Tag: Prequel/Sequel/Remake

Conan the Destroyer Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Conan the Destroyer? More like Phoned-In Performer (whatever that means, weak. Wizzeak. I am unhappy with my performance, for it was I who was the phoned-in performer). This week I spent my time (!) assembling a rudimentary website. Why? Posterity. Pure and simple, I want our legacy to ring from mountain top to mountain top for the centuries to come. The lack of recognition now will surely translated into

The Good – Not nearly as bad as people made it out to be. Arnold was solid. The story was fun in that kind of Krull or Willow kind of way. It by no means diminished the accomplishment that was the first film. I am genuinely surprised at the vitriol directed towards this movie.

The Bad – The effects were Krull-level laughable. The story gets seriously lost between acts two and three, both Jamie and I had no idea what was happening at one point. Complete misfire from a humor perspective, especially Malak the inept sidekick (whose sidekickness rivals Hall of Fame sidekicks like Todd Maniac Marshall from Wing Commander).

The BMT – Naw. I don’t think so. It was an okay movie. Silly, sure. It is like Willow. In retrospect the movie seems very crazy and silly. But that doesn’t make it bad. In fact that ambition in making both of the Conan movies is impressive.

Game. Let’s do a remake. Basically, Conan the Conqueror should have been the second film in the franchise. Conan earning his kingdom. Now old Conan, having accomplished his goals, looks back towards his love he wished to have sitting beside him as his queen. And he goes on one last adventure. An adventure to face death and either rejoin his love by the side of Krom, or to bring her back from Death’s clutches to reign beside him on Earth. The Conan the Barbarian, Conqueror, Destroyer trilogy can then be complete. It’s bringing a tear to my eye I tells yah.

Jamie

Let’s start with a simple statement: I looooovvvveeeeeddddd Conan the Barbarian. It spoke to me. It spoke to me in a similar way that The Thing and The Warriors spoke to me. It was nearly perfect and even makes me a little upset that they remade it a few years back. This is not the type of film you remake. It’s the type of film you make an unwanted sequel or prequel to (like 2011’s The Thing). You can’t remake perfection.

As for my game, I didn’t have the DVD for this one, so couldn’t scoop out a MonoSklog (if there was one… I can’t remember). Instead I’ll use my BMTsolution as my game. For those that don’t know, my BMTsolution this year is to read the source material for any and all BMT films. For Conan the Destroyer, I simply read a couple Conan stories in prep. They seem to have done a pretty good job adapting the character. Generally he seems to be a thief/adventurer who has a preternatural fighter’s instinct. In the stories I read, Conan was already King of Aquilonia and was defending his throne or going off to perform heroic feats. They mention that his people (the Cimmerians) are known to be without humor or the ability to hold their liquor. Conan has both, but to a modest extent. He is also very sharp-witted. Overall, I think this came through pretty accurately. His backstory is kinda screwed up in the first one, but whatever. As Patrick mentioned, the most disappointing thing is that they never adapted his ascension to the throne into a film. Conan the Conqueror was abandoned after Conan the Destroyer. I want to see him take the throne from some assholes, damn it!

Make sure to check out the preview for the next film in the cycle, Steel starring Shaq.

Firestorm Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Firestorm? More like Fire-whoever-thought-this-movie-was-a-good-idea, bam! Howie Long oh How-I Longed for you. Been missing him since 3000 Miles to Graceland. Let’s get into it.

  • The Good – Howie Long was better than expected, really hung tough with the rest of the cast (I apologize to the rest of the cast). Um … the ending was so bonkers as to be fun. If you can get to it it is pretty much worth it.
  • That being said, you ever flip through the backwoods of cable tv channels and stumble across that weird made-for-tv action movie starring the Boz or whoever and were like “oh this might be fun”, but then after 3 minutes you are like “oh yeah, no, I can feel my lifeforce bleeding out of me while watching this”? If you have, you know what Firestorm is like.
  • It does have one of the most ridiculous bad guys we’ve seen. When he has his weird blond wig and goatee on he is literally on par with Bananas from Ghosts of Mars.
  • And the aforementioned ending involving a Howie Long two hand overhead ax throw into the badguy’s chest from under water. I heard he did that at the combine to convince the Raiders to draft him. And then the bad guy comes back! Amazing.

What a weird movie. I hardly have an opinion about the movie because it is barely a movie. A little too close to made-for-tv or Van Damme territory for me, like Stone Cold (starring the Boz, natch). I was reasonably entertained though, congrats Firestorm.

And of course I want a remake. Almost any athlete vehicle can be remade because guess what? There is a whole new crop of athletes that can star in it! And of course JJ Watt will star in Perfect Firestorm. And of course the bad guy will be Ray Liotta. And of course Kaley Cuoco will costar as the spunky birdwatcher caught in the middle of it all. And of course our friends and family can be Executive Producers, it will be the number one stipulation in any screenwriting contract I sign. I’ve drawn up the paperwork, it is just waiting for a signature.

Jamie

FIRESTORM! I’m not going to dive too far into the actual film. Patrick took care of that. Instead I would like to point out something interesting: it takes place in Wyoming. How is it possible that Wyoming has two major BMT titles (Have You Heard About the Morgans? and Firestorm)? Seems like the type of state that would barely scrape by with one. It also begs the question: If we were forced to make an ultimate mapl.de.map, which of the films would be chosen? Have You Heard About the Morgans? is largely forgettable, but it is soooo Wyoming. Firestorm is fucking Firestorm, but almost seems like it’s set in Wyoming as an afterthought. What are we to do? Patrick suggests we resort to BMeTric. It’s cold and calculated… developed to replace us. These are the questions we are developing our algorithms to tackle (so you don’t have to).

For this movie I feel like Stone Cold was too on-the-nose as a real comparison. It’s almost like they are twin movies. Fire & Ice. I kept on being reminded of Bats for some reason. A wide release that was largely forgotten and has the feel of a SyFy Channel original.

For my BMTsolution, Firestorm was not based on a book. If it were based on a book, though, it would be a gritty 70’s pulp action book in the same vein as First Blood. Jesse Graves is a former smokejumper just returned from Vietnam. On his first jump back, he finds himself suddenly recalling his wartime jungle-burning experiences and nearly dies in his crazed attempt to escape his memories. In the process, he inadvertently injures the captain of the smokejumping crew. Several months later, the captain is retiring due to his injures and Graves is on desk duty. A group of prisoners, led by the psychopathic Randall Sharp, manage to escape work duty by brutally murdering the prison guards tasked with keeping them in line (who planted the weapons they used? What a mystery!). In order to hinder their pursuers, the prisoners set the Montana forest aflame. The smokejumpers jump to the rescue but find themselves ambushed by Sharp and his crew. All are slain except for Julie, Graves’ girlfriend (!), who is taken as a hostage (“and a mighty pretty one too” – a prisoner creepily notes). Can Graves jump one more time and take out these prisoners once and for all? Or will he be caught in the… FIRESTORM!

These books will be part of a series of novels I write called Based-on-the-Book, where I write books that movies would have been based on if they were adaptations… but they’re not adaptations of the films themselves. It’s a nuanced difference.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

 

Lock Up Recap

Jamie

Finally a movie that has a real anecdote to go with the watching of the film. So I taught at the prison that Lock Up was filmed at! It’s the East Jersey State Prison, formerly known as Rahway, and known in the film as Gateway. There were a lot of shots of the outside of the prison, which is instantly recognizable, and a single shot of the entrance that I used to go into the prison through. Surprisingly there were only two scenes set in the central hub of the prison, which is a big open space under the dome that contains a circular cage area that I had to wait in while they tried to get me up to the library/classroom area. It’s kinda cool looking (albeit depressing, as everything in a prison is), so I expected it to be featured more. That was it though! Only a couple other brief moments where I recognized anything. Such is life. The craziest thing was that there was a scene in the film with an electric chair and I was like, “OMG! Was there an electric chair in that prison?!?!” But I don’t think so… or at least certainly not when I taught there. There are some claims that there was an electric chair in the dome of the prison at one time, but I think that’s a myth. I believe the only electric chair in NJ was in Trenton. That would have given me the creeps if there had been one in Rahway. Anyway, that’s enough prison talk.

Well I would have really loved for this to be part of the Stallone Food Trilogy, but he doesn’t talk about food nearly enough. Instead I’ll just do my own BMT-solution. I feel like too many times in the past year we were presented with a very interesting adaptation and Patrick and I cited “time” and “work” as valid excuses for not reading the source material. No more! I resolve to read the source material for any and all films that we watch this year. I feel like this will give us a more well rounded idea of just what kind of travesties we are witnessing. Imagine if I hadn’t read Endless Love before watching Endless Love (and Endless Love)?! Impossible! Unacceptable! This is my BMT-solution. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it… Juwanna Mann’s not based on a book, right? Patrick?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Lock Up?! More like Shlock Up! Amirite?! Except … wait for it … I kind of dug this movie. Let’s get into it:

  • It had the cheesy weird Sly moment (like him pretending he can play football, presumably to legitimatize hiring a former NFL player to truck people in the prison), but he was okay. He had a little of the incomprehensible Sly talk going, but it was okay.
  • The movie is interesting in two ways. First, they hide his (obviously) noble reason for going to jail for almost the entire film. There is a history to the film with naturally revealing exposition slowly developing his background. Digging it.
  • Second, it is a little grindhouse-y. Like Cobra. There is the ultra-violence, prison-exploitation kind of thing going. Explains the weird Maltin review to an extent.
  • And a lot of the performances and writing are solid. The only tough spot is the bonkers insanity of Sutherland. Oh … and the ending makes no sense. Like Sly is in prison forever. So yeah, that’s an issue.

I’ll leave it there. Because we need a little Prequel to this. Lock Up: Origins. Fortuitously Kiefer Sutherland is 31 years younger than his father. It has been 26 years since Lock Up was released, and the prequel would take place five years prior to that movie …. 31 years ago in 1984! The time is now! Do it! Netflix! Lock Up: Origins! The only question is who plays Stallone? Looking at pictures I think Channing Tatum would weirdly work. But since this is going to be a BMT Production on the cheap let’s get Kellan Lutz on the horn. Boom. Done.

Also, I feel like my negativity is bringing BMT down. This is supposed to be fun guys! Watching movies is fun, right? (right?…). So, introducing my 2016 BMT-solution (oooo, I’m digging that terrible name). My BMT-solution is that I’m going to be less negative in my reviews. Get back to the fun. Try and not brutalize movies like Ridiculous 6 anymore (hey, Ridiculous 6, you got me and my bros to sit down and watch a movie together, that’s something). I’ll see how long that lasts.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

Color of Night Recap

Jamie

Every once in a while we watch a film for BMT that is immediately vaulted into the BMT HoF. It’s rare, but films like Getaway, Here on Earth, Ghosts of Mars, Endless Love, Battlefield Earth, Old Dogs, etc. cross so far into the absurd that we can only watch with glee. Color of Night is one of those films. From minute one this film makes no sense. It is clearly the product of a madman and how no one stopped it during filming (or at the very least before release) is a mystery that will probably never be solved (hint: it’s probably cocaine). Regardless, it exists. And thankfully so, for it is a wonder.

Legendary is what it is. I have never seen a film where every aspect is terribly done. Plot? Acting? Music? Makeup? Screenwriting? All of it top tier craziness. It really is the best. Just the best. One of the seven wonders of the BMT world.

For the game I’m going to do another Tril-oh-geez (I’m loving this game even if no one else does). Mirrors played a major role in Color of Night and it’s not the first BMT film to prominently feature mirrors. So here is the official Mirrors Tril-oh-geez:

  • Color of Night – seems like it’s used in this film to make a connection between the characters Rose and Ritchie. While Willis talks directly to Rose, the viewer sees her through a reflection over his shoulder. When Willis talks in the presence of Ritchie he is seen in a similar position over his shoulder, but in this case Willis never speaks directly to him. Perhaps a meditation on the difference in how people treat the characters based on their genders or stations in life. Perhaps Willis is blind in more ways than color. Perhaps.
  • I Know Who Killed Me – clearly the mirrors were used here to show how Lindsey Lohan’s characters are reflections of each other: the good life and the bad life, everything reversed.
  • Torque – they are used here cause it’s super rad.

I love getting different genres in the Tril-oh-geez. This isn’t the most exotic with an erotic thriller, horror thriller, and action but I still like it.

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! Color of Night? More like Color of Shite! Am. I. Right? (I sang the last part). Wow. Wowwy wow wow. Wowzers wow. These moments. The Endless Loves, the Over the Tops. These moments remind me of just how insane the 80s/early 90s were. While we tend to stick to recent bad films, sometimes old school movies need to teach us some shit, because I have opinions:

  • The erotic thriller. Once a majestic, powerful genre now relegated to movies like Obsession and the occasional Tyler Perry joint. At one point in time these movies could make serious bank. If they made sense. This one did not.
  • The soundtrack is insanity. Do I love it? Is this my favorite movie ever?! Am I going insane!!?
  • I cannot stop thinking of Color of Night. It absorbed my thoughts for days. What is wrong with the world where this could happen?!
  • Straight up Bruce Willis penis. You legit see the tip bobbing around in a pool. Why? Director, explain yourself!
  • The “twist” isn’t really a twist, but they kind of act like it is. It was very confusing because I didn’t know whether I was confused. You know?
  • Snakes in the mailbox, hot shot macho psychologists, cuckoo bananas LAPD detectives, and weird lesbian storyline. My life no longer makes sense.
  • IS THIS WHAT LOS ANGELES IS LIKE?!
  • I didn’t even talk about the all important color blindness subplot.

I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I need a sequel. Explain what this character is doing now. Did he marry Jane March? Has everyone recovered? Are him and the police officer best friends? Do they mountain bike in crazy tight compression shorts every weekend? Does Bruce Willis still live in his recently deceased friends house and drive his car around and take on his clients as if this is normal and not highly suspect? I need to know what a 50 year old version of this character is doing. Color of Day. I’ll make it for free. I’ll pay Netflix for the privilege of making it. Jesus Louise.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Gunman Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Gunman? More like No Fun, Man!!! Unless you are super into Sean Penn’s aging strongman bod, this movie probably isn’t for you. His creepy old man face perched upon that ripped bod will haunt my dreams. Speaking of which:

  • For some reason this film is about concussions. It’s like Sean Penn was watching a documentary about the NFL and thought to himself “do you know what this movie needs … me as an assassin in Africa.” It was also really bold to also make this movie about the dangers of HGH (you just got served Sean Penn’s bod).
  • The movie could not be more muddled. Like … you know what the movie is about, but you are just hanging on by your fingertips. One trip to the bathroom and you don’t recover, you are lost for the rest of the movie.
  • The acting is also bonkers at times. Idris Elba floats in just to spout monologues about treehouses, Javier Bardem is fake drunk, and Sean Penn is just ridiculous. They really just let loose. It was a bold move, and strangely kind of works. If Javier reigned it back just a smidge it might have worked out.
  • And yet, I was mostly entertained for the duration of the film. The back third is weaker, I kind of wish they set most of the film in Congo, rather than moving around Europe. I’m surprised at just how poorly it did, seems like people really took the “Taken with Sean Penn” narrative and (unfairly) ran with it. The sheer number of moving parts and hidden subplots is actually a really interesting way to tell a story, even if it leaves you kind of floating and lost every so often.

I’m kind of digging the idea of taking a current totally unrelated issue (concussions) and cross pollinating with a movie idea (Taken). Let’s see. Current controversy: Affirmative action in American universities. Previous movie: Snake Eyes starring Nicolas Cage. The film takes place during the Superbowl (the biggest gambling day of the year) and corrupt police detective is there to oversee local law enforcement at the venue. During the course of the film it is revealed that the star quarterback (Tim Broady) of the Boston Pioneers is taking bribes to throw the game. But is the scandal all to cover an assassination attempt on the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (played by Nic Cage) prior to his ruling on affirmative action?! The answer is yes … yeah, it was all a cover for that. I’m going to call it Moneyline.

Jamie

Wait, is Moneyline real? Like can I buy tickets for it right now?… someone tell me if this is real so I can buy tickets to it.

I’m going to keep this brief since Patrick covered the review quite nicely. I am pretty surprised that The Gunman got as bad reviews as it did. Did it have some overacting? Was it fairly confusing? Did it have a ridiculous subplot about concussions and CTE? Yes, yes, and yes. But was it all that bad? Not really. I actually kind of dug it. You see a contradiction here?

For this week’s game I’m going to do another BMTril-oh-geez. This is where I group last week’s film with two other subpar films that share a common theme of sorts to create a terrible, terrible trilogy that masochists can watch in their free time. Due to the extreme ridiculousness of the concussion subplot in The Gunman and the coincidental simultaneous release of the Will Smith vehicle Concussion (“Tell the truth!”),  I bring you the BMTril-oh-geez official Concussion trilogy:

  • The Gunman – obviously.
  • The Ladykillers  – arguably the worst Coen Brothers film to date, but it’s not the worst at having major characters with CTE. One of the band of thieves is a former football player named Lump who is pretty dim cause of all the concussions he had. Hilarious! Also funny sidenote is that J.K. Simmons’ character in the film is named Garth Pancake… meaning that with Unfinished Business it also makes two legs of the Pancake trilogy for films with characters with the last name Pancake.
  • A Dirty Shame – John Waters made this little ditty where people in a town are slowly turned into fetishistic sex addicts through a series of concussions. No characters named Pancake to be seen though.

So there you have it. A true Concussion BMTril-oh-geez of mediocrity with The Gunman, The Ladykillers, and A Dirty Shame.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

The Gallows Recap

Jamie

Why do we do this to ourselves? We know we hate found footage films and yet we keep dipping our toes over and over again into the well only to realize that that “well” is in fact a sewer and instead of “dipping our toes” we actually got submerged in shit. I wouldn’t say this was the worst found footage we’ve watched (for reasons detailed in Patrick’s section), but it’s the relative sameness of every… single… film in the genre that just wears on me. I can barely tell these films apart. Unfortunately we have to keep doing it. Each year there are like 3 or 4 BMT found footage films released to theaters. If me and Patrick don’t watch some of them each year, BMT will eventually consist only of found footage films… it’s like the apocalyptic future of BMT. Me and Patrick roaming the wasteland of found footage films to try to find some bad movie sustenance. I’m of course being facetious, everyone. Don’t worry your little heads about this. Patrick has run the numbers (obviously) and we will never (never!) run out of bad films. There are approximately a full year’s worth of bad films released each year. So rest assured, our national nightmare of found footage BMT will never be fully realized. Phew.

I’m feeling a little Sequel, Prequel, Remake for this one. I want a Prequel. No, not the story of the original production of The Gallows culminating in the death of Charlie (and giving a bit more clarity on how he came to exist as a supernatural being). I’m talking about what would have followed right after. Charlie’s girlfriend is devastated at the death of Charlie in a freak theater accident. What else could go wrong? Everything apparently cause now she finds out she’s pregnant and at the same time finds out her deadbeat boyfriend is back from the dead as a ghost! Oh my! How can this odd couple navigate the world of new parenthood when one of them isn’t even of this world?! Through laughter and tears they find that raising a baby isn’t all that hard when you have love… even when one of them is a spooky ghost. It shall be called Ghost Dad… wait…

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! The Gallows? More like So Shallow! Found Footage? More like dog poo genre in my face. The thoughts on this were somewhat interesting (if you are me or Jamie that is), so rapidfire!:

  • The Good – This is genuinely shocking. We’re talking about a genre already prone to laziness in its reliance on jumpscares, but yet this one tread what seemed to be novel ground (not that I’m an expert on found footage films). (1) They had a genuine reason for the characters to carry a camera around (they needed the light attached to it). (2) The last 20 minutes were genuinely creepy, really tense with actual horror elements beyond jumpscares. (3) They seemed like they enjoyed poking some fun at the genre with some general silliness.
  • The Bad – (1) The first hour is useless. Literally nothing happens. I’m not being figurative, literally nothing of import happens in the first hour of an 80 minute long film. (2) The “twist” ending was terrible. So bad it was hard to tell whether it was meant to be ironic. (3) The acting is horrible. Not a surprise, but it was especially bad all around in this case.
  • The BMT – It kind of has to be. This is the worst of the year in a garbage genre. It must be represented by BMT … if that weren’t the case though I would just kick the entire genre out excepting special occasions.

But hey, they made money, they gave me some scares, and all for $50K! That’s actually incredible. If someone actually intelligently applied like a million dollars to a horror film like this something great might actually come of it. Although, maybe that’s what Paranormal Activity is.

Seriously, maybe I should be checking more of these found footage films outside of BMT (ugh, I hate them so much though). I’m going to wax poetic a bit about the BMeTric and the complications that horror seems to cause it. There is a small and impassioned fanbase around horror films. Combining this with the fact that most horror films aren’t perceived to be particularly good movies, and you got a recipe for BMeTric inflation. It is an issue with the BMeTric because it suggests movies (like the Gallows) are going to be good BMT when they honestly aren’t much fun. There are just weirdos who watch bad horror films (like me to an extent, even though they are spooky and scare me) and screw everything up. What is a boy to do?

To hammer home the points: taking the qualifying (more than 10 rotten tomatoes reviews, less than 40%) OMDB data and splitting off the ones that have a listed genre of “Horror” you can see that horror films are about as popular on average (a little more even), but the rating is, on average, about half a point less.

HorrorAnalysis1
HorrorAnalysis2

Out of all of the genres Horror has the highest 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile with the BMeTric. The average qualifying horror film has a BMeTric of about 35 whereas for all genres the average BMeTric is about 25. This does suggest the first adjustment to the BMeTric. A Genre-Adjusted BMeTric (GAB) might tamp down the increased number of suggested horror films. I’m digging it and will be exploring it more soon. (Editor’s Note: While I did explore this nothing came of it (so far). The BMeTric itself is quite different between the two, I just haven’t found the time to look into what underlying distribution to use and/or how to easily do a genre based transform. I do think this is a good idea in general. Currently, I think the easiest idea is to take quantiles and do the adjustment based on that. They already do this with genetic data I think, so hopefully it ends up being easy enough as to allow the adjustment to be produced each month with the OMDB data dumps).

 

Jupiter Ascending Recap

Jamie

Let me tell you a little story. On my way to Atlanta last week I was lamenting to my wife at how ill prepared I was for the flight. While I had obtained a glorious copy of Jupiter Ascending, I found myself unable to download it to my phone to watch enroute. ‘Woe is me’ I thought at the mere prospect that I should endure a 2 hour flight without my sweet, sweet Jupiter Ascending action. I turned to my wife on the airport shuttle and half-heartedly joked, ‘Maybe we’ll have a new plane with personal screens and the option to watch JA.’ A single tear rolled down my cheek as these words left my lips, for I was certain that I would never have the opportunity to watch the film. Perhaps I would fall so far behind on BMT that Patrick and I would never catch up. Could this spell the end of BMT? Could it all end with a bungled iphone video transfer? God must have heard my heart (for I believe it was speaking directly to him that day) and declared, ‘not on my God damned watch!’ He replaced whatever shitty Delta plane we were meant to board with the most glorious of planes. TV screens abound! Comfy seats and snacks galore! ‘Could it be? Might these tiny television screens bring me JA in all its glory?’ I exclaimed to no one in particular. ‘Doubtful,’ my wife scoffed, lowering her eye mask and inserting ear plugs so that she might not have to hear or see me weep quietly to myself upon my discovery that there was no JA after all. But no! There would be no tears that day my friends. There would only be joyous laughter and revelry as I watched JA as it was truly meant to be seen. No, not an IMAX screen, but my tiny airplane screen. It was there! Uncut and unrelenting in its ridiculousness. It was destiny. I would not go the week without BMT. Oh no. Not this week. Not any week.

You see what I just wrote there? That ridiculous paragraph of nonsense? That is better and more exciting than anything in Jupiter Ascending a.k.a. the most confusing movie in this or any universe. I literally had no idea who people were or who they were working for or generally what was happening through the film. Not for lack of trying though. They did spend 95% of the film trying to explain it to the audience. Didn’t work out great. I just kinda rolled with it and assumed that all the details didn’t matter for the most part. There were aliens and they were doing stuff. Whatever. That’s not to say that there wasn’t merits to the film. I liked the concept for the most part, it just was too much for a film to handle. Needed to be a book or something. Or like a game of thrones style TV show. Or have some background that people could grasp to. Not sure I’ll be voting for it come Razzie season, but it certainly deserves notice for Redmayne’s acting (geez louise) and writing. That’s it though.

Alright, do I have a MonoSklog for Jupiter Ascending? Nope. No time for that shit when I’m trying to catch up. I think I’ll just do a quick Prequel, Sequel, Remake. I’d love to say that we do a remake with this film starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, but that’s a cheap  and timely No Strings Attached joke. Instead I say we should get a little prequel. Let’s learn a little of the origins of Channing Tatum’s character. What is his motivation? What events led to him losing his wings? When and how did he obtain his grav boots? No one else has grav boots, why not? Did he invent them? Did he find them? Why doesn’t anyone ever take them from him considering he keeps escaping using them? These questions will all be answered in the upcoming film Grav Boots.

Patrick

Jupiter Ascending? More like Poop-iter Descending! (That’s solid, admit it). Wowwy Wow Wow. Huh …. Hmmmmmm. Huh. Huuuuuuuuh. I can’t even sort through my thoughts, I need bulletpoints:

  • So confusing. At first I was like whaaaaaat? Then I was like Oh I get it. Then I was like wait wait wait wait wait … who are these people? Then I was like No, I see …. I def got it this time. Twists and turns man. I agree with what a few other people have said about the movie: it felt like the third in a trilogy with the first two missing. Once it dawns on you that the house Abrasax isn’t the ruler of the universe, but rather one of many minor noble houses, it makes a bit more sense why no one else gives a shit about Mila Kunis and her magic genes.
  • Grav boots are dumb. Channing Tatum uses them in every scene and half the time they are so slow, like he’s just gliding around. He looks like an idiot.
  • I wanted to like this movie too. It is pretty interesting. Spectacular at times. Seems like it could be a whole universe to be explored with books and tv shows and movies … but nope, kind of falls flat by going too big and self-contained. But I did kind of want to like it.
  • Another thing I did not like: how grand and frenetic everything tried to be. Through constraints imposed by technology of the time something like Star Wars seems effortless in comparison. In this everything is so big and there is so much stuff filling every inch of it it is almost too much to take in at any given time and seems overdone.
  • Oh and holy shit, Redmaynes performance! It is a thing to behold. It really is a poor decision by everyone involved. I would be shocked if it doesn’t win the worst actor this year, even though the acting wasn’t bad per se, just a really bad idea.

I’ll leave it there. I don’t think this will be anywhere near my least favorite film of the year. It is so poorly written and executed though (possibly because they were crushing three epic movies into one) that it certainly is a sight to be seen.

Before I go I’ll mention that I watched the Sandler vehicle The Cobbler the other day. Brief thoughts: (1) Not that bad. (2) Actually pretty impressive acting. (3) And with about 10 minutes left I thought to myself “this could be a novel superhero tv series”. Then the ending happened. One of the worse endings I’ve seen for a movie. It doesn’t make sense, and it just went a bit too far and on the nose for me …. whatever. It will not escape Razzie wrath since Sandler is almost definitely getting an actor nod, and they’ll probably lump Pixels, Cobbler and Hotel Transylvania 2 together.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

September Dawn Recap

Jamie

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….

Vaarwel,

The Sklogs

What Goes Up Recap

What goes up, must come down. Spinning wheel got to go round. Woooo! Love that song and love this documentary about the making of the Blood Sweat & Tears classic

… what’s that? Did I watch the wrong movie? It’s the one starring Steve Coogan, Hilary Duff, and Josh Peck, right? Yeah… I just assumed all the bullshit in the film was an extended allegory for the literal blood, sweat, and tears that David Clayton-Thomas poured into the making of that song and struggles of leading a contemporary American jazz-rock ensemble. No? Huh. Well then I’m completely flabbergasted cause nothing in the film really meant anything and it was all super weird and unnecessary. It was actually pretty unpleasant to watch. The main character was a doucher whose whole life is a sham and the kids all had upsetting lives. In particular, Olivia Thirlby’s character who had a pretty rough incest/abortion storyline. That’s right, second week in a row with an incest storyline! Last week it was A Thousand Acres, and this week What Goes Up followed it right up… because that’s what everyone’s clamoring for in their film selections: incest.

Alright, well I’m glad they made this film for the sake of my precious, precious map, but also kinda wish we could have just pretended we had never seen Eight Crazy Nights (or as I like to call it, Eight Cray Cray Nights). Like, would any of you have really cared or knew that Patrick and I tricked you? No. But we would have known in our hearts, and much like Coogan in What Goes Up, the lie would have been necessary, but also soul-consuming.

Anywho, gonna keep my MonoSklog section brief this week. Loved, loved, loved Josh Peck’s MonoSklog in What Goes Up. I call it Mi Panegírico, and if you can catch it it is worth it. There is something about how Josh Peck says “But everyone says ‘No… You gotta fucking accept it.'” that really make that scene. Just a really solid job right there. But like usual, Monosklogs are not for the website. Fair use just isn’t our bag you know?

Patrick

‘Ello everyone! What Go Up … Brings me down! What a depressing, weird, small, weird movie.

  • It was weird. It is hard to even make fun of. There is just so much that goes into it that seems like it is super serious. Probably super personal. But I feel like it is a mess. Just a jumble of symbols and messages and nothing really gets done particularly right.
  • Side stories alongside side stories. There’s a girl who was paralyzed in an accident, we get to see a story about that. There is Hilary Duff’s story of trying to seduce Coogan. Another girl was in love with the teacher who died. Two other girls are weirdos, and get involved in a variety of shenanigans. Josh Peck has a strange story about being fascinated with the principal’s wife and newborn child. The music teacher (who was in love (?) with the teacher who killed himself) is having a meltdown for various reasons. And Coogan has been fabricating stories about the woman he loved for months to deal with her suicide …. None of these storylines are particularly interesting.
  • Probably because Coogan’s character is a bad person whom I do not like.
  • This is unpleasant and it was a bad BMT film. The BMeTric based on IMDB votes and rating nailed it again (11.7/100 (NOTE: As of July 9, 2016) if you recall, where 25 is just about the BMThreshold for Enjoyment). This week we probably have a bit better chance (Critters 2 has a BMeTric of approximately 35/100, not bad).

That’s it. I want to see the Prequel to this movie called The Shed. It is about all these characters, how they get to be in Mr. C’s class, and how they learn acceptance and love. It ends with Coogan rolling into town. Literally no one will watch this film. Netflix, get off the horn, this movie does not and never will need to be made.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs

 

Into the Storm Recap

Patrick

‘Ello everyone. Into the Storm? More like … Merely Lukewarm? Not many good rhymes there, plus I hate hate hated this movie (to quote Roger Ebert). I think Jamie was more okay with it and I should get one thing out front: I think it was supposed to be a comedy a bit. A poor bit of comedy, but a comedy … but I’m going to ignore that and eviscerate this thing. Get ready to get slammed, Into the Storm:

  • I wasn’t straight up dog poo in my face (a phrase reserved for, really, only the best of the worst), but it was maybe the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen.
  • The found-footage part of it was not only done poorly (in that they were recovering footage that was literally unrecoverable and thus admitting that it was really just a real movie, just shot in POV), but also unnecessary. The movie would have been better as the spiritual successor to Twister instead of an excuse to get bad actors jobs (I feel bad about this burn, but beyond Armitage it was a who’s who of TV and bad young actors).
  • The story was nonsense: Two of the main characters are just stuck in a smashed building and shown maybe three times before getting rescued. Dumb.
  • There’s a side story with two hillbillies (who Jamie loooooved, or so I’m assuming) which is not only pointless, but also just the cherry-on-top to the ridiculousness when they survive getting sucked up into a category 5 tornado.
  • The entire movie is just people running from set to set culminating in the good guys hiding in a “storm drain” aka a wind tunnel built as the only expensive set piece for the production.
  • Now it wasn’t all bad. At times the CGI looked okay (although in 5 years that will not be the case). If you’re into disaster porn it will sate your disaster lust (gross). And the storm chaser story, while a little preachy, did provide interest at times. Plus I will always support TV and film that gives former Prison Break actors work (get yo’ money Dr. Tancredi).
  • I think you go Sequel here. Jamie had his own idea (about a tornado named Pete wreaking havoc in … Japan I think, can’t remember), but mine is Into the Storm: London Eye. In the movie they mention that global warming will lead to tornadoes in new and unprepared places (LA, London, etc.). Well, I live in London! It’s 2040, and a British child has to make a hologram diary for his school graduation (ooof, bad start). But what is this? A tornado in London?! … That’s it … that’s all I got. I feel like this writes itself since it is going to be shot found footage style. I can lead production here in London if Netflix wants to add this to their slate of original programming.

Alright, I’ll leave it there.

Jamie

Wait, are you telling me that the “That thing got a hemi?” guy wasn’t your favorite character?

I was waiting for him to say the catchphrase. Or maybe see a mack truck sucked into a tornado and scream “that thing got a semi!” and look directly into the camera and then everyone involved kill themselves.

Moving on. Hoo wee, I just watched Into the Storm and boy did that storm blow… hard. (thank you, thank you). In seriousness I have to recap the movie with a bit of a qualifier: I actually thought the concept was fun. It’s a weather disaster film. Lots of tornadoes coming out of nowhere and chasing people and shit. And if I went to the theater looking to see some tornadoes, I would have been pretty satisfied. I thought the storms themselves looked good and when the “characters” (if you could call them that) were in the middle of the storms I was on the edge of my seat. This movie though had a major flaw and destroyed the experience for me.

WHY IS THIS A FOUND FOOTAGE FILM?! This has hands down the worst conceit for a found footage film I have ever seen. Usually these films start with a character filming some big change in their lives (“honey, we just got married. Let’s document our lives for our children and junk.”) with some bullshit background about how the character used to do this all the time, but hadn’t done it in years (I think this is to make the directing and editing skills of our otherwise unskilled and incompetent character believable) which then gets ramped up into obsession when they realize they caught some weird stuff on film (here the genre generally fails as we usually see footage of the character editing his film… why would they film themselves editing film?). What I’m driving at is that there is usually a lot of time spent creating a situation where filming all this stuff makes a modicum of sense. Into the Storm? They seemed to just say “Fuck that, let’s not address it,” and continued on their merry way. The number of random overhead shots is startling (where is that footage from? A totally random weather helicopter from which an anonymous editor decided to take footage for B-roll?), the intersection of four independent sets of characters all religiously documenting everything before the storms even hit is ridiculous, and the fact that all this happens in the middle of a disaster area makes it impossibly unlikely that any of the film would be recovered (there is literally a scene where we see from a camera point of view a character sucked up into a fire tornado… how did they recover the footage from that camera?). It’s awful. Just make it a regular film. It would have been good. I would have liked it. Instead you made it ridiculous. The only explanation for why the film is found footage is that they wanted to make the film on the cheap and had a week to write the script so they needed characters to explain things directly into the camera. The whole genre has to go. We’re nearing rock bottom here, where a perfectly good concept is ruined by making it found footage. The only thing I ask before they finish up and kill the genre is to make a found footage rom com. I don’t know why, but I would like for that to happen and be a complete disaster.

Dipping back into MonoSklog for the game this week. Into the Storm probably broke the record for the most number of MonoSklogs ever because the script had characters speak at length directly into the camera just to keep everything rolling along. So while I had four or five to choose from I think the MonoSklog by the main character (if you could call him that) as he believes he’s about to die is the best. I call it Mis Ojos Aguados. [Editor’s Note: In order to make sure our website if legally kosher in our analyses we’ve removed links to the monosklogs from the online record. We apologize, but do encourage readers to watch and revel in the described monologues for they are glorious]. God, that’s even better than I remember. That’s a solid 2 minutes of face-to-camera found footage bullshit action.

Cheerios,

The Sklogs