedy that’s both aimless and overly crass.

(Laugh free. Aimless. Overly crass. Yeah, that is just about how I remember this film. One of the worst reviewed films ever made. Excellent.)

Poster – Sklog Wilderness (C-)

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(So the poster is a hard-F. Like unforgivably ugly … but the boldness of the color choice is almost interesting in itself. And then the font on the title is actually quite good. Like the silhouette. Something about it gets it close to average I think.)

Tagline(s) – This ain’t March of the Penguins. (B)

(Like it actually. Pretty descriptive idea. Bump it down because it is aging quite poorly and will only get worse as time goes on.)

Keyword(s) – bigfoot; Top Ten by BMeTric: 55.3 Eegah (1962); 48.8 Strange Wilderness (2008); 44.5 Willow Creek (2013); 43.3 The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II (1984); 39.1 Exists (2014); 36.2 Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (2011); 32.6 Harry and the Hendersons (1987); 31.3 Abominable (2006); 29.9 Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes (2012); 27.4 The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972);

(Huh, some of those are pretty big! I didn’t realize it until now, but Harry and the Hendersons was originally released as Bigfoot and the Hendersons in the UK.)

Notes – During the clip of the zebra being eaten by the vultures, the zebra “responds” to the birds with “oh my god, oh my god…” is actually a clip taken from the movie “Super Troopers”. It is Paul Soter when his character is “flashing” Marisa Coughlan outside of the police station while on the phone with her. (I think I actually caught that)

“Strange Wilderness” began its life in the 1990’s as a series of independently produced short videos by former “Saturday Night Live” writers Fred Wolf and Peter Gaulke. “They started out as little parodies of wildlife shows,” explains writer and producer Gaulke. “Fred and I went out and shot them with the help of John Burrud, who actually has a real-life wildlife show. His father Bill used to host ‘Animal World’ and other travel and nature shows back in the ’60s. So John helped us produce these little shorts which we eventually got onto Comedy Central.” (Ugh, that’s embarrassing. Reminds me of how Friedberg and Seltzer kind of got their start because Rick Friedberg made a cheesy golf instructional video with Leslie Nielsen)

The two main characters are named after the film’s screenwriters.

Some of the clips used when the TV executive proves that Strange Wilderness is too inappropriate are clips from the Faces of Death series. For example, Man on fire with Jesus music, Man being attacked by an alligator, and Pygmy footage) (I didn’t know this was a thing and I don’t really like that I now know that is a thing … but maybe I’m somehow better because I know this thing? It is a confusing time for me)

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale Preview

A small note prior to this post: Once again we take a look back at the movies that we watched over five years ago and choose a Hall of Fame class, five movies that we thought embodied BMT in some way. Perhaps they were particularly bad, or an example of a specific bad movie trope, whatever, something made them stand out as special in our minds. Since we didn’t do email previews back in 2011/2012 we also decided to provide a preview for the movie as well. This is the first in a series of five leading up to our yearly awards the Smaddies Baddies. A recap (Hall of Fame speech really) will follow immediate afterwards to explain why the movie was chosen, things we loved about the movie, and things we discovered upon second viewing. Enjoy!

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007) – BMeTric: 85.7

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(Wow that started low. The way this is fading makes me wonder how much actual legs this has in the end, but there is a reason this is one of the worst reviewed films on IMDb. Other than that not much else to say, classic legendary bad movie.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Reluctant warrior Statham joins forces with a brave king (Reynolds) to battle a treacherous usurper (Lillard) and a wicked wizard (Liotta). Another video-game-inspired fiasco from the unfortunately prolific Boll. Even with a bigger budget and better actors than usual, this is a plodding patchwork of haphazardly edited action sequences. Alternate version runs 162 min.

(I will likely try and watch the (gulp) three hour cut. Jamie owns it, although on Blu-Ray I think. Regardless that cut it likely happening and I will not enjoy. Deep burn on Uwe, but that is expected since Uwe is a terrible filmmaker who has been openly ridiculed by critics for years.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Um98FZei8

(You can kind of see the ridiculousness of the fight scenes in this film from the trailer. And you can kind of see how ridiculous everyone’s costumes are. But they keep this generic-fantasy for now. Smart.)

Directors – Uwe Boll – (Future BMT: Alone in the Dark; House of the Dead; BloodRayne; Postal; Blackwoods; Bailout: The Age of Greed; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Director in 2009 for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Postal, and Tunnel Rats; Nominated for Worst Director in 2006 for Alone in the Dark; and in 2007 for BloodRayne; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Postal in 2009; Notes: Well known for spitting out tons of schlock. Was a critic in the 80s and seems to revel in bad reviews. He challenged a number of critics to a boxing match and won all of the matches as chronicled in Raging Boll)

Writers – Doug Taylor (screenplay & story) – (Known For: Splice; A Christmas Horror Story; They Wait; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale in 2009; Notes: Canadian. He had a few interesting articles written about how he still lived in Montreal, even while working on promoting a big project like Splice. I don’t know what he’s precisely up to know, but it is an interesting glimpse into a screenwriters world. The number of projects he was working on was noted as “head-spinning” and yet he only has had four credited screenwriting jobs result in a theater release. It sounds nuts.)

Jason Rappaport and Dan Stroncak (story) – (BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: I don’t think these guys are necessarily writing partners, but there is no info on them. I think they probably work for Uwe Boll’s production company? Would make sense to have Taylor write the script, and then have some of your own guys help with whatever Uwe wants in there.)

Chris Taylor (video game “Dungeon Siege”) – (BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Notes: Just the video game guy. Was named the 30th most influential developer of all time in 2002. Left his company in 2016 to work on indie games)

Actors – Jason Statham – (Known For: Fast & Furious 8; Fast & Furious 7; Snatch; Spy; Furious 6; The Italian Job; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Collateral; The Expendables; The Expendables 2; Parker; Homefront; The Mechanic; The Transporter; Death Race; The Bank Job; Hummingbird; Transporter 2; Future BMT: The Pink Panther; Wild Card; The One; Transporter 3; 13; Turn It Up; Killer Elite; Revolver; Mean Machine; London; BMT: Crank; Crank: High Voltage; In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Ghosts of Mars; Mechanic: Resurrection; The Expendables 3; Notes: An all-star of BMT naturally. I’ve also heard great things about him over the years. Mainly that he’s hilarious and has a magnetic personality. Makes sense.)

Ron Perlman – (Known For: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them; Pacific Rim; Drive; Hellboy; The Bleeder; Tangled; Alien Resurrection; Blade II; Hellboy II: The Golden Army; Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters; Enemy at the Gates; The Book of Life; The Spiderwick Chronicles; The Name of the Rose; Looney Tunes: Back in Action; Titan A.E.; The City of Lost Children; Kid Cannabis; Poker Night; La guerre du feu; Future BMT: Police Academy: Mission to Moscow; The Island of Dr. Moreau; Conan the Barbarian; Mutant Chronicles; Sleepwalkers; Bad Ass; Down; The Ice Pirates; Stonewall; Skin Trade; Outlander; Bunraku; Star Trek: Nemesis; Crave; Romeo Is Bleeding; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Season of the Witch; Notes: We should watch Ice Pirates. Ron Perlman is probably most well known now for either Sons of Anarchy or Hellboy, but he’s been in a bunch of stuff obviously. Was in Del Toro’s debut Chronos in 1993 which lead to a life-long friendship.)

Ray Liotta – (Known For: Goodfellas; The Place Beyond the Pines; Blow; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; Identity; Killing Them Softly; Bee Movie; Date Night; The Iceman; Field of Dreams; Cop Land; Kill the Messenger; Heartbreakers; Youth in Revolt; Muppets Most Wanted; Narc; Something Wild; Unlawful Entry; Battle in Seattle; Observe and Report; Future BMT: Turbulence; The Son of No One; Operation Dumbo Drop; Crazy on the Outside; Revenge of the Green Dragons; The Identical; Forever Mine; Even Money; Powder Blue; Revolver; Better Living Through Chemistry; The Lonely Lady; The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud; Unforgettable; Slow Burn; Smokin’ Aces; Corrina, Corrina; Hannibal; Crossing Over; Pilgrim; BMT: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale; Wild Hogs; Notes: He is most well known for looking like he is wearing a Halloween mask of himself. Joking, but this is the first movie I watched where I was like Liotta looks a little odd these days. Hugely famous, mainly for Goodfellas, he still gets decent enough jobs. Definitely an interesting career.)

Budget/Gross – $60,000,000 / Domestic: $4,775,656 (Worldwide: $13,097,915)

(So, Uwe Boll had a decent racket going for a while. The way it works is detailed here, but here’s the short version: if you are a German citizen looking for a tax shelter you can set up a shell company, “finance a film” for millions of euros (immediately tax deductible), and then lease back the rights to a Hollywood studio for almost the entire amount saving millions in taxes. The key is having a German director to direct … wait a minute I know a German director by the name of Uwe! I think they closed that loophole, it is the only explanation as to why Uwe isn’t still churning out trash. This is also the definition of “sweet IP”: video games no one else wanted to make into movies … so sell it to Uwe.)

#106 for the Fantasy – Live Action genre

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(A genre of the 2000s. Just about at the nadir of the genre though. Below Troll from 1986, and paired up with Seeker the Dark of Rising (twin film) for bringing down the gross for a time. Has held mostly steady since, but the new Harry Potters could help it along the way.)

#32 for the Sword and Sorcery genre

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(Literally the lowest grossing example released to more than 4 theaters! There isn’t much to the graphic except that it is small and kind of consistently made over the years. Hopefully the disaster that was Warcraft doesn’t handicap the genre too much going forward.)

#34 for the Video Game Adaptation genre

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(This guy basically sits … well around other Uwe films. Not that many video game adaptation are super successful. They are coming hot and quick now though, so we’ll see if they can cross that $100 million threshold consistently.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 4% (2/50): Featuring mostly wooden performances, laughable dialogue, and shoddy production values, In the Name of the King fulfills all expectations of an Uwe Boll film.

(Sick burns … although true. The film looks like a few episodes of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers strung together. Considering it is through and through a German production … that might actually not be a bad analogy.)

Poster – In the Name of the Sklog: A Dungeon Sklog Tale (C+)

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(I like the color, but not much else. I can kind of give it credit for being in that high-fantasy mold. It is shockingly similar to some of the artwork for Lord of the Rings. But too much going on and not enough done with the font. I’m giving it a C+ for at least being derivative of something good, but most of the deduction is for being cheap looking to boot.)

Tagline(s) – Rise and fight (C+)

(I’ll give it credit for being short and sweet and fantasy-epic-esque. Doesn’t tell you anything, and is boring though, so I mark most of the credit off. Sorry Uwe.)

Keyword(s) – farmer; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.7 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 84.1 Piranha 3DD (2012); 69.8 Year One (2009); 58.0 Monsters: Dark Continent (2014); 57.7 The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007); 49.3 Seventh Son (I) (2014); 45.0 Jeepers Creepers II (2003); 43.8 The Watch (I) (2012); 43.7 The Giant Spider Invasion (1975); 43.7 Priest (2011);

(We will never watch Piranha 3DD, but Priest is going to happen. Farmer is prooooobably pushing it, although The Seeker and Seventh Son did genuinely have farmers in it … and the main character of this is literally “Farmer”.)

Notes – Kevin Smith and Juliette Lewis were filming Catch and Release (2006) on an adjoining set, and came to visit this set. Burt Reynolds saw them steal two boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. (I believe it, but Burt Reynolds throughout these notes sounds ridiculous).

Script development took over a year. In the end, Doug Taylor re-wrote eighty percent of the script, because the original story was considered too reminiscent of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. (Amazing, what could the storyline have even been?)

Production of the computer graphics imagery in the movie was convoluted and problematic. Uwe Boll claims he had to fire several different CGI providers, who outsourced their jobs to lower-quality providers, who worked for less money. (Yup, this is why graphics in movies causes so much trouble, bullshit like this)

The “medicine” Merick gives Farmer was actually tea mixed with ketchup. Uwe Boll purposely concocted the mixture to get a disgusted reaction from Jason Statham.

During production, Uwe Boll sponsored a charity visit to the set. Guests got to see behind-the-scenes work, and proceeds were donated to a children’s hospital. Reportedly, Ray Liotta was extremely upset by it. In future interviews, he talked about how “crazy” Boll was for allowing so many spectators onto the set.

Siu-Tung Ching’s salary was higher than Uwe Boll’s. (HA!)

Jason Statham filmed many of his action scenes while nursing an injured tendon in his foot. He is noticeably impaired while running.

John Gajdecki had trouble filming many visual effects shots, especially scenes with outdoor “greenscreens”. Jan Kruse left the project, due to conflict with Gajdecki, who was eventually fired, and replaced by Doug Oddy. (These notes are ridiculous)

Some of the Krug costumes cost over ten thousand dollars each to produce. (Not a great idea)

Uwe Boll considered releasing the original cut of the film in two installments because of its length. Instead, it was edited into a theatrical release, and the Director’s Cut was released on DVD. (Smart …)

While filming an outdoor fight scene, Burt Reynolds grew overheated in his armored costume, became unconscious, and fell from the platform, on which the duel was being filmed. Reynolds claims this was the only time in his career that he had to miss a day of filming, due to sickness or injury.

Kevin Costner was offered the lead role. Uwe Boll claims Costner wasn’t interested in filming a large-scale action film, and instead offered Boll the opportunity to direct the project he was working on at the time, Mr. Brooks (2007). Boll turned it down. (WHAT, why would anyone offer Boll to director anyone?)

Claire Forlani was the last major performer to be cast. Her role had been previously offered to Jessica Alba and Jessica Biel. (Who probably just laughed into the phone for half a minute)

Though Siu-Tung Ching was the action Director, Uwe Boll personally choreographed the scene featuring Jason Statham and Ron Perlman fighting the Krug in the barn. (The one where it literally looks like Puttys from Power Rangers I think)

A day of filming was lost due to heavy fog. Some of the forest terrain and mountaintops could only be accessed via helicopter, and on a particular foggy day, Uwe Boll and part of his crew were literally stranded on a mountain for over two hours, because the helicopter wouldn’t take off.

Burt Reynolds extensively re-wrote and edited the dialogue for his death scene, creating friction with Script Supervisor Ingrid Kenning. Reynolds had never played a character who died in a film, and was adamant that the scene be something special.

Won the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Uwe Boll)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Leelee Sobieski)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Burt Reynolds)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Doug Taylor)

Christmas with the Kranks Preview

Time has truly flown with the calendar cycle as we are already at the end of the line. Time for transition time! This is where the last film in the cycle has to overlap with the next film in the cycle. In this case the film has to both appear on our Calendar and also… drumroll… bring an atypical BMT film along for the BMT ride. What does that mean? Well it is truly our most convoluted and confusing cycle we’ve ever done, which obviously means we love it. Basically there are several types of terrible films that we typically don’t watch for BMT. To help understanding these types of films Patrick has prepared a handy guide:

Missed Opportunity – Juuuust barely over 40%. So critics thought you were so bad you’re good, or good for what you are? Critics are also idiots and your movie is in actuality terrible.
Kids’ Films – You probably sold the movie as a romp that both 5 year olds and parents alike can laugh at. In reality you made a fake movie with fake money and overlaid ADR farts on top. Good job, is that what they teach in film school?
TV Movie – We obviously don’t watch shit SyFy originals, get that junk out of here (until now!)
Mockbuster – You want to trick me into watching your dumb ass intentionally bad shit? … fine, but only this once
Christian Films – These get major releases, but usually aren’t our bag. A liiiiiiittle holier than thou. Unless you’re Madea, then I love you. Saving Christmas here we come!
Straight-To-DVD – You couldn’t even get your shit together to get released to a theater? 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain got released to theaters! What are you doing with your life?
Foreign – You got some big names to run around on a Taiwanese production for a week, you’ve unlocked the key! Pay celebrities money to sell their souls.
pre-1980s – Everyone knows prior to the blockbuster era the bad movie landscape was dominated by hacks, if we wanted low-hanging fruit we’d go and make fun of community theater productions.
Bargain Bin – There was a time when terrible films were found like buried treasure in the bargain bins of local blockbusters. That time has passed… until now.

So how do we bring one of these terrible films along? Mash-up the titles of course. Using this first entry as an example we are starting with the Christian Films and mashing it up with a film from the Calendar. That’s right! We’re watching Saving Christmas with the Kranks. A mash-up of the Kirk Cameron barely-a-movie garbagefest, Saving Christmas, and what is likely the worst major Christmas release of all time, Christmas with the Kranks. It’s a Christmas miracle in August! Look at how nicely the titles flow into each other. Hooray. Saving Christmas is by all accounts not a real film, but rather a 79 minute Youtube response video to the made up “War on Christmas.” We actually told ourselves we would NEVER watch it and yet here we are. Bring a Friend was an offer we couldn’t refuse. Ho ho ho, everyone. Let’s go!

Christmas with the Kranks (2004) – BMeTric: 55.5

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(Impressively low rating. I always like holiday films because you get that extra bump. That bump on the ‘06 mark might seem like a DVD release bump, but it isn’t. It is a bump around Christmas 2005 when a number of people saw it over the holidays. Solid stuff. This is a lower number of votes than I expected, I assumed a family film like this would be hugely popular regardless of quality. Go figure.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Noxious holiday movie in which suburbanites Luther and Nora Krank, whose daughter has joined the Peace Corps, decide to forgo celebrating Christmas and take a Caribbean cruise – which, according to their outrages neighbors, is positively un-American. Alleged comedy pays homage to mediocrity, crass consumerism, and love-it-or-leave-it conformity. Screenplay by Chris Columbus, based on John Grisham’s novel Skipping Christmas.

(Noxious! People hate this film. “Pays homage to mediocrity” is a great line by the way, and probably could be used to describe 25% of BMT films ultimately. I would say this is likely to be boring … except people hate it so much that in reviews for Saving Christmas (made 10 years later) people still mention Christmas with the Kranks as the worst Christmas movie ever made! Get me amped, no joke.)

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

(It certainly is getting me in the spirit! I hope the soundtrack is exactly that in the film, just wall to wall Christmas music. Was this a last gasp of Tim Allen the movie star? He had Wild Hogs, but that was kind of explicitly “look at all these older actors!” wasn’t it? He did do a great Dad with a capital D back in the day.)

Directors – Joe Roth – (Future BMT: Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise; Freedomland; America’s Sweethearts; BMT: Christmas with the Kranks; Notes: Mainly a producer now, notably on the xXx franchise. Was married to the daughter of Samuel Arkoff titan of horror production pre-1980. Part owner of the Seattle Sounders F.C.)

Writers – John Grisham (novel) – (Known For: The Firm; A Time to Kill; The Rainmaker; The Client; The Pelican Brief; Runaway Jury; The Gingerbread Man; BMT: Christmas with the Kranks; The Chamber; Notes: His first novel was A Time to Kill written while he was serving in the Mississippi State House of Representatives. Was a practicing lawyer for 10 years, but has been writing full time for over 20 years now.)

Chris Columbus (screenplay) – (Known For: The Goonies; Gremlins; Gremlins 2: The New Batch; Young Sherlock Holmes; Only the Lonely; Future BMT: Nine Months; Heartbreak Hotel; BMT: Christmas with the Kranks; Notes: The director of both Home Alones and the first two Harry Potter movies, he was well established for working with kid actors. Gremlins was his first optioned script, which he rewrote in Steven Spielberg’s bungalow)

Actors – Tim Allen – (Known For: Cars; Toy Story; Toy Story 3; Galaxy Quest; Toy Story 2; Big Trouble; The Santa Clause; Redbelt; The Santa Clause 2; Future BMT: Zoom; The Shaggy Dog; The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause; Jungle 2 Jungle; Joe Somebody; For Richer or Poorer; Crazy on the Outside; Meet Wally Sparks; Who Is Cletis Tout?; BMT: Christmas with the Kranks; Wild Hogs; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor in 2007 for The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, The Shaggy Dog, and Zoom; and Nominated for Worst Screen Couple for The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause in 2007; Notes: Most famous for Home Improvement, but have been a well-established television mega-star for over twenty-five years now. Went to jail for two years for drug dealing before turning to stand-up comedy.)

Jamie Lee Curtis – (Known For: Halloween; Trading Places; True Lies; My Girl; Escape from New York; Freaky Friday; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; A Fish Called Wanda; The Fog; Veronica Mars; Halloween H20: 20 Years Later; Prom Night; The Tailor of Panama; Forever Young; From Up on Poppy Hill; Blue Steel; Beverly Hills Chihuahua; Spare Parts; Fierce Creatures; Homegrown; Future BMT: Halloween: Resurrection; Halloween III: Season of the Witch; Virus; My Girl 2; Perfect; You Again; Drowning Mona; House Arrest; Terror Train; Halloween II; Queens Logic; BMT: Christmas with the Kranks; Notes: The original Scream Queen! She is the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, and married to Christopher Guest. Launched her horror career with arguably the best slasher of them all: Halloween.)

Dan Aykroyd – (Known For: Ghostbusters; Ghostbusters; Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; The Blues Brothers; Ghostbusters II; Trading Places; Casper; My Girl; 50 First Dates; Grosse Pointe Blank; Twilight Zone: The Movie; Chaplin; Tommy Boy; Antz; Driving Miss Daisy; Evolution; The Great Outdoors; The Campaign; Blues Brothers 2000; Sneakers; Future BMT: Crossroads; Coneheads; Exit to Eden; My Stepmother Is an Alien; Loser; My Girl 2; Celtic Pride; Feeling Minnesota; Loose Cannons; War, Inc.; Sgt. Bilko; 1941; Pearl Harbor; Canadian Bacon; She’s Having a Baby; Spies Like Us; Getting Away with Murder; Diamonds; BMT: Caddyshack II; Tammy; North; Nothing But Trouble; Christmas with the Kranks; Pixels; I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Supporting Actor in 1989 for Caddyshack II; and in 1992 for Nothing But Trouble; Nominated for Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for Nothing But Trouble in 1992; Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor, and Worst Screen Couple for Exit to Eden in 1995; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for North in 1995; Notes: Not much to say about him. Recently was in the news for trashing Paul Feig for the recent Ghostbuster remake, which Aykroyd himself cameoed in.)

Budget/Gross – $60 million / Domestic: $73,780,539 (Worldwide: $96,572,480)

(Not fantastic, but also not terrible. Won’t get you a sequel though. I’m willing to bet holiday films tend to do okay, just because people want to see them around the holidays and you can usually take your family to them.)

#12 for the Christmas genre

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(These movies certainly make money regardless of quality. Fred Claus made $75 million? Bizarre. The plot is a bit messy, but it is interesting that holiday films seem to go in waves. I wonder if they buy up scripts like this and just make them until there are none left and no one wants to watch them anymore, and then they just wait out the slow periods. Either that or the peaks correspond with the bad movie booms … Seems like we might be in a boom period if that was the case. I’m skeptical.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 5% (7/131): A mirthless movie as fresh as last year’s fruit cake, Christmas with the Kranks is a coarse, garish comedy that promotes conformity.

(ugh, some awful writing there. Garish is what I’ve been hearing about it. Basically it promotes consumerism and is in general just kind of sickening. Conformity is right, as Maltin said, it kind of has a love-it-or-leave-it vibe going on.)

Poster – Christmas with the Sklogs (F)

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(That so very easily can be modified to be Christmas with the Sklogs, but why would we? It looks like straight trash. No bueno.)

Tagline(s) – Their Christmas will turn the town upside down! (C-)

No! Ho! Ho! (Nope.)

(Weird. The first tagline seems more like a riff on the poster… not really on the film itself. Get it? Tim Allen is upside down in the poster. The second is from an alternate poster and I kept it because it is truly a wonder to behold.)

Keyword(s) – christmas eve; Top Ten by BMeTric: 75.6 Look Who’s Talking Now (1993); 67.3 Black Christmas (2006); 58.3 Deck the Halls (2006); 55.5 Christmas with the Kranks (2004); 51.2 Jack Frost (1998); 50.2 Santa Claus (1959); 46.5 The Traveler (I) (2010); 45.3 Unaccompanied Minors (2006); 44.4 Bad Teacher (2011); 44.2 While She Was Out (2008);

(Oh wow. Solid list of movies I’ve mostly never seen. We’ll be doing Deck the Halls eventually, I think it is on the calendar.)

Notes – The title of the John Grisham book on which the film is based is “Skipping Christmas”. It wasn’t used for the film to avoid confusion with another Christmas-themed film, Surviving Christmas (2004). (and eventually Saving Christmas, obviously)

The swimsuits the models are wearing in the advertisement for the cruise the Kranks are taking are the same ones Luther and Nora wear when they go tanning in the mall. (ha, love prop master 101 notes)

During filming, it was reported that the cast and crew had ingested over 10 pounds of fake snow. (gross)

Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Akroyd had previously starred in Trading Places, My Girl, and My Girl 2 together. They play neighbors in Christmas With the Kranks rather than love interests as they have in their previous movies.

When the Kranks are watching Vic Frohmeyer through the window, Luther says to Nora, “So you’re saying Frohmeyer has a problem with our skipping Christmas? Who’s he gonna call?” Dan Aykroyd, who plays Frohmeyer, also starred in the film “Ghostbusters” for which “Who Ya Gonna Call” was a line from the movies theme song. (Half the notes are about the dumb references in this film by the way. I deleted like four of the more unnecessary ones)

Tom Poston’s final film

Emmet Walsh and Tom Poston were both recurring actors on Tim Allen’s Home Improvement (1991).

When Nora drops the ham in the shopping center parking lot and the truck runs over it and she screams, you can hear the theme song from “Halloween”. (This reference on the other hand I approve of)

Lots of deleted and alternate footage appears in the movie’s trailer (included in the “Previews” section on the DVD). Some examples are: A book being opened to a photo of the Krank family.Nora Krank taking a photo of her husband and daughter outside their house.Luther Krank with a device in his mouth, obviously sitting in a dentist’s chair to get his teeth whitened and/or fixed.Luther Krank driving home with the skimpy tree on the roof of his car getting heckled by another motorist.A different cruise advertisement in the travel agency’s window.Luther Krank showing his botox-injected face in the hospital. (We only see it for the first time in the scene afterwards where he’s eating with his wife.)The shot of Blair Krank saying goodbye to her parents at the airport doesn’t have a screen credit over it as it does in the actual film. (cooool)

The $75 tree bought from the scouts is not tied to the car when Luther arrives at his house. (props)

Ally Sheedy was considered for the role of Nora Krank (Huh, that could have been interesting. I feel like I don’t see Sheedy in stuff that often)

When the power goes out, Luther asks Vic if he knows anybody at Con Ed. In Ghostbusters II (1989), Dan Aykroyd who plays Vic, and the other Ghostbusters pretend to be from Con Ed to dig a big hole in the middle of the street. (Also kind of a cool ref)

Julie Gonzalo, who plays Blair Krank, and Jamie Lee Curtis also star together in Freaky Friday (2003) in which Gonzalo plays the nemesis of Curtis’s daughter.

During the scene when Tim Allen is stuck hanging from his roof, you can see one of the fireman get hit in the face with the ladder. (goofs and bloops, loving it)

The Frosty prop used the film belonged to Tim Allen’s father and was brought overseas with him. He hung it at the Reichstag during the Fall of Berlin.It is a family heirloom and has made cameo appearances. Films in which Frosty makes an appearance include: Saving Private Ryan, Inglorious Bastards, Santa Clause 2, Dunston Checks In, Fury, Saw, Avengers II, The Pacifier, Frozen, every Fast and the Furious film, and all of the Exorcist films. (Got to end it there. That is super cool)

It’s Pat Preview

Having fully transitioned to the Calendar cycle we are once again giving ourselves a little challenge for the set of nine film. We’re going to make sure that all the films are released in different months of the year. So One Missed Call knocks off the premier month of January. For the comedy entry in the cycle we are heading to the second most vaunted month in BMT: August. Where summer blockbusters go to die. This film, though, was hardly a blockbuster. That’s right! We’re watching the mostly forgotten SNL film It’s Pat! I remember watching this as a kid and being mostly disturbed by the depiction of a man driven to madness by the mystery that is Pat’s gender. Let’s find out if we’ll be disturbed by the “comedy” once again. Let’s go!

It’s Pat: The Movie (1994) – BMeTric: 66.6 (#95 on IMDb bottom 100)

(There it is. Barely any regression from a truly dire 2.x rating for its entire IMDb existence. This indicates it has legendary potential. I’ll also say 10K votes for a film that was barely released is pretty impressive, as is the 60+ BMeTric for a film from 1994.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Sweeney’s cheerfully obnoxious, androgynous characters from Saturday Night Live skits was never a prime candidate for feature-film stardom. If you can get through the first five minutes, you may get through the whole movie, as Pat finds true love with the equally androgynous Chris. Barely released theatrically. Sweeney coscripted.

(Yup. Interestingly understated. Saying that one can manage the movie if you can get past the first five minutes means either the first five minutes are so bad it ruins the movie (this could be our golden goose! A very similar thing happened with the truly bizarre beginning to Car 54 Where Are You?) or it means you become numb and your brain shuts off after five minutes. I’m now getting a bit more fascinated by this movie and am interested to see exactly what tone it takes.)

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

(Mother of God. Everything terrible about television-to-film adaptations of this time rolled into a single film. I feel like the only thing that is going to be interesting about the film is the direction, which seems at times to be almost surreal. But it looks brutal. Just brutal.)

Directors – Adam Bernstein – (BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Notes: Huge television director, including being nominated for an Emmy for the television series Fargo. He directed Scrubs, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, Californication, and Better Call Saul as well. He, like many directors, come from music videos. He directed the Baby Got Back music video for Sir Mix-a-Lot. Here’s an oral history of the project.)

Writers – Julia Sweeney (characters & written by) – (Known For: God Said, ‘Ha!’; BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, Worst Actress, Worst New Star, and Worst Screen Couple for It’s Pat: The Movie in 1996; and Nominated for Worst New Star for Stuart Saves His Family in 1996; Notes: Most well known for her time on SNL, which is where this character obviously came from. She is on several boards promoting secularism, science, and reason and is married to a scientist as well.)

Jim Emerson (written by) – (BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for It’s Pat: The Movie in 1996; Notes: Former editor of rogerebert.com and critic in Los Angeles. There isn’t much about him beyond that. Interesting that a critic got a credit on the movie, although perhaps this was before he moved into film criticism.)

Stephen Hibbert (written by) – (BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for It’s Pat: The Movie in 1996; Notes: He was married to Julia Sweeney at the time (or at least up until 1994). He was the Gimp in Pulp Fiction. We saw him act in Cat in the Hat, and his biggest credit is probably as a MadTv writer.)

Actors – Julia Sweeney – (Known For: Pulp Fiction; Monsters University; Stuart Little; Gremlins 2: The New Batch; Honey I Blew Up the Kid; Don’t Come Knocking; Future BMT: Coneheads; Clockstoppers; Whatever It Takes; Vegas Vacation; Meet Wally Sparks; BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Stuart Saves His Family; Notes: Her brother got very ill and died right around when this opened. Her struggles around this time resulted in her one woman show God Said, Ha! I’m not too sure how this got nominated in 1996 either since it was definitely released in 1994. So, somehow, it missed the 15th annual Razzie Awards, but got picked up a year later, which was also before its home video release in 1997. It doesn’t make sense.)

Dave Foley – (Known For: Cars; A Bug’s Life; Sky High; Blast from the Past; 3 Men and a Baby; Toy Story 2; Monsters University; South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut; Dick; Run Ronnie Run; Suck; Childstar; Future BMT: Vampires Suck; My Boss’s Daughter; Postal; On the Line; Employee of the Month; Stark Raving Mad; BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Monkeybone; Grind; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screen Couple for It’s Pat: The Movie in 1996; Notes: Most well known for his role in The Kids in the Hall and Newsradio. Is also somewhat known for his more recent … low budget work, a result of his career being somewhat sidetracked while dealing with a nasty divorce in Canada.)

Charles Rocket – (Known For: Dumb and Dumber; Dances with Wolves; Titan A.E.; Earth Girls Are Easy; Short Cuts; Shade; Delirious; Future BMT: Fathers’ Day; Fly Me to the Moon; Tom and Huck; Murder at 1600; Hocus Pocus; Steal Big Steal Little; How I Got Into College; BMT: It’s Pat: The Movie; Wagons East; Notes: Also known as Charlie Hamburger, his story is pretty sad culminating in a strange suicide in 2005. He is also somewhat famous for being fired by SNL for saying “fuck” live on air.)

Budget/Gross – $8 million / Domestic: $60,822

(Absurd. Basically they did a limited release (probably because people watched it and said “yeah we can’t spend the money to release this”) and then pulled it. I’m actually not sure why they didn’t either shelve it or spit it straight to DVD. Straight to DVD would have maybe even gotten it a bit more cash since this was such a high profile bomb at the time even I, an eight-year-old, remember this coming out.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/11): No consensus yet.

(Oooh I get to make a consensus: Literally one of the worst pieces of garbage I’ve ever seen. I’m joking, but that is kind of what the critics said. One review appears to only be “Dear God…”, and another noted he wasn’t going to dignify the film with a review. Shockingly unfunny seems to be the closest you can get to a true consensus. Two 0% films in a row as well, line them up and knock them down!)

Poster – It’s Sklog (B-)

(This looks more like the cover of a dime store paperback adaptation of the film that a poster of a film. Nice spacing, font, and a bold pink question mark that at least gives it a central color scheme. Somehow everything else is the worst thing ever.)

Tagline(s) – The Sex Symbol of the 90’s (A)

A Comedy that Proves that Love is a Many Gendered Thing (D-)

(Huge disparity between the two taglines from the poster. The first is short and clever. It uses the double meaning of sex symbol to make a joke about Pat, but also hint that the symbol in this case is more a question mark. That ties it all together with the plot. Needs the poster to fully succeed so not an A+, but very good. The second is basically the opposite of that, but doesn’t get an F because they seemed to try.)

Keyword(s) – neighbor; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.4 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 85.1 The Cat in the Hat (2003); 84.1 Movie 43 (2013); 84.0 Home Alone 3 (1997); 78.0 Superhero Movie (2008); 72.7 Are We Done Yet? (2007); 72.1 The Apparition (2012); 71.6 Bewitched (2005); 71.2 The Boy Next Door (2015); 67.1 Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector (2006);

(In the Name of the King getting a neighbor keyword is hilarious. I guess Ron Perlman was Jason Statham’s neighbor. I find it highly unlikely that we will watch any of these other movies any time soon. Maybe Home Alone 3 if we get it to tag along with something.)

Notes – The film did so poorly that it was pulled from theaters one week after its opening weekend. (This is why it was only released to three cities and 33 theaters)

Pulp Fiction (1994), which came out in theaters seven weeks after ‘It’s Pat’ premiered, also features appearances by both Kathy Griffin and Julia Sweeney. Some critics have noted that Griffin and Sweeney both had the distinction of acting in one of the best movies of 1994, and also one of the worst movies of 1994.

Quentin Tarantino, a good friend of Julia Sweeney, worked on the script uncredited. (WHAT)

In the recurring ‘It’s Pat’ sketches on Saturday Night Live (1975), Dana Carvey portrayed Pat’s equally androgynous partner, Chris. Carvey was asked to reprise the role in this movie adaptation, but turned it down. Dave Foley was cast instead.

According to an interview with Michael De Luca, Bobby Farrelly and Peter Farrelly worked on the script uncredited. (WHAT)

Two cameos that ended up on the cutting-room floor: Harvey Keitel as a priest and Jonathan Richman as Pat’s father.

Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture (Charles B. Wessler)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Julia Sweeney)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screen Couple (Dave Foley, Julia Sweeney)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Jim Emerson, Stephen Hibbert, Julia Sweeney)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst New Star (Julia Sweeney)

One Missed Call (2008) Preview

We’ve made it! We’ve hit the transition from <10% RT films to our new cycle! Hooray! Our journey isn’t done yet, but the clear waters of the Calendar cycle are cleansing our palates and bringing us BMT strength. But it wouldn’t be the StreetCreditReport.com cycle without a last punch to the nuts. We’re watching one of the worst reviewed films of all time, the January 4th entry on the Calendar (and you know that’s a good date for BMT), and one of the classics in bad horror. That’s right! We’re watching the critically reviled One Missed Call. Based on the Japanese film on the same name (which was in turn based on a book), it was one of the last big J-Horror remakes released during the mid-2000s boom. It garnered the super rare 0% on RT on a startling 80 reviews. Only Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever can compare. Let’s go!

One Missed Call (2008) – BMeTric: 80.7

(I know it is quite hard to stay sub-4.0 on IMDb, but my motto has become that the mark of a truly bad movie is that it won’t regress in the face of increased popularity. Basically everyone who watches the film ultimately kind of agrees that it is trash, there is no effect of a wider audience being more lenient. So this plot makes me wonder if One Missed Call deserves the legendary anticipation we have endowed it with. The film has the second most reviews for a movie with 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, so its reputation precedes itself. But this still makes me a bit skeptical.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – What if you received a message on your cell phone from your future self, with the date and time of your death? No need to stay awake at nights wondering, as this film lets you know how some college students deal with just such a predicament. Another Americanized remake of a Japanese horror film (Takashi Miike’s Chakushin Ari) with a good cast wasted. So bad that the title invites pithy putdowns; it’s just too easy.

(Put yo money where your mouth is Leonard, I want to hear those pithy putdowns! I can imagine the NY Post headline (something like They Missed!), but I’m kind of hardpressed to think of any super good ones. One Missed Movie? Terrible. He has to be talking about the “miss” part of it, but my mind keeps coming back to “hard miss” which is at the very least a somewhat niche phrasing. The beginning of this review is just a very long winded description of the movie … which always seems to me like Leonard doesn’t like horror films and just decided to skip this one. He does seem very adamant that the film is bad though, so maybe he did watch it.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1F7hJNsi5M

(That trailer looks like a shot for shot remake of the original Japanese … with maybe a bit of Final Destination thrown in. Can’t wait for it to be aggressively not spooky-scary as well. The trailer doesn’t help itself by having the weird sound effects on the writing, just grating all around.)

Directors – Eric Valette – (Known For: La proie; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: French filmmaker, so most of his films were never released widely in the US. Does a lot of French television including the Transporter series. I might have to check that out, I bet that could be pretty cool and help me learn French.)

Writers – Andrew Klavan (screenplay) – (Known For: True Crime; A Shock to the System; Future BMT: Don’t Say a Word; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: A novelist and a screenwriter he could have the unique distinction of having a BMT credit for a screenplay he wrote adapting a book (One Missed Call based on Chakushin Ari) and a credit for a novel (Don’t Say a Word) which he didn’t adapt.)

Yasushi Akimoto (novel) – (Known For: Chakushin ari; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: He is a music producer who has created some of Japan’s biggest “idol” groups including AKB48. He is the best selling lyricist in Japan with his songs exceeding $100 million in sales.)

Minako Daira (screenplay) (as Miwako Daira) – (Known For: Chakushin ari; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: What a strange filmography, just all of the One Missed Call movies. I wonder if she was the a representative for Yasushi Akimoto when adapting his book into films? Nothing about her online.)

Actors – Edward Burns – (Known For: Saving Private Ryan; The Holiday; Friends with Kids; 27 Dresses; She’s the One; Confidence: After Dark; The Brothers McMullen; Sidewalks of New York; The Groomsmen; The Fitzgerald Family Christmas; Newlyweds; Future BMT: Life or Something Like It; Echelon Conspiracy; 15 Minutes; Man on a Ledge; Ash Wednesday; No Looking Back; BMT: One Missed Call; A Sound of Thunder; Alex Cross; Notes: Ooooo, it’s a sound of thundah. The star of that classic, and now often a micro-budget director, he sponsored a screenwriting contest through the company Scripped for a crowdsourced screenplay. As this was done in 2012 … I’m not sure it will ever actually happen.)

Shannyn Sossamon – (Known For: A Knight’s Tale; The Holiday; Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; The Rules of Attraction; Wristcutters: A Love Story; The End of Love; Life Is Hot in Cracktown; Road to Nowhere; Future BMT: Sinister 2; The Sin Eater; 40 Days and 40 Nights; The Day; Our Family Wedding; Undiscovered; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: Sister of singer Jenny Lee Lindberg, and was a part of her band Warpaint before leaving to focus on acting. She studies dance in Los Angeles as well.)

Ana Claudia Talancón – (Known For: Fast Food Nation; El crimen del padre Amaro; Alone with Her; Sueño; The Dry Land; Future BMT: Love in the Time of Cholera; Enter the Dangerous Mind; BMT: One Missed Call; Notes: A Mexican actress and model. Nearly all of her credits are in Mexican cinema.)

Budget/Gross – $20 million / Domestic: $26,890,041 (Worldwide: $45,847,751)

(Pretty solid bomb domestic, but maybe a return worldwide. Hard to tell. The budget seems inflated though, $20 million is quite high for a horror film like this. They were probably trying for some of that sweet Ring money which made about five times as much.)

#76 for the Horror – Supernatural genre

(Awesome graph. After dying off in the late 90s (the horror bust perhaps?) it came back with a vengeance with The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project in 1999. The return is still going strong, where the screens these films are getting go up and up and yet the average per screen take is just about level. Although … that might change with Rings and The Bye Bye Man being among this year’s crop. With Right around last year’s The Forest.)

#35 for the Horror Remake genre

(Comes right at the peak. I think we also have a bit more insight into maybe why the 00s are the Golden Age: remakes? This peak kind of perfectly covers the biggest years from around 2005-2010. The Ring kicked off the J-Horror remakes in 2002, but there hasn’t been a remake since 2015 according to Box Office Mojo. They’ll go back to the well eventually, I’m sure of it. This comes in several spots below The Fog … not a good look.)

#15 for the Remake – Asian genre

(Same as above basically, big right after The Ring, but basically died off as original (micro budget) horror came back into style. With VOD likely being a big destination for horror in the future I would doubt budgets would allow for expensive IP buys, but who knows? This comes definitely below future BMT The Eye starring Jessica Alba.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/80): One of the weakest entries in the J-horror remake sweepstakes, One Missed Call is undone by bland performances and shopworn shocks.

(uh oh, I’ll do a little on-the-fly translation for you: “This movie is not-scary and boring”. Just great. It apparently is so boring everyone just totally agreed and gave it a bad review. Please be wrong Cynical Patrick, please.)

Poster – One Missed Sklog (C+)

(I don’t love the poster (particularly the cheesy screaming mouths for eyes), but it doesn’t do a lot wrong either. Coloring is fine and spacing is good. Could have been more creative with the font. Slightly better than average.)

Tagline(s) – What will it sound like when you die? (B-)

(Well… hopefully it’ll sound like I’m dying peacefully surrounded by loved ones… … … Oh, was that a rhetorical question?)

Keyword(s) – death; Top Ten by BMeTric: 95.9 Epic Movie (2007); 95.6 Meet the Spartans (2008); 94.3 Batman & Robin (1997); 94.1 Battlefield Earth (2000); 93.2 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 89.9 Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997); 89.6 Alone in the Dark (2005); 89.0 The Wicker Man (2006); 88.0 House of the Dead (2003); 87.6 Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966);

(This is just the list of the worst films according to the BMeTric. Death as a keyword is legit on something like 10000 films.)

Notes – Guillermo del Toro was offered the chance to direct, but turned it down to work on Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). (Good choice … well, maybe this movie would be better, but I liked Hellboy II)

Not screened for critics. (They just thought the critics would be too spooky scared I bet)

While in preparation for the film, director Eric Valette never watched the original Japanese version Chakushin ari (2003), and asked the actors not to watch it either. (… I don’t believe you. The trailer contains like a dozen identical situations as the original film. “But Patrick, maybe they adapted the book instead”. Bullshit, the book has never been translated to English. This stinks Mr. Valette, stinks of deception)

Out of 79 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, none of of them have been positive resulting in an abysmal 0% rating as of 2015. Rotten Tomatoes awarded the film the Mouldy Tomato award for the worst reviewed film of 2008 as a result. (Yes, this is why we are doing this)

On August 2006 Ed Harris and Gabriel Byrne were both cast in undisclosed roles for the film but both dropped out due to unknown circumstances. (Maybe they read the script. Zing)

Rotten Tomatoes declared the film to be the second worst film of the 2000’s, coming behind Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002). (Which has 0% and over 100 reviews. We’ll watch it (again) eventually. It is a very strange movie. Nothing has made less sense than Ballistic did to me when I watched it)

The project was filmed in 2006 and was scheduled to be released on August 24, 2007. The film, however, was later pushed back to January 4, 2008. (Probably when people watched it. Also, a horror film in August, terrible idea. Should have been slated for October).

Was the last Japanese horror remake to be theatrically released ever since the trend started with The Ring (2002) and ended with this film in 2008. (Wow, I genuinely didn’t realize that. That is awesome. I wonder how many J-Horror remakes were released in that time.)

The 508 area code is from South Eastern, Massachusetts. (Promising settings lead, thanks IMDb)

Every single character in this film is seen using a Boost Mobile flip phone. (gross).

The Whole Ten Yards Preview

Gotta just jump right back into it with the StreetCreditReport.com cycle of films that received <10% on RT. For the Games portion of the cycle we had our scientists work around the clock in the laboratory to discover a fundamental entry in the Periodic Table of Smellements. After months of arduous work they were able to unearth a sparkling gem known as Willisium. That’s right! We’re watching The Whole Ten Yards starring Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis. Garnering a 4% on RT it was declared a “strained, laugh-free sequel.” If there’s something that we love at BMTHQ it’s laugh-free comedies. Should be excruciating. Let’s go!

The Whole Ten Yards (2004) – BMeTric: 49.2

TheWholeTenYards_BMeT

TheWholeTenYards_RV

(I’m digging that BMeTric plot. I think it might be the first that I’ve seen where it actually is now slowly decreasing due to regression to the mean. It will probably keep regressing as well (the mean is something like 6.0 IMDb rating). This movie has a ton of votes. Abnormally so. Intriguing. Also fun that this movie used to be a 50+ BMeTric film and now isn’t, first time in a long time we’ve had something like that I feel like.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – The sequel for which no one was clamoring reunited the cast of The Whole Nine Yards, a pleasant-enough film, and puts them in a frantically unfunny story about Willis (who’s supposedly deceased) being forced back into the crime game to help dentist Perry rescue his kidnapped wife. Or something like that. Perry falls down and bumps into everything imaginable, a valiant effort to find laughs in a script that has none to offer. That’s Willis’ daughter Tallulah as the foulmouthed Buttercup Scout.

(So I think this review could have basically been written for Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. Except in that case it was Sandra Bullock falling down and bumping into everything imaginable in an attempt to find laughs in a frantically unfunny script for a sequel for which no one was clamoring. Excellent hyphen game, but while “frantically unfunny” seems promisingly, it likely translates to “boring” which is sadly how bad comedies usually go.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAAv2NKkXVY

(Holy shit the sound effects in the beginning! If you can’t tell the weird mob boss guy is Kevin Pollack with a funny voice. The movie does appear to be frantically unfunny. There was a point in time in which Matthew Perry could have pulled off a Jennifer Aniston like turn into a movie star I feel like, but the demands for his physical comedy just could never really last. Him frenetically falling about just looks so outdated, 90s-esque, in retrospect.)

Directors – Howard Deutch – (Known For: Pretty in Pink; The Great Outdoors; Some Kind of Wonderful; The Replacements; Article 99; Future BMT: Getting Even with Dad; My Best Friend’s Girl; The Odd Couple II; Grumpier Old Men; BMT: The Whole Ten Yards; Notes: The Great Outdoors not being BMT (40% exactly on Rotten Tomatoes) is the upset of the century in my book. We will definitely be watching Grumpier Old Men at some point. He’s been married to Lea Thompson for nearly 30 years, and we’ve seen his daughter, Zoey Deutch, starring in Dirty Grandpa.)

Writers – Mitchell Kapner (characters & story) – (Known For: Oz the Great and Powerful; The Whole Nine Yards; BMT: The Whole Ten Yards; Romeo Must Die; Notes: Credited based on The Whole Nine Yards, he is an interesting character as he is solely a writer, but has relatively few credits, no wikipedia page, and only has news stories concerning a sequel to Oz the Great and Powerful. I would assume he is a ghostwriter and script doctor most of the time, but difficult to determine)

George Gallo (screenplay) – (Known For: Bad Boys; Midnight Run; Middle Men; 29th Street; Future BMT: Code Name: The Cleaner; See Spot Run; Double Take; Trapped in Paradise; Wise Guys; Bad Boys II; BMT: The Whole Ten Yards; Notes: Dropped out of college and wrote Wise Guys as his first project. An accomplished painter in the style of Pennsylvania Impressionists for which he’s has three one-man shows in New York City.)

Actors – Bruce Willis – (Known For: Split; Pulp Fiction; Unbreakable; The Sixth Sense; Sin City; The Fifth Element; Looper; Die Hard; Twelve Monkeys; Moonrise Kingdom; RED; The Expendables 2; Sin City: A Dame to Kill For; The Expendables; Lucky Number Slevin; Die Hard 4.0; Grindhouse; Ocean’s Twelve; Alpha Dog; Planet Terror; Future BMT: Look Who’s Talking Too; Vice; The Cold Light of Day; The Prince; Extraction; Lay the Favorite; Breakfast of Champions; Cop Out; Precious Cargo; Perfect Stranger; Fire with Fire; Striking Distance; Marauders; Rock the Kasbah; The Story of Us; Blind Date; Mercury Rising; Loaded Weapon 1; Surrogates; The Jackal; Last Man Standing; Sunset; Armageddon; Tears of the Sun; Hostage; Four Rooms; Grand Champion; BMT: North; A Good Day to Die Hard; Color of Night; The Whole Ten Yards; The Bonfire of the Vanities; Hudson Hawk; G.I. Joe: Retaliation; Razzie Notes: Won for Worst Screenplay for Hudson Hawk in 1992; Won for Worst Actor in 1999 for Armageddon, Mercury Rising, and The Siege; and Nominated for Worst Actor in 1992 for Hudson Hawk; and in 1995 for Color of Night, and North; Notes: What can you say about megastar Bruce Willis? I loved him in Color of Night, one of my favorite recent BMT films. We have an absolute ton of bad Bruce Willis films to go for BMT, including what could ultimately be one of our first direct-to-VOD films: Vice)

Matthew Perry – (Known For: 17 Again; The Whole Nine Yards; The Kid; Future BMT: Serving Sara; Almost Heroes; Fools Rush In; She’s Out of Control; Three to Tango; A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon; BMT: The Whole Ten Yards; Notes: Obviously most famous as Chandler on Friends. His film roles have been pretty minor, but he’s had a decent amount of television success after Friends ended. He was born in Massachusetts, but raised in Canada, and was at one point the 3rd ranked junior doubles tennis player in I think the United States (!). Hard to tell, but he is basically an incredible tennis player.)

Natasha Henstridge – (Known For: The Whole Nine Yards; Bounce; Future BMT: Maximum Risk; Adrenalin: Fear the Rush; Steal; Deception; Dog Park; BMT: Species II; Ghosts of Mars; The Whole Ten Yards; Species; Notes: The Species is back! A model turned actress, we are basically done with her major BMT filmography. I’ve never heard of her other BMT qualified films, Maximum Risk is a Jean Claude Van Damme film for example, so I doubt we’ll be falling over ourselves to complete the Natasha Henstridge filmography any time soon.)

Budget/Gross – $40 million / Domestic: $16,328,471 (Worldwide: $26,155,781)

(Wow … gigantic bomb. I have to assume a good chunk of that is the money given to Bruce Willis to vaguely pretend to care about the project during production. But obviously The Whole Eleven Yards is not going to happen at this point no matter how much our Smellements scientists want it to.)

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

wholetenyards_comedysequel

(I’m starting to get convinced the Golden Age of Bad Movies of the noughties is directly due to the boom-bust cycle of live action sequels. Would nicely explain why the late-80s / early 90s, and 00s are both amazing ten-year spans for bad movies. Has there been an uptick in amazing bad movies recently though? Not really, but maybe that’s because the sequels we get now (Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Jason Bourne, Transformers 5, etc.) are cynical cash grabs? We’ll have to see. We certainly should be entering a new Golden Age according to the theory. The Whole Ten Yards is below Son of Mask as far as domestic box office is concerned, wooooof.)

#42 for the Hitman / Assassin genre

wholetenyards_hitman

(Below Mechanic: Resurrection, double woof. This came at a probable peak as far as total yearly box office for hitman films, coming between the Kill Bill films, between the first two Bourne films, and right before Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Pulp Fiction in 1994 probably kicked off the genre. Having watched things like the original Mechanic films, the romanticization of hitmen wasn’t unique to the time though, although the lifestyle of Arthur Bishop was hardly something to be envied I suppose.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 4% (5/118): A strained, laugh-free sequel, The Whole Ten Yards recycles its predecessor’s cast and plot but not its wit or reason for being.

(Laugh-free. I don’t fear this phrase any longer, if only because it at least will likely make my review easy. I can probably already right the opening line: “I chuckled once in this film” or something like that. The promising bit is the “reason for being” part. I like the confusion of not really knowing why a film exists, dissecting how a massive bomb like this was greenlit. So that could be fun.)

Poster – The Whole Ten Sklogs (F)

whole_ten_yards

(I’m not even going to make up a funny grade for this one. This is unimaginably bad. This is The Avengers (1998) level incompetence. Nothing is cohesive. So many colors. Bullshit font. Everything is wrong.)

Tagline(s) – They missed each other. This time, their aim is better. (C+)

(… … … Oh! Sorry, I fell asleep while reading this tagline. Too long and clunky. Makes it hard to even get the joke. But I did give it some points for playing with a plot relevant pun. A for Effort. Which is meaningless as its actual grade in still a C+.)

Keyword(s) – hare krishna; Top Ten by BMeTric: 59.1 Nothing But Trouble (1991); 49.8 My Girl 2 (1994); 49.2 The Whole Ten Yards (2004); 45.1 Young Einstein (1988); 31.8 Bee Season (2005); 30.6 Earthquake (1974); 28.9 Dying Young (1991); 25.6 Death Wish II (1982); 23.0 Roller Boogie (1979); 20.8 American Pastoral (2016);

(Not that surprising we’ve only seen one of these. Let’s just say My Girl 2 isn’t exactly on my must see list. But I like the variety, and I like how strange of a keyword this is. The Whole Ten Yards has this as the first keyword listed? That right there is why IMDb keywords are the worst.)

Notes – When Oz (Matthew Perry) wakes up in bed with Jimmy (Bruce Willis), Willis was naked under the blanket. Perry had no idea why he was naked… and reportedly was too afraid to ask. (Sounds like a fake anecdote Perry would tell Letterman)

The Buttercup girl is played by Bruce Willis’s daughter, Tallulah Willis.

When Jill and Jimmy are having their make-up sex, we hear Bruce Willis saying “Yipee-ki-yay.” This alludes to his famous catch-phrase in the ‘Die Hard’ movies. (Ugh)

The tattoo on Jimmy the Tulip’s back is the logo of the production company. (WTF, that is super weird. I don’t like that at all)

Matthew Perry previously made a cameo in Howard Deutch’s first film, Pretty in Pink (1986), as the kid in the record store. (fun fact)

Bruce Willis and Kevin Pollak also co-starred in The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Hostage (2005), and Cop Out (2010). (Cop Out, now that is a film we’ll have to watch at some point).

Hot to Trot Preview

After the breath of formulaic and dull air that is License to Wed, it feels like time to paint ourselves into a corner for Chain Reaction. It’s an annual tradition whereby we see how far we can sink ourselves into the dregs of major Hollywood releases before expertly extricating ourselves like a pair of bad movie Houdini’s. There is no further we can sink than our next film (connecting through Wagons East! via John Candy), which truly puts the Street Cred in the StreetCreditReport.com cycle. That’s right! We’re watching Hot to Trot! This is the Bobcat Goldthwait vehicle in which John Candy voices a stock tip providing horse… do I need to say anything more? Let’s go!

Hot to Trot (1988) – BMeTric: 35.9

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(The delay in the regression to the mean is tripping me out. But I think what this is saying is that this film is aggressively bad to a point where almost anyone who watches it agrees with this fact … but there is something ridiculous about it that allows you to, now, watch it with irony. For an 80s film to have such a high BMeTric is a rarity as IMDb votes couts drops off dramatically for films released pre-2000, so this is something we’ve have plenty of time to plan for.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Here’s a fresh concept from the 1980s: a comedy about a talking horse. Goldthwait plays a semi-imbecile who gets stock tips from a whinnying pal with the voice of John Candy. As comedies go this is the equivalent of Black Monday. Coleman, courtesy of the makeup department, wears a pair of horse teeth here; They are funny.

(Mixed signals from Leonard here. Are the horse teeth funny or not. The rest of the review is dripping so thoroughly with irony it is hard to tell. Is it a fresh concept?! We may never know! The Black Monday joke too, so much to unpack with the review. I have a feeling this is a good sign. Leonard was juggling many thoughts and feelings about this film, it is so dense.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mRE4Hoe5dQ

(Hooves don’t fail me now! Ah there is something about 80s comedies that are so comfortably ridiculous. I think I’ll feel right at home … although 80s comedies also tend to be overly serious and often boring, so I guess we’ll see?)

Directors – Michael Dinner – (Known For: Heaven Help Us; Future BMT: The Crew; BMT: Hot to Trot; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Director for Hot to Trot in 1989; Notes: A television director (and executive producer) of shows like Justified and Sneaky Pete now. He was a singer in the 1970s:

I’m 95% sure this is him.)

Writers – Stephen Neigher (story & screenplay) – (BMT: Hot to Trot; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Hot to Trot in 1989; Notes: His name is … Neigher. Besides that can’t see much besides that this is his only feature film, and he most did one off television episode scripts for most of his career.)

Hugo Gilbert (story & screenplay) – (BMT: Hot to Trot; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Hot to Trot in 1989; Notes: Nothing. The search lead me to the book Frame by Frame II: A Filmography of the African American Image, 1978-1994, where it is noted that Harry Caesar plays Gideon Cole … nothing about Gilbert, I just had nothing else to say.)

Charlie Peters (screenplay) – (Known For: Ruth & Alex; My One and Only; Future BMT: 3 Men and a Little Lady; Krippendorf’s Tribe; My Father the Hero; Blame It on Rio; Her Alibi; Music from Another Room; BMT: Hot to Trot; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for Hot to Trot in 1989; Notes: Taught screenwriting at USC and was brought to LA initially to help Columbia with PR after the David Begelman embezzlement scandal. Juicy stuff.)

Andy Breckman (uncredited) – (Known For: Rat Race; I.Q.; True Identity; Future BMT: Arthur 2: On the Rocks; Sgt. Bilko; BMT: Hot to Trot; Notes: A script doctor, which explains the uncredited role here. Has an ongoing feud with Don MacLean (the singer of American Pie) from when he was a singer as well:

)

Actors – Bobcat Goldthwait – (Known For: Blow; Hercules; Scrooged; One Crazy Summer; World’s Greatest Dad; Police Academy 3: Back in Training; Freaked; Tapeheads; Sleeping Dogs; Future BMT: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol; Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment; Burglar; Destiny Turns on the Radio; Shakes the Clown; Hansel & Gretel; Mrs. Winterbourne; Radioland Murders; BMT: Hot to Trot; Grind; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor for Hot to Trot in 1989; Notes: Primarily a director now, his most well known film is probably World’s Greatest Dad with Robin Williams. It claims he has directed nearly 300 episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live as well, which is interesting. He was a staple of my mid-afternoon Comedy Central viewing as a child in One Crazy Summer specifically.)

Dabney Coleman – (Known For: WarGames; Rules Don’t Apply; You’ve Got Mail; Tootsie; Stuart Little; The Towering Inferno; 9 to 5; Dragnet; On Golden Pond; The Man with One Red Shoe; Bite the Bullet; Battle of Midway; Cloak & Dagger; Moonlight Mile; Rolling Thunder; This Property Is Condemned; Melvin and Howard; The Muppets Take Manhattan; Recess: School’s Out; North Dallas Forty; Future BMT: Inspector Gadget; The Beverly Hillbillies; Clifford; Amos & Andrew; Domino; Young Doctors in Love; Meet the Applegates; Viva Knievel!; BMT: Hot to Trot; Notes: He voiced the principal in the show Recess. Was somewhat well known for his short-lived television show Buffalo Bill as well.)

John Candy – (Known For: Home Alone; Spaceballs; Uncle Buck; The Blues Brothers; Stripes; Vacation; Heavy Metal; Cool Runnings; Little Shop of Horrors; JFK; Splash; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; The Great Outdoors; The Rescuers Down Under; Volunteers; Delirious; Only the Lonely; Follow That Bird; Future BMT: Armed and Dangerous; Cannonball Fever; 1941; Who’s Harry Crumb?; Rookie of the Year; Canadian Bacon; She’s Having a Baby; Career Opportunities; Summer Rental; Once Upon a Crime…; Brewster’s Millions; BMT: Nothing But Trouble; Wagons East; Hot to Trot; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actress for Nothing But Trouble in 1992; Notes: I love John Candy. We went through this in the last Chain Reaction of course with Wagon’s East. Instead of a normal note let’s reminisce in BMT history: remember when John Candy played his own twin sister in Nothing But Trouble … yeah that was weird.)

Budget/Gross – $9,000,000 / Domestic: $6,436,211

(Wow. I’m not sure I trust the budget number for a movie this old, but at the same time it makes sense. That though is still a very low domestic total. The 109th highest grossing film of 1988 right above, gulp, Mac and Me. Not great.)

#33 for the Family – Talking Animal (Live action) genre

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(Amazing. It started the craze! Talking animals are amazing, so not surprisingly it just kind of general trends upwards … I’m not sure what is up with that gap, maybe the genre collectively moved to VOD (like Santa Paws?), but Jungle Book at least kind of put it back on the map, so maybe they’ll be a renaissance. Fun fact: The point when the trend takes off for real is with Babe in 1995, which probably also marker the point of no return where CGI was used for the talking bits instead of doing it Mr. Ed style (with peanut butter and stuff). This movie also only really beats Gordy as far as gross is concerned.)

#17 for the Horse genre

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(Not a real genre, but fun nonetheless. The peak in the mid-2000s might be due to Seabiscuit, but it is hard to tell.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 0% (0/16): No consensus yet.

(My consensus: A one-note update to the Talking Horse genre merely brings profanity to the table. Justifiably considered terrible, it is somehow worse than even rock bottom expectations. There are a few reviews which suggest it isn’t sooooooo bad, but none offer anything beyond a glimmer of a hope in the comedy department. None of the reviews are from the time though. I do think it goes hand in hand with the IMDb vote analysis above: I think there are people who watch it now and think “oh that isn’t as bad as I thought it would be”, which might explain the modest regression to the mean in recent years.)

Poster – Sklog to Blog (Oh God. Oh man!)

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(That… is… unfortunate.)

Tagline(s) – “When I talk, you’re going to laugh yourself hoarse.” (D-)

The funniest talking horse movie ever! (F)

(True blue double tagline film. And both seem like taglines that would be written ironically for a modern “purposefully bad film”. The first being a stereotypically bad pun and the second being almost self deprecating. I give the first a point for delivering on the pun.)

Keyword(s) – horse; Top Ten by BMeTric: 94.1 Battlefield Earth (2000); 86.8 BloodRayne (2005); 85.3 In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007); 85.0 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987); 83.3 Dungeons & Dragons (2000); 82.2 The Legend of Hercules (2014); 80.2 xXx²: State of the Union (2005); 79.2 Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009); 75.5 Hercules in New York (1970); 72.6 Jonah Hex (2010);

(Loving it. Obviously this list is dominated by sword and sorcery type pictures, but the occasional bad western like Jonah Hex is always welcome. I’m not even going to try and remember where the horse in Superman IV comes in, we have to watch that for BMT anyways.)

Notes – After Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Tim Burton was offered to direct, but declined. (Good idea Tim)

Elliott Gould was the original voice of the horse. After a poor test screening of the film, the horse’s half of the script was rewritten by Andy Breckman in an effort to make the film funnier. John Candy was hired to re-record the horse’s voice; he ignored the new script and improvised the dialogue instead. (That is the beauty of such films you see, you can rewrite half of the script and punch it up indefinitely)

Reportedly, when Bobcat Goldthwait was given a script of the movie, he wrote “Why would I do this?” on the cover. His agent responded by drawing a dollar sign over it. (This is a straight cash grab job brother, get in get out)

Joan Rivers was originally cast as the lead. (Interesting, I guess after Spaceballs she was hunting for acting jobs)

During the race at the end of the movie Don asks for Fred to inspire him like the old guy from Rocky. He is of course referring to Burgess Meredith who voiced Don’s father. (fun fact)

Virginia Madsen claimed to have made this movie for two reasons: one, so that her sister’s children could see the film; secondly, for the money. She admits the movie was an embarrassment, but she was not ashamed to take the role, since she needed the money at the time. (Everyone is doing it for the money!)

Awards – Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Bobcat Goldthwait)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Director (Michael Dinner)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Screenplay (Stephen Neigher, Hugo Gilbert, Charlie Peters)

Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst New Star (The Horse I assume)

License to Wed Preview

Phew, we need a little respite. We’ve been watching some pretty horrid films for the <10% RT cycle and there are a few more on the horizon. So for Girls Night Out we’re not going to subject ourselves to something like Bolero or Return to the Blue Lagoon. Nope. We’re just going to do a nice and simple recent rom com. A little palate cleanser and momentary return to BMT normalcy. That’s right! We’re watching the Robin Williams vehicle License to Wed! The consensus for this film seems to be that it is broad and formulaic… now that sounds like BMT. Let’s go!

License to Wed (2007) – BMeTric: 53.5

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(Popular and Below Average. There is a modest regression to the mean, but it looks like it is probably around where it will stay. No rethinking this one, this movie is just not very good … is what it seems to be saying. The BMeTric is higher than I would have expected maybe? These plots aren’t actually that interesting.)

Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Embarrassing comedy wastes a talented cast in a laughless story about a reverend who puts an unsuspecting engaged couple through a series of “tests” to determine if they are ready to be married. Gag after gag falls hopelessly flat, with one involving mechanical babies hitting a new low, even for this kind of lame-braining affair. A comic misfire for Williams, who is basically straitjacketed here.

(Wow, didn’t expect to see a bomb here. I feel like Maltin is far less forgiving to a boring lame comedy than he is to a boring lame action film, although perhaps that is because he likes classic comedy more? … Maybe. This movie doesn’t seem very exciting, but I’m guessing Old Dogs would be described roughly the same way and it is amazing, so I’ll hold out hope.)

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmyfIOp30aI

(Hmmmm. On the face of it the premise is ludicrous. Imagine yourself in such a situation. Any normal person would say that Robin Williams is (being generous) harsh, but more people would call him a lunatic. To then rest the entire movie on multiple people not only finding this person a normal human being, but also they must consider his opinion to be of the utmost importance and consider Krasinski unreasonable for inevitably becoming upset with him. It … doesn’t seem pleasant. It is going to be unfunny, and frustrating, and will wholly depend on Williams to carry the movie. Based on the reviews I’m thinking he wasn’t up to carrying such a heavy load.)

Directors – Ken Kwapis – (Known For: He’s Just Not That Into You; The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants; A Walk in the Woods; Big Miracle; Follow That Bird; Future BMT: Dunston Checks In; The Beautician and the Beast; He Said, She Said; Vibes; BMT: License to Wed; Notes: He directed He Said, She Said with his wife Marisa Silver. His career has spanned nearly four decades now, although these days he mostly directs television. For a guy I’ve never really heard of his career is really impressive.)

Writers – Kim Barker (screenplay & story) – (BMT: All About Steve; License to Wed; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay for All About Steve in 2010; Notes: It does not help that she shares the name with the journalist who inspired the film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. I can’t find anything else about her … besides vitriolic rebukes of what might be called a … subpar filmography thus far.)

Vince Di Meglio and Tim Rasmussen (screenplay) – (Future BMT: Marmaduke; Smother; BMT: License to Wed; Notes: They are writing partners, although Vince Di Meglio had a career as a visual effects artist prior to an extended writing career with Rasmussen. They haven’t written a feature since 2010, but do a ton of different things within the studio system though.)

Wayne Lloyd (story) – (BMT: License to Wed; Notes: Was miscellaneous crew on The Fog … again, not much else there … where did this script come from? I would guess Kim Barker, but there is little about any of these people online, so it is quite confusing.)

Actors – Mandy Moore – (Known For: Tangled; The Princess Diaries; Saved!; Romance & Cigarettes; Dr. Dolittle 2; Dedication; American Dreamz; Future BMT: Racing Stripes; Southland Tales; Love, Wedding, Marriage; How to Deal; Swinging with the Finkels; Chasing Liberty; Try Seventeen; Hotel Noir; BMT: License to Wed; Because I Said So; Notes: Made her first album at 15 and first toured with the Backstreet Boys. Somehow a staple of my childhood, and developed an extensive filmography along the way. This movie predates her own wedding in 2009 (although she has since sadly gotten a divorce))

John Krasinski – (Known For: 13 Hours; The Hollars; The Holiday; Monsters University; Jarhead; It’s Complicated; Monsters vs. Aliens; Dreamgirls; Shrek the Third; Away We Go; Kaze tachinu; The Muppets; Promised Land; Smiley Face; Kinsey; Leatherheads; The Prophet; Big Miracle; Nobody Walks; State and Main; Future BMT: Aloha; Brief Interviews with Hideous Men; BMT: Taxi; License to Wed; Doogal; Something Borrowed; Notes: Married to Emily Blunt. Fun facts: He’s brother-in-law to The Tucc, Stanley Tucci who is married to Felicity Blunt [Editor’s Note: We talking about The Tucc?]. Also went to highschool with his Office co-star B.J. Novak)

Robin Williams – (Known For: Aladdin; Good Will Hunting; Happy Feet; Dead Poets Society; Mrs. Doubtfire; Jumanji; A.I. Artificial Intelligence; Insomnia; What Dreams May Come; The Butler; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; Night at the Museum; Robots; Awakenings; FernGully: The Last Rainforest; The Fisher King; Popeye; The Birdcage; Hamlet; To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar; Future BMT: Toys; Flubber; Nine Months; Fathers’ Day; RV: Runaway Vacation; Club Paradise; Jack; The Angriest Man in Brooklyn; A Merry Christmas Miracle; Absolutely Anything; Man of the Year; The Final Cut; Shakes the Clown; The Best of Times; The Survivors; The Big White; Noel; Hook; Jakob the Liar; Patch Adams; Bicentennial Man; Shrink; BMT: License to Wed; Old Dogs; The Big Wedding; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Actor in 2000 for Bicentennial Man, and Jakob the Liar; and Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor for Death to Smoochy in 2003; Notes: Obviously a legend and sadly recently took his own life. He was a staple of my childhood and also a brilliant and classically trained actor. There isn’t much more to say. I’ll add a small note about her daughter Zelda here though: she apparently voiced a character in the newest King’s Quest which I have been meaning to play.)

Budget/Gross – $35 million / Domestic: $43,799,818 (Worldwide: $69,307,224)

(Yeah, not great. You’d hope to at least get close to $100 million for a comedy, especially with that is a pretty large budget for a romantic comedy at $35 million. Not surprised License to Wed 2: The Honeymoon never happened … yeah, I might write that in the recap next week, sounds fun.)

#96 for the Romantic Comedy genre

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(Right around the recent BMT Rumor Has It … which is at #99. The genre of the Golden age. Slowly rising during the 90s (although it made a ton of money in the 80s there were clearly less of them) and then plateauing from 2000-2010. The genre has all but collapsed, probably because of VOD. We’ll have to get them while they’re hot.)

#21 for the Wedding genre

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(Around Bride Wars and seen more recently with That’s My Boy. Feels right doesn’t it? Getting warm outside, feels like the right time for some BMT wedding movies. I pointed out previously that there is basically one wedding movie a year. This was the wedding movie for 2007.)

Rotten Tomatoes – 7% (9/125): Featuring one of Robin Williams’ most shtick-heavy performances, the broad and formulaic License to Wed wrings little out of its slightly creepy, unappealing premise.

(Ha, “broad” is a very funny word to use here. Dirty word in comedy to an extent. I’m digging the slightly creepy premise though, sounds like something you can squeeze a little joy out of, purely rejecting of the fundamental premise of the movie.)

Poster – License to Sklog (C)

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(This has a lot going against it. Hard to make a good looking poster with so much white on the page. No dominant color can overtake it, so it’s screwed from the get go. The generic font doesn’t help. On the other hand the spacing, symmetry and humor to the poster are pluses. Kind of just evens out to a meh.)

Tagline(s) – First came love… then came Reverend Frank. (B+)

(Huh… this is almost a tagline you would expect for a sequel. When we know who Reverend Frank is. Still, it’s got everything you expect from a good tagline.)

Keyword(s) – church; Top Ten by BMeTric: 92.0 Date Movie (2006); 86.8 BloodRayne (2005); 84.7 Left Behind (I) (2014); 83.8 RoboCop 3 (1993); 81.7 Highlander II: The Quickening (1991); 78.5 The Devil Inside (2012); 76.2 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 75.5 In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011); 72.6 Jonah Hex (2010); 70.2 The Last Exorcism Part II (2013);

(What a list! A march through time, some pretty sneaky BMTs in there too (like Robocop 3, a church plays a huge role in that film weirdly). PSA: If you are going to watch Highlander II remember to try and get the non-renegade version on VHS. Much more highlanders-are-aliens goodness in that one.)

Notes – Ben Murphy’s parents are played by John Krasinski (Ben)’s real life parents. (fun fact)

‘The Office’ (US) stars John Krasinski, Angela Kinsey, Brian Baumgartner and Mindy Kaling all featured in this movie. (fun fact)

Ken Kwapis, director of this movie, also directed many episodes of The Office (US). (fun fact)

Brian Braumgartner’s character’s name is Jim, the same name as John Krasinski (Ben) character’s name on The Office. (fun fact … just a few fun facts, nothing super interesting in these notes even! This movie can go either way)