Patrick: Bad – Page 2 – Bad Movie Twins

Are We Done Yet? Recap

Jamie

What?! Nick Persons is back and the playa has settled down. With a new job and a growing family it’s time to buy a house in the country. Unfortunately the one they find is more than they bargained for and they are soon overwhelmed with renovation headaches. Can Nick turn it around and make the house their dream home? Find out in… Are We Done Yet?

Why?! Nick was totally content with living it up with Suzanne, Kevin, and Lindsey in his tiny bachelor pad in downtown Portland. However, he gets big news when Suzanne announces she’s pregnant with twins. That just won’t work. That’s why they end up needing to buy a house. The reason why they end up getting in trouble with renovations is classic hubris. Nick thinks he can do everything himself so he impulse buys the house and then skimps on the necessary inspections, opening himself to being taken advantage of by the local contractor. He then has to try to manage the ballooning costs as he’s forced to do a complete overhaul. So basically this is a Greek tragedy with a tragic downfall of our hero Nick… except that it all works out in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. Literally no one else in this film has any motivations or storylines of interest.

How?! While Nick’s hubris is the reason for his renovation disaster, the disaster itself is caused by one evil, manipulative human being played by John C. McGinley. He uses classic sales tactics to take advantage of Nick’s hubris and trick him into buying a dilapidated house. Since he’s also the town’s only certified contracted (and the town’s building inspector) he then stands to profit greatly from Nick’s failure to inspect the house. It is horrific, and yet in the end you grow to love McGinley’s character because… he’s like sad or something… so it’s okay that he steals from people (?)… I think. You know what, don’t worry about it. This film is terrible. By the end of the film Nick endears himself to the townspeople, rebuilds his house, they have their babies, he starts a home renovation themed magazine, and everyone is literally the happiest any people have ever been ever.

Who?! McGinley is waaaay too big a character to be a Plachet (he appears more than Nia Long in the film), but he’s the closest we’ve got. He’s essentially the exact same character as he played in Scrubs… which is really weird. At this point I have to assume that’s what he’s like in real life too. How else would every character he plays end up being exactly the same?

Where?! We are still in Oregon, just instead of Portland we’ve moved out into the boonies. Sadly the location is much less important in this one and there are far fewer instances where two characters stand around discussing the virtues of Portland. C+

When?! This was a double downgrade from Are We There Yet? to Are We There Yet? Not only isn’t this a holiday film (boo), this isn’t even an exact date film (booooooooo). We get very little sense of when the film actually takes place and this becomes even more confusing once you realize that about 5-7 months or so pass during the film… so you don’t get anything to latch onto from scene to scene. Sigh. F

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are We Done Yet? More like Is This Movie Done Yet?! Boom, almost as if it was made for it. A sequel to a family comedy starring Ice Cube? What could go wrong? Considering their intention appears to be cracking jokes about Ice Cube falling off things absolutely nothing it would seem! Let’s get into it.

The Good – I mean, I like McGinley even if he plays the same character at this point (and forever will). He’s carved quite the odd niche out for himself hasn’t he? I also think Ice Cube is charming as usual, and hey, Nia Long has a bit more to do this time. Fun fact: This is the second sequel to a comedy we’ve seen this year (!) where Nia Long is pregnant, the other being Big Momma’s House 2.
The Bad – Having established that acting isn’t really a problem what is? Well the mere concept of the film kind of. There isn’t a single funny moment, the entire movie is just stressful and not very enjoyable, and the conflicts are ludicrous. The biggest sin though? Incredibly dull. Just a waste of life.
The BMT – I mean … no. It is a waste of life. There isn’t a payoff in any way shape or form. Literally the only reasons I kind of enjoyed doing this film for BMT is because (1) It’s got cred given the amazingly low rotten tomatoes scores for both films, and (2) it is a remake of a film from 1948 which in and of itself is ridiculous. But naw, there isn’t a need. It is a kids film, and naturally those rarely pay off.

And, given that this is a remake let’s turn in a little BMT Homework Sklog-signment. We often have homework assignments (books to read, previous installments to watch, television shows to … ignore). This movie though was pretty special, a film from 1948 called Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House starring Cary Grant and Myma Loy (what a name! She lived to the age of 98!). It was also aggressively aggravating and incredibly long. Basically what you are watching is two people flush money down the toilet due to arrogance and stupidity. And just as their lives fall totally apart their black cook saves their asses (don’t worry she gets a raise though …). I did not like this movie for some of the same reasons I knew I wouldn’t like Are We Done Yet? Financial difficulties stress me out even when they are fiction. The only reason I survived both movies without tearing my hair out was that I knew both would have happy endings. And they did. Spoiler alert. Still despite great performances by both leads I wouldn’t recommend Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House either (although I wouldn’t call it a waste of life either, it is kind of fun seeing how perceptions of things like Connecticut have changed in the last 60+ years).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Are We There Yet? Recap

Jamie

What?! Nick Persons is a pure playa living it up in Portland until one day he falls hard for Suzanne, a single mom of two kids whose sole mission in life is to scare off their mother’s potential suitors. When Nick is asked to bring the kids to Vancouver for New Years, he sees an opportunity to get a little closer to her. Can he survive the trip with her two brats and get the girl? Find out in… Are We There Yet?!

Why?! Nick’s motivations are quite pure: he’s in love with Suzanne. For real, he’s like the sweetest dude ever. He drives her to work, takes her to the airport, helps her grocery shop, etc. All while accepting that he might end up deep in the friendzone. And so the motivation for driving her kids to Vancouver is all in the name of love. The kids’ motivation for making the trip a living nightmare (for Nick and the viewer) is also love… for their biological father. Unfortunately he turns out to be a giant doucher.

How?! Well, at first the trip should be super easy. Just fly the kids to Vancouver. A couple hours and boom, Nick’s heading to a baller New Year’s Eve kiss with the woman of his dreams. But things are never so easy in Hollywood. The son, Kevin, brings a corkscrew to the airport and gets them kicked off their flight. Then he has to go to the bathroom and generally fucks around until they miss their train (and seemingly lose all their luggage, though that’s never mentioned again). Finally they just decide to drive, where the kids proceed to destroy his car (for real, it eventually blows up), get him chased by truckers as a potential kidnapper, and delay them so badly that Suzanne is ready to call the cops. In the end, he’s just a good dude though, so despite all the ups and downs Suzanne realizes he’s the man for her. Hooray?

Who?! Super obvious planchet here: the animated Satchel Paige bobblehead that Nick carries everywhere and talks to. You read that right. That is an actual thing in this film. He is voiced by Tracey Morgan and, against all odds, was not scrapped during rewrites.

Where?! There should be a special Smaddies Baddies just for a film that is so perfectly and inexplicably set in a random place in the world. In this case this is set hard in Portland, Oregon. You might be like, “wait, an Ice Cube film set in Portland?” Yup, even the writers were surprised. At one point Nick jokes about how he obviously wasn’t born there, but rather moved there to play minor league baseball before settling down after an injury. They had to explain why it was set there because otherwise it would have been too crazy! A nice secondary setting in Vancouver. B+

When?! Even the temporal setting was random and yet perfect. It’s a holiday film! Nick is driving the kids to a New Year’s Eve event that their mother is working at in Vancouver. Deep down I kinda wish this was a Thanksgiving film, though. I feel like those are rarer. B.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Are We There Yet? More like Is It Done Yet? Amirite? There come a time in an actor’s life where they are now believable as a father figure in a family comedy. For Ice Cube that time was 2005. Was it a family friendly laugh riot? Not really. Let’s go!

The Good – I do think Ice Cube is a charming and accomplished actor and he manages to reasonably sustain the movie at times. The kid actors are also a lot better than one would expect. I’m always down for a little road trip comedy, kind of a rare thing these days.
The Bad – Yet again Nia Long is relegated to the role of fretting actress on the side, spending most of the movie holding one-sided conversations in Vancouver, this is a trend. The plot is ludicrous and requires one of the worst excuses to prevent Ice Cube from simply taking a short plane trip from Portland to Vancouver instead of driving. The movie feels like a series of vignettes as opposed to a cohesive movie. This movie has one of the more ridiculous excuses for a song and dance number I’ve ever seen just to get the young girl to sing a bit. The sequences in Portland in retrospect also seem tacked on and unnecessary.
The BMT – All in all I think the movie overshot its rotten tomatoes score. To get an 11% you need to be simply awful. This movie isn’t that awful. If you buy into it and enjoy seeing Ice Cube yell about damage to his precious new car over and over (and over) again, they you’ll probably think it isn’t so bad. I would say maybe a 25 BMeTric, middle of the pack.

I can’t really think of a good game here so I’m going to do a tiny Product Sklog-ment brought to you by McDonald’s. Da-da-da-da-da, we’re lovin’ it! In this case, if there was ever a Planchet in this film, it would be Ice Cube’s precious Lincoln Navigator. He buys it at the beginning of the film and he does not want children playing in it. But despite all his attempts the car is dented, it is stained, it is run off of the road destroying all four tires, and ultimately one of the kid vomits all over the interior and a final wreck results in it lighting on fire and exploding. As the magically bobblehead voiced by Tracy Morgan (and mysteriously missing from the sequel) says: “[His] insurance premiums are going to go through the roof!”, Classic. But this is one of the most in your face full-blown advertisements we’ve seen in a movie in a long while. Sandler-esque.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part III Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back (for the second time, not the third… or at least not as the killer… it’s weird) and ready to kill again. After surviving his machete wound from Part II, Jason is targeting a group of regional theater actors (I presume) that take an ill-timed vacation in the woods. Will these sexed-up, weed-smoking teenagers be able to survive their encounter with evil? Friday the 13th Part III!

Why?! I love horror films. The motivation is quite simple: Jason is made to kill and teenagers are made to try to survive (usually ineffectively). There are a couple of interesting subplots for the characters though. One is an aspiring actor, there is a couple that is young and pregnant, and the main girl organized the entire trip to try to confront her demons regarding a traumatic experience she had at the lake house. Coincidentally that traumatic experience involves Jason who just happened to wake up from a 5-year hiatus the day before the film takes place. Ouch. Bad luck.

How?! Uh… in like a thousand different ways. Jason’s MO is generally to sneak around a place and slit people’s throats or bury an axe or machete in their head. No different for this film. This is the entry where creative kills became a thing, particularly a harpoon death, death by red hot poker, a guy getting his head crushed and having an eye pop out, and easily the goriest scene of the franchise thus far where someone is chopped in half. Don’t worry though, most of these things are more hilarious than actually scary.

Who?! Friday the 13th hadn’t totally embraced how ridiculous they all were quite yet, so the jokesters in the first three films aren’t quite true Planchets. This film almost got there, though, with the character of Shelly. Shelly is a fat, fro-sporting aspiring actor (who is easily the worst actor in the film). He plays pranks by pretending to get killed and be a murderer. It would be meta and somewhat funny if the character wasn’t such a downer. He spends nearly the entire film being like “you all hate me cause I’m ugly and fat. Waaaaa!” At least be funny once in awhile, man. Otherwise it’s no fun for any of us.

Where?! It’s clear through the first three films that we are located at or very near to Crystal Lake. Several indications tell us that we’re in New Jersey in the first film, and it’s confirmed in the second film. Thank God, because this was the first film to be (very clearly) filmed in California. But it gets a New Jersey tally as it is near Crystal Lake. C-.

When?! As noted in Part II’s recap we know that this film takes place in 1984 and is set in June or July. We can be pretty sure this film starts on a Friday as the group of teenagers are off to the lake house for a weekend getaway (starring Selena Gomez). This leads to one of the most commonly cited timelines for the series with this film taking place on Friday, July 13th into the 14th. This means the first film takes place July 10th-13th. Apparently the move to July is rooted in the script which states explicitly that the film takes place on Friday the 13th (which could only occur in July). Fine whatever. I would prefer it was set in June and they didn’t worry about the exact days of the week, as June 13th is Jason’s birthday and it would make more sense that he kills on or around that anniversary. This timeline made me sad. C-.

Those are the W’s, but there are only three letters we care about here at HQ. Whether this film was B-M-T.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part III? More like Copying Halloween Part III! That’s right, I watched the first three in arguably Hollywood’s worst horror mega-franchise, could three times be the charm? … In a way, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. Let’s get into it.

The Good – The lore in this series is strong and, when you compare it to Halloween, it definitely shows more promise than where Halloween 4, 5 and 6 ended up. Not exactly fair because I assume Friday the 13th Part 5 is really where things just go off the rails. Still, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this series. It gave me a new appreciation for the slasher genre (not joking) which I still didn’t quite understand with Halloween. We’ll get into that a bit later.
The Bad – The 3D nonsense was insane, you can kind of see how terrible and beholden they were to it at the time. I mean … Shelly. The franchise itself suffers from one big issue in parts 2 and III: they seem to go all out for the first kill and they just nothing but nothing for at least 30 minutes afterwards. Then they are stumbling all over themselves to kill off at least 10 people in the films. If I were to rank the classic tropes this movie created or fell into: (1) Terrible young actors, (2) obsession with gruesome kills over genuine tension, (3) too many kills such that the movie grinds to a halt to just murder people in clusters, (4) too many Chekov’s red hot pokers such that the movie became very linear and predictable. Again, we’ll get a bit more into the pros and cons in a bit.
The BMT – Honestly, no. Not any of the three. Shelly gets you close, but he’s just on the correct side of tongue in cheek I think. The budgets are too small, the lore is too good, and the films are just a bit too self aware. I assume that the fourth (the final chapter) kills Jason and I assume zombie Jason represents the franchise crossing the Rubicon. And seriously, I can’t wait to sit down and watch two or three more. I understand slasher obsession a bit now.

I’ve already written a lot, but here I think I need to go into a bit of Sklognalysis. The main reason being that the lore of this film is kind of incredible. The first three in this franchise see the evolution of the bad guy from Jason’s mother, to a bag-wearing monstrous mamma’s boy in the woods, to a psycho man in a mask. Each film involves a lake (from which one can oddly assume Jason draws his power), each film occurs in about a single day, each film has 10+ kills, each film has a variety of weapons, and each film culminates with a storm. The films start with a replay of the previous film, and in each a single person survives and has a horrible dream to end the film, and is driven insane and taken away by the perplexed police. In the recap for part 2 I rewrote this trilogy a bit, but even without the rewrite I think the franchise may stand alone in showing evolution while being true to its lore and predecessors. They evolve the killer while stopping short of explicitly falling back to supernatural explanation. I don’t know … I kind of loved this first trilogy, even if all three are objectively poorly made films. There is something about them. Lucky for everyone there is eight other main franchise films to destroy its legacy.

I am genuinely excited to watch the entire series and then watch the Crystal Lake Memories (it is a 7 hour long documentary!).

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Friday the 13th Part 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! Jason’s back!… er… I mean, Jason is here for the first time! It’s five years after the massacre at Crystal Lake committed by Jason’s mother and now Jason (back from the dead or whatever) is out for revenge. A new set of camp counselors are on the scene, but the result is basically the same. Can they survive the encounter with a new monster? Friday the 13th Part II!

Why?! The horror genre is interesting because the motivations have traditionally been vague or nonexistent, especially in the early franchises. Mike Myers was pure evil and out to kill his family, Freddy is pure evil and haunts the dreams of teenagers in his hometown, Leatherface is pure evil and kills those that stumble upon his crazy family. Friday the 13th is a bit different, whereby Jason’s mother kills all who attempt to reopen the camp where her son drowned through negligence. Part II continues the trend in that Jason isn’t just pure evil out to kill anyone who disturbs his peace at the camp, but rather he worships his (now dead) mother and kills those near the lake. He has no ability to discriminate between those that killed his mother five years ago and those that come to the lake in this film. As a result he goes on a rampage. It’s actually a pretty interesting backstory. The motivation for the campers is always the same: survive.

How?! Like, how did Jason kill the campers? In this one there isn’t a huge amount of variety. Mostly it’s stabbing people in the torso or neck. The best kill is the double spear kill through the bodies of two counselors making whoopee (and it gives me the opportunity to use the phrase “making whoopee.”). The third film is really when they started getting creative with the kills.

Who?! Each of the films has a Planchet of sorts. The guy who’s always joking around. This one is no different with Ted played by Stuart Charno, who has bright orange hair and is super skinny. Besides his jokes on jokes on jokes, the most interesting thing about the character is that he survives. Since the setting of the film is a functioning training camp there are like 25 people there. Instead of killing them all they wrote in the fact that most of the crew go out on the town the night of the massacre and don’t return until after the killing has stopped.

Where?! The first film pretty firmly establishes that the camp is located in New Jersey. The setting is bolstered in this one through the name of the training camp: Camp Packanack. This is clearly a play on Lake Packanack located in New Jersey. C+.

When?! The timeline for the series is legendarily screwed up. We know by reference that this film takes place five years after the first. It’s known from the fourth film (apparently) that the first film takes place in 1979. So we have the year of 1984 (which is fun because that means that the film was set in the future as it was released in 1982). I would presume that it’s June give that it’s a training camp for counselors for the upcoming camp season, but fans like to put it in July so that the third film takes place on Friday the 13th. Whatever. That’s what you can get from this film. Look towards Part III’s recap to get a better idea of the exact date. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Friday the 13th Part 2? More like Just Like Halloween 2! We watched the first trilogy of one of the three horror mega franchises, could it live up to the standard set by the first installment of Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street? Let’s just say it gets off to a rocky start. Let’s get into it!

The Good – If you like lots of kills, and inventive kills this is the franchise for you it turns out. Halloween had less kills and more tension, and Myers for the most part slashes people (it worked well when he was a kid, why change anything ten years later you know?), and Kruger has that whole supernatural dream thing going. But otherwise … this guy was probably actually my least favorite of the three.
The Bad – This installment is a mess. You want to think the ending is a dream? Then did Paul survive? If not what happened to him? Who is Jason, a grown up version of the boy in the lake? Did he not actually die? Is this another boy Mrs. Voorhees raised in the woods? What happened to the kids who went off to the townie bar, I presume they just survived. Why is this never mentioned ever again? For all the low budget gore and dozen or so kill shots, there are so many loose ends after the movie sprints through the last seven teenage deaths that it is a wonder the editor cobbled the madness together.
The BMT – Out of the three I honestly think the second is the worst, but no. Too low budget. They made these things on a dime at the time. The entire trilogy predates Elm Street so the only real comparisons you got are things like Halloween 2 which kind of also looks like crap. Elm Street stands with The Thing as far as practical effects are concerned, so for the slasher genre that was (unfortunately a terrible) turning point. Here though they grabbed good looking young actors off the street and filmed it over a weekend basically. And what they made is actually pretty impressive.

Quick Sklogification in honor of this movie just being a mess. Out of the many admirable things in this franchise, one of the best things is watching the evolution of the character of Jason and the lore surrounding the film. But it ended up leaving things a little messy upon reviewing. Is Jason the (un)dead boy from the first film? Is there a psychic aspect to the series with the multiple dream sequences throughout? It is hard to tell. So If I were to propose a rewrite of the original trilogy (and, no, I haven’t seen the remakes) it would go a little like this: Ten years after a massacre at Crystal Lake closed the camp for good a new camp director wants to push against the ghost stories and start anew. But uh-oh, Jason won’t allow this and a massacre on a fateful Friday the 13th occurs. Turns out the instigating event was the death of his mother Mrs. Voorhees at the camp when he was but a boy of ten and he massacred them all and fled to the woods presumed drowned and dead (a little twist on the plot of the original). The lone survivor of the present massacre is taken to a hospital for recovery thinking Jason was killed by a machete. Jason, adopting this machete as his weapon of choice, follows her to the hospital on Saturday the 14th and, as a nod to Halloween 2, goes on a late night murderous rampage through the hospital. Naturally there is a hockey goalie there getting bandaged up after a local game and Jason snags that along the way. The lone survivor is killed, and Jason, again presumed dead, ultimately slinks off into the woods. In the third installment a manhunt has begun for Jason by the local police. Two deputies come across the injured killer and one is killed and the other wounded. The wounded deputy crawls to a cabin inhabited by oblivious teenagers having a party. Jason, in a rage, attacks the house and is ultimately killed by the deputy, the lone survivor of the bloody weekend. Throughout the trilogy the movies start where the predecessor ends, and there is a scattered powerful storm raking across the Crystal Lake region.

Now I’m not saying this is somehow better or the best, but nods to the original, a tighter narrative and lore, nods to Halloween as well (as was initially intended in fact), and no muddled need for the supernatural. Makes me wonder what the remakes are actually like.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

RoboCop 2 Recap

Jamie

What?! RoboCop is back, Jack! And ready to attack the smack that’s taking over the streets. That’s right! There’s a new drug in town, Nuke, and while the (non-cyborg) police are on strike, no one’s there to stop its rise. OmniCorps aims to use the crisis to launch Delta City with a updated version of RoboCop to patrol the streets. Just hope RoboCop 2 isn’t some insane cyborg killing machine (hint: he is). RoboCop 2!

Why?! The entire aim of the film is for OmniCorp to gain control of Detroit and built Delta City. It’s funny because that’s basically the motivation of all the RoboCop films. They can’t seem to get the goddamned city built. RoboCop’s motivation is the same as well: Kick ass. Take names. Not necessarily in that order.

How?! In the original RoboCop OmmiCorp signed a contract with Detroit to take over the police department and privatize it. Turns out that contract had a clause whereby OminCorp could foreclose on the entire city if it defaulted on the contract. Uh oh! So OmniCorp’s entire plan is to undermine Detroit’s credit, wait for the city to default, stop paying the cops, allow crime to run rampant while they’re on strike, and call it a loss to justify knocking it all down to build Delta City. And the plan would have worked too if it wasn’t for that damned RoboCop. Seriously. They needed more RoboCops to patrol the streets of their shiny new city but couldn’t figure out the secret sauce that made the first one work so well. This time around they try using a newly captured Nuke kingpin as the brain for the robot and feeding his addiction as a means of control. Not a great idea as it goes beserk at the sight of Nuke and RoboCop has to save everyone (obvs). Unfortunately, they decided not to write in how RoboCop beating up a robot in any way solves the city’s financial crisis. We can only presume OmniCorp still ended up owning the city after everyone stopped high fiving and the credits rolled.

Who?! No true Planchet here, but I want to give a shout out to Belinda Bauer, an Australian actress with an unknowable accent. I really couldn’t tell if she was supposed to be American in this film or what. It was one of the worst (read: best) accents we’ve had in a while. Also Willard E. Pugh consumed any and all scenery as the bonkers Mayor of Detroit. Enjoy:

Where?! Detroit, duh. It’s fucking RoboCop. There’s a reason the city is going to have a statue dedicated to him (if the artist ever finishes making it). It’s really the only thing they didn’t mess up with the sequels and remake. In this world there is nothing that can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and RoboCop being set in Detroit. A-.

When?! According to the writer it is set in the “near future” but there is a clear January 1986 calendar in the precinct. There is some evidence presented online about it being set in 2044, but it’s from the book so noncanonical. I prefer the calendar. The month being January also lines up with the fact that the scientists are seen celebrating New Years in the three month span during which RoboCop is built. Why bring up the first film? Because at the Delta City presentation at the end of the second film the president of OCP says that “about a year ago we gave you RoboCop.” From that perspective we can presume that it’s either late 1986 or early 1987. Not incredibly specific but we got something. C-.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! RoboCop 2? More like RoboSlop! Boo! (ohhhhh yeah). We watched the sequel to one of my favorite movies (with some of the best practical effects in the biz), could it hold up to such praise? Nope! Let’s get into it!

The Good – Their hearts are in the right place. They tried to make a good follow up. To an extent the story is solid, and it does an okay job of taking a new subject (drugs) and running with it. And the practical effects seem pretty okay.
The Bad – The villains are not good enough to carry what is a ludicrous story. In the first the villains are just bad people. They fill that supervillain mold from Cobra but also in an interesting manner (with Kurtwood Smith looking as natural in a suit in OmniCorp headquarters as in a trenchcoat blowing Peter Weller’s hand off). In the second, Cain is just kind of a weirdo. They had an interesting villain (Gabriel Damon) in a pre-teen psycho, but waste him in an overly sentimental and brief stint at the top. The entire middle makes you wonder “what is the point?” after much is made of rewriting RoboCop’s directives, only to have him reverse the damage in a matter of seconds.
The BMT – Naw. At best it is borderline. As I said, the film isn’t terrible. Just heavy handed, with bad villains, and a precursor too good to live up to. It is interesting to read stuff about the series. It does seem like they were desperate to make RoboCop a franchise. Just never really came together properly.

Hmmmm. Tough to figure out games when I usually do sequels and prequels … this movie already has both. I think I’m going to make up a new game. This I’m going to call Sklog-light. It is something from the movie just watched which perfectly exemplifies something from my recap. This time I’ll flesh out something in the recap which perhaps was not expounded upon enough: RoboCop 2 is heavy-handed. At the end of the film OmniCorp is presenting RoboCop 2 (the evil Cain as a cyborg monster) and we catch a nice glimpse of their new flags:

ocp-nazi

… snazzy. Those couldn’t possibly be alluding to anything. They probably aren’t a crazy Godwin’s Law directly in the viewer’s face. We get it RoboCop 2 writers … OmniCorp is a fascist corporate-government hybrid. Could have toned down the flag. I assume Hitler existed in the RoboCop universe. For a company who seems obsessed with public relations this seems … like a snafu.

I got a whole other recap to write! Plus we are a bit behind. So I’ll leave it there.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Forest Recap

Jamie

A few personal thoughts before getting to the overview. It’s my opinion is that this film is awful. Really, really bad, even by horror standards. Particularly the last third of the film, which felt like it was straight out of The Haunting or An American Haunting or The Haunting in Connecticut… one of the hauntings from the early 2000’s, anyway. But as the Razzies are wont to do, it will probably not even appear on the pre-nomination list. Oh well. Let’s get into it.

What?! Sara Price’s sister Jess has entered the “suicide forest” of Japan and disappeared. Unwilling to accept that she’s gone, Sara enters the forest only to find that the spirits that dwell within may be coming after her next. The Forest!

Why?! Every horror film has you asking, ‘Why? Why are you going into the spooky ghost forest?’ And usually the answer is wholly unsatisfying. Not this time! She does it because they’re twins! Sara knows that Jess isn’t dead because they have a special twin connection, so she feels she must venture in to find her. It’s the best reason of them all! It also forced me and Patrick to confront the tough question: what would we do? The answer? Wait for the authorities and perhaps leave a note for Patrick at the edge of the forest. It would read, “Sorry, bro. I don’t fuck with ghost forests.”

How?! Fortunately for a young woman hoping to take a stroll through the ghost forest there are multiple people that are willing to help her with that ill-advised venture. These include the smarmy (or is he?) travel writer, Aiden, and his Japanese guide, Michi. Michi is the token smart person in the film and warns Sara that she’s got sadness in her heart and the forest will try to use it against her. Guess what? She doesn’t listen and the forest uses it against her. Surprise, surprise. God… they were all so dumb in this film.

Who?! I feel like when talking about a horror film the only ‘who’ you really care about is the monster. In this case the whole forest is the monster. It uses spirits and illusions to trick people into killing themselves and each other. So while the forest seems to be a suicide forest, it is hinted that the victims of the forest may have instead been manipulated into killing themselves. It’s actually pretty clever. Unfortunately, it’s also as scary as the other BMT film where trees are the primary antagonist, The Happening.

Where?! Uh, Japan. Duh. Haven’t you been playing attention? This is a clear A and bordering on A+, depending on how generous you’re feeling with the title. I think it’s an A.

When?! This is the second film in a row where the month and day that it takes place doesn’t seem readily apparent. Unlike London Has Fallen, though, this is probably just a matter of circumstances given that 95% of the film takes place in the middle of a ghost forest where everyone knows time doesn’t exist. That’s common ghost forest knowledge. Still an F.

Now that you know the details Patrick will give a little review.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Forest? More like the Borest, amirite? It’s twin time (and Mt. Fuji), it is twin time and Mt. Fuji. Those of you familiar with the Twin Time song (nearly none of you reading) will know the tune, feel free to sing along. This might be the greatest twin movie we’ve ever done. It at the very least gives I Know Who Killed Me a run for its money. Arguably both involve stigmata twins. Fun fact: Jamie and I are stigmata twins. But only in a specific way. When someone asks me “hey, if I punch you does it hurt your brother” Jamie instinctively says “No, that’s ridiculous nonsense”. Let’s get into it!

The Good – The first act in a way. The set up to this film is somewhat better that recent terrible horror fare. The protagonist has a reason to go to Japan, you get the sense of loneliness and isolation that is meant to compel you towards the forest. Thick on jump scares, but otherwise I thought it was a decent setup to a decent idea.
The Bad – The rest of the goddamned movie. Thiiiiick on jump scares. So thick that might as well have been the only type of scare they had. The third act is just a catastrophe. It makes no sense. All the characters are dumb. Rumor is that the Japanese suicide forest is alive and tricks its victims into killing themselves by showing this movie to them over and over until they shout “No, why would you insist on washing up when you literally just saw ghosts in a weird forest hole?! Run out of the forest lady!!!” and end it all.
The BMT – No. I wish I was bold enough to end it there, but no. Horror/Thrillers that are BMT make you laugh. This is just sad and morose and makes you sad, for both the characters and the state of horror today.

Game game game game game … Jamie has already alluded to it, but let’s Sklogify this movie! Open the movie, I awake in a cold sweat. From across the Atlantic I can feel that my Jamie is in trouble! I travel to the spooky midwestern forest where he was last seen and the guide says: “Beware, this forest is haunted and will trick you into killing yourself best just leave a note”. And I say “yes, that is a prudent suggestion. Thank you forest guide I have entrusted with my life.” I write a nice note, Jamie finds it, comes out of the forest a day later and fin. Horror fans wonder “wait … what?”.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Dirty Grandpa Recap

Jamie

Trying out something new with my part. I’m gonna try to use the 6W’s (Who, What, Where, When, hoW, and Why) to explain the what and how of the film at hand. With that in mind I’m going to keep my part totally intact rather than throw it to Patrick in the middle. So get prepared for some text.

What?! Zac Efron is roped into driving his foul-mouthed grandpa (Robert De Niro) to Boca the week before his wedding, but gets sidetracked and ends up in Daytona Beach during spring break, much to the dismay of his fiancee.

Why?! The apparent impetus of the film changes throughout because De Niro’s character constantly lies about his intentions. At first it is simply that Robert De Niro needs a ride to his house in Boca… gotta say, not the best film idea. Just driving an old person around (although, that’s basically the plot of Nebraska and Driving Miss Daisy and they were both nominated for Best Picture, so what do I know). Once that lie is revealed Robert De Niro claims he just wants to get laid and took him along as a wingman. Ha! Get it? It’s funny because he’s old and he wants to have sex. Ha! But that also turns out to be a lie. Finally he admits he actually roped Efron into the trip because he was a shitty dad who raised a shitty son (Efron’s dad) and doesn’t want Efron to turn out the same by marrying the wrong girl and being a shitty lawyer. Awwwww… or something.

How? Funny you should ask. If not for a wildly improbable coincidence (they meet an acquaintance of Efron’s on the way to Florida and they immediately fall in love) then the plan wouldn’t have worked out so well for De Niro. If you follow the storyline closely you’ll see that De Niro’s original plan seems to be that he is going to get Efron totally shitfaced at spring break and take compromising photos of him. Then at his rehearsal brunch he would put those photos up and ruin his wedding and get him fired. Apparently Efron is supposed to then be ecstatic and thankful for losing his job and fiancee. The real version of this film is that Efron ends up just hating his grandpa… probably almost as much as I hated this film. Instead he loses his job and fiancee but is OK with it because he realized he’s actually in love with someone else.

Who!? Rather than listing off character in the film (which would be somewhat dry), I’m going to highlight a smaller character in the film that I surprisingly like or really hated. I actually liked Jason Mantzoukas’ turn as Pam. The character is just Rafi from The League and guess what? I like Rafi from The League. If it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t have laughed at all. I think the screenwriters knew this as well since what seems like a super minor character shows up like 8 different times and plays a vital role in the climax of the film.

Where!? Dirty Grandpa really did a doozy on its settings. If you weren’t close watching like I was then you may have become very confused as Efron zipped around the Southeastern seaboard. We started pretty clearly in Atlanta. De Niro needed a ride to Boca so we know we’re going to spend most of the film in Florida. They then immediately make a detour to spring break in Daytona Beach. How do we know? Why an obese gentleman rubs his breasts on Efron’s car while screaming “Daytona Beach!!!” Obviously. Once the shit hits the fan we see Efron drive back to Atlanta, only to find out that his heart belongs in Florida and we drive immediately back (conveniently passing a ‘Welcome to Florida’ sign). Phew. This certainly borders on A territory. Like Justin and Kelly before it Spring Break almost becomes a character in itself in the course of the film. But it’s just not quite vital enough. I’m going to put it at B. Better than C territory, but not important enough to the plot.

When?! This is the funniest question to answer. Whoever was in charge of the continuity in the film dropped the ball a little bit. We are given a beautiful exact date for the film. Reading from a newspaper a character explains that Efron is getting married, “This weekend. Saturday, March 27th.” It is perfection. However, when you ponder for a minute March 27th wasn’t on a Saturday in 2016… the two closest years are 2010 and 2021 because of the leap year. We know it can’t take place in the future because De Niro’s driver’s license is valid, yet expires in 2018. So it’s either a 2010 period piece or they screwed up the day of the week. I would guess the latter. It was probably in the script when it was written in 2010 and they just didn’t change that random date. How could they possibly know that a crazy person would come along and rain on their stupid parade. Anyway, it gets an A- for how specific and weirdly vital the late-March setting is.

Jesus, we really blew this one out. Maybe I need to rethink the rhetorical question method (called RhetorWrecked… boom). Luckily no one reads this anyways so who cares?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Dirty Grandpa?! More like Shitty, Bland, Flawed! (I made a list of half-rhymes, I’m pretty proud of myself). Only one question racing through my mind during this film: Am I Unfinished Business angry or just regular bad-comedy angry? Actually to be more exact the phrasing was “Am I like … unfinished business naaaaaangry?” My brain was just trying to entertain itself at the time … let’s get into it.

The Good – Efron can sing well. Jason Mantzoukas as Pam was indeed a delight if you like The League. He just plays Rafi the entire time, so that works fine.
The Bad – I have a little sklognalysis below about what was really getting me naaaaaangry during this film. But De Niro’s character might as well have just been a string of curses strung between “heart warming” I’m-old family stuff. His character kind of doesn’t make any sense. Efron is boring and his trajectory is unbelievable. The entire temporal and geographic landscape of the film is also just weird. They’re in Atlanta, then Florida, and they are there for what seems like five days (they were supposed to be gone for one). There are many many things to dislike about the film, but the cardinal sin? I laughed zero times.
The BMT – Yes and no. Yes because I would put this with Tammy and Unfinished Business as another example of an anti-comedy where comedy is replaced with anger and cursing. No because it is an unfunny garbage comedy.

And I’ll close with a little Sklognalysis deep dive. There were two cop characters in the film. Their introduction is promising (they are joshing around, but in a “you are dumb, you are in jail, have fun being an idiot in jail” kind of way), but then Pam (Mantzoukas) pops out and they are just like “oh, you were selling crack to children, but we like you Pam, so it’s all cool!” Their characters aggravated me to no end. Why? Because they were absurd, but taken in wildly different directions from moment to moment whenever convenient.

Exhibit A: Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle – The cop parody in this film extends along the Keystone Kops vector of idiocy, and along the Arrested Development vector of humorous brutality (if there is such a thing these days), etc. They are taken along the vector of past comedies and, perhaps, real life experiences to their logical conclusion. Along the vector.

Exhibit B: Superbad – Inverting expectations. McLovin’s expectations are that the police are going to arrest him and be jerks. They instead end up as fun loving and helpful. It works by playing off a common experience in an unexpected way.

Exhibit C: Dirty Grandpa – In this film Pam himself represents the logical conclusion for a drug dealer (or at least a common portrayal, fun loving and harmless). And that’s where the juxtaposition falls apart. The cops are at turns corrupt, but understanding to Pam. They are mean, but not really to Pam, and not really in general. They are inconsistent, but worse yet … they are not consistently along the “cop parody” trajectories you’d expect, but rather switch between the two aforementioned types: fun loving, and brutally idiotic.

Going against type can be refreshing, but here it doesn’t work because they aren’t consistent. It was aggravating and broke me out of the movie. Their ubiquitous presence also throws the balance of the film off in a way as well because it makes Daytona (and eventually the southeast US in general) feel very small. Without them the film would be more dull. But with them it fails at being at the very least self-consistent.

I call it the Along The Vector theory of parody. Without a solid case of reverting expectations, always default to parody in the direction of expectations. When when you choose a vector, stick with it.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Shanghai Surprise Recap

Jamie

Shanghai Surprise! I believe Patrick has a better perspective on this film so I’ll sit quietly over here and just talk a little bit about the book (‘The book?!’ exclaims the crowd, blissfully unaware until that moment that Shanghai Surprise was based on a book that Jamie would read). That’s right, the book. Originally called Faraday’s Flowers, it was written by Tony Kendrick and came out in 1985. For whatever reason (perhaps George Harrison loved the author or something), it was almost immediately optioned and adapted into a film. I ended up having to watch the film first and then read the book for practical reasons. I didn’t think this would be much of a problem since it seemed pretty straightforward from the book jacket synopsis: a man is convinced by a missionary to search for opium in 1937 China and falls in love with her in the process. But when I watched the film I was shocked by some of the more bizarre twists and turns that the storyline took. I presumed that in an attempt to spice up an otherwise incredibly boring film a screenwriter had inserted some weird-ass stuff, right? Wrong. After reading the book it is essentially a straight adaptation (with some of the more explicitly violent and sexual parts cleaned up and the order of events somewhat scrambled). The moral of all this is that you cannot blame the storyline on the filmmakers, the book is just really strange (making it all the stranger that it was targeted for adaptation). Almost Mortdecai level weirdness at times. Now as for Madonna’s horrific acting, Sean Penn’s ridiculously bad hair and makeup, and an overlong and dull storyline? Blame away.

Important day guys. That’s because for the first time since we’ve been doing Settings 101 in the email we have finally arrived at an A+ film. Shanghai Surprise not only opens with a meta-acknowledgement of the setting via intertitle and has the setting play a vital role in all aspects of the film, but also has the name of the setting in the title! I had always kind of assumed that London Has Fallen would be the first film to get the coveted A+, but I obviously forgot that any 1986 cycle would have to include Shanghai Surprise. I feel pretty good about it. It joins When in Rome, Texas Rangers, Bangkok Dangerous, Battle: Los Angeles, Ghosts of Mars, Pompeii, Sweet Home Alabama, The Haunting in Connecticut, and Harlem Nights as our clear A+ BMT settings films. There are some other candidates that would need to be debated (I Dreamed of Africa, Jupiter Ascending, etc.), but those are the solid ones. Congrats everyone. We made it.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Shanghai Surprise? More like Makes Patrick Sigh! And it does. As I watched this film I just sighed to myself and thought “Yup. This is my life”. I don’t really get some of these films. I understand that De Laurentiis was going bankrupt and was throwing shit at the wall when Raw Deal and King Kong Lives was made. That makes sense. But optioning Shanghai Surprise for a Penn / Madonna vehicle with inordinate international filming costs? Bewildering. Let’s get into it.

The Good – It seems like most people disagree with me, but I thought the basic storyline here was okay. No joke. I was pretty interested in the happenings for a good third of the film. The soundtrack was bonkers and banging, just so bizarre and weirdly catchy and maybe culturally insensitive. George Harrison is a madman. I can forgive how confusing the film was because it ran like Indiana Jones crossed with a Noir film, Penn is the detective in this scenario, just his skillset is supposed to be that of an adventurer.
The Bad – The movie is certainly dull. The back third is bizarre in a bad way with a very annoying businessman who is obsessed with baseball and talks in the third person tagging along for a solid chunk of it. Madonna might be one of the worst things we’ve seen in a BMT film, just a terrible actress. The twist at the end was telegraphed from the beginning. I wrote in my notes: “That guy is actually this other guy, book it”. Don’t be too impressed, it was literally the same actor with a terribly fake mustache on. Speaking of bad facial hair, Penn has bar none the worst makeup for the first twenty minutes of this film as you’ll ever see.
The BMT – Hmmmmmm, I’ve kind of psyched myself into this one a bit. I would give it a 25 probably, median BMeTric. The movie is weird, I still don’t quite understand how it has a 3.0 on IMDb, that is just so incredibly low. I just don’t really understand how anyone watches it now and proclaims it as one of the worst movies ever made. It doesn’t feel like one of the worst movies ever made. But I would watch it in a BMT movie marathon. It could sneak into some Worst of the 80s medley or something.

Phew. Let’s see. I wouldn’t want a remake to this film for Sequel / Prequel / Remake, but which would be better, a prequel (outlining the hilarious misadventures of Sean Penn’s character in his trading travels in China) or a sequel (Penn and Madonna as drug kingpins in post-WWII China)? They are both good. So why not both? We’ll get Chris Pratt for the prequel, make it kind of a Indiana Jones in China affair, except as a goof he’s always just inexplicable looking for opium. For the second old-strongman-body Sean Penn will reprise his role and we’ll run it like The Gunman, shaky cam action. Madonna’s character is gunned down in the streets as Penn realizes he’s lost the territory battle for the heroin market in 70s China. Time for some payback. The first will be called Shanghai Surprise: Legacy. The sequel will be called Shanghai Surprise 2: Street War. Oof, these both sound terrible. Netflix, I’m waiting by the phone, I’ll direct it for free.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

King Kong Lives Recap

Jamie

Wow, 1986… it’s unbelievable that King Kong Lives was a major motion picture release from that year. It was released in over 1000 theaters and yet more closely resembles a MST3K film than an actual film. It was horrible. Like if someone told me to write a King Kong script as quickly as I could, this might be what I would come up with as a first draft. There is motivation for NOTHING and the characters are caricatures. Just listen to this plot: the entire film is based on the premise that an Atlanta institution of higher learning is trying to bring King Kong back to life (last seen in 1976’s King Kong falling to his death off the World Trade Center buildings). And yet we have no idea why. They seem to indicate that whatever school obtains and studies the giant ape will somehow skyrocket to the top of the research ranks… but… but… why? It’s never answered. The artificial heart they made to revive him won’t work without a blood transfusion (because apparently Kong merely has heart failure from falling of the WTC) and so they conveniently find a female giant ape and bring her to Georgia. Predictably the two apes escape together and… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry I fell asleep cause this movie was terrible. Long story short is basically descends into a family drama with a lot of scenes involving the two apes creepily smiling at each other and hugging. Eventually Lady Kong (as she is credited) gives birth to an extraordinarily tiny baby the size of a normal gorilla. God damn! I literally recommend this to no one.

Like all King Kong films, King Kong Lives has a pretty solid setting for Settings 101. In this case we open with a nice intertitle letting us know that the film takes place 10 years after the events of the first film in Atlanta, Georgia at the Atlanta Institute. Whew. That’s a lot of settings for one little intertitle. It’s kind of funny that they made up a school for this film but even funnier that we are supposed to seriously believe that King Kong fell off the WTC, was critically injured, and then survived for ten years waiting for a heart transplant. Jesus. This film is a mess. It’s setting is not though. It rockets to a B- by simply nodding to the audience and acknowledging that we are in George. Atlanta is mentioned a few more times, but not enough to get up to B level. Ever since introducing Settings 101 we’ve actually had shockingly few films where the setting was difficult to ascertain. Convinces me that if we went back to the older films we could find a lot of hidden gems. Maybe even a Delaware or South Dakota that the world has yet to discover (it’s my dream).

Patrick

King Kong Lives? Well they should have let this movie die! Booooom, NY Post you did it again! We watched what some people might call a movie. Other people might refer to it as something more akin to lighting millions of dollars on fire. Let’s get into it.

The Good – Not much. At times the enormous animatronics are impressive. I would also say the two lead actors perform admirably all things considered.
The Bad – What the Sound of Thunder is to bad CGI, King Kong Lives is to bad practical effects. Not only is this three years after Return of the Jedi as far as CGI is concerned, it is also four years after The Thing, a pinnacle of practical effect magic! We don’t like to harp on story too too much, but this is legit the absolute worst storyline you will watch outside of non-films like The Room. They are replacing King Kong’s heart ten years after his fall from the World Trade Center? He’s been in a coma for ten years!? They happen to find a female just in time?!? I’m not sure what happened in 1986, but there is something wrong with the movies they produced in that year. Oh wait, now I remember, this is the year of Maximum Overdrive … so cocaine happened.
The BMT – In my opinion, no. It is very strange, but the Official Razzie Movie Guide features this movie and claims it is “hilarious”. But it is hilarious in the same way White Comanche with William Shatner is hilarious. You go: “Oh, hilarious, William Shatner is playing a half Native American and his own twin …. Welp this movie is boring”. Somehow this one weird ludicrous thing is supposed to sustain entertainment for hours, but for me it usually doesn’t. In this case? The absurd creepy smiles on the giant apes’ faces are supposed to be the clinchers. The apes are certainly funny for as few minutes. One hundred minutes though? Yeah, not so much. Boring movie, straight up. Although it is kind of fun it a Mystery Science Theater kind of way. Needs a commentary I think. Without it you’ll be left wondering “what am I doing with my life”. You can put that on the poster!

I’ll try to keep the game short. I was going to try and make a prediction about this film, but turns out a prediction of “this will be a garbage non-film and I will hate it” is no fun. So let’s remake the film! Sequel / Prequel / Remake: First, no Kong surviving. Garbage. No, instead, a research team has been scouring the world looking for evidence of other Kongs. Indeed, the extent to which the Skull Island inhabitants worshipped the Kong suggested its kind must have been around for many years prior to his death. And they succeed, a female Kong is located and brought back to the states. But the research team’s intentions are less than honorable! Indeed, they plan on dissecting and experimenting on the Kong in an attempt to unlock the secret to its gigantism and age. Upon the discovery that the Kong is pregnant a primatologist who accompanied the team frees the Kong into the wild. A chase occurs down the California coastline whereby the Kong, ultimately surrounded and on the verge of death, gives birth and dies (mirroring the ending of the first film). The idea would be a trilogy with the third continuing this story with the child. Would it be great? Prob not, but at least you cut out the ludicrous heart surgery storyline.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Golden Child Recap

Jamie

I feel like if The Golden Child were to have aired on Comedy Central during my childhood I would have come away with very fond memories of it. It had all the things that I loved as a kid: the occasional joke, some mystical shit, and interesting exotic settings. It’s like a really shitty Indiana Jones… except my child brain wouldn’t have recognized the “shitty” part and would have just thought it was “like Indiana Jones.” Unfortunately that’s really the only particularly good thing about it: that I might have liked it as a child. Even the things I would have liked are things that my adult brain recognizes as being incredibly strange. These include a surreal dream sequence, an opening montage that better fit a music video than an actual film, monster-human characters straight out of Masters of the Universe, and a part-animated finale. Just weird shit. The weirdest thing though is a scene where the main villain totally flubs a line and they chose to leave it in the film. I couldn’t tell why. It’s not even a funny flub. He just stumbles over a line and they kept it in. It’s a BMysTery that will probably never be solved: why is there a blooper left in the final cut of The Golden Child. The world will never know. Funny enough I don’t think all the weird stuff even sunk the film at the time (it was the 80s after all). I think it just wasn’t that funny. It reads as one of those films that had a serious script with random [Eddie Improvises] notes throughout. Like Beverly Hills III. Just hope that a not funny movie can be made funny enough… and it wasn’t.

Settings 101! Settings 101! It’s become a staple of the first part of the email (along with Audio Sklog-entary, when applicable) to the point where it really isn’t even a game at this point. It’s simply part of life. The Golden Child was pretty sweet for Settings. Not really because the main setting was super important, but rather because the secondary locations (Nepal and Tibet) are rare enough that this would fit nicely into an international mapl.de.map (whenever we choose to start that). As for the main location, it was established in quick order that Eddie Murphy lives and operates in Los Angeles. How do we know? In the opening of the film there is a crazytown montage of Murphy carousing around LA. There are flashes of major landmarks (Pink’s, Randy’s Donuts, and a triple take of the Hollywood sign), along with mentions of Hollywood, California license plates, and LA addresses. Also Eddie Murphy works closely with the LAPD. Basically there is as much conversing about LA as a setting as possible, without explicitly acknowledging the setting to the audience directly. On top of this, there is nothing about the setting that makes it important to the film. Could have very easily been San Fran and nothing really would have changed. I believe this is a clear C+ film, and I love it for it.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Golden Child? More like Cold and Mild! Amirite? Because I mean … this movie is weird. Like just … let’s get into it.

The Good – 80’s Murphy is charming in almost any circumstance. He is incredibly charming in this movie. The storyline is vaguely interesting, especially how they go hard sci fi / fantasy throughout.
The Bad – The movie is boring. It also just kind of meanders around. And bar none this is one of the worst endings to a movie in the history of BMT. Spoiler Alert! Murphy’s love interest dies and everyone is just like “go get the Golden Child, he can cure her”. So he’s like “okay” then drives around LA for like 10 minutes, see a Tibetan bird, and is like sweet. Upon arriving at the hideout he then just kind of scoops the kid up and the bad guy becomes a stop-motion animated demon and just kind of pesters them on their drive to save the lady. It was nonsense and kind of ruined a somewhat pleasant if boring diversion otherwise.
The BMT – It is kind of strange to me that this is so crazy derided among critics. A BOMB Leonard? Really? Not even the Murphy charm adds a little half star there? It seems like they were aiming at Beverly Hills Buddha or something along those lines, where a ton of the humor is just Murphy using his street wiles in a fish out of water type situation. And I can appreciate it. I could see myself using the endings in bad movie examples going forward, but to me it was below average for BMT as a whole. It is just boring, not bad in any tangible way.

I’m going to introduce a new series to the email that, like Jamie’s Settings 101, can be done each time. This I’m calling Sklog-trospective. Basically I record a thought before the film, something I was particularly interested in from the last preview, and then explain it and any thoughts in the recap. This time what I was particularly interested in was the director of The Golden Child, Michael Ritchie. The Golden Child was interesting because of its success and large budget to an extent, but I personally found the director to be an enigma. Critics specifically mention how scattershot his directing choices are. He goes from weird niche horror, to pageant mockumentary, to the Fletch series. He worked consistently, but only really met with middling success. It is a strange story, one that I couldn’t quite cut through in my research. After watching the film … the man is an experimentalist at heart. The beginning to The Golden Child is a sight to behold. A frenetic portrayal of LA mixed with repeated clips of Murphy laughing or putting up signs or ogling ladies. And it was a precursor to the film. Stop motion animation is used twice. A very strange dream sequence introduces Murphy to the bad guys. The entire movie kind of makes no sense and is barely held together by Murphy’s improvisation alone. The direction in this film is a major issue, and it only makes me more fascinated by Ritchie. I’ve seen almost none of his films, but I might have to check out a few others just to see what they are like.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs