OK, as we crawl woefully to the end of the travesty that has become mapl.de.map we must finish the true states on a dour note. The final state remaining is fucking Utah. I actually like Utah as a place and my wife, oddly, loves Utah but there just aren’t many good or bad films set there. Odd considering I think it has a lot to offer, especially in the comedy realm. Mormons are weird and stuff, right? So instead of getting a real movie to watch we ended up with a movie called September Dawn. It stars Jon Voight, was nominated for a Razzie for Jon Voight’s performance, was a disaster at the box office, and did I mention it starred Getaway’s Jon Voight? Cause it does. No one has ever heard of this film. But we are watching it. Sigh. Map will be in the next email at out glorious (?) conclusion. Great. This is going to be terrible. Let’s go!
September Dawn (2007) – 13.8 BMeTric (generated on July 1, 2016)
(The rating/votes picture is the more interesting of the two. Something happened early on. Either pro/anti-Mormons I think brigaded in some way. Although I would think eventually it kind of returned to where it was supposed to be in the end. Small number of votes though and not even that bad of a rating. Sigh. NOTE: plots and commentary generated on July 1, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – 2.5 stars – Fictionalized Romeo and Juliet-style love story about a Mormon boy and a Christian girl in 1857 Utah set against the backdrop of a controversial, real-life (if little-known) incident in which 120 men, women, and children from her wagon train are ruthlessly murdered. Film places blame for the massacre on Mormon leader Brigham Young (Stamp), although this is vehemently denied by the church. Low-budget (but handsome-looking) drama blends facts with Hollywood speculation to create a fairly compelling tale. Director Cain coscripted; his son Dean has a cameo as Joseph Smith.
(What an odd review. I feel like the first sentence is grammatically incorrect. The blend of tenses if fucking with my head. And the use of “handsome-looking” to describe the film is throwing me for a loop.)
(W… T… F… That trailer is crazy. Barely touches on the love story that is, apparently, the main plot. The editing was also super weird. I no longer know how to feel about this.)
Director(s) – Christopher Cain – (Known For: Young Guns; The Stone Boy; The Principal. BMT: Gone Fishin’; Pure Country; September Dawn; The Next Karate Kid; The Amazing Panda Adventure; That Was Then…This Is Now. Notes: Wow, Gone Fishin’. I was just thinking about that film recently for no particular reason. That is a future BMT film if there has ever been one. Stepfather of Dean Cain, a.k.a. Superman.)
Writer(s) – Carole Whang Schutter (written by) – (BMT: September Dawn; Notes: Author of the book and the subsequent screenplay. She is a YA Supernatural author as well as a Christian author.)
Christopher Cain (written by) – (BMT: September Dawn. Notes: Ran a studio called Mooncrescent that is since defunct. Ran out of money while completing a film called PC and the Web which never was released.)
Actors – Jon Voight – (Known For: Coming Home; Mission: Impossible; Heat; Transformers; Ali; Zoolander; Runaway Train; Rosewood; Glory Road; Varsity Blues; U-Turn; The Rainmaker; The Champ; National Treasure; Midnight Cowboy; Enemy of the State; Deliverance. BMT: Lara Croft – Tomb Raider; Pearl Harbor; Getaway; September Dawn; An American Carol; Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2; Pride and Glory; National Treasure: Book of Secrets; Most Wanted; Four Christmases; Bratz: The Movie; Anaconda. Notes: Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor, Bratz (2007), National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007), September Dawn (2007), Transformers (2007), Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004), Most Wanted (1997), and U Turn (1997). Nominated for Worst Actor, Anaconda (1997). Nominated for four oscars, winning Best Actor for Coming Home.)
(Surprisingly released in over 800 theaters. Currently ranks as the 34th worst opening of all time for a wide release coming in right behind a movie that was called Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour… which is a real film released in 2007 in over 1000 theaters. Must be a Christian film or something. I’ve never heard of it.)
(It is kind of stunning that this happens to be at the literal nadir of this genre. Additionally I’m surprised that summer dramas are even a thing anymore! You’d think with tentpoles taking over it would be almost impossible for dramas to even catch on. But looking at the list it is true, the summer drama is back! NOTE: figure and commentary generated on July 1, 2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 12% (7/54), Critics Consensus: With its jarring editing, dull love story, and silly dialogue, September Dawn turns a horrific historical event into a banal movie.
(Oooo, jarring editing? If the trailer was any indication then this will certainly live up to the billing. I kinda love jarring editing, but hate, hate, hate dull love stories. )
Poster – Sklogtember Dawn (F)
(Oh wow, this poster is horrible. I’ve never seen a more horrible poster. And yet… Jon Voight’s big orange face is strangely mesmerizing. Welp, I know what Patrick is getting for his birthday.)
Tagline(s) – The untold story of an American tragedy. (C+)
(Gives a general idea in a tight package, but pretty bland. Nothing interesting about it at all. Meh.)
Keyword – settler; Top 10 by BMeTric: 26.6 Warrior of the Lost World (1983); 23.7 Lucky Luke (1991); 13.8 September Dawn (2007); 12.9 Pocahontas (1995); 10.4 The New World (2005); 10.1 River Queen (2005); 9.1 Meek’s Cutoff (2010); 8.8 Northfork (2003); 8.3 Far North (2007); 7.3 Old Surehand (1965);
(What .. the fuck is this list? What the fuck is Warrior of the Lost World (starring Donald Pleasance!)? What is Pocahontas doing on this list? How is this keyword the number one keyword for September Dawn and yet barely used on IMDb? So many questions. Zero answers. That’s a BMT promise.)
Notes – Jon Voight was nominated for a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie for his role (along with several other roles).
Well we continue our march to mapl.de.map history. This week is girls’ night out and we get to watch a little classic known as A Thousand Acres… what’s that? No one actually knows what that is? Well it’s based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jane Smiley (which I read, obvs) about a family of farmers in Northern Iowa. The plot loosely follows that of King Lear and the book was excellent. Apparently the movie was not as excellent. We’ll see though. This obviously takes the Iowa spot on the map, which I’m saving to update in the near future. Let’s go!
A Thousand Acres (1997) – BMeTric: 14.2 (November 13, 2016)
(Pretty classic older movie plot. Votes go up, rating regresses to the mean, BMeTric reaches a plateau. The votes are so low that the BMeTric is generally below average for a bad movie. Expected. Commentary generated on November 13, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – When a stubborn, single-minded widowed father decides to relinquish ownership of his farm to his three daughters, a family is abruptly torn apart, and long-held secrets come out of the closet. The only thing missing from this melodrama is character motivation, which presumably did exist in Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, a variation on King Lear. A hollow film notable only for the strong performances of the two leading ladies (whose companies jointly produced the film).
(Well, having read the novel I will admit that the character motivations are a bit hazy but mostly because everything is told from a particular point of view. The character who tells the story is naive and a bit too optimistic, so she is generally blind to the underlying motives of several of the major characters… you know, to be totally serious and analytical about this whole thing. Long story short: don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about Leonard.)
(“A story of family…” wait, wot? This is coming off a bit too ‘gee whiz, guys we can work this out cause we’re FAMILY’ (you know, like Furious 7), when the novel is not that… definitely not that. What a weird trailer.)
Director(s) – Jocelyn Moorhouse – (Known For: How to Make an American Quilt; Proof. BMT: A Thousand Acres; Unconditional Love. Notes: Her imdb picture is of her reading A Thousand Acres. She hasn’t done anything in film since this movie, but is returning to writing and directing this year with the release of The Dressmaker staring Kate Winslet. Wow.)
Writer(s) – Laura Jones (screenplay) – (Known For: Angela’s Ashes; Possession; The Portrait of a Lady; Oscar and Lucinda; An Angel at My Table; Brick Lane; The Well; High Tide. BMT: A Thousand Acres. Notes: Has mostly worked on literary adaptations to mostly great results.)
Actors – Michelle Pfeiffer – (Known For: Scarface; What Lies Beneath; Batman Returns; Hairspray; One Fine Day; Stardust; Wolf; The Age of Innocence; Dangerous Liaisons; Ladyhawke; I Could Never Be Your Woman; White Oleander; The Witches of Eastwick; Love Field; The Fabulous Baker Boys. BMT: I Am Sam; The Family; Dangerous Minds; Dark Shadows; Grease 2; The Story of Us; Up Close & Personal; New Year’s Eve (BMT); A Thousand Acres. Notes: Nominated for three Oscars (Dangerous Liaisons, The Fabulous Baker Boys, and Love Field))
Jessica Lange – (Known For: Big Fish; Cape Fear; Tootsie; Rob Roy; The Gambler; Broken Flowers; All That Jazz; Titus; The Postman Always Rings Twice; King Kong; Frances; Blue Sky; Music Box; Losing Isaiah; Grey Gardens. BMT: The Vow; Hush; Prozac Nation; A Thousand Acres; Everybody’s All-American. Notes: Nominated for Worst Actress Razzie for Hush. Nominated for six Oscars, winning two (Tootsie and Blue Sky).)
(I knew this was a big bomb because it was noted everywhere that Pfeiffer spent five years trying to get it made only to have it bomb at the box office, which predictably bummed her out. Not her worst performance at the box office though, that would be Into the Night.)
Rotten Tomatoes: 22% (11/48), Critics Consensus: A Thousand Acres makes disappointingly sudsy stuff out of the source material, but benefits from solid performances by a strong cast.
(Surprising number of reviews for a film that came out in 1997 to little fanfare. Also fortuitously bad reviews as far as mapl.de.map is concerned. Not the typical film to drop all the way down to 22%, especially when the performances are noted everywhere as being great. I feel like if this came out now it would put up August: Osage County types of numbers.)
Poster – A Thousand Sklogs (B)
(I like this poster quite a bit. Like the symmetry of the sisters hugging above the stark Iowa farmhouse. Would have rather had Lange and Pfeiffer colorized to match the rest of the poster and would have loved for the poster to be more yellow (like the farm land, this is a bit too dark) but this is still good.)
Keyword(s) – iowa; Top Ten by BMeTric: 38.8 Children of the Corn (1984); 38.7 Unaccompanied Minors (2006); 35.4 Michael (1996); 29.5 I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998); 23.2 Sleeping with the Enemy (1991); 20.2 Fraternity Vacation (1985); 19.1 The Puppet Masters (1994); 17.5 Butter (2011); 16.6 Burlesque (I) (2010); 15.7 Whiteboyz (1999);
(They are missing one: I believe Bucky Larson Born to be a Star began in Iowa and if Burlesque counts then so should that. One of the worst films I’ve ever seen. I’m impressed by how few of these films I’ve seen. Fly over country indeed.)
Tagline(s) – Best friends. Bitter rivals. Sisters. (C)
(Ha, how poorly this goes with the simple random addition of the word “sisters”. “Best friends. Biter rivals.” is a pretty good tagline… this? Not as much.)
Notes – Michelle Pfeiffer, who produced the film, wanted Paul Newman to play patriarch Larry Cook, but he turned down the role.
According to an article in Premiere Magazine 1997, all extras in the film had to sign an agreement promising not to attempt to approach/speak to actresses Michelle Pfeiffer or Jessica Lange. (haha, what?)
Lange battled with producers during the editing phase of the film, during which it through extensive re-editing. When released, Lange stated that the only thing about the film which worked were the performances.
Jocelyn Moorhouse reportedly tried to take her name off the picture after her first cut of the film didn’t sit well with test audiences. (wow, this gets worse and worse. This would have been a super funny Alan Smithee film.)
Alright, moving right along to this week, we are returning to mapl.de.map and our quest for fire (and by fire I mean a completely filled up map). This week is kind of a historic selection. That’s because we are doing one of the hardest states on the entire map. A state that I didn’t even think had a qualified movie for the map when we first started this endeavor. A state that I used to make jokes about in every email and which may or may not be imaginary. That’s right! We are onto Delaware! For those that aren’t in the know about this kind of stuff, me and Patrick were able to find a little film called Survival of the Dead set in Delaware. Hooray! On a worse note it turned out that this film was the sixth (!) in the George A. Romero Dead series. It went from Night of the Living Dead, to Dawn of the Dead, to Day of the Dead, to Land of the Dead, to Diary of the Dead, and finally to Survival of the Dead. So me and Patrick had a bit of homework to do. Boo! Fortunately, the exercise will give us a nice perspective on the movie by the end of it. Let’s go!
Survival of the Dead (2010) – BMeTric: 50.2 (November 13, 2016)
(Do you know what that is? That is the profile of a movie that almost no one saw in theaters. It is all DVD release, so there aren’t two regimes. Impressive. Also incredibly high BMeTric, very very impressive. That is also one of the largest drops in rating I’ve ever seen. 7.2 to 5.0 doesn’t really make sense. So I guess one die hards initially rated it 10 and it was kind of washed out over time. Commentary generated on November 13, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Another Romero visit to an America overrun with cannibalistic walking corpses. This time a small paramilitary group hopes to evade the chaos by going to an island off the Delaware Coast, but conflict between two very Irish patriarchs that control the place over how to treat the numerous reanimated corpses means only more chaos. Less nihilistic than others in the series, with strong characterizations and good cinematography, but it’s really just more of the same. Won’t someone give Romero money to do another kind of movie?
(Love the little shout out to Delaware right there. Not sure what he means by “very Irish patriarch”… why “very”? Also, a little presumptuous that Romero is only making these films cause it’s the only kind he can get money for. He probably likes making them. He’s made six of them after all. Perhaps even if you gave him all the money in the world he would still make a zombie movie. Why not?)
(Oh dear, did we make a mistake? This looks like I made the trailer for the film. Yet it was actually released in a handful of theaters and reviewed by 84 critics on RT. Weird shit. Looks rough.)
Director(s) – George A. Romero – (Known For: Dawn of the Dead; The Crazies; Night of the Living Dead; Land of the Dead; Day of the Dead; Diary of the Dead; Creepshow; Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear. BMT: Survival of the Dead. Notes: Wow, this is his only film he directed that got bad reviews. That’s pretty amazing.)
Writer(s) – George A. Romero (written by) – (Known For: Dawn of the Dead; The Crazies; Night of the Living Dead; Land of the Dead; Day of the Dead; Diary of the Dead; Creepshow; Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear. BMT: Survival of the Dead; Creepshow 2; Tales from the Darkside: The Movie; Notes: He went to Carnegie Mellon and worked on Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood for a time, so unsurprisingly many of his films take place in and around Pittsburgh.)
Actors – Alan Van Sprang – (Known For: Land of the Dead; Narc; Diary of the Dead; Steal This Movie; BMT: Survival of the Dead; Immortals; Saw III; Masterminds. Notes: Starring now in the ABC Family show Shadowhunters. The same network that brought us the hit television program The Vineyard? Sign me up!)
Budget/Gross: $4 million / $101,740 ($143,191 Worldwide)
(For some reason I thought this got a wider release than I’m seeing here. Only 20 theaters. Still not the lowest we’ve done. Both Theodore Rex and Devil’s Knot (also on the map!) did not get a theatrical release. Regardless, what are we to do? This is the only bad movie set in Delaware. We can only cross our fingers and hope for a future release to take its place.)
Rotten Tomatoes: 29% (25/84), Critics Consensus: Survival of the Dead offers glimmers of Romero’s savage wit, but not nearly enough to make up for his unusually uninspired directing and a lack of new ideas
(Anyway, look at the number of reviewers. Even has a consensus. We’ll see if this is unusually uninspired after *gulp* watching the whole series this week. Perhaps we’ll conclude that it’s usually uninspired.)
Poster – Survival of the Sklog (B-)
(Not a poorly made poster, just a boring one. And a bit dark. But the colors are nicely consistent, the poster is symmetrical, and I like the text spacing. Hits a lot of a good marks.)
Tagline(s) – Survival isn’t just for the living. (C)
(Well this is certainly confusing. I’m not sure what this even means in the context of a zombie movie. Are we going to we seeing a movie from the perspective of the zombies? Are they the characters? That would be cool. If that’s not the case then this tagline definitely isn’t cool.)
Keyword(s) – island; Top Ten by BMeTric: 83.3 The Wicker Man (2006); 79.3 House of the Dead (2003); 78.7 Jaws: The Revenge (1987); 76.5 The Fog (2005); 72.2 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998); 69.0 Shark Night 3D (2011); 67.5 The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996); 66.6 Scooby-Doo (2002); 65.8 Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011); 64.0 DOA: Dead or Alive (2006);
(Wow, that is a great list, and we’ve seen almost none of them officially for BMT! Pretty nice. And island is always a convenient excuse to trap people who should know better in a place they want to get the fuck away from stat. See: Jurassic Park. Good stuff.)
Notes – This film marks the first time that a character from a previous Living Dead film returns to star in a sequel, with Alan Van Sprang as Sarge “Nicotine” Crockett having been seen in Diary of the Dead (2007).
So this week (last week?) we are ending our beloved Now a Major Motion Picture cycle. Alas, it was probably our favorite cycle we’ve ever done, so we are still working out how to keep it around in some form. In the meantime, though, we are transitioning to the last ever mapl.de.map cycle! OMG, OMG! It’s true, we only have 8 states left and we are cycling down. With 9 spots in the cycle available we get to fill up the map and replace a state we didn’t like with an extra special movie (oh, you’ll see). We are starting the cycle off as always with the Scattegories category which requires a a film that covers both the based-on-a-book and map cycles. It is a film set in the very, very difficult to obtain South Dakota. I would say that this turned out to be the most difficult state we had to fill, except that it was really only hard to fill because we had already watched the only other film that qualified for the honor. I’m of course talking about Son-in-law starring Pauly Shore. With that off the table, there was only one choice left and it kept me and Patrick awake at nights thinking on whether we truly had to use such a borderline case for the map. In the end, we had no other choice. So for South Dakota we have Wild Bill starring Jeff Bridges. It’s based on Deadwood by Peter Dexter along with a play called Fathers and Sons by Thomas Babe. Here’s the map with our new addition. Let’s go!
Wild Bill (1995) – BMeTric: 16.7 (November 20, 2016)
(Sigh. So yeah, when we watched this film it was borderline qualifying. If I recall correctly it was literally 40% on rotten tomatoes with a question as to whether a few of the reviews were repeated and/or legit. Well now it is definitely non-qualifying. But there wasn’t anything to be done at the time, it was the only film for South Dakota (still is as far as I can tell … Mercury Rising qualifies, but only the opening is in South Dakota). With a steadily increasing IMDb score that can either be regression to the mean or the fact that the film is legitimately considered somewhat of a cult classic. I’ll repeat: sigh.)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Odd revisionist take on Wild Bill Hickok, told in episodic form that creates creates distance from – rather than understanding of – the legendary hellraiser of the Old West. The title of the film should really be THE ASSASSINATION OF WILD BILL, because that’s what it’s all about. There are those opium dreams to break the monotony… Barkin is fun as Calamity Jane, but other characters are superficially drawn at best.
(Leonard should read up on the films. Obviously this was revisionist, it was based on a revisionist play and revisionist novel. Also, super surprising that Leonard is recommending alternate titles for films. I thought me and Patrick were the only ones into that.)
(Ever since we had this movie on the horizon I’ve marveled at the trailer. It’s crazy. The black-and-white hallucinogenic dream sequence-type scenes in particular give me hope that this film we turn out to a be a legit BMT film. Also, David Arquette always helps.)
Director(s) – Walter Hill – (Known For: The Warriors; Red Heat; Bullet to the Head; Undisputed; Streets of Fire; Southern Comfort; Crossroads; The Driver; Trespass; The Long Riders; Johnny Handsome; Geronimo – An American Legend; Wild Bill; Extreme Prejudice; Hard Times; 48 Hrs. BMT: Last Man Standing; Another 48 Hrs.; Brewster’s Millions; Supernova; Notes: Nominated for Worst Picture, Blue City (1986) which he produced. Interesting future BMT film.)
Writer(s) – Walter Hill (screenplay) – (Known For: The Warriors; Red Heat; Undisputed; The Getaway; Streets of Fire; Southern Comfort; The Driver; Wild Bill; Hard Times; Alien 3; 48 Hrs.); BMT: Last Man Standing; Another 48 Hrs.; Blue City. Notes: Originally meant to direct Alien, which he wrote the story for.)
Also credits Peter Dexter and Thomas Babe who wrote the novel and play that the screenplay was based on.
Actors – Jeff Bridges – (Known For: The Big Lebowski; Iron Man; True Grit; TRON; K-PAX; Arlington Road; Crazy Heart; The Men Who Stare at Goats; Starman; The Fisher King; Seabiscuit; Surf’s Up; King Kong; The Vanishing; White Squall; The Fabulous Baker Boys; Fearless; The Last Picture Show; The Door in the Floor; Tucker: The Man and His Dream; Against All Odds; Thunderbolt and Lightfoot; The Contender; Cutter’s Way; Heaven’s Gate; Tron Legacy. BMT: The Giver; R.I.P.D. (BMT); Seventh Son; Wild Bill; Blown Away; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; Stick It; Tideland; The Open Road. Notes: And that’s just a portion of his filmography. Nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for Crazy Horse. Son of famous actor Lloyd Bridges.)
(Ridiculously gigantic bomb. Probably the strongest reason why this film should be considered BMT worthy. It currently has the 95th worst opening for a wide release (600+ theaters) coming in right behind the classic Mom and Dad Save the World.)
(Ooof, right around Heaven’s Gate which has been heralded as somewhat career ending for those involved. The reported budgets aren’t much different even, although Wild Bill came out 10 years later. Cool graph though. People lament the collapse of the genre, and this movie came literally at the end of its gloriously profitable run in the 90’s. Interestingly enough as far as screens are concerned westerns surpassed than peak about 5 years ago. The profitability is probably not there though. Would depend on the budgets I guess. I would guess that in the future VOD releases will include some indie westerns though, they tend to get a solid cult following rather quickly (see Bone Tomahawk).)
Rotten Tomatoes: 40% (9/22)
(And this is the biggest reason why it shouldn’t have been a BMT film. We really tossed and turned over this one. We usually use a pretty strict 40% or lower cutoff for RT scores, and usually when we’ve ventured over that (or couldn’t use the RT score cause the movie is too old) it’s because the film is notably reviled and gained a cult following which boosted the score. Upon investigation, though, this seemed to pretty well earn that 40%. Basically, it was considered not great but not horrible. One thing I will say in defense of this selection is that there were actually 8 uncounted reviews on RT. I found that 2 were good and 6 were bad in my own assessment. This would have put the score at 37% for a respectable 30 RT reviews. It counts!)
Poster – Wild Sklog (A)
(Love the poster. Aesthetically pleasing to look at and nice color scheme. Only weird thing they do is put a tagline at the top and then another one right below the title. Confusing. Makes it look like the movie is actually called Wild Bill: Take a Walk on the Wild Side. Which would be the worst title in cinematic history.)
Tagline(s) – A legend never dies. (D+)
Take a walk on the wild side. (C+)
(The first is hurting my brain. Why is this the tagline to your film about a legend dying? Not clever either. Despite sounding and looking like a tagline it is a terrible tagline. The second one is actually a little better, which is shocking cause I hated it when I first read it. At least it’s a bit clever in playing on a common phrase.)
Keyword(s) – opium; Top Ten by BMeTric: 49.7 Tell Your Children (1936); 48.3 The Man with the Iron Fists (2012); 42.7 Shanghai Surprise (1986); 32.9 Emmanuelle (1974); 31.8 Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985); 31.2 People I Know (2002); 26.7 Above the Law (1988); 25.7 Te wu mi cheng (2001); 23.3 Love (II) (2015); 22.6 Shanghai Knights (2003);
(Wow, what the hell is Tell Your Children? Oh, haha, Reefer Madness, got it, funny. The rest of this list is bonkers. Crazy Seagal films, and like Emmanuelle. Just insane. Would truly be a ridiculous list to “complete”. Doable, only 11 films have a BMeTric over 20.)
Notes – More than 30 years earlier, the part of Wild Bill Hickok was played by Jeff Bridges’ father, Lloyd Bridges, in a 1964 episode of the television series “The Great Adventure” (1963). (great trivia)
Keith Carradine, who played Buffalo Bill Cody in Wild Bill, took the part of Wild Bill Hickock on HBO’s TV series Deadwood (2004), the first episode of which Walter Hill also directed. (Another great piece of trivia!)
Alright, so this week is And the Loser is… where we watch a past Razzie winner or nominee. There were two obvious choices here to fit our Now a Major Motion Picture meta-theme. The first was The Cat in the Hat starring Mike Myers. If we weren’t having so much fun actually reading the books, that would have been selected I’m sure. Instead we are watching the 1995 classic The Scarlet Letter starring Gary Oldman and Demi Moore. The only things I knew about the film going into this is that it’s a travesty of an adaptation (particularly given that the book is a classic) and people make fun of Gary Oldman’s penis in reference to this film… which means we are going to see an Oldman’s penis. Great. Let’s go!
The Scarlet Letter (1995) – BMeTric: 43.3 (November 23, 2016)
(Solid score for a 90’s film, definitely in the above-average BMeTric. Nice regression to the mean in the rating as well. Basically people don’t actually think it is better, it is just more likely that a film will closer to the mean rating (of around 6) as more and more reviews come in. Otherwise standard. Generated on November 23, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – BOMB – Hokey adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel throws in everything from witch hunts to Indian attacks to a controversial happy ending — all to no avail. Moore is woefully miscast as Hester Prynne (though she sure fills a Puritan frock). Oldman gives a histrionic performance, while Duvall is simply incomprehensible. “Erotic” love scenes are especially embarrassing, in soft focus with phallic candles and a chirpy Disney bird (credited as Rudy the Robin) who sings for sexual freedom!
(Wait, Indian attacks? Witch hunts? What is happening. Am I reading the review for the wrong movie? I do love “simply incomprehensible” actors. If they made it nowadays that role would be played by Jeff Bridges… or still Robert Duvall somehow… Is there actually a Disney bird? I feel like this review is asking more questions than it’s answering for me. No wonder it’s a BOMB.)
(Holy fuck. That… that… that is not the plot of The Scarlet Letter. They made a prequel-adaptation monster. Why call it The Scarlet Letter even? It’s not even the plot of the story. It does give me an idea though: how about an Anna Karenina adaptation, but instead of focusing on Anna, let’s focus on Vronsky. And instead of dealing with that pesky (and boring!) affair with Anna, let’s mostly detail Vronksy’s trials and tribulations in learning the electric guitar. Boom! Netflix!)
Director(s) – Roland Joffé – (Known For: The Mission; The Killing Fields; City of Joy; Fat Man and Little Boy. BMT: Captivity; The Scarlet Letter; Vatel; There Be Dragons; Goodbye Lover; The Lovers. Notes: Nominated for Worst Director, Captivity (2007); Won for Worst Remake or Sequel, Nominated for Worst Director for The Scarlet Letter (1995). Nominated for Directing Oscars for The Killing Fields and The Mission. Father of future BMT director Rowan Joffe.)
Writer(s) – Douglas Day Stewart (screenplay) – (Known For: An Officer and a Gentleman; Vision Quest; Flight of the Navigator. BMT: The Blue Lagoon; The Scarlet Letter; Thief Of Hearts. Notes: Nominated for Worst Screenplay, The Scarlet Letter (1995). Nominated for Screenplay Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman. His name sounds like the name someone would use in a scandalous tell-all if they didn’t want to get sued for libel by Daniel Day-Lewis.)
Actors – Demi Moore – (Known For: Charlie’s Angels – Full Throttle; Ghost; Mr. Brooks; G.I. Jane; A Few Good Men; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Flawless; Disclosure; The Joneses; Margin Call; Mortal Thoughts; St. Elmo’s Fire; We’re No Angels; One Crazy Summer; Deconstructing Harry. BMT: Striptease; Indecent Proposal; LOL; The Juror; The Scarlet Letter; Half Light; The Seventh Sign; The Butcher’s Wife; Now and Then; Passion of Mind; Nothing but Trouble. Notes: Nominated for 7 Razzie awards. Won for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (Supporting Actress), G.I. Jane (Actress), The Juror (Actress), Striptease (Actress/Couple), The Scarlet Letter (Actress/Couple). Nominated for Passion of Mind (Actress), Indecent Proposal (Actress), The Butcher’s Wife (Actress), Nothing but Trouble (Actress). Probably one of the most prolific BMT actresses, but we haven’t done too many of her films yet.)
Gary Oldman – (Known For: Batman series; Air Force One; The Fifth Element; The Book of Eli; RoboCop; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Harry Potter Series; True Romance; Sid & Nancy; JFK; The Contender; Bram Stoker’s Dracula. BMT: Hannibal; Red Riding Hood; The Unborn; Lost in Space; Paranoia; Planet 51; The Scarlet Letter; Child 44; Tiptoes. Notes: Nominated for Worst Couple Razzie for The Scarlet Letter (1995). Nominated for an Oscar for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.)
(A giant bomb. Oddly released the same weekend as two other high profile box office bombs (Jade and Strange Days) resulting in this NYTimes article. The Scarlet Letter is the 96st highest grossing Romantic Dramas ever. Number 95? You guessed it, Here on Earth.)
(As mentioned it is right near Here on Earth in the charts. This is actually the third of this genre we’ve watched along with Random Hearts and The Choice. A little snippet from the first of those: Wow, look at that mid-2000’s collapse! I think it has to do with a couple bombs in a row, but it could easily be that some other genre was sapping things up. Everyone knows that the trough there is the true heyday of bad movies! The dizzying heights we live in now I think is the result of micro-budget film companies. But it is hard to tell. This movie comes right in that initial wave as well. What we know now: There might be a collapse of the genre again. Hard to tell. If I were to guess we’ll be seeing a return to around 15K theaters for the genre moving forward. Looking at ’09-’12 and ’92-’96 that just feels like where the genre wants to be. Generated on November 23, 2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 14% (5/35). No consensus, but here’s the Netflix synopsis for funsies: In this adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, Puritan settler Hester Prynne (Demi Moore) is accused of adultery in a Massachusetts settlement in the 1660s. Although she’s attracted to the town’s pastor (Gary Oldman), the two resist temptation. But only a whiff of scandal is enough for the town’s morality police to sentence Prynne to live as an outcast and wear a shameful scarlet A for adultery.
(Yeah, straight panned. I’m not sure what Netflix is talking about though. In the trailer we clearly see Moore carrying a baby to her public shaming… where’d the baby come from if they resist temptation? A baby is a little bit more than a whiff of scandal. I almost feel like we should bring Netflix synopsis back. They are wrong half the time on the very basic plot of these films.)
Poster – The Skloglet Letter (B-)
(Sexy much? I like the coloring (though could have been slightly redder) and the symmetry. Not feeling the dark portion at the bottom. Would prefer a more interesting and creative way of commingling the text and images.)
Tagline(s) – When intimacy is forbidden and passion is a sin, love is the most defiant crime of all. (C-)
(I really should have given this worse. When it’s this long, everyone loses. What saved it a bit was the cadence and the creativity. Way too long though.)
Keyword(s) – adultery; Top Ten by BMeTric: 78.8 Skyline (2010); 75.6 Left Behind (I) (2014); 64.9 The Boy Next Door (2015); 62.4 Postal (2007); 58.4 My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006); 57.0 Dr. T & the Women (2000); 56.4 Body of Evidence (1993); 54.7 The Canyons (2013); 51.3 The Big Bounce (2004); 50.4 The Dilemma (2011);
(That is a nice list. Indeed, adultery plays a major role in: Sci Fi, Christian, Dramatic, Erotic Thrillers, and Comedies. And that is just the ones we’ve seen. The human condition.)
Notes – Listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in “The Official Razzie® Movie Guide”.
Three original scores were written for this film. The ones by Ennio Morricone and Elmer Bernstein were rejected. The one used was by John Barry. (these types of fact amuse me)
Meg Ryan lobbied hard for the part of Hester Prynne, but lost out. Sharon Stone was also considered.
Richard Gere, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Anthony Hopkins were all considered for the male lead.
Won one Razzie for Worst Remake or Sequel, Nominated for 6 more (Picture/Actress/Supporting Actor/Couple/Director/Screenplay)
Alright, so this week is our SciFi/Fantasy. Super excited for this one as one of the worst films released this year happened to be a Fantasy film based on a book. That is of course SeventhSon. It’s based on a children’s series out of England, which is good cause that means the books are super short. I believe the movie is either set in a made-up kingdom or England (a bit redundant there… slammed), so not adding to the map. For those interested, this weeks BMT hashtag is #SeventhSonDayFunDay (pretty proud of that one). Let’s go!
SeventhSon (2015) – 50.1 (generated on June 1, 2017)
(The drop feels like it is quite common for film based on written material with fans who will give the film a good review regardless. Fun that it hasn’t moved at all in the past 3 years, suggests it has sustained its level of terribleness and will have a long BMT shelf life. Generated on June 1, 2017.)
Netflix Synopsis – In the 18th century, apprentice exorcist Tom Ward is the lynchpin in a battle between good and evil when imprisoned witch Mother Malkin escapes. This chilling tale is based on the first installment in Joseph Delaney’s “Wardstone Chronicles” trilogy.
(No Leonard Maltin review so I trotted out an oldie but a goodie with the Netflix synopsis. I particularly like this one because of two things: 1. “chilling tale”? This is based on a book series for 10-year-olds. I doubt it’s all that chilling. 2. the book series is not a trilogy. There are 12 of them (they come cheaper by the dozen, you know. Thank you. Thank you). Classic, Netflix. Getting the facts wrong right off the bat.)
(I was going to praise the trailer for not making it look too ridiculous, until the second half went bonkers insane. This honestly looks like garbage. I’m getting a real Dungeons & Dragons/In the Name of the King/Season of the Witch vibe here (god, we watched a lot of those types of movies))
Director(s) – Sergey Bodrov– (Known For: Prisoner of the Mountains; Mongol; East/West. BMT: SeventhSon; Running Free; Nomad. Notes: He actually has a whole mess more movies, but most of them are in Russian. His son was an actor and directed a film before being tragically killed in an avalanche while directing his second film in Russia.)
Writer(s) – Matt Greenberg(screen story) – (Known For: 1408; Reign of Fire; Halloween H2.; BMT: SeventhSon; The Prophecy II. Notes: Almost exclusively a horror writer. Connected to a remake of Pet Semetary and a Beowulf television series.)
Charles Leavitt (screenplay) – (Known For: Blood Diamond; K-PAX; The Express; The Mighty; BMT: SeventhSon; The Sunchaser; Notes: His debut was Sunchaser which has one of the funniest posters I’ve ever seen. Look at that tagline too!)
Steven Knight (screenplay) – (Known For: Eastern Promises; Locke; The Hundred-Foot Journey; Dirty Pretty Things; Amazing Grace; Closed Circuit; Pawn Sacrifice; World War Z; Redemption. BMT: SeventhSon. Notes: Nominated for an Oscar for Dirty Pretty Things. Crazy that he’s even connected with this film.)
Actors – Ben Barnes– (Known For: Dorian Gray; The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian; Stardust. BMT: SeventhSon; The Words; The Big Wedding (BMT) Notes: Was in the short-lived boy band Hyrise which performed at Eurovision:
Bwahahahaha. I actually kinda liked it.)
Jeff Bridges – (Known For: The Big Lebowski; Iron Man; True Grit; TRON; K-PAX; Arlington Road; Crazy Heart; The Men Who Stare at Goats; Starman; The Fisher King; Seabiscuit; Surf’s Up; King Kong; The Vanishing; White Squall; The Fabulous Baker Boys; Fearless; The Last Picture Show; The Door in the Floor; Tucker: The Man and His Dream; Against All Odds; Thunderbolt and Lightfoot; The Contender; Cutter’s Way; Heaven’s Gate; Tron Legacy. BMT: The Giver; R.I.P.D. (BMT); SeventhSon; Wild Bill; Blown Away; How to Lose Friends & Alienate People; Stick It; Tideland; The Open Road. Notes: And that’s just a portion of his filmography. Nominated for 6 Oscars, winning for Crazy Horse. Son of famous actor Lloyd Bridges.)
Budget/Gross: $95 million / $17,223,265 ($110,623,265 Worldwide)
(Not a case where the worldwide makes up for the domestic run. That is atrocious. 113th worst opening for a 2500+ theater release. Right next to BMT films The Marine, 3000 Miles to Graceland, and Winter’s Tale. Good company.)
(Oooooo, right when 2000 hit everyone was like, hey, we have lots of cheap CGI … so want to make something that looks ridiculous? This comes in right above Krull. You heard that right, Krull. So … yeah not great. The genre is a booming, and this movie marked the start of the most recent gold rush. Go get your money movie producers.)
Rotten Tomatoes: 12% (13/106), Critics Consensus: SeventhSon squanders an excellent cast and some strange storyline ingredients, leaving audiences with one disappointingly dull fantasy adventure.
(Disappointingly dull? I hear that about this email every week (burned, me). Also, not sure when “strange storyline ingredients” became something that you could squander. I feel like that could go both ways. Like is it Jupiter Ascending strange storyline ingredients? Or Being John Malkovich strange storyline ingredients?)
(What a strange poster. I’m not sure what I’m even looking at. A big ol’ red moon looking like Mars with a skull on it. Strange, jarring colors too. I gotta give it some props for being so unique, but still not great and it makes Julianne Moore look like one of the heroes.)
Tagline(s) – When darkness falls, the son will rise (Is there something higher than an A+?)
(Finally, a movie gets it. Puns on puns in tight packages. This tagline is ridiculous, but I love it.)
Keyword(s) – witch; Top Ten by BMeTric: 85.8 Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997); 84.8 Troll 2 (1990); 80.9 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000); 75.7 Paranormal Activity 4 (2012); 71.6 Bewitched (2005); 67.8 Supergirl (1984); 65.4 10,000 BC (2008); 62.4 The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008); 62.4 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014); 61.3 Conan the Barbarian (2011);
(Shocked we have seen so few. Not even a little Last Witch Hunter? I guess since we generally avoid hitting up too many terrible horror films we tend to avoid most Witch films.)
Notes – Based on book one of Joseph Delany’ ” The Wardstone chronicles” series, “The Spook’s Apprentice.”
Dianna Agron, Imogen Poots and Felicity Jones tested for the lead role after Jennifer Lawrence dropped out (wait… let’s go back to when Jennifer Lawrence was in this movie).
Initially set to be released in theaters in January of 2014 but due to production delays the film was pushed back to 2015 (the full story is that the company in charge of CGI went bankrupt before completing work on the film. The production company had to float them $5 million just to keep them open long enough to finish the work on the film.)
After Alex Pettyfer bowed out from the project, Shiloh Fernandez, Sam Claflin, Caleb Landry Jones and James Frecheville tested for the lead role. (wait… let’s go back to when my boy Alex Pettyfer was in this movie).
Alright, well this week we made a terrible mistake. Not that we chose a bad film for our Horror/Thriller week (in fact it is the perfectly chosen Bless the Child starring a BMT favorite Kim Basinger), but the book is 550 pages long! Like super, duper long! It took me forever to read. I just finished it this afternoon in fact. Starting to get worried I might not have time to finish the next book on the docket (my life is pretty tough guys). But I can’t worry about that now. I gotta get to Bless the Child. Oddly, this was always in the back of my mind for BMT. Not just because it is one of the worst reviewed films in history, but also there was a time that I thought it might take place in Vermont for some portion of the film… which would have obviously trumped A Change of Seasons for mapl.de.map. Unfortunately, after doing some research I figured that it’s unlikely that Basinger’s character even makes it to Vermont… but that’s neither here nor there. Let’s go!
Bless the Child (2000) – BMeTric: 49.8 (Generated on December 12, 2017)
(I’m surprised at how high the BMeTric is given only 11 thousand votes. But then again, most films don’t get ten thousand votes I suppose. And a 5.0 rating is awful. Pretty consistent rating through time, which suggests it is just as bad as it was perceived at the time.)
Leonard Maltin – 1.5 stars – Basinger has raised her addict sister’s daughter to the age of six; when she shows signs of spiritual powers, the child is sought by millionaire Sewell, who’s involved in a series of child killings. Smits is the detective on the case. Religious horror thriller veers wildly from the promising to the ludicrous, and is never remotely convincing. Based on the novel by Cathy Cash Spellman.
(Ludicrous is the name of the game here at BMT. Why do you think he’s called LudiChris Klein? Glad we got a pretty poor rating from Leonard. Hard to keep trotting out films and have him let us down by giving them mediocre reviews.)
(Yeeeeesssssss, yeeeesssssssssss. The power. It feels good. That looks like straight dog poo and I love it. Some creepy practical effects on those demons, but let’s hope they end up being super silly when watching the film.)
Directors – Chuck Russell – (Known For: The Mask; The Scorpion King; A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors; The Blob; Future BMT: I Am Wrath; Eraser; BMT: Bless the Child; Notes:Hasn’t made a film in more than a decade, but apparently has one in post right now. It’s called I Am Wrath, stars John Travolta, and I would be severely disappointed if it wasn’t a BMT film… more likely it doesn’t get a theatrical release.)
Writers – Cathy Cash Spellman (novel) – (BMT: Bless the Child; Notes: The writer of the book. I think this book was just buying hook-line-and-sinker into the weird satanist panic of the time. Otherwise I can’t find much about her.)
Thomas Rickman (screenplay) (as Tom Rickman) – (Known For: Coal Miner’s Daughter; Hooper; Everybody’s All-American; The Laughing Policeman; BMT: Bless the Child; Notes:Won an Oscar for the screenplay for Coal Miner’s Daughter.)
Clifford Green and Ellen Green (screenplay) – (Known For: SpaceCamp; Future BMT: Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend; The Seventh Sign; Three Wishes; BMT: Bless the Child; Notes:Married writing partners. Clifford is into space apparently (they wrote Space Camp after all), even agreeing to send his DNA into space as part of the Immortality Drive.)
Actors – Kim Basinger – (Known For: 8 Mile; The Nice Guys; Batman; L.A. Confidential; 9½ Weeks; Never Say Never Again; Cellular; The Natural; The Door in the Floor; Wayne’s World 2; Final Analysis; People I Know; Fool for Love; Nadine; Future BMT: Cool World; The Informers; My Stepmother Is an Alien; Ready to Wear; While She Was Out; The Getaway; The Real McCoy; Blind Date; The Sentinel; The Man Who Loved Women; Even Money; Third Person; Charlie St. Cloud; The 11th Hour; The Burning Plain; BMT: Fifty Shades Darker; Bless the Child; No Mercy; I Dreamed of Africa; The Marrying Man; Grudge Match; Razzie Notes: Nominated for Worst Actress in 1987 for Nine 1/2 Weeks; in 1992 for The Marrying Man; in 1993 for Cool World, and Final Analysis; in 1995 for The Getaway; and in 2001 for Bless the Child, and I Dreamed of Africa; Notes: A BMT hall of famer basically. I secretly love her. We managed to do back-to-back Basinger by accident here. She isn’t in Fifty Shades of Grey, but she’s in the sequel(s).)
Jimmy Smits – (Known For: Rogue One; Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones; Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith; The Jane Austen Book Club; Running Scared; Who We Are Now; My Family; Mother and Child; Old Gringo; Vital Signs; Future BMT: The Million Dollar Hotel; Switch; The Believers; BMT: Bless the Child; Notes: I know him as the main antagonist in Dexter season 3. Which was the terrible season in the first four. After four it falls off a cliff anyways, so whatever.)
Rufus Sewell – (Known For: The Holiday; A Knight’s Tale; Hercules; The Illusionist; Dark City; Hamlet; Paris, je t’aime; Dangerous Beauty; Amazing Grace; Carrington; The Sea; Vinyan; Blinky Bill the Movie; Twenty-One; A Man of No Importance; Future BMT: Extreme Ops; Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter; The Legend of Zorro; The Tourist; All Things to All Men; I’ll Follow You Down; Downloading Nancy; Tristan + Isolde; Hotel Noir; The Very Thought of You; BMT: Gods of Egypt; Bless the Child; Notes: British, grew up in Twickenham which houses the big Rugby ground in London.)
Budget/Gross – $65 million / Domestic: $29,381,494 (Worldwide: $40,443,010)
(Clearly a bomb. The budget doesn’t even make much sense… where would $65 million go for a film like this?… Dear God! Please say to sadly misguided attempts at CGI in scenes that don’t need them (judging from the rats in the trailer, I would say yes). It is the 66th highest grossing Supernatural Horror right behind BMT film Ghost Ship (with the most ship) and future BMT The Fog.)
(The slow increase in audiences coming out for R-rated films maybe? You can kind of even see the uptick at the end which saw It just absolutely smashing it this year.)
(Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense blew the genre out of the water and since then the releases have been pouring in. Hasn’t hurt the per-theater take that much which is probably why they keep on making more and more.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 3% (3/112): Bless the Child squanders its talented cast on a plot that’s more likely to inspire unintentional laughs than shivers.
(One of the worst reviewed films in history, given the number of reviews it garnered. I would say the phrase “talented cast” is being a bit generous from the get go. Unintentional laughs would be certainly welcome.)
Poster – Bless the Sklog (A)
(I’m going to be perfectly honest, I really dig this poster. Look at it. Nice color contrast, good use of the shape of a cross, Basinger is portrayed prominently but in a clever way, and all the words are placed well in the frame. I like it.)
Tagline(s) – Mankind’s last hope just turned six. (B+)
(The tagline is kinda the definition of a tagline. It’s short and sweet, gives us some insight into the tension in the film, and holds some cleverness in the paradox it presents. “So why isn’t it an A+?” says everyone. It’s just so god damn cliche. I feel like I’ve seen this tagline a million times… still, can’t give it anything less than a B+ cause it is pretty much what we’re looking or here on Jamie’s Taglines and Such)
Keyword(s) – fbi; Top Ten by BMeTric: 81.6 I Know Who Killed Me (2007); 78.7 Torque (2004); 77.1 Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002); 76.6 Taxi (I) (2004); 75.3 Death Note (2017); 73.6 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (2003); 72.5 Big Momma’s House 2 (2006); 71.7 The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000); 68.5 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998); 66.9 Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009);
(Nice. A very cool variety there actually. Oh Big Momma, I am so glad you just smash it in this regard. None of the others (besides a rewatch of Ballistic) are really on our radar at the moment.)
Notes – The line, “The devil’s greatest trick was convincing man that he didn’t exist,” is reminiscent of a similar line in another movie of the same genre, End of Days (1999), in which Father Kotak (Rod Steiger) says: “Satan’s greatest trick was convincing man that he didn’t exist”. It is also similar to The Usual Suspects (1995), where the line is, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing man that he didn’t exist”. In fact, that idea goes back to Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867): “La plus belle des ruses du Diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas!” (English: “The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.” (I’m always down for a bit of a literature lesson in the notes)
The bridge where the car “accident” takes place, is actually the Blue Water Bridge between Point Edward, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. It was being “twinned” at the time, so the whole bridge was closed down for repairs, and was available for uninterrupted filming. The scenery shots of New York City were then placed in the background, but people who grew up there, recognize the shores as being Point Edward and Port Huron, respectively, not New York City.
The subway station where the attack on Meg takes place is a “ghost” station on the Toronto subway that is used frequently as a stand in for New York City subways. The city’s film office wanted to leave it set up as a New York City station, but the Toronto Fire Department nixed that idea. The station is below the Bay station on the Bloor line, on the track connecting the Bloor and Yonge lines. At one time, trains went from one line to the other, thus the station, but the practice was discontinued because of switching problems. (There is also a “ghost” station beneath the Queen Street station. It was roughed in 1954 for a planned Queen Street subway which never was built.)
In the original script, a character is deliberately pushed off a subway platform. This had to be changed to an accidental fall before the Toronto Transit Commission would allow filming on its property.
When the candles in the cathedral ignite together, the camera pulls back and Maggie’s shirt can be seen blowing, as if the candles were in fact being blown out, and film was run backwards. (I do like things like this, the technical details of filmmaking)
“Ego fum papa” roughly translates as “I am the Pope”.
According to a March 1, 1999 Variety magazine article, in the script as originally written Cody was Maggie’s autistic granddaughter who was abandoned by her drug-addicted mother. Since Kim Basinger was the mother of a young daughter in real-life, she seemed too young to play a grandmother, so her character was changed to the child’s aunt. (Yup)
Based on the novel of the same name by Cathy Cash Spellman.
Nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Actress (Kim Basinger)
NOTE: This preview was generated on August 11, 2018. Much of the content was generated in May of 2014, but it has been edited and updated where appropriate.
The reason this preview was generate so long after the initial watch was because it came at special request from someone planning on watching this film for a Halloween double feature. The post introducing the double feature can be seen here. Cheers!
Queen of the Damned was followed by a direct-to-DVD sequel Vampires in Delaware where a family of vampires have a surprisingly fun and educational vacation in the great state of Delaware. They have loads of fun learning about DuPont Co’s origins as a manufacturer of gunpowder and the fact that they are vampires plays no role in the plot of the film. At least … I wish that was what happened. Let’s go!
Queen of the Damned (2002) – BMeTric: 55.0
(I find the rating shockingly low to be honest, and the dip between 2004 and 2007 is very strange indeed. Possibly because the people who would have been fans at the time took a while to get online? It is truly perplexing, a very odd rating/vote plot.)
Leonard Maltin – 2.5 stars – Vampire Lestat awakens after a long deep sleep and goes public in the world of rock music, where he seem to blend in perfectly! But his posturing angers the man who “made” him, intrigues a young woman who’s drawn to his world, and lines him up as the perfect mate for the queen of the undead (played by pop-music star Aaliyah, who died before the film’s release). Dopey but amusing. Based on one of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles novels.
(Wow, I’m not sure how something that’s dopey but amusing gets 2.5 stars when it’s supposed to be a supernatural horror-type film. Would seem to be an insult. That’s all I really have to say about this… so I’ll just make a quick remark about Leonard’s choice to use two descriptors for Lestat’s sleep. It was both long and deep? Glad I knew that before watching the film.)
(Well this is interesting for sure. I love Aaliyah’s “accent” and the effects look like trash. Both of these are exciting prospects from a BMT point of view. Still not totally sure what the plot is. Evil vampire rocker? Is that basically it? Sounds absurd.)
Directors – Michael Rymer – (Known For: Face to Face; Angel Baby; Future BMT: Perfume; In Too Deep; BMT: Queen of the Damned; Notes: After completing film school at USC he attended a two-year acting school where he claims he learned more about filmmaking than in all his years studying at film schools.)
Writers – Anne Rice (novels) – (Known For: Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles; The Young Messiah; Future BMT: Exit to Eden; BMT: Queen of the Damned; Notes: Rice distanced herself from the film, and has stated that she feels the filmmakers “mutilated” her work in adapting the novel.)
Scott Abbott (screenplay) – (BMT: Queen of the Damned; Notes: Seemingly was a big-time TV Movie writer. Got his break to write this and then hasn’t really had any film credits since. He did, however, release a novel two years ago and wrote the Rosemary’s Baby TV miniseries adaption that airs tonight… seriously, it airs Sunday, May 11th, 2014.)
Michael Petroni (screenplay) – (Known For: The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; The Book Thief; The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys; Future BMT: The Rite; Backtrack; BMT: Queen of the Damned; Notes: Started out as a comedian in Australia appearing on the show DAAS Kapital before moving to the United States to study screenwriting.)
Actors – Aaliyah – (BMT: Queen of the Damned; Romeo Must Die; Notes: This movie was released posthumously. She had also been cast and started filming for a major role in the two Matrix sequels. She was subsequently replaced by Nona Gaye and all her scenes that she had completed were reshot.)
Stuart Townsend – (Known For: Shade; Shooting Fish; Under the Skin; About Adam; Wonderland; Simon Magus; Future BMT: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Trapped; Chaos Theory; Head in the Clouds; BMT: Queen of the Damned; Æon Flux; Notes: Was originally cast as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but was replaced after a few days of shooting after realizing that he looked too young for the role.)
Marguerite Moreau – (Known For: Mighty Joe; Runaway Jury; Beverly Hills Chihuahua; Wag the Dog; Easy; Caroline and Jackie; Easier with Practice; Douchebag; Future BMT: Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home; D3: The Mighty Ducks; L!fe Happens; D2: The Mighty Ducks; The Mighty Ducks; Wet Hot American Summer; BMT: Queen of the Damned; Notes: Transitioned into television mostly after being a younger actor in The Mighty Ducks franchise. Now has been on both Wet Hot American Summer series for Netflix.)
Budget/Gross – $35 million / Domestic: $30,336,800 (Worldwide: $45,479,110)
(Not the worst that is could have been, but by no means a winner. Especially when compared to Interview with a Vampire, which made over $200 million. I guess everyone’s hope that Stuart Townsend would be the next Tom Cruise would have to be tempered after this showing.)
(Right near Ghost Ship with the Most Ship! The lowest BMT (as of August 2018) is Alone in the Dark, and the highest is (sadly) I Know What You Did Last Summer. I find the dip a few years ago supremely weird. Everyone hates PG-13 horror, so I don’t really get it. The people who love horror films are 14-year-olds and they obvs want that R-rating that they can finally get into. Give it to them!)
(The only Vampire movie we’ve ever seen for BMT (and this was written in August of 2018, although mere weeks before we will have watched Vampire Academy, which is #44, thoroughly trounced by even this). Twilight is obviously the highlight here. These things really did just boom with Twilight and then *poof* … disappeared like a vampire in the daytime (in some interpretations of vampires).)
Rotten Tomatoes – 17% (22/130): A muddled and campy MTV-styled vampire movie with lots of eye candy and bad accents.
(MTV-styled vampires? Doesn’t it tell you how times have changed that just 6 short years later Twilight came out and no one even thought to call them MTV-styled. Also, I can only assume the “bad accent” refers to Aaliyah’s accent of mysterious origin. It will be fantastic.)
(Things I liked about this poster: The color scheme, and Aaliyah in general. Things I didn’t like in this poster: Stuart Townsend looks like crap and is creeping all up on my girl Aaliyah, and the font used on the poster is garbage (although perhaps it is just the smokey smudging). My initial impression was that it was much better than I expected, but I ended up downgrading it a couple of times as I stared at it. But above average I think.)
Tagline(s) – The Mother Of All Vampires (B+)
(I kind of like the play on words, but I kind of hate how pop-y it sounds. As they say, a little MTV-vampire for me in the end. But clever enough that I think it deserves a top grade)
Keyword(s) – vampire; Top Ten by BMeTric: 88.9 Vampires Suck (2010); 87.5 BloodRayne (2005); 81.7 Ultraviolet (2006); 78.0 The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009); 72.1 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011); 69.1 Stan Helsing (2009); 69.0 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010); 68.1 Vampire in Brooklyn (1995); 63.7 Dracula 2001 (2000); 63.6 Dudley Do-Right (1999);
(The Twilight Saga is definitely interesting, since I’ve actually seen all of them, just outside of BMT. I’m actually not sure why I would do that … they are obviously BMT material. At least one of them will qualify and drag the series into things.)
Notes – The singing voice of Lestat was supplied by Jonathan Davis of Korn. However due to contractual difficulties, Davis could not sing on the soundtrack album release. The five songs written by he and Richard Gibbs for the movie were then performed on the album by Marilyn Manson, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, David Draiman of Disturbed, Wayne Static of Static-X and Jay Gordon of Orgy. Davis was still allowed to play several instruments on the album. (Whaaaa, contractual difficulties … what could that mean? To not be able to get Korn to sing on a soundtrack release.)
Aaliyah died in a plane crash shortly after principal photography was completed but had not yet actually performed any ADR redubbing for her character. Michael Rymer called in Aaliyah’s brother, Rashad Haughton, to help with overdubbing her voice following her death due to their similar voices, special vocal technology was also used to make his voice sound more feminine. (That is kind of sad, but also interesting they were able to use the brother’s voice. I wouldn’t have thought that would work very well).
Aaliyah was the first actor to be cast for the film. She was enthusiastic about taking the role due to her fascination with Egyptian mythology and also being a huge fan of vampire horror fiction.
For the scenes of Lestat’s concert in Death Valley, over 3000 goths were recruited from Melbourne nightclubs and on the internet, then driven on a fleet of buses to a quarry in Werribee to act as extras. (Imagine how much you would regret ruining your rave night out during hour two of sitting in a Quarry with nothing to do)
Stuart Townsend shares his name with a character from another Anne Rice novel, “The Witching Hour”. Upon meeting Townsend, Rice handed him a copy of the book and instructed him to turn to a certain page number, whereupon was written “The Life of Stuart Townsend”. Townsend was flattered that she had written him into her new book, until she told him that she had written it eleven years prior. (Haaaaa)
Author of the novel Anne Rice considers this to be a terrible disappointment for her and for many of the readers as she believed it mutilated her own work. (Well, that’s what you get about 50% of the time when you option your work, so …)
Warner Bros. was already into its last year of owning motion picture rights to the first three Vampire Chronicles books which would then have transferred back to author ‘Anne Rice’, who could then sell the rights to another company of her choosing. Knowing what little time they had left, despite the fact they’ve had the rights and opportunity to make the latter two movies for over seven years, Warner Bros. hastily hired writers to condense the books “The Vampire Lestat” and “Queen of the Damned” into one movie with the latter being the movie title. (Yeah basically, pretty dumb idea honestly, but when you got to Wheel-of-Time-the-television-show something, you got to do it I guess)
On the casting of Stuart Townsend as Lestat, Anne Rice stated “Everything I hear about the movie is good. Warner Bros. is extremely enthusiastic. They are working very hard to make it perfect. I have no real news. Let me repeat what I mentioned in a recent message. I met Stuart Townsend, the young man who is playing Lestat and he was absolutely charming. He had Lestat’s excellent speaking voice and his feline grace. I cannot wait to see him in the film”.
Stuart Townsend took the role of Lestat after originally being cast as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) but was recast with Viggo Mortensen after four days of shooting because the filmmakers realized he was too young for the role. (uh …. Yeah, which is why I kind of don’t believe the story. Makes no sense)
The architecture of Aunt Maharet’s house is based upon Angkor Wat, the stone temple located in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
The film was a subject of controversy due to inspiring a real life murder shortly after the film’s theatrical release. In December 2002, Allan Menzies from West Lothian in Scotland murdered one of his friends. He claimed in court that it was Aaliyah’s character “Queen Akasha” from the film that told him to do it. (Say whaaaaaa)
Josh Hartnett, Heath Ledger, and Wes Bently were all considered to replace Tom Cruise as Lestat after he declined to reprise his role. (Harnett would have been cool)
The fact that the night club “The Admiral’s Arms” was a vampire bar “in the meat packing district” of London is an homage to the night club “Mother” which was a vampyre bar located in the meat packing district of New York City. (Is it though? … IMDb users can sometimes read a bit too much into things)
Wes Bentley was originally cast as Lestat, but he dropped out.
Singer Aimee Nash of “The Black Ryder” duo had a cameo as a vampire singer in the “Admiral’s Arms” vampire nightclub although the majority of her footage was deleted (she is still visible in the background of the nightclub scene).
Queen Akasha never actually attacks anyone by biting their neck. She either sets them on fire, rips their heart out, or bites another area of their body. (Fun facts!)
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – “Paycheck” begins with a thought-provoking idea from Philip K. Dick, exploits it for its action and plot potential, but never really develops it. By the end, the film seems to have lost enthusiasm for itself and should be scored with “Is That All There Is?” It’s like an assembly of off-the-shelf parts from techno-thrillers: the vast laboratory, the cold-blooded billionaire industrialist, the hero in a situation that he doesn’t understand, the professional security men who line up to get bumped off by the amateur computer nerd. Because the director is John Woo, we expect a chase and a martial-arts sequence, and we get them, but they’re strangely detached; they feel like exercises, not exuberations.
Directors – John Woo – (Known For: Face/Off; Mission: Impossible II; Hard Target; Broken Arrow; The Killer; Red Cliff; Hard Boiled; Zhui bu; Ying hung boon sik; Dip huet gai tau; Jian yu; Ying hung boon sik II; Chung hang sei hoi; Future BMT: Windtalkers; BMT: Paycheck;)
Writers – Philip K. Dick (short story) – (Known For: Blade Runner 2049; Blade Runner; Total Recall; Minority Report; The Adjustment Bureau; A Scanner Darkly; Naechureol siti; Future BMT: Next; Impostor; Screamers; Radio Free Albemuth; BMT: Paycheck;)
Dean Georgaris (screenplay) – (Known For: The Meg; The Manchurian Candidate; Future BMT: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life; Tristan + Isolde; BMT: Paycheck;)
Actors – Ben Affleck – (Known For: Justice League; Gone Girl; Jay and Silent Bob Reboot; The Town; Triple Frontier; Good Will Hunting; Dazed and Confused; The Accountant; Argo; He’s Just Not That Into You; Shakespeare in Love; State of Play; Dogma; The Sum of All Fears; Daredevil; Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back; Field of Dreams; School Ties; Mallrats; Chasing Amy; Future BMT: Surviving Christmas; Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Reindeer Games; Suicide Squad; Man About Town; Pearl Harbor; The Third Wheel; 200 Cigarettes; Live by Night; Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Smokin’ Aces; BMT: Gigli; Runner Runner; Phantoms; Paycheck; Armageddon; Razzie Notes: Winner for Worst Actor in 2004 for Daredevil, Gigli, and Paycheck; Winner for Worst Screen Combo for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2017; Winner for Worst Screen Couple for Gigli in 2004; Nominee for Worst Actor in 2002 for Pearl Harbor; in 2005 for Jersey Girl, and Surviving Christmas; and in 2017 for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice; Nominee for Worst Actor of the Decade in 2010 for Daredevil, Gigli, Jersey Girl, Paycheck, Pearl Harbor, and Surviving Christmas; and Nominee for Worst Screen Couple in 1999 for Armageddon; in 2002 for Pearl Harbor; and in 2005 for Jersey Girl;)
Aaron Eckhart – (Known For: Midway; The Dark Knight; Olympus Has Fallen; Erin Brockovich; Sully: Miracle on the Hudson; The Missing; Thank You for Smoking; No Reservations; Any Given Sunday; Bleed for This; The Core; The Pledge; Rabbit Hole; Conversations with Other Women; In the Company of Men; Possession; Nothing Is Private; Nurse Betty; Your Friends & Neighbors; Future BMT: The Black Dahlia; Incarnate; Love Happens; Suspect Zero; Erased; Bill; Molly; Neverwas; BMT: The Wicker Man; I, Frankenstein; Battle Los Angeles; London Has Fallen; Paycheck;)
Uma Thurman – (Known For: Pulp Fiction; Kill Bill: Vol. 1; Nymphomaniac: Vol. I; The House That Jack Built; Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief; Kill Bill: Vol. 2; Gattaca; Dangerous Liaisons; The Adventures of Baron Munchausen; Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind; Beautiful Girls; The Producers; Down a Dark Hall; Henry & June; Les Misérables; My Super Ex-Girlfriend; Prime; Mad Dog and Glory; Final Analysis; Sweet and Lowdown; Future BMT: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues; Johnny Be Good; Bel Ami; The Con Is On; Motherhood; The Accidental Husband; Chelsea Walls; Jennifer Eight; The Life Before Her Eyes; Burnt; Vatel; BMT: Batman & Robin; The Avengers; Movie 43; Be Cool; Playing for Keeps; Paycheck; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Actress, and Worst Screen Couple for The Avengers in 1999; Nominee for Worst Actress for Even Cowgirls Get the Blues in 1995; and Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress for Batman & Robin in 1998;)
Rotten Tomatoes – 27% (42/156): Though Dick’s short story has an intriguing premise, Woo reduces it to a lot of meaningless chases, shoot-outs, and explosions.
Top 10: Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019), Logan (2017), Ready Player One (2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), Escape Room (2019), Ghost in the Shell (2017), Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), District 9 (2009), Rampage (2018), The Island (2005);
Future BMT: 54.7 Resident Evil: Retribution (2012), 51.7 Tank Girl (1995), 47.3 Pootie Tang (2001), 47.1 Clockstoppers (2002), 46.4 Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), 33.3 Saw VI (2009), 32.9 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), 26.9 Antitrust (2001), 24.1 Repo Men (2010), 14.7 Resident Evil (2002);
BMT: Assassin’s Creed (2016), Hitman: Agent 47 (2015), Max Payne (2008), The Lawnmower Man (1992), Paycheck (2003), Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Fire Down Below (1997)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 14) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Ben Affleck is No. 1 billed in Paycheck and No. 1 billed in Gigli, which also stars Al Pacino (No. 7 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 1 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 3 + 1 = 14. If we were to watch Pearl Harbor we can get the HoE Number down to 7.
Notes – Jennings (Ben Affleck) was supposed to be a New York Mets fan (or Yankees, sources differ), but Affleck, a Boston Red Sox fan, persuaded Director John Woo to change the team to the Red Sox.
In the original story (“Paycheck” by Philip K. Dick) Jennings sends to himself very different items, and there were only seven of them. They were: “A code key. A ticket stub. A parcel receipt. A length of fine wire. Half a poker chip, broken across. A green strip of cloth. A bus token.”
John Woo originally did not want to do his trademark “Mexican Standoff” in this film, but Ben Affleck begged Woo to include the scene, having been a big fan of Woo’s films The Killer (1989) and Hard Boiled (1992).
Matt Damon was originally considered for the part of Michael Jennings, but turned it down, because it was too similar to The Bourne Identity (2002).
Michael C. Hall’s feature film debut.
Just before Michael starts his second project, he comments on the Red Sox making the World Series. Although this film was released in 2003, it is set in 2004, and accurately predicts the Red Sox making the World Series, although it incorrectly predicts that they would lose.
Among the alternate features in the DVD, is the final, wherein after Michael and Rachel get away, they pass by a pawn shop, and Michael sees the ring that the kid took off him on the bus. He gets it, and gives it to Rachel.
This was Ben Affleck’s biggest paycheck to date, earning him approximately fifteen million dollars.
In the DVD special feature about the film’s stunts, Stunt Coordinator Gregg Smrz explains that in a chase-scene crash between a car and a big rig truck, the truck was actually towing the car by use of a cable system that the special effects department fabricated. One of the chains connecting the two vehicles is noticeable during this crash sequence in the film.
In the “Making of” featurette on the DVD, John Woo says that the visual similarities in the lead character to Roger Thornhill from Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959), as well as similarities in chase scenes, et cetera, are there on purpose.
Awards – Winner for the Razzie Award for Worst Actor (Ben Affleck, 2004)
RogerEbert.com – 2.0 stars – Is this the movie for you? It may very well be. You’ve read my review, and you think I’m just making snarky comments and indulging in cheap sarcasm. Well, all right, I am. “Burlesque” shows Cher and Christina Aguilera being all that they can be, and that’s more than enough.
Actors – Cher – (Known For: Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again; The Player; Mask; The Witches of Eastwick; Moonstruck; Mermaids; Silkwood; Stuck on You; Suspect; Tea with Mussolini; Future BMT: Prêt-à-Porter; Faithful; BMT: Zookeeper; Burlesque; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actress for Burlesque in 2011;)
Christina Aguilera – (Known For: Pitch Perfect 2; Get Him to the Greek; Casa de mi Padre; Future BMT: Life of the Party; Zoe; BMT: The Emoji Movie; Burlesque;)
Alan Cumming – (Known For: Eyes Wide Shut; GoldenEye; Spy Kids; X-Men 2; Battle of the Sexes; It’s Complicated; Spy Kids 3: Game Over; Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion; Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams; Emma; Josie and the Pussycats; Titus; Nicholas Nickleby; The Anniversary Party; Black Beauty; Circle of Friends; Dare; Any Day Now; Second Best; Sweet Land; Future BMT: Son of the Mask; The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas; The Smurfs; The Smurfs 2; The Tempest; Boogie Woogie; Strange Magic; Buddy; Gray Matters; Company Man; Plunkett & Macleane; Sir Billi; Neverwas; Maladies; BMT: Spice World; Garfield; Get Carter; Show Dogs; Burlesque; Razzie Notes: Nominee for Worst Supporting Actor for Son of the Mask in 2006;)
Rotten Tomatoes – 36% (63/174): Campy and clichéd, Burlesque wastes its talented cast (including a better-than-expected Christina Aguilera) on a movie that wavers uncertainly between “bad” and “so bad it’s good.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Top 10 have to be released from 1980 onwards and get a theatrical wide release. Amazingly, of the 200+ burlesque films Burlesque is plausibly the only example ever released!
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Cam Gigandet is No. 4 billed in Burlesque and No. 4 billed in Trespass, which also stars Nicolas Cage (No. 1 billed) who is in The Wicker Man (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 5 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 4 + 4 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 1 = 16. There is no shortest path at the moment.
Notes – The photo of seven-year-old Ali with her mother is actually a photo of a much younger Christina Aguilera with her real-life mother, Shelly Kearns.
Most of the flamboyant costumes worn by Cher were her own clothes, some of which were designed by her longtime friend Bob Mackie (interview on The Graham Norton Show (2007) / 18 Dec. 2010).
Surprisingly, this is Cher’s first musical film.
Cam Gigandet learned how to play the piano especially for the film.
Steve Antin got the idea for this film after watching Christina Aguilera perform as a featured vocalist for The Pussycat Dolls in 2002.
Christina Aguilera’s first choice for the role of Nikki was Emma Stone.
Tess asks Sean what happened to all the good dancers in LA, to which he responds Dancing with the Stars (2005). Their cast mate on this film, Julianne Hough, is one of the professional dancers on the Emmy-Winning show.
The first instrumental Ali dances to during her audition is the background music from “Nasty Naughty Boy,” performed by Christina Aguilera. This tune was replaced in the DVD version.
With a budget of $55 million, Burlesque is one of Screen Gems’ most expensive films outside of the Resident Evil franchise.
Robert Pattinson, Kellan Lutz, Taylor Lautner were considered to play Jack, before the role went to fellow Twilight star Cam Gigandet.
Awards – Nominee for the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress (Cher, 2011)
Bad Movie Twins 
