This week we get to enjoy the worst reviewed romantic film of the year (as long as you don’t count Fifty Shades of Black). That would be the Garry Marshall film Mother’s Day, which garnered truly horrifying reviews (7% on 133 reviews, woof). This also represents our first completed BMTrilogy: New Years’ Eve, Valentine’s Day, and Mother’s Day is the Garry Marshall holiday ensemble cast trilogy, and they now represent three separate BMT weeks. Of the five hundred famous actors in the film I’m most looking forward to seeing BMT fave Timothy Olyphant. His fourth BMT film! That actually seems a bit low. He feels like an old BMT friend. Let’s go!
Mother’s Day (2016) – BMeTric: 32.2
(I do not know what the archive wouldn’t have anything prior to the release dat … but whatever. Standard, kind of boring. I’ll have to think up something else to do with these if this trend continues. I feel like there just isn’t much interesting in these graphs recently.)
Leonard Maltin – 0.5 stars – Do you like films that are so wildly overstuffed with characters and subplots that the finale requires a child’s life-threatening asthma attack, a karaoke-related injury and a recalcitrant vending machine to bring two characters together at last? Are you okay with movies that feature characters who are unabashedly racist, so long as they are wacky racists? Have you lain awake late at night wondering what Julia Roberts might look like if she happened to be sporting Moe Howard’s hairdo? If so, then “Mother’s Day” may just be the movie for you.
(It feels like Garry Marshall was pretty in-tune to 2016. Unabashedly racist, wacky people are pretty popular with 46.2% of the US population.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BPr217zLps
(Right off the bat we get a “Hello, Atlanta!” It’s like they know the key to my heart. Also, just to point out, this film was cast, set, and filmed in one of the biggest African-American majority cities in the nation and there is nary a single Black person in the cast. Oh, wait! There is a Black grocery clerk… so… you’re all good, Hollywood. Never change.)
Directors – Garry Marshall – (Known For: Pretty Woman; The Princess Diaries; Overboard; Runaway Bride; Frankie and Johnny; Nothing in Common; The Flamingo Kid; BMT: Exit to Eden; Valentine’s Day (BMT); New Year’s Eve (BMT); The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement; Mother’s Day; Georgia Rule (BMT); Raising Helen; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Director for New Year’s Eve; Most famous for creating Happy Days. His entire family are directors, Penny Marshall (sister) and Scott Marshall (son) for example.)
Writers – Anya Kochoff (screenplay) (as Anya Kochoff Romano) – (BMT: Monster-in-Law; Mother’s Day; Notes: Oddly she’s the younger sister of Kristina Kell who appeared as a State Trooper in the BMT classic Nothing But Trouble and was a contestant on Survivor.)
Matthew Walker (screenplay) (as Matt Walker & story) (as Matt Walker) – (BMT: Mother’s Day; Notes: Even weirder, this dude is primarily an actor (I recently saw him as Spitz in Halloween 5), and has collaborated with Garry Marshall on 6 films since 2004)
Tom Hines (screenplay & story) – (BMT: Mother’s Day; Notes: While he has limited credits he clearly has been heavily involved with Marshall’s recent projects. He had a bit part with The Princess Diaries, but was probably an assistant or producer of some kind. And he is directing and writing a documentary focused on Marshall in the next few years)
Lily Hollander (story) – (BMT: Mother’s Day; Notes: She has literally nothing else on her IMDb or on the internet. A mystery. I look forward to rediscovering her in some other weird movie in like 3 years.)
Garry Marshall (story) – (Known For: Nothing in Common; The Flamingo Kid; BMT: Mother’s Day; The Other Sister; Notes: I find it insane that he decided to write the third movie in this series at the age of 80 after not getting a screenwriting credit for 17 years. It boggles my mind. But maybe it is a technical thing, he just happened to do enogh work on this one they had to do it.)
Actors – Jennifer Aniston – (Known For: Storks; We’re the Millers; Office Space; Horrible Bosses; He’s Just Not That Into You; The Switch; The Iron Giant; Wanderlust; Bruce Almighty; Cake; Marley & Me; Friends with Money; Rock Star; The Good Girl; Life of Crime; The Object of My Affection; She’s the One; Picture Perfect; BMT: Leprechaun (BMT); The Bounty Hunter (BMT); Rumor Has It…; The Break-Up; Love Happens; Along Came Polly; Mother’s Day; ‘Til There Was You; Horrible Bosses 2; Just Go with It (BMT); Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2011 for Worst Actress for The Switch, and The Bounty Hunter; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2012 for Worst Screen Couple for Just Go with It, and in 2011 for The Bounty Hunter; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1997 for Worst New Star for She’s the One; A veritable BMT star. Bounty Hunter is an amazing terrible Romance. I still maintain that The Break-up is one of the most unpleasant and terrible movies I’ve ever seen.)
Kate Hudson – (Known For: Deepwater Horizon; Kung Fu Panda 3; Almost Famous; How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days; Wish I Was Here; The Killer Inside Me; The Four Feathers; The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Dr. T & the Women; BMT: Bride Wars (BMT); Le divorce; You, Me and Dupree; Fool’s Gold (BMT); Good People; Nine; Mother’s Day; Something Borrowed (BMT); Alex & Emma; My Best Friend’s Girl; Rock the Kasbah; Raising Helen; 200 Cigarettes; Gossip; A Little Bit of Heaven; The Skeleton Key; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 2009 for Worst Actress for Fool’s Gold, and My Best Friend’s Girl. Somewhat of a secret BMT star as well. Obviously most well known for founding the athletic brand Fabletics.)
Julia Roberts – (Known For: Money Monster; Pretty Woman; Ocean’s Eleven; Erin Brockovich; Notting Hill; Charlie Wilson’s War; Closer; Ocean’s Twelve; August: Osage County; Steel Magnolias; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White; Mystic Pizza; Charlotte’s Web; Stepmom; and many more; BMT: Full Frontal; Prêt-à-Porter; Valentine’s Day (BMT); Love, Wedding, Marriage; Eat Pray Love; I Love Trouble; America’s Sweethearts; Mother’s Day; Something to Talk About; Mary Reilly; Larry Crowne; Sleeping with the Enemy; Dying Young; Secret in Their Eyes; Mona Lisa Smile; Hook; Notes: Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1997 for Worst Actress for Mary Reilly; Nominated for the Razzie Award in 1992 for Worst Supporting Actress for Hook. Oh Hook, amazingly controversial (I love it, but it is terrible). We need to start working through her BMT filmography, it is gigantic.)
Budget/Gross – $25 million / Domestic: $32,492,859 (Worldwide: $32,492,859)
#21 on the Worst Openings – Super Saturated Adjusted chart
(Pretty bad, but honestly they made a horrible release decision here. Mother’s Day is a thing in Europe, it is just on a different day. And yet it was released in the UK like two months later. It was released too, and no, it didn’t make $0 dollars, so that must be a mistake. Regardless this was a bomb, this was like Hitman: Agent 47)
#12 for the Mother genre
(Weird that this genre would collapse in the late 2000s. Otherwise it has been pretty consistent. Looking throgh the actual list there were zero last year and only two this year, which is rather small, so whatever this genre is is again a little out of fashion.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 7% (9/133): Arguably well-intended yet thoroughly misguided, Mother’s Day is the cinematic equivalent of a last-minute gift that only underscores its embarrassing lack of effort.
(This is kind of a strange overview considering (1) This was Marshall’s first screenwriting credit in 17 years and (2) the movie came out within 3 months of his death. Last-minute gift indeed. I do wonder whether whatever health issues he may have been having influenced the production at all. Seems extreme to direct/write/produce a huge ensemble peace at the age of 80.)
Poster – Mother’s Sklog (C-)
(I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t really say mother’s day. Is that what the flowers in the center supposed to be. I feel like I hate them, but they are also the only interesting thing in the poster. Otherwise it is just a few faces and stupid simple title and a white background.)
Tagline(s) – Celebrate the one day that connects us all (D)
Come celebrate the mother of all holidays (F)
(The “mother of all holidays” is horrific. The first one it just kind of stupid. What about Father’s Day? Is this something people say about Mother’s Day?)
Keyword(s) – holiday in title; Top Ten by BMeTric: 62.9 Saving Christmas (2014); 49.8 Christmas with the Kranks (2004); 43.2 I Hate Valentine’s Day (2009); 40.7 Four Christmases (2008); 40.1 Valentine’s Day (I) (2010); 32.3 Mother’s Day (2016); 29.6 I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998); 29.4 A Merry Friggin’ Christmas (2014); 19.3 Christmas in Wonderland (2007); 18.9 A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011);
(Is this what Garry Marshall discovered before making this trilogy? This also makes me think we need to do a full blown Holiday cycle at some point. Get Boo! A Madea Halloween and a bunch of others. Sci Fi would be the hardest? IS there an action film with a holiday in the title? Too bad we are doing Independence Day 2 in this cycle, it is kind of perfect.)
Notes – Julia Roberts’ three children (Hazel, Phinneas and Henry) all appear in the film.
Julia Roberts earned $3 million for four days work. (gross)
There is a reference to Pretty Woman (1990) when Hector Elizondo tells Julia Roberts that she finally figured out the salad fork as she’s eating in the train station cafe. (Also not fun. I suppose some huge GarryHeads will be all over the reference)
The wig Julia Roberts wears is the wig she wore in the movie Notting Hill (1999) for a scene about a space movie. She mentioned it in an interview on the Ellen: The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003), May 2016. She even said she was ”recycling”. (fun fact. I love fun facts)
The film is Julia Roberts’ fourth collaboration with director Garry Marshall, the first three being Pretty Woman (1990), Runaway Bride (1999) and Valentine’s Day (2010).
Jennifer Aniston and Jason Sudeikis fifth movie together. They also acted together in The Bounty Hunter (2010), Horrible Bosses (2011) , We’re the Millers (2013), and Horrible Bosses 2 (2014). (Wow, sometimes I wonder how something like that happens. Is it producers kind of pushing them together and saying it is a money maker? Do the actors like working together and suggest each other for parts? Do they have the same agent who likes to kill two birds with one stone? Fascinating stuff)
Bad Movie Twins 