Oh man, the last thing I remember I was cave diving with my son (natch, all that is definitely true) and I hit my noggin and now I can’t remember a thing! Do you remember what happened in Sanctum?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) Why is our billionaire funder funding this cave diving expedition?
2) Where did the billionaire meet his adventurous girlfriend?
3) While discovering St. Jude’s Cathedral, a large new cave system, Jude dies. Josh blames his father. Why? In turn his father suggests that Josh is also somewhat culpable. How?
4) Why couldn’t the group just wait in the Cathedral to be rescues, as is suggested by multiple people?
“Woooooo,” scream the gang as they ride Bessy the Giant Alligator through the sewers of the school. There aren’t any rules against water polo playing alligators and there aren’t any rules against having fun either. Suddenly they drop into a dank sanctum deep underground with a wondrous swirling pool of water in the middle. “The portal,” Poe whispers, beholding a link between universes and the object of their quest. “How… how do we destroy it?” asks Rich, but Adrestia sushes him and points to Rich’s chest, “The Devil’s Key. It was inside of you the whole time.” Rad. They all link hands, Rich and Poe readying to destroy the portal, but before they do a slow, sharp crack of applause rings out and sends chills down their spines. Nic Cage and the hooded gamemaster stand behind them. “Excellent,” Nic Cage says with a smile, “you quelled the riots with your silly book. But I’m curious, how did you know that the book would help uncover the larger conspiracy? That the students, inspired by chaste love, would then turn over the football coach for distributing steroids?” Rich and Poe look at each other. The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All… of course. “Yes, very curious indeed,” the game master adds shaking with fury, “and what are you doing here?” Thinking fast Rich and Poe explain that they were just looking for a place to dispose of all those bad steroids. “While rulez are coolz, everyone knows drugz are totally not coolz.” They fist bump and hold their breath. “Excellent,” says Nic Cage beaming. “Now we’re ready for the third challenge,” he says, “and remember, sometimes a good setting can go a long way.” “Oui, de Paris avec amour,” the hooded gamemaster says and kicks Rich and Poe into the portal. That’s right! We’re watching Sanctum. That film that everyone remembers. It’s a perfect transition to the next cycle as not only is it an example of a Deus Ex Machina (according to the internet), but takes place in Papua New Guinea of all places. That fits nicely with the globe-trotting mapl.de.map adventure that is the third leg of our battle for the universe. This time, though, anywhere and anything goes as we try to get some truly ludicrous settings. Let’s go!
Sanctum (2011) – BMeTric: 35.2; Notability: 21
(Ha the 9.7 … I suppose the early views were by underwater filmmaking fanatics? It ended up just under 6 it looks like which is about what I would expect. The notability is a bit higher that I would expect, but then again I bet a bunch of those are famous underwater stuntmen and filmmaking technicians, so perhaps it is understandable. Hard to make an underwater film without people who are good at making underwater films.)
RogerEbert.com – 1.5 stars – “Sanctum” tells the story of a terrifying adventure in an incompetent way. Some of it is exciting, the ending is involving, and all of it is a poster child for the horrors of 3-D used badly. The film is being heavily marketed as a “James Cameron Production,” but if this were a “James Cameron Film,” I suspect it would have fewer flaws and the use of 3-D would be much improved.
(Big oof. If you look below at the people involved … yeah, it kind of seems like the review nails it on the head. It is very much a story of Cameron asking an underwater filmmaker to make a movie his friend wrote using Australian Soap Opera stars … not really what you want.)
(So dramatic! Probably doesn’t help that I have a long standing fear of deep water … I remember when this came out and thought “yeah, nope, I’m not watching that.” But the siren song of BMT beckons, I must watch to appear the BMT gods.)
Directors – Alister Grierson – (Known For: Kokoda: 39th Battalion; BMT: Sanctum; Notes: Apparently was offered the job while visiting the set of Avatar. I assume Cameron knew him based on his experience with underwater filmmaking.)
Writers – John Garvin (written by) – (BMT: Sanctum; Notes: Was apparently brought on due to his experience with underwater filmmaking.)
Andrew Wight (written by & story) – (BMT: Sanctum; Notes: An accomplished diver, he has been involved in a ton of underwater documentaries. The story is based on an event that happened to him. He sadly died in a helicopter crash in 2012.)
Actors – Rhys Wakefield – (Known For: Bliss; After the Dark; Broken Hill; Shadow Walkers; Nobody Walks; The Black Balloon; Paint It Black; Future BMT: The Purge; War on the Range; Bootmen; BMT: Sanctum; Endless Love; Notes: Started on Home and Away, an Australian Soap Opera. He was in over 300 episodes.)
Allison Cratchley – (BMT: Sanctum; Notes: Australian. She was featured heavily on All Saints, which is a medical drama, and that same Soap Opera Home and Away.)
Christopher James Baker – (Known For: The Purge: Election Year; Serendipity; Ned Kelly; Nim’s Island; Appropriate Behaviour; Kokoda: 39th Battalion; Future BMT: The Condemned; The Duel; Renaissance Man; The Great Raid; BMT: Kangaroo Jack; Sanctum; Notes: Ultimately he’s got a ton of work in television (along with a bunch of bit parts in the movies listed above). He’s going to be featured consistently in the upcoming Stargirl, and was in 7 episodes of Ozark.)
(Whooooooooo doggy, that is actually kind of a success. I’m actually willing to bet there was no attempt at a follow-up in any capacity because of Cameron. I can imagine him seeing the project as an interesting challenge and then just walking away after it was completed.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 30% (50/167): Sanctum is beautifully photographed, and it makes better use of 3-D technology than most, but that doesn’t make up for its ham-handed script and lifeless cast.
(This all seems incredibly consistent. A beautiful film with cardboard cutouts as a cast and a terrible script written by someone who isn’t a screenwriter … what did you expect? Reviewer Highlight: Sometimes the sets look like, well, Styrofoam. So do the actors. – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone.)
(This is actually an exciting poster. You got cave diving and an interesting layout, with nice color and at least a little playfulness with the font. Overall I enjoy this. It’s nicely made. A; Patrick’s Shallow Fake: I didn’t really work too hard on the face this time, just kind of popped it in and colored it. The thing I really proud about it mimicking the font pretty well. It makes me think I might have the skillz to mimic basically any font in the future, which is rather helpful when I want to just write some ridiculous title onto a poster.)
Tagline(s) – The only way out is down (A)
(I also enjoy this tagline. It’s an unexpected twist and kinda gives you a sense of the film itself. Makes your breath catch a little to think that you would be diving and you think of the disorientation of having to dive further and further down to make your way out. I like it.)
Top 10: Inception (2010), Licence to Kill (1989), Never Say Never Again (1983), Finding Nemo (2003), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Charlie’s Angels (2000), Fool’s Gold (2008), The Italian Job (2003), Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (2018), The Abyss (1989)
Future BMT: 63.0 Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997), 59.1 The Cave (2005), 55.1 Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home (1995), 39.4 Into the Blue (2005), 38.2 Masterminds (2016), 33.6 Along Came Polly (2004), 33.2 Sahara (2005), 22.8 After the Sunset (2004), 18.4 Act of Valor (2012);
BMT: Fool’s Gold (2008), Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), Ghost Ship (2002), Jaws 3-D (1983), Sanctum (2011), The Medallion (2003)
(Let’s see. Free Will 2 seems exciting, I very much want to watch that for some reason. Pretty consistent over the years. I wonder if the drop off has to do with HD documentaries becoming more available, and also travel itself getting cheaper over time. So that wide release films featuring diving are no longer needed nor seen as a novelty.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 21) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Richard Roxburgh is No. 2 billed in Sanctum and No. 5 billed in Stealth, which also stars Jessica Biel (No. 2 billed) who is in Valentine’s Day (No. 2 billed), which also stars Jessica Alba (No. 1 billed) who is in Mechanic: Resurrection (No. 2 billed), which also stars Jason Statham (No. 1 billed) who is in In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Seige Tale (No. 1 billed), which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 4 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => 2 + 5 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 21. If we were to watch King Arthur, and Killer Elite we can get the HoE Number down to 13.
Notes – Ioan Gruffudd performed his own base jump stunt, which he described as his favorite part of the shoot. (That is extremely dangerous. So dangerous in fact that I don’t really believe it)
Ioan Gruffudd was the only member of the cast to be a fully qualified diver before the film began shooting. (Oh, so maybe he was already kind of qualified to base jump?)
In an unfortunate coincidence, Agnes Milowka, one of the film’s diving doubles, drowned after running out of air shortly after the film was released. (I have a feeling a bunch of the cave diving stunt people had their lives cut short)
Having trained in a diving center to prepare for his role, Richard Roxburgh claimed that the hardest thing to master was the rebreather, which he described as “fantastic in theory, but a torture in real life”.
Richard Roxburgh said that despite the on-set security, he feared for his life several times during the shoot.
The film used a tank containing seven million liters of water for its underwater scenes.
Originally the production seriously considered shooting in real underground caves. However, the practicalities of lugging all the equipment into such tight, confined spaces – not to mention the freezing cold temperatures of the water within the caves – soon precluded that.
At one point Richard Roxburgh asked the art department if they could lighten the load of the pack that he has to carry for most of the film. The next morning they presented him with the reduced weight pack, telling him that they’d managed to take 2 kgs off the total weight. Of course, they hadn’t bothered doing anything at all but Roxburgh was convinced that they had.
All the underwater sequences were shot in a large water tank at the Village Roadshow Studios in Queensland, Australia.
As of March 2011, the 10th biggest grossing Australian film at the international box office. (That is an absurd fact)
Production designer Nicholas McCallum built the caves in concrete, so that they wouldn’t move while the actors were climbing them, and so that they could be reused for underwater scenes. Once scenes with one setting were wrapped, the cave parts would be put in a water tank for the diving scenes.
Director Alister Grierson and cinematographer Jules O’Loughlin had no experience with 3D prior to working on this film. Thus, they had learn how to light the scenes, use the stereoscopic space and manipulate the cameras from scratch.
Production designer Nicholas McCallum built a 14 meter high underwater fall for the film, which propelled 20000 liters of water per minute.
Universal and Relativity paid $12 million for the rights to distribute the film internationally.
Director Alister Grierson contracted pneumonia during the shoot.
The cave itself was based on the Cheve/Chaco/etc expeditions in the Yucatan, and the father character was based on Bill Stone, the caver/diver who was instrumental in those expeditions as well as in the invention of the re-breather.
John Garvin was chosen as co-writer by James Cameron and Andrew Wight due to his considerable experience as an accomplished diver. Moreover, Garvin wrote the role of Jim Sergeant with himself in mind, hoping Alister Grierson would let him play it.
To complement the tank shoot, the production headed into the wild. Caver and producer Andrew Wight said: “We also filmed in real caves in South Australia’s cave-diving region around Mount Gambier. Filming in the limestone, water-filled caves added a scale and an authenticity to the tank shoot at the studio.”
Based on the true story of co-writer Andrew Wight. He once went cave diving under the Nullarbor plain with fourteen other people. An unexpected storm made the cave’s entrance collapse and they spent two days looking for another way out. Unlike in the film however, a rescue was organized and everybody survived. Wight told his frequent collaborator and fellow diving enthusiast James Cameron the story in 2006, who decided they should get a director and make a film about it. (Jesus, that’s pretty scary)
Alright! Here it is! Moving on to this week’s film we are finally at the finish line! You all doubted we could do it, but here we are. Us shrouded in glory and you all eating crow. That’s right, we are finally to the coveted final state of apl.de.ap. To recap, we have seen all the Black Eyed Peas in BMT films. Will.i.am was in X-men Origins: Wolverine, Fergie was in Poseidon, and Taboo was in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-li. While apl.de.ap has never appeared in a film as a character, he has appeared with the Black Eyed Peas in several film. Lucky for us they appeared in the BMT sequel to Get Shorty called Be Cool. So here’s the map. Look at it… I said look at it! It’s fucking gorgeous and it’s all ours. Phew. Well there we go. After years of searching and watching terrible movies it is done (literally years. We started the map on January 31, 2013… so almost three years ago). Now time to start up the world map. Which film would represent the US? Here on Earth probs. Here on Earth represents everything that is BMT. Let’s go!
Be Cool (2005) – BMTMetric: 40.6 (at the time ), 37.8 (April 18, 2016)
(Pretty good score. Surprisingly so. This basically means that the movie is predicted to be a better BMT film than 40.6% of other films that scored 40% or lower on RT (our original, arbitrary BMT metric). So kind of middle of the pack. Patrick has already explained what it is before… I think. But he might do it again in a future email [or on the website!]. It’s a really good metric actually. Uses imdb data in a clever way to reflect our feelings on good and bad films for BMT watching.)
Leonard Maltin – 2.5 stars – In this sequel to Elmore Leonard’s GET SHORTY, Chili Palmer (Travolta) moves into the music business and chooses a promising young singer (Milian) as his protegee, despite the fact that she’s already under contract to ruthless Keitel and his loose-cannon lieutenant Vaughn. Amiable, good-looking film retains Leonard’s story smarts but blunts the impact by allowing its comedic costars (Vaughn, Cedric) to riff to their heart’s content. The Rock is especially funny as a bodyguard/Hollywood wannabe. James Woods appears unbilled; other music stars make cameo appearances.
(Second movie in a row that has commented on how the film is “handsome-looking” or “good-looking”. One would hope given it’s a visual medium. Glad we get a little Vaughn riffing. It’s become quite the BMT standard.)
(Oh wow. I don’t like that at all. That feels very dated to me. In particular the Vince Vaughn character. Didn’t realize that Andre 3000 is a legit cast member in the film either. Love me movies with singers as actors (obviously))
Director(s) – F. Gary Gray – (Known For: The Italian Job; The Negotiator; Friday; Straight Outta Compton; Set It Off. BMT: Law Abiding Citizen; Be Cool; A Man Apart. Notes: Bet he gets an Oscar nom for Straight Outta Compton. Like his slate of movies. A Man Apart will be a fun future BMT. Started out as a major music video director. There was a time when that’s where many prominent filmmakers were being found… Interesting to think about.)
Writer(s) – Peter Steinfeld (screenplay) – (BMT: 21; Analyze That; Be Cool; Drowning Mona; Notes: From his imdb trivia page: “Abandoned a promising Mixed Martial Arts career to become a writer at the insistence of novelist Cormac McCarthy”, “Goes by the nickname ‘Gator’, which he earned in Hawaii”, “Has won two regional pie baking competitions and place top three in an astonishing 17 others.” Just so many follow up questions and thoughts.)
Actors – John Travolta – (Known For: Pulp Fiction; Face/Off; Grease; Bolt; Hairspray; Broken Arrow; The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3; Phenomenon (Dir); Get Shorty; Look Who’s Talking; Saturday Night Fever; Carrie; Blow Out; Ladder 49; Primary Colors; A Civil Action. BMT: Swordfish; From Paris with Love; Battlefield Earth; The Punisher; Be Cool; Wild Hogs; Basic; The General’s Daughter; Look Who’s Talking Too; Michael; Old Dogs; Look Who’s Talking Now; Domestic Disturbance; Killing Season; Staying Alive. Notes: Nominated for two Best Actor Oscars for Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever. BMT Legend. Nominated for Worst Actor of the Decade both 1980s and 2000s. Won Worst Actor for Battlefield Earth/Lucky Numbers (2000). Nominated for Worst Actor, Old Dogs (2009), Domestic Disturbance/Swordfish (2001), Perfect (1985), Staying Alive/Two of a Kind (1983). Nominated for Worst Supporting Actor, Shout (1991).)
Budget/Gross: $53 million / $56,046,979 ($95,226,116 Worldwide)
(Wow. That’s way more than I thought it would have cost and made. It’s the 14th highest grossing film set in Hollywood about the world of filmmaking. The worst wide-release film in that category? Our old friend Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.)
Rotten Tomatoes: 29% (50/169), Critics Consensus: Be Cool is tepid, square, and lukewarm; as a parody of the music business, it has two left feet.
(Oh, wow RT. For a website that loves its puns when it comes to crafting a consensus this one is pretty weak. You use “two left feet” as a jab about a film about the music business? It’s not the dancing business guys. Also, this movie is perfectly low enough for BMT. For some reason I thought we were reaching for this final state with a 35% film or something. I’m warming to this one.)
Poster – Human Colored (C-)
(While I feel like I should like this (like them all sitting on a big gold record is kinda cool right?) I really do not. I don’t like when there are huge blocks of color that split the poster. Should be well integrated and a single color should be dominant. And you know how I feel about “human colors” on posters and with all of them sitting in the middle of the poster being all human colored and and wearing all different clothing it just jumbles everything. Boo.)
Tagline(s) – Everyone is looking for the next big hit (A)
(When I first read this I didn’t think it was very good. Just seemed like a phrase about the music business was being used lazily. But now that I get it (the use of the word hit meant to evoke not just the music business, but also Travolta’s criminal background) I really, really love it. Gives great insight into the plot of the film, by using a common phrase in a new way, and in a tight package. Perfection.)
Notes – In the beginning of the film, Chili mentions how a film needs to only use the “F” word more than once in order to get an R rating. He then uses the “F” word – the only use of it in the film – and thus, it gets a PG-13 rating. (That’s fun)
James Woods was originally cast as Nick Carr but had to drop out due to emergency surgery for an aneurysm. He was given the smaller role of Tommy Athens instead.
The film deviates considerably from the source material. (Awww man, now I feel bad that neither of us read the book in advance. Damn.)
This was Robert Pastorelli’s last film. He died from an accidental drug overdose during production. (sad)
Joe Pesci was part of the cast before filming began. But, for reasons unknown, he left the project shortly before production started.
Jennifer Connelly, Charlize Theron, Naomi Watts and Halle Berry were considered for the role of Edie Athens.
The infamous monologue that Sin LaSalle delivered was neither in the novel nor in the early drafts of the script. The idea was put on by director F. Gary Gray who wanted Sin to be likable, but serious at the same time as well. (oh shit! Why infamous?)
Barry Sonnenfeld originally intended to return as director to this follow-up to his Get Shorty (1995) but production delays and scheduling issues precluded that.
Eric Balfour’s role as Derek was cut from the movie, although at least some of his scenes appears among the deleted scenes on the DVD. (Oh, man. I love Skyline’s Eric Balfour… I need that DVD).
Brett Ratner was originally set to direct the project, but pulled out.
September Dawn was just the worst. Imagine a 100 minute Gods and Generals that feels like an 8-hour Gods and Generals (so like… normal length). That’s September Dawn. The worst. No fun at all. Just the worst. Think of the worst thing.. now think of something worse than that. That’s September Dawn. I have nothing more to say. The acting was bad. The story was bad. The editing was really crazy. The flashbacks were ridic (you’ll see). Everything was weird as shit and I hated it.
When I don’t have much to say I can trust Patrick to pick up the slack. Welp, I didn’t want to do a MonoSklog for September Dawn (it deserves nothing!), but when there is an impassioned speech by a Mormon leader set to the tune of really, really, really bad practical effects you gotta do what you gotta do. [Mis Testiculos was a MonoSklog from the movie which we have chosen to leave out of the online content until further notice]. Why the odd name… if you watch the movie you’ll see. Those were some pretty fake testicles. Ugh. This movie.
Patrick
Hallo allemaal! September Dawn? More like September Yawn! Sitting in Schiphol Airport on my way back from Amsterdam watching literally the most boring movie I’ve ever seen. Now, real BMT scholars should be raising extreme objections at this moment. “Bullshit, Gods and Generals extended 4 hour 30 minute cut.” They’d be right, so long that some say I’m still watching it to this day. But for a normal movie made by not crazy people, this one was quite boring. Let’s get very very briefly into this.
Scene by scene recap of this movie: A wagon train gets to Utah, they stop, boy falls in love with girl, gets a horse, yada yada yada people die. The horse training was literally the most interesting part of this movie.
I repeat: the horse training was the more entertaining part of this movie.
The direction was indeed bonkers, thanks for the tip Leonard.
And that’s that. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. It is not fun to watch. It is so bad it goes all the way around and becomes bad again.
Quick Sequel, Prequel, Reboot: I’m thinking sequel, but really dig deep into the subsequent legal case that happened after the massacre. I’m thinking 24 hours long, just legal briefs being read out loud. More entertaining than this movie.
Alright, this looks like a pretty short one so I guess I’ll just wrap it up there. Psych! BMT:CSI:SVU (we’re the special victims) in your face. After this week’s movie we are moving into Bad Movie Thursday Emergency Razzie Preparation Mode (BMTERPM). So, since I’m doing all this analysis, why not try and figure out what makes the Razzies tick? Check out the full analysis here. But the takeaway, there does seem to at least be one major takeaway from looking at how the BMeTric and a Razzie Score correlate: you need BMTargets. The guys like Sandler, and Michael Bay, and Kirk Cameron to get the sweet sweet score. Something to think about as the Razzies approach.
At the time this was a long post (look at the size of that BMT:CSI:SVU!), but we got to be able to predict this stuff! Unfortunately there is little prenomination data available … maybe the head Razzie will send it to me….
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).
OK, well time to move onto this week’s film. This is another replacement film of sorts. While we never officially placed Unaccompanied Minors in Kansas, we certainly watched it with that state in mind (why else would we have stooped so low?). But it turned out that there wasn’t just an unacceptable level of Kansas-ness in the film, it didn’t take place in Kansas at all. It just didn’t. So we had to scramble to get a new one. After a painstaking search we landed on Critters 2: The Main Course. While the first one is generally liked by viewers for its humor, the second one wasn’t as accepted. Hard to tell how poorly it was received, but it did make Ebert’s list of his least favorite films of all time. Felt like that was enough to qualify it for BMT. Not gonna update the map this week. Next week maybe. Let’s go!
Critters 2: The Main Course (1988) – 36.3 BMeTric (July 2, 6016)
(This is honestly kind of a weird trajectory. While you’ll often see a movie’s rating rise substantially with votes this is usually just regression to the mean (it rises because we watch bad movies which are often rated very poorly when they rise come out). But 1.2 points from 4.0 is quite a bit more that you’d expect. Otherwise the only shocking thing is that such a small barely released movie could garner 10,000 votes on IMDb. NOTE: This analysis was written on July 2, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – The big-mouthed, quill-shooting nasties take on an entire town. Nothing special. Followed by two video sequels.
(Wow. Love the short and sweet. I’ll follow the lead. Nothing special with this comment either.)
(That’s not really as bad as it could have been I think. Considering that I kinda liked the original this kind of gets me excited to watch this one. Uh oh.)
Director(s) – Mick Garris – (BMT: Riding the Bullet; Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers; Critters 2: The Main Course. Notes: Also a writer (Hocus Pocus, Fly II, etc.) and obviously best known for directing the TV movie smash hit Fuzzbucket.)
Writer(s) – David Twohy (written by) – (Known For: The Fugitive; Pitch Black; Waterworld; Riddick; G.I. Jane; A Perfect Getaway; The Arrival; Below; Warlock. BMT: The Chronicles of Riddick; Impostor; Terminal Velocity; Critters 2: The Main Course. Notes: Best known as the writer and director of the Riddick series of films. Long been rumored for a third AvP film. Fingers crossed.)
Mick Garris (written by) – (Known For: *batteries not included. BMT: Hocus Pocus; The Fly II; Riding the Bullet; Critters 2: The Main Course. Notes: Kind of a historical figure in Hollywood and in particular in the SciFi genre. Early on directed a series of making of documentaries of horror and SciFi films including a really good one about the film The Thing which I’ve seen. It’s awesome.)
Actors – Scott Grimes – (Known For: Robin Hood; Critters; Crimson Tide. BMT: Winter’s Tale; Mystery Alaska; Critters 2: The Main Course. Notes: Also a singer. Released several albums but his biggest hit came relatively recently with Sunset Blvd in 2005. Never heard of it.)
(The first film was a wild success ($13 million gross on a microbudget). This one not so much. Not surprisingly the rest of the sequels were not released to theaters. It actually had the second worst box office for a wide release creature feature of all time. The worst? BMT classic A Sound of Thunder (A Sound of Thundahhhhhhh))
(The creature feature is a staple of classic horror, but I think it kind of rose to prominence again after Jurassic Park (in case you were wondering what that gigantic peak around ’93 was). Since then it comes and goes in waves, but will probably rise again with Jurassic World killing it at the box office. King Kong may add to it soon as well. NOTE: Analysis written on July 2, 2016)
(Personally once of my least favorite sub-genres, because honestly they are rarely either good comedies or good horror films. They make relatively little money it seems, and one would think that they would thrive a bit more on VOD, so I really don’t understand why this genre keeps chugging along (in the past three years none of the theater releases were very impressive). Kind of interesting that Critters 2 kind of came during the 80’s heyday just as the genre was going back into a slumber once again. The 2010’s resurgence is probably 30-year-old directors who grew up on things like Critters 2 making passion projects. NOTE: This analysis was written on July 2, 2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 33% (3/9), No consensus yet.
(Yeah, so as mentioned at the top there was some question on whether this actually qualified. What put it over the top (besides taking place in Kansas) was Ebert’s hatred of it. He gave it 1 star and said it had “no reason for existence” and all but considered a sign of the end of movies as he knew it. It ended up later on his list of most hated films of all time. So I think that qualifies it.)
Poster – Critters 2: The Main Sklog (C-)
(We get it. It’s a sequel. Could there be any more two’s on this poster? Sheesh. And what color am I going to use for this state? Hate you Critters 2. Though I kinda dig the critters illustration.)
Tagline(s) – Get ready for seconds… they’re back! (C-)
The most illegal aliens of all are back — and they’re hungrier than ever. (weird)
(I have lately been trying to only use the poster tagline for this section, but I could resist with that second one. Pretty crazy. Not sure it would fly today. Must have been in the zeitgeist at the time given the 1986 immigration reform act. I hate the first one. Not as bad as it could have been since it’s references the Critters insatiable hunger, but still lazy like most sequel taglines are.)
Keyword – egg; Top ten by BMeTric: 85.9 Dragonball Evolution (2009); 68.0 The Flintstones (1994); 62.6 Eragon (2006); 59.3 Meet Dave (2008); 57.7 Conan the Barbarian (2011); 56.8 Godzilla (I) (1998); 56.6 Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014); 51.0 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995); 50.3 The Neverending Story II: The Next Chapter (1990); 46.5 Dreamcatcher (2003);
(huh … what a bizarre keyword, and what a amazingly excellent list for such a strange keyword. I saw Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie in theaters. That is all)
So now you probably looked at the title of this email and were all like “Crikey! WTF is What Goes Up, mate?” Again, this is a byproduct of mapl.de.map. A symptom of the underlying disease. As we get the last couple states we’re going to get weirder, and weirder, and weirder. What Goes Up is actually our Chain Reaction. By good fortune we happened to be able to find this film connecting to our last Chain Reaction, Cheaper By the Dozen, through Hilary Duff and it happens to take place in the great state of New Hampshire. Now you’re probably all like “Oy! Didn’t we already get NH with Grown Ups 2, mate? That’s not a knife. This is a knife. Put another shrimp on the barbie.” You’d be right, and yet so wrong. Turns out that Grown Ups 2 probably didn’t take place in New Hampshire (shocking, I know). Upon review of the tape, we determined that in all likelihood it actually took place in CT (we are in talks with Netflix to get this confirmed directly with Adam). So we had to call a quick audible and grab a new NH in this final cycle. If we hadn’t I would have been able to look at the map with nothing but shame rather than the sad, misplaced pride that I currently feel when staring longingly at my baby. So beautiful. Let’s go!
What Goes Up (2009) – BMeTric: 11.7 (July 9th, 2016)
(A pretty unusual plot for two reasons. First, the archive caught a super early snapshot of the IMDb page so the rating was an absurd 8.0+ which makes the whole ratings plot look ridiculous. In reality the rating didn’t really move much more that one would expect with regression to the mean. But, they you have that kind of weird jump from 5.3 to 5.7 very very late in its life which significantly drops the BMeTric. That is weird. Did it find an audience, is it British viewers rallying to defend Coogan, was it his relatively celebrity increasing at that point in time? Unsure, but it is strange. NOTE: Analysis written on July 9, 2016)
Leonard Maltin – 2 stars – Interesting but odd, sometimes off-putting film, set in 1986, about a cynical N.Y.C. newspaper reporter who goes to New Hampshire to write about a teacher who’s traveling on the NASA space shuttle. Instead he falls in with a group of misfit high school kids who are mourning the death of a teacher who was their champion – and hero. Well acted but it’s uncertain what the point is supposed to be.
(Odd and off-putting? Sounds like the reviews for my Christmas album I’m Dreaming of a Sklog Christmas. The whole plot described here sounds like it could be in bad taste, but we’ll see.)
(It’s funny that they used a trailer from 1996 for a film that came out in 2009… just think it’s an interesting choice. The whole tone of the film seems off. Almost like the trailer for Gooby, which makes it look like a family film when it’s clearly a horror film)
Director(s) – Jonathan Glatzer – (BMT: What Goes Up. Notes: This is his only major work in film, but currently a writer for the Netflix series Bloodline.)
Writer(s) – Jonathan Glatzer (written by) – (BMT: What Goes Up. Notes: Worked at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire as a screenwriting fellow.)
Robert Lawson – (BMT: What Goes Up; Notes: Also served as Hilary Duff’s acting coach on the set of What Goes Up. Uh oh.)
Actors – Steve Coogan – (Known For: Hot Fuzz; Philomena; Tropic Thunder; Despicable Me 2; The Other Guys; Night at the Museum; The Trip; Hamlet 2; Ruby Sparks; Our Idiot Brother; Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb; 24 Hour Party People; Minions; Coffee and Cigarettes; In the Loop; The Trip To Italy; Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief; Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian; Alan Partridge. BMT: Around the World in 80 Days; Marmaduke; What Goes Up. Notes: Nominated for two Oscars for writing and producing Philomena.)
Hilary Duff – (Known For: The Lizzie McGuire Movie; Human Nature. BMT: A Cinderella Story; The Perfect Man; Raise Your Voice; Material Girls; Cheaper by the Dozen; Agent Cody Banks; Cheaper by the Dozen 2; Stay Cool; What Goes Up; War Inc. Notes: Nominated for the Razzie in 2007 for Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple for Material Girls; Nominated for the Razzie in 2006 for Worst Actress for Cheaper by the Dozen 2, The Perfect Man; Nominated for the Razzie in 2005 for Worst Actress for A Cinderella Story, Raise Your Voice; Wow, three years in a row!)
(Yup. I’m unashamed. This movie did not get a release. Not the first, not the last. But just enough in my opinion. We only use it when we need to.)
Rotten Tomatoes: 16% (5/31), Critics Consensus: What Goes Up squanders the charisma of Steve Coogan with a lazy screenplay, contrived plotting, and overall poor production.
(But… but… but… don’t you expect overall poor production when the budget is N/A? Honestly though, this sounds like trash.)
Poster – What Goes Sklog (A+)
(I love this poster. Just appealing to the eye and nice coloring.)
Tagline(s) – A Different Class of Misfits (C+)
(This is perfect, in the sense that it is indeed a series of words in the shape of a tagline. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to mean though… I guess just that they are misfits and are in school… but nothing else informative. I wonder what makes them so much different than other misfits. Guess I’ll have to watch and find out.)
Keywords – suicide; Top Ten by BMeTric: 79.1 House of the Dead (2003); 78.7 Skyline (2010);77.0 The Room (2003); 76.8 RoboCop 3 (1993); 76.8 The Legend of Hercules (2014); 76.3 The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009); 74.4 Anaconda (1997); 72.2 The Devil Inside (2012); 71.6 Dragon Wars (2007); 69.8 Ouija (II) (2014);
(First, what a downer. Sorry guys. Second, super competitive category with just about 5000 movies having this keyword on IMDb! Third, yeah some of these don’t sound right … like, was there a suicide in Skyline? It is a super big stretch. I think Anaconda and Legend of Hercules are also probably stretches, where, at the very least, suicide doesn’t play a huge rule. Alas, such is the problems with data-scraping IMDb. NOTE: Analysis written on July 9, 2016)
Notes – The film was in production for many years. Originally Mandy Moore was cast as Lucy, Michelle Williams was cast as Tess and Peter Sarsgaard was cast as Campbell. Later, Steve Coogan was cast as Campbell and Amber Tamblyn was cast as Tess, Kelli Garner was cast as Peggy, Paul Dano was cast as Jim, Alison Pill was cast as Ann and the singer Nellie McKay was cast as Sue . In early 2008 all six dropped out and Amanda Seyfried was given the role of the character Peggy. She was then cast as Sophie in the film Mamma Mia! (2008) and dropped out of What Goes Up (2009) and was replaced by Sarah Lind. Hilary Duff and Olivia Thirlby were then cast in the roles of Lucy and Tess respectively. Josh Peck, Ingrid Nilson and Andrea Brooks were then cast in the roles of Jim, Ann and Sue respectively. (this is amazing. I love this note).
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.)
‘Ello everyone. Survival of the Dead? More like Dead on Arrival. Heyyyoooooo. What a week. And by what a week I mean I watched five movies for BMT, something I vow to never do again until the Resident Evil BMT Marathon Extravaganza Celebration of the Life and Works of Paul WS Anderson (uh …. REBMTMECotLaWoPWSA). A positive: one of the movies was extraordinary, one was okay, one was meh, and only two were genuinely awful. That’s like batting .400 as far as BMT is concerned, amazing average Romero, even if you are so old you’ve forgotten how to make compelling zombie films. Speaking of which:
Romero reminds me of Carpenter in that regard. Prior to The Ward in 2010 Carpenter had a series of poorly received films that lead to his semi-retirement in 2001. Escape from LA (future BMT, guaranteed), Vampires, and Ghosts of Mars (an amazing BMT film). Ghosts of Mars in 2001 literally looks like a film from 1996 and it is painfully clear that Carpenter had just kind of had the horror genre (which seems to evolve rather quickly) pass him by, he was around 53 at the time. Romero was even older, he was around 65 when the second Dead trilogy was being produced after a substantial directing hiatus, and honestly it shows. The fourth film feels like it was made in 1996, the fifth film was a shaky cam horror with Romero hesitantly poking fun at the booming genre, and the sixth is kind of an old school independent project again, like the original film.
And that’s why it’s weird. The entire film series is kind of focused around a single message: this slow zombie apocalypse is more about human’s moral failings than the zombies being particularly threatening. And it’s a message that is completely lost in the 00’s (as compared to the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s when the first three came out). While smashing us over the head with the morality tale the trilogy just falls flat. Weirdly, the sixth (while being by far the worst movie in the series, so fucking bad), is the only one that feels like Romero. The other two felt like he was emulating other people.
But what do I know? I don’t even like zombie movies. These are literally the only ones I’ve ever seen.
Since there isn’t much of a BMT:CSI:SVU forensics case to be made (Romero was hired to make a new trilogy, the fourth film made solid money, he made two terrible films that were barely released … not rocket science), I’ll close with this: This was a solid BMT, and highlights what I like about the last 5 years of doing this. I’m not sure I ever see Dawn of the Dead without being made to watch Survival of the Dead. And Dawn of the Dead is fantastic. Maybe the best practical effects I’ve seen in a horror film outside of The Thing. That’s something.
I’ll just close it here. No sequel, prequel, remake because why? There would be no point. Already too many sequels. What would a prequel be about? Life before the zombie apocalypse? And no need to ever remake Dawn of the Dead (again, haven’t watched the existing remakes yet).
Jamie
Alright, well I really liked the first one, looooovvveeeeed (like The Warriors loved. Or The Thing loved) the second one, and thought the third one was kind of silly but still really good. Then the second trilogy was a travesty. The first was too cartoony and weird and then the next two were just blah. Does anyone else see what that mimics? Anyone? That’s the exact progression of the two Star Wars trilogies! The first one is a classic and great for what it is, but the second is the true classic. The third went a bit too far in certain regards but everyone still loves it. Then an the elderly director comes back decades later to make a silly cartoony fourth film and a couple of duds to follow it up. There is my Sklognalysis, thank you. You know what this means, don’t you? This means we are in for a big budget sequel/reboot to the series (like World War Z level) to bring back the fans and get this shit going again. And when that happens I’ll be right there, cause Dawn of the Dead was fucking fantastic.
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).
Bad Movie Twins 