The Master (2012)

by Ryan

Having seen none of Paul Thomas Anderson's previous works, I decided that this movie looked interesting enough to go see with my father. And boy was I right. However, as interesting as "The Master" may have been, I still have absolutely no idea what it was about. I mean, obviously it's some sort of commentary on L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology but what was this movie REALLY about? Your guess is as good as mine, and I've already seen the damn thing. "The Master" opens on Joaquin Phoenix, who plays a crazy guy (go figure) that loves to make his own alcohol and have sex with women made of sand. After a tour in the Navy, Joaquin is deemed too insane for normal society and is tasked with taking pictures of people at the mall. Unfortunately, this doesn't last very long as his uncontrollable temper gets the better of him time and time again. Eventually, Joaquin ends up on a huge boat that happens to belong to Philip Seymour Hoffman and his already loyal cult following. Philip takes a shining to Joaquin due to his knack for making bizarre alcohols (some of which include ingredients such as paint thinner and gasoline) and decides to put him to work as his right hand man for some reason. (It doesn't make any sense when you think about it; why would you employ a crazy drunk guy that forced his way onto your ship?) Anyway, we find out that Philip Seymour Hoffman is an author/scientist/scholar/liar and we follow their journey across the country, as Philip's cult tries desperately to persuade others into joining in on their beliefs (and buying Philip's bullshit book). There are a few times during the movie where Philip loses his shit, calling people "PIG FUCK" and getting all red. There are also quite a number of times where Joaquin loses his shit and beats the crap out of people for no apparent reason. Those are probably the best parts of the movie. Don't get me wrong, the performances were astounding and the cinematography was incredible. I loved watching Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams brainwash people just as much as the next guy. But honestly, "The Master" just felt way too long and way too pointless. Don't even get me started on the ending. Overall, I'd have to say that I'm glad that I saw this in theaters even though I have no intention of ever watching it again. If you're in the mood for a slow, weird, seemingly pointless movie with lots of foul language and boobies, then "The Master" is definitely for you.

Rating: 3 out of 5 PIG FUCKS

VHS Review: Ghoulies (1985)

By Brian
5/5

Ghoulies, has a little bit of everything which adds up to make a near-perfect horror-fantasy-comedy:  Puppets, sorcery, midgets, cheesy '80s lightning effects, and terrible acting are all crammed into 82 minutes of pure awesomeness.  Ghoulies is about a young couple who move into a giant mansion.  The man is overcome by a desire to obtain and control the magic forces that he finds in a necromoniconic book he finds in the basement magic room.    Ghoulies is relatively light on the gore, but heavy on special effects, which kept me thoroughly entertained the entire hour and twenty minutes.  The Ghoulies themselves are the best part, little monsters who cause mischief all around the mansion. Whoever designed the puppets put a lot of hard work into designing and creating them, and it shows.  I loved how the main character gains more and more power, very Dungeons & Dragons like, gaining mastery over increasingly powerful spells as he slips deeper into his obsession.  Lots of lame jokes and cliche horror movie themes ("I have to go off alone and find a match to light my doobie.") keep this movie light and easy to watch.  Time to start collecting sequels, 5 evil baby puppets out of 5.

Suplimental Movie Night Review: The Dark Night Rises (2012)

Brian's 2-Cents:
What a load of crap!  After everyone lost their shit for The Dark Night, I was expecting Hollywood to pull out all the stops for the final installment of this decade's Batman trilogy.  Instead, all I got was Christian Bale mopping around his mansion and bitching.  "Have sex with rich, attractive women and then go use awesome gadgets to fight evil?  No thanks, my knee hurts."  Come on! Maggie Jullenhal is a 6, tops, go have an 8 supermodel coke-fueled orgy, isn't that what being a billionaire is all about?  half the movie isn't even about Batman, its about some cop, who loves orphans.  Its all "orphans this, orphans that, I want to be like Bruce Wayne, hes an orphan." Enough with the orphans, just join a street gang and stop complaining already. Eventually, Wayne decides he wants to be Batman again (surprise!) and goes to Morgan Freeman to see what new gadgets hes got, which turns out to only be a stupid looking helicopter, nothing else.  No sneaking around in this movie, just shooting lasers out of the helicopter thingy and punching dudes in the face.  Rises totally skips the entire detective and problem solving aspect of the Batman character.  Also, everyone in the movie already knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, everyone he meets is like, "Hi Bruc-*cough* Batman, lol, my bad *wink*." On to the abysmal dragged along plot.  The villain is Bane, who, according to the Batman cartoon I watched as a kid, is supposed to be addicted to a substance called Venom which makes him super strong, bulgey, and an all together crazy 'roid raged out mother fucker.  Unfortunately, in the film, hes pretty much just a normal guy whose only power is being slightly better fighter than Batman, and wearing a modified scuba diver's breathing aperatus which does.......something unexplained.  What really bothered me is how after the first fight where Bane beats Batfag's ass to an inch of his life, all Batman has to do is a couple of pull-ups and sit-ups and BAM! fighter level increased thrice-fold.  The movie was way too long with too much side character development (no one cares about your shitty fantasies, Alfred, go make me a fucking a sandwich!)   Bane is a weak super villain, with no clear motives behind his actions except simply being mad about being thrown in jail, boo-hoo.  The opening scene of this movie is the only one worth watching, 2 whiny Batmans out of 5.

Ryan's Retort:
While Brian raises a number of interesting and surprisingly valid points, I can't help but feel like he's being a little too harsh with his ratings system. Granted, "The Dark Knight Rises" is certainly not as great as "The Dark Knight" and possibly not even on the same level as "Batman Begins," but it's still a relatively good movie. Certainly worthy of more than just 2 measly Batmans out of 5. For starters, "The Dark Knight Rises" does a fantastic job of combining the best aspects of the critically-acclaimed "Knghtfall" story line from the comic books. Maybe it's just the huge nerd in me, but watching Tom Hardy's Bane effortlessly snap Batman's back on the big screen sent a few shivers down my own spine. Not to mention all of those awesome IMAX shots of bridges and buildings  and football stadiums exploding. I think the only real problem that I had with the film was Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. First of all, they don't ever even call her Catwoman at any point in the movie. Secondly, she has absolutely no cats in her apartment. But besides all that is the fact that her character was just not necessary to the story in any way. Even when you think she's about to do something cool and interesting, the movie cuts to someone else doing something cooler and more interesting than she'd ever be capable of. For example, there's that part when Catwoman is sent to Blackgate (a penitentiary filled with Gotham's most evil men) and you think "Oh, this is going to be pretty sweet. Catwoman is totally going to kill some rapists or something!" But no! All she does is twist that one guy's hand and then she's released by Bane! Overall, I'd say that "The Dark Knight Rises" is a terrific ending to a terrific trilogy. However, the fact that the film consistently makes references to both of the previous films sort of takes away from the originality of this one. It's kind of like "Hey! Remember how good those other two movies were?" Also, Brian's right. Fuck John Blake. 

Overview
Rating: 3 out of 5 whiny Batmans
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Nope.

Tuesday Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

Jelani's Take:
Well, I was really excited for this one, as Peter Parker's High school time has never been thoroughly covered on the big screen. Of course, my comic book nerd-dom left me completely unimpressed, as Marc Webb decided that his "original" take on Spider-Man's origin is better than the canonical story that Steve Ditko and Stan Lee created decades ago. I understand the desire to update certain franchises in order to make it more accessible to a younger generation, but without a groundbreaking or wholly original plot (like X-Men: First Class for example), the entire thing really just falls short. What resulted in this case were two-dimensional characters that I found myself not really caring for. Sure, the "coincidences" that were thrown in to fix the huge plot gaps made enough sense, but it felt like a forced rewiring of a perfect system, instead of an organic evolution of one of my favorite characters of all time; Peter Parker. Whoa... I feel myself getting long winded on this one; I just shed a tear. Anyway! In the movie, Peter Parker gets picked on. Great. He has a thing for Gwen Stacy. Great. He gets bitten by a spider, except it really ties into his parents' secret line of work with radioactive spiders? Okay... I can buy it. The problems though, are that Peter is way to confident here. Way too dreamy, and is bound to be a fucking supervillain because: wait for it... He never fucking learns that with great power comes great responsibility! Throughout the movie, Spider-Man goes around hunting his uncle's killer. He never finds him, and instead beats up the Lizard, who is trying to destroy the city. There's a HUGE problem with that plot alone. His anger towards his uncle's killer is never resolved, he never learns any life lessons, and effectively fails to come of age in this story. The entire point of the original Peter Parker story is that he comes of age. It's the classic coming of age story. There's tragedy and heroic moments and tons and tons of failures and in the end, he finally becomes a man and starts dealing with life and his superpowers in a very responsible and caring way. In this movie, there is no conflict. No teenager torn, no love story haunted by demons, just a sappy teen-romance that is coated with Spider-Powers and a supervillain. The CGI was pretty cool though, and the fight scenes were fast-paced and sharp. I liked Captain Stacy, as his characterization was the only one that matched the original depiction. If you've never heard the story of Peter Parker, then I suppose this movie will seem like a triumph to you. It has a concise layout, and there is the illusion of character growth throughout. But if you know Peter Parker, then you're in for two weird hours with strangers. Spider-Man's "untold story" would be better off staying that way. The plot left me unimpressed but for looking cool, I'll give it 2 stars.

Ryan's Retort:
The main problem that I had with "The Amazing Spider-Man" is that it just wasn't different enough from the original "Spider-Man" to even warrant it being made in the first place. There was just so much time wasted on unnecessary back story; it takes literally an hour before we even see Peter Parker become a full-fledged Spider-Man. Like we all already know how he becomes Spider-Man, there isn't a single person on the planet who doesn't know that. I mean, the other movie just came out like ten years ago. They could have summed up all of that origin story in a quick animation during the opening credits and then jumped right into Peter Parker already being Spider-Man! Ugh! Anyway. Since Jelani already went over why "The Amazing Spider-Man" was not as amazing as it should have been, I'll highlight some of the better aspects of the film. First of all, I think Andrew Garfield made for a pretty good Spider-Man. He's more quippy than Tobey Maguire and he uses his webs a hell of a lot more. In fact, that was one of the main things that they did right. Peter Parker making and designing his own web shooters with his own genius brain trumps Peter Parker miraculously developing his own webbing inside of his body somehow any day of the week. The Lizard was also pretty terrific, even though I would have liked it more if he wasn't able to speak. Also, it wouldn't hurt to have him actually wearing the labcoat for more than a few seconds. But that's just the huge nerd inside me talking. Overall, I felt that "The Amazing Spider-Man" was very underwhelming. Often times I found myself feeling bored, which is not something that I should ever feel during a FUCKING SPIDER-MAN MOVIE. FUCK. However, the action sequences were pretty cool to look at and the acting was pretty decent. If I were to watch this movie again, I'd most likely just fast-forward through all of the kissing and touching faces. Hopefully, the next two movies dwell less on the teenage romance and more on the supervillain fights.

Overview
Rating: 3 out of 5 unnecessary reboots
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Surprisingly no, Brian did

Netflix Movie Review: Birdemic (2010)

by Ryan

There aren't enough insults in the English language to sum up the amount of contempt that I have for this movie. Billed as a "great cult movie" among the likes of "The Room" and "Troll 2," I figured I'd give "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" a shot. After all, "The Room" is one of the best worst things I have ever seen in my entire life. Unfortunately, saying that "Birdemic: Shock and Terror" pales in comparison to Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece is an understatement. "Birdemic" is god awful with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. How I was able to sit through this hour and a half long piece of crap without falling asleep once if beyond me. Basically, "Birdemic" tells the story of a man and a woman who meet in this restaurant and then start dating. They knew each other in high school, the guy was really shy back then, yadda yadda yadda, it's really boring. Then, birds come out of nowhere are start attacking people for no apparent reason. Not just any birds, mind you. Poorly animated .gifs of eagles placed equidistant from each other inserted directly over shots of people pretending to shoo away nothingness. The sound effect of the same one bird squawking is literally played on a loop throughout the duration of each attack. There are three different eagle animations used during the movie: eagle just barely flapping its wings, eagle just barely flapping its wings with its back towards the camera, and eagle swooping down and crashing into something. There is no shock in this movie, nor is there any terror. In fact, they should have just called this movie "Birdemic: Shockingly Boring and Terrible." Now, I have seen plenty of horrible movies in my life but this one takes the cake. Every shot and scene is way longer than it needs to be, all of the dialogue is unrealistic and boring, and the "special effects" are atrocious. If I had a functioning time machine in my possession, I would use it to go back before I ever watched this movie and tell my past self to not even bother.

Rating: 1 out of 5 poorly animated eagles

Tuesday Review: Prometheus (2012)

Brian's 2-cents:
Prometheus is an action movie disguised as a science fiction film.  As an avid sci-fi fan, I was disappointed by the lack of explanation of the themes in this film and left with more questions then I went in with.  I was hoping for a mind blowing tale of scientists discovering the origin of mankind, but instead I just saw some people getting torched with flame throwers.  The movie wasn't bad, I can't complain about a chick giving herself an alien abortion, but I didn't root for the main character the way I did for Ripley in Alien. Character development was thrown out the window and there was no twist at the end whatsoever. The plot was totally predictable and there were huge plot holes (why didn't the geologist who made the map have a copy of it himself?) The aliens are muscular albinos, little penis snakes, and a squid; no claws, no mouths in mouths, no nothing! The "hows" and "whys" which make science fiction such an interesting genre were ignored. Why and how did the albinos create human life? Why and how did they plan on destroying the human race? Why and how did they find the black goo? Why and how did they go extinct themselves? I got the fiction but where was the SCIENCE?!  I almost want to give this 2 out of 5 but the visual effects were stunning as promised, which drags Prometheus up to a measly 3 out of 5.

Ryan's Retort:
I honestly don't understand why this movie is getting such a bad wrap. It's fun, interesting, exciting at times, and really nice to look at. Sure there are some pretty big plot holes, but couldn't the same be said about lots of other movies? Plus, there's obviously going to be a sequel so whatever was not explained in this movie will most likely be addressed in the next one. Honestly, "Prometheus" is at least five times better than most of the schlock-fests that get released nowadays. It's a unique take on the tried and true story of a space expedition gone wrong. Of course, "Prometheus" comes complete with terrifying creatures, awesomely-advanced technology, and a star studded cast. Noomi Rapace is terrific as leading lady Elizabeth Shaw, alongside the likes of Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, and Guy Pearce as a really old guy. But it's Magneto (Michael Fassbender), who plays the devious android David, that truly steals the show. If you loved "Alien" and you're not a stickler for science like Brian is, you will without a doubt be entertained by this movie.

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 muscular albinos
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Nope.

VHS Review: Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990)

By Brian
5/5


Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor is everything one could ask for in a science fiction horror.  Metamorphosis is about scientists working on a sample of an extraterrestrial life form handed down from the government to a private company.  At first the scientists create a couple of silly animatronic abominations by mixing the alien cells with common earth creatures, but then all hell brakes loose as one of the monsters bites a scientist, causing him to go through a grotesque, pink, bloody, squishy metamorphosis.  The scientist enclosed in his alien cocoon continuously writhes in pain and screams while his entire physical structure is changed down to the cellular level.  After a few weeks, a giant bloodthirsty alien penis dragon emerges from the former scientist and proceeds to brutalize everyone and everything it can get its penis mouth around.  The gore in this movie is fantastic, nothing can stop the dick dragon as it bites off heads, throws around sexy teenagers with its tendrils, and shoots spiky, poison laden projectiles.  If animatronics aren't your cup of tea, there is also some sweet claymation as the alien wiener monster shambles around on its four awkward legs.  Metamorphosis is written and directed by the same guy, Glenn Takakjian, who deserves the highest of fives for creating such a great horror scifi film.  I was also pleased that there was a character named Brian who didn't die in the film, even though I am pretty sure all the characters in the film died from cancer a few years later (watch the film to find out why!)  Finally, the movie was funny, featuring not one but TWO Star Trek references and the classic rambunctious teenagers with their awful dialogue: "It ate some guy!", there was even some mostly accurate hard science thrown in there.  Awesome. Fucking. Movie. 5 tendril flinging, poison spike pad launching, dripping uncircumcised toothed dong dragons out of 5!

This guy had it coming

Nicolas Cage Movie Review: City of Angels (1998)

by Ryan

This movie opens on a young girl who has just died during an intense surgical operation. Her ghost appears next to her body and looks up to see Nicolas Cage, in a long black coat staring back at her. "Are you God?" the little girl asks. "No," says Nicolas Cage. "I'm Seth." "City of Angels" was recommended to me by my girlfriend who knows how much I idolize Nicolas Cage, which also happens to be the only reason I would ever even think about watching a movie like this. Well, let me be the first to say that this movie is fucking garbage. The fact that I was able to sit through it in its entirety is a testament to my love and devotion for Nicolas Cage, but I digress. In "City of Angels," Cage plays an angel named Seth Plate, who is essentially in charge of escorting freshly deceased souls to Heaven. Then one day he meets Meg Ryan and falls in love with her, turning his whole world upside down. Meg Ryan, a peppy young doctor with a heart of gold, also happens to be the only human on the planet that can see Nicolas Cage for some reason. Anyway, they start talking and eventually she finds out that he's an angel and she freaks out and Nicolas Cage is all sad and what not. Then he decides that he loves Meg Ryan so much that he's willing to give up being an angel for her. But in order for an angel to become human, they need to jump off of this one really tall scaffolding located at the center of this construction site. What comes next is probably the best part of the movie: Nicolas Cage stumbling around in his newfound human body, screaming with excitement and showing everyone his bloodied hands. After that, everything else is really boring and sentimental. The story is extremely simple and predictable, the soundtrack is atrocious, and the dialogue is incredibly unrealistic. At one point Nicolas Cage asks Meg Ryan to describe what a pear tastes like, to which she replies "It's like a sugary sand that dissolves in your mouth." Um... Meg Ryan, have you ever actually eaten a pear before?

Rating: 2 out of 5 pear metaphors

Tuesday Review: Men in Black 3 (2012)

Brian's 2-Cents:
After a few crappy Tuesdays in a row, Men in Black 3 was a real relief.  Funny and awesome to look at, MIB3 is the perfect combination of sci-fi and comedy.  Will Smith is his classic old self, the old guy is cranky, and the young guy playing the old guy has a hilariously dry sense of humor which is the perfect foil to Agent J's (Smith's character) cheerful friendly blackness (not sure how else to explain it.) In the movie, Agents J and K travel through spacetime to kill awesome looking aliens with their big disruptors (spaceguns.) The main bad guy is Boris the Animal who is incredibly brutal and can shoot spikes out of his hands, among other badass alien abilities.  MIB3 is super fast paced and interesting, the time travel made sense and avoided most paradoxes, and the action jam-packed with explosions, car/motorcycle/unicycle chases and multi-colored alien blood being splattered hither and thither.  For being the third movie in a series, MIB3 really pulls it off, 4/5.

Ryan's Retort:
Although "Men In Black 3" is clearly not a good movie, it is extremely fun and enjoyable to watch, which a lot more than can be said about most movies that come out nowadays. The dialogue is a bit cheesy and the cinematography is unimaginative and simple, but that surprisingly doesn't hold the film back in any way. In fact, it embraces those aspects and makes you appreciate them whether you want to or not. This is only aided by the fantastic performances of Will Smith, Josh Brolin, and even Tommy Lee Jones, who clearly did not even care to be in the film. However, the best performance comes from none other than Jemaine Clement, the glasses half of the comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, who plays the awesome new villain Boris the Animal. Clement, who is known for his comedy prowess, does a fantastic job of being both threatening and likable at the same time. The ending, which doesn't really make sense if you think about it long enough, puts a neat little bow on the trilogy while not wrapping things up completely, paving the way for yet another sequel if need be. And while I personally would have no problem with a fourth Men In Black movie, I think that both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones have had quite enough of this series by now. I mean, Will Smith didn't even make a rap for this one! What the shit is that? Fuck Pitbull.

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 young guys playing old guys
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: No way!

VHS Review: The Lift (1983)

By Brian
2/5

I've seen a lot of horror movies about a wide variety of evil inanimate objects, but an elevator was a new one for me.  The Lift is about an elevator mechanic who is assigned to the task of finding out whats wrong with an elevator which is acting very evilly.  Fortunately for the characters and unfortunately for the viewer, the evil elevator totally sucks at killing people, sometimes I felt it wasn't even trying to murder.  The first 30 minutes of this movie is awesome, including a sweet decapitation (the highlight of the film) but then for 45 minutes or so, you are forced to sit through an entirely murderess investigation, where the antagonist goes around talking to scientists and college professors building up the entirely self-explanatory plot until I was ready to just fast forward through the talking parts..  Only about five or six people actually die in this movie, because you have to get pretty close to an elevator for it to actually get you, it can't exactly walk around and find its own victims.  Instead wasting your 90 minutes watching this whole tape, I would recommend watching of the decapitation part on youtube and then moving on with your life, 2 evil gooey microchips out of 5.

Tuesday Review: The Dictator (2012)

Brian's 2-Cents:
Sacha Baron Cohen, when will you stop? The Dictator isn't so much of a comedy as it is a groaner.  As I sat through this movie, I couldn't help but continuously groan as I was forced to sit through lame joke after lame joke. Women are inferior *groan* I hate Jews *groan* etc.  Now that I think about it, The Dictator is just Borat without all the funny catchphrases. All the best jokes were given away in the preview, so I felt like I was watching this movie for the fourth time instead of the first.  Unlike Cohen's previous work, he didn't mess with any real (or actors pretending to be real) people, giving the whole film a forced feel.  The Dictator also felt a lot less risque than Cohen's previous films, I wanted to get the shit offended out of me, but instead I was just bored.

Ryan's Retort:
Despite all of the fantastic promotion that this film had received prior to its release, i.e. Sacha Baron Cohen spilling "Kim Jong Il's ashes" all over Ryan Seacrest, I found myself surprisingly disappointed by its predictability and lack of creativity. Not only did they give away all of the best parts in the trailer, but most of the other ones fell flat on their face. I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that this was the first attempt at an actual movie by Cohen and company, as opposed to just dressing up as a foreigner or a gay guy and pulling some hidden camera hijinks. In fact, most of the humor in the film seems rather forced. It's as if they were trying really hard to be offensive just for the sake of offending people, and they didn't even do a very good job of that. Hopefully, the next movie that Cohen undoubtedly produces will be streets ahead of this one. Until then, avoid "The Dictator" at all costs. That is, unless you enjoy wasting your money and your time.

Overview
Rating: 2 out of 5 Jew jokes
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: No.

Tuesday Review: Battleship

Brian's 2-Cents:
After seeing the preview a thousand times, it was killing me to know how exactly they were planning on making a movie out of a board game.  My question was finally answered as I sat through Battleship just barely keeping myself from falling asleep.  Watching Battleship is like watching an explosion compilation spliced with Navy commercials.  Although lousy with explosions, I found myself shifting uncomfortably in my seat trying to find a way to stay awake.  The biggest issue I have with the movie is the serious under-powering of the alien ships' weapons.  Here's a giant robotic craft which can travel faster than the speed of light, yet whose main weapons system is poorly aimed explosive pegs.  Sure, it kept to the board game theme, but that was about the only similarity between the game and the movie.  Overall, I was disappointed with Battleship because it was just so damn cheesy.  This is one of those movies where you just fast forward through all the talking parts because the plot is so self explanatory and non-twisty that I'm surprised they decided to pay real actors at all, 3 out of 5 spiky beards.

Ryan's Retort:
The climax of "Battleship" is literally the juxtaposition of a large black man with no legs fist-fighting a bearded alien and a group of ten grown men struggling desperately to carry one missile down a hallway. I think that pretty much sums up the tone of this movie: utterly ridiculous and way too serious for its own good. This movie makes absolutely no sense, despite its best efforts to over-explain every little detail of the laughably predictable plot. Why they felt the need to make it over two hours is beyond me, but I digress. The characters are all unlikeable (except for Liam Neeson who has literally 15 minutes of screentime), the dialogue is cheesy (not in a good way), and the aliens aren't even that cool. In fact, the only redeeming quality of "Battleship" is the special effects. The sea battles, as well as the land battles, look scarily real and so do the countless explosions. With that said, I have no intention of watching this movie ever again. 

Overview
Rating: 3 out of 5 spiky beards
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Yep. Even though he drank two coffees beforehand.

Chan & Friends VHS Review: Mr. Nice Guy (1997)

By Jelani

Wow! Wowwee Wow Wow Zowee Jackie Chan is the coolest guy ever. This movie made every other Chan & Friends (as we at The Gun Rack call our Kung Fu VHS section) film look like a joke. Jackie Chan does most of his own stunts. The stunts in this movie were fucking nuts, and it retained its Jakie Chan brand slapstick silliness throughout. Chan is Mr. Nice Guy; a cooking show host and all around good guy. He randomly saves this hot chick from a bunch of hardcore gangsters after she gets caught filming them in the middle of a "deal." He inadvertently switches tapes with her and is immediately thrown into the middle of a two-pronged gang crusade to get the incriminating evidence back and cover their asses. There's only one problem; Jackie's little kid friend accidentally takes it. So he's forced to protect a hot redhead, a hot Asian, and a hot kinda black chick from these gangsters. He beats the shit out of them over and over all across town with a million props until they capture him. He breaks loose, saves his lady friends and completely demolishes the entire criminal empire. It was funny and action packed and I'm super impressed that Jackie Chan has done so many of these movies without being mangled beyond recognition. (C'mon, he fucking rolls over a table saw and scales a moving demolition truck!) The fight scenes are all sick, and Jackie gets to use his signature "I don't know why you're after me so I'm gonna beat you up with chairs as I run awaaay!" style of Kung Fu to awesome length. He's only the aggressor in the conflict at the very explosive end, and I wouldn't want it any other way. In my opinion, this is the quintessential Jackie Chan. It's his nicest role other than that one where he's a babysitter. Brian fell asleep and attests that "Drunken Master was way better" but that doesn't stop me from giving this fun-as-hell 90's Kung Fu romp a perfect 5 stars.

Billion Dollar Movie Review: Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie Review

Watch The Trailer HERE.

Jelani's Take:
As huge fans of the comedy of Tim and Eric, of course Movie Crew had to go see their movie debut in their billion dollar movie. As it turns out though, they spent the entire movie budget on giant diamonds, extravagant personal makeovers, and a suit made entirely of diamonds. Of course, this faux-paz causes the evil Schlaaang corporation to hunt them down for the capital they invested, and leads Tim and Eric to move into the dilapidated S'wallow valley mall in order to make back the $1,000,000,000 with some hard work and enterprising. This is the premise of Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, which was the best comedy that I have seen in a while. It had all of the weird humor that I've grown to love, and a slew of my favorite comedymen. Everyone in the movie was insane. The S'wallow valley mall, which was a hellish place on this earth, was run by a mentally damaged Will Ferrell, and tormented by the wolf in the pizza court. My favorite part, which made me laugh till' I cried at one point, was John C. Reilly's character Taquito who was raised in the mall and was a huge, very sick man-child. Everything about this movie was great. It was gross, absurd and ultimately a very-long episode of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! The various shops within the mall served as their sillier and shorter bits, but they were all tied into the main, uh... Plot? But yeah, it was exactly the brain-frying that I had hoped it would be, and it was funny as hell. For those of you not familiar with this stuff, watch a few episodes of TEADGJ! and if you hate them, then just forget about this movie. But if you know what to expect, then I highly recommend you check it out! Ya dingus. 4 out of 5 stars for sure.

Tuesday Review: The Lorax

Watch The Trailer HERE.

Jelani's Take:
I know, I know, silly Movie Crew, this movie's for kids! But c'mon! After playing the role of Frank in Always Sunny for so long, anything starring even the voice of Danny DeVito is anything but a kid's flick. After our hearty dinner of candy and nothing else, we entered the fantastical world of Dr. Seuss on the big screen. And I must say; it was quite enjoyable! The Lorax was exactly what we had expected: it was a colorful, musical, silly and yet still morally driven PG film which was clever enough to support its own weight under audiences of all ages. The story is simple: a young man who is now only known as the Once-ler leaves his small town with dreams of being super-fucking-rich. Regardless of the ridicule he endures, he travels the world searching for the perfect material to make his extremely stupid product: "The Thneed." He stumbles upon a lush Seussian forest of trees and wildlife and proceeds to destroy it all, as the once-apprehensive masses suddenly turn and desire the fashionable tree-made thneed. The population of the world instantly forgets about the importance of nature and science and allow the world around them to be turned into a dystopian plastic-world where fresh air is bottled and sold. (A big plot device throughout the film is that the entire population is made up of idiotic consumerist whores.) This is where the lorax comes in. He is a nature-elemental or lesser god of sorts who "speaks for the trees" and has the fantastic voice of Danny DeVito. Throughout the film, he tries to make the Once-ler and the masses see the error of their ways and ultimately serves as the misguided fool's conscious. The main story is set in the past, and runs parallel to a story in the dystopian present. It all meshes together for quite an enjoyable story. Though it is ultimately a light-hearted, jocund film, it has that Dr. Seuss feel of deep morals that are seen in all of his books. Being said, this is the perfect adaptation of a Dr. Deuss book, and was great to behold. The characters were lovable, the humor was light, but still rude enough at times to tickle us adults, and the story was  solid. By no means was it a mind-blowingly great film, but it served its purpose as a fun movie-going experience. For a light-hearted romp through the mind of Dr. Seuss, The Lorax gets a very solid 3 stars, as I liked it, but would probably never see it again.

Casa de mi Padre (2012)

by Ryan

I'll be the first to admit that initially I was pretty hesitant to pay for this movie. The trailers didn't do a very good job of showing what the movie was about or even what genre it was. Honestly, I had a little trouble figuring out whether this was supposed to be a serious movie or not. Granted, Will Ferrell starring in an all-Spanish movie is a pretty hilarious concept. But I digress. "Casa de mi Padre" is one of the weirdest movie experiences I have ever had in my entire life. The movie opens with an English voiceover, stating something along the lines of "If it sounds like a Spanish movie, maybe it is a Spanish movie." Then, as soon as Will Ferrell opened his mouth and fluent Spanish came out, I died. It's fucking great. The best part is that he actually does a pretty terrific job of acting in a language that he does not understand at all. In fact, Ferrell has stated publicly that he had to remember all of his lines phonetically before shooting every scene. He is truly an amazing man. The film itself is about a dim-witted and cowardly rancher, Armando Alvarez, who must find it within himself to become a man in order to save his family's name and the woman that he loves (who also happens to be his brother's fiance) from a mean-spirited drug overlord. It's a very generic, soap opera-y love triangle story made hilarious by the simple fact that Will Ferrell is speaking Spanish. In addition to that, there are a ton of visual gags and awkwardly long jokes that will have you keeled over with laughter. For example, there's an ongoing visual gag which exaggerates the low-budget quality of the film, i.e. cheaply made animal puppets and lots of jump cuts. One cheaply made animal puppet in particular, a white mountain lion, stole the show for me. This white mountain lion actually becomes a prominent character in the movie, calling himself the spirit of the mountain and sounding somewhat like a large black man. And if that doesn't do it for you, there are also a handful of musical numbers! One song is called "Yo No Se (I Don't Know)" and it's about Will Ferrell being a rancher and not knowing anything. Another song is called "La" and it's literally just Will Ferrell and the girl singing "La La La La La" for like three minutes. Unfortunately, there are parts of "Casa de mi Padre" that tend to drag on for longer than they should making the latter half of the movie feel somewhat tedious. But those scenes are more than made up for by the awesome last stand between Armando, his brother, and the drug overlord. Also, every scene that Nick Offerman is in is great too. Overall, this movie kept me entertained and happy for most of its hour and a half runtime. If you like to laugh at weird, vaguely Spanish things, then go see this movie!

Rating: 4 out of 5 poorly rolled cigarettes

Tuesday Review: John Carter

Watch The Trailer HERE


Jelani's Take:
John Carter kind of sprung up out of nowhere for me. My nerdiness apparently has giant gaps in it, for I have never heard of this heroic protagonist before. For those of you still in the dark as I was, John Carter is a pretty popular character created by sci-fi writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. As such, John Carter has seen his fair share of publicity in various mediums throughout the years. Still though, I went into this movie not knowing a single thing about it other than that there was some guy named John Carter who would fight giant ape monster things. And that he did! From start to finish, this Disney epic was a wonder to behold. Everything about the film screamed Disney and it felt like a live action iteration of the animated films that we have all loved for years. That being said, Disney sure has been around the block a few times. Regardless of its PG-13 rating, it oozed sex and violence throughout. Even though the blood was blue, it was plentiful and the action scenes are what made this movie so damned cool. But before I digress, let me give you the lowdown. John Carter, a loner and a jaded confederate Virginia calvaryman who is inexplicably transported to Mars after coming into contact with a higher-level being (who turns out to be a group of serious douchebags, and the main conflict in the movie, but whatever you'll see.) wielding a mysterious amulet. On Mars, Carter is super strong and can jump super high. These powers and more are bestowed unto him by the great god Odin who lives on Mars fighting Sutur for territory for all eternity. Or as Brian explained it, there's some magical gravitational anomalies in the science structure of Mars. Just kidding. Aaaaanyway, he immediately comes into contact with the native aliens, the Tharks and is taken in by their leader. As it turns out, Mars is on the brink of total chaos, as the battle-torn planet is being ravaged by two warring factions. John Carter, thrown into the middle of this mess becomes an epic hero and winds up leading the Tharks against the hidden growing threat that is causing the conflict. I know that that's probably the worst synopsis ever, but it's actually a pretty great and absorbing story. Mars itself looks spectacular, and the architecture and vehicle designs are all beautiful to behold. The characters are all sexy and stylish in their half-attire, and the beasts of the planet are all awesome-looking to say the least. There are some great twists and tragic moments, and a hell of a character development in the protagonist throughout. My only qualm is that the boring scenes are long... And boring. I actually found myself nodding off for a couple of the scenes involving the conflicts of the space princess Dejah Thoris (which, actually drove a lot of the plot) or the deep love/lust eye rape scenes between her and Carter. I missed a couple of important plot moments while snoozing, but Ryan kept me up enough to catch 90% of this otherwise amazing movie. Disney never really disappoints, do they? For wide-screen action and a hell of a fun movie experience, JCoM gets a solid 4 stars. I'd see it again, and I highly recommend it.

Ryan's Retort:
This movie got such a bad rap opening weekend and I have no idea why. Andrew Stanton, best known for directing "WALL-E" and "Finding Nemo," does a terrific job with his first live action feature film. There's not much that I can say that Jelani hasn't already covered. But I will shadow what he said about the boring scenes being boring. The majority of the film is thrilling and interesting, but when it comes down to the romance between John Carter and Princess Whats-Her-Face we just don't care. And the reason we don't care is because their relationship is extremely underdeveloped. The only reason they're drawn to each other in the first place is because they both wanna bang. Which is totally understandable, just don't try to mask that emotion as "love" when these two characters barely even know each other. While I'm on the topic of underdevelopment, John Carter's character is tad underdeveloped as well. It's never really made clear what he wants until the very end of the movie. Typically, a protagonist needs to have a clear set goal and then embarks on a path to achieve said goal. John Carter's goal, or lack thereof, is constantly changing and never truly defined. Which would account for the really boring scenes towards the end of the second act. However, the action and sci-fi mythos does more than make up for this small hiccup in an otherwise fantastic movie. Also, Willem Dafoe has a really cool alien voice.

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 giant ape monster things
Did Jelani Fall Alseep: A little bit.

$3 DVD Special - Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

by Ryan

Doesn't this movie look and sound awesome? The description on IMDB is, and I quote, "A family gets lost on the road and stumbles upon a hidden, underground, devil-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master and his servant Torgo." Devil-worshipping cult, huh? What's not to like? Well, as it turns out, plenty. "Manos: The Hands of Fate" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Or at least in my entire life in recent memory. None of the things said on the poster happen in the movie. In fact, there isn't even any devil-worshipping. Master, as he is so aptly named, worships a different, unknown deity named Manos. It's never made clear who Manos is or what he represents, and therefore I don't give two shits about him. There is no real plot or reason for anything that happens in this movie. A couple goes on vacation and is forced to stay the night at this house. That's it. Meanwhile, there's another couple that the movie keeps cutting to that is continuously making out in places that they shouldn't be making out, forcing this super easy-going police officer to shoo them away. It's never explained who they are or why they love making out so much. The main couple, Margaret and Michael, soon discover that the house that they're staying in is owned by this weird guy and his servant, who is an even weirder guy. Also, in the basement there's like ten unconscious women just standing there for some reason. Apparently, they're the Master's wives but that's all that's ever really said about them. Eventually things start to happen and Margaret and Michael try to run away from those things but cannot. You know how the story goes. There is nothing enjoyable about this movie. It's horribly bad, but not even in a so-bad-it's-funny kind of way. There are no sacrifices, no boobs, no blood, and not one single murder. How do you make a fucking horror movie without any of those things?! The closest this movie comes to murdering someone is when the Master's wives begin to shake this one guy a lot. THEY SHAKE HIM. They don't even fucking strangle him! I'm angry just thinking about it. In conclusion, "Manos: The Hands of Fate" isn't worth the 69 minute runtime and certainly is not worth the $3 that I paid for it. If you're going to watch this movie, do yourself a favor and watch the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version instead.


Rating: 1 out of 5 Torgos

Special Zeigfeld Screening Special: The Room (2003)

Watch The Trailer Here


Jelani's Take:
Ok, this one is a little tough. Before I delve into describing the cult masterpiece that also happens to be one of the worst movies to ever see the screen, I'd like to tell you how we even came to know of this bizarre flic. Well, actually, It's not that exciting. ANYWAY, as big fans of the great myriad works of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim (pictured below, R.I.P.), we saw the film's lead man Tommy Wiseau (YAAAY!) in a special episode of Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! Wiseau's otherworldly weirdness is magnetic. Immediately after seeing this strange figure, I felt compelled to know more about him.  As it turns out, he is the writer/producer/director/protagonist of this movie: The Room. My first viewing of this movie on Teevee was a little baffling, as I sat pondering its seriousness throughout. This movie is so badly produced that it is literally laughable; hence its Rocky Horror-esque following, and hilarious screenings. The film itself has a solid(ish?) premise: Johnny (Tommy)'s whore of a cunt fiancee' is going through some serious character changes, evidently for no reason. She cheats on him with his best friend throughout and gets done missionary style throughout by the two. The rest of the characters are noble, but all have a single character quirk such as breast cancer or parentlessness. Everyone is unreasonable, lacks simple judgement and loves playing catch with a football. The whole hook is that love drives people to do (really really really) crazy things, and I get that. I just had to scratch my head a bit as to... Uh... Everything else. Throughout, Tommy Wiseau is a wise and prolific protagonist that has terrible taste in friends. His violent stoner best friend, his creepy, drug-dabbling little orphan pal, and his whorish, evil, Dionysus-worshipping fiancee' are "tearing him apart" throughout as well, and this makes for some great one-liners and fits of passion on Wiseau's part.
    The cameraman is a five-year-old, the soundtrack is sexy-I-guess, the scenery was dismal, and the script was probably written on the toilet. I'm assuming that the entire project was an excuse for Wiseau to (quite thoroughly) thrash an apartment and bang some (low-to-moderate) attractive chick. For this, the movie is loved by its cult following, who threw plastic spoons and jeered mercilessly at Lisa; that fucking life-ruining succubus whore. (whose only redeeming factor is her amazing, uncanny ability to become less physically attractive within the span of days!) Overall, The Room, like Human Centipede 2, definitely gets SOME stars from us here at Movie Crew Review.

Hey Tommy! Great Job! From Tim & Eric. <3

Brian's 2-cents:
Unlike my other two Movie Crew companions I had never seen or even heard of this movie before.  On IMDB.com, the amount of viewers giving it 10 stars and 1 star are in almost equal abundance, with barely anyone giving it any stars in between.    The Room is the worst masterpiece I have ever seen, and is one of those movie you just HAVE to see in theaters.  The huge Zigfield theater was packed with people who had obviously seen this film dozens of times, shouting constantly. The audience participation made it clear this was NOT a movie to be taken seriously.  Whenever a spoon appears (which is quite often) everyone in the theater yells and throws plastic cutlery at the screen, and there are constant shouts of "focus the camera!!" (also quite often.)
     The atrocious acting in The Room made me think that English is probably not Tommy's first language.  The acting in juxtaposition with the awful sets, simple plot, and prolific boobage made me think of the softcore HBO porn that I used to fap to as a youth, except way more hilarious.  By the end of the movie, my face hurt from laughing so hard, and I've been laughing quietly to myself all day when ever I think of the characters going "cheep! cheep! cheeeeep!" which, according to the film, is the sound a chicken makes.  I would definintly love to see this movie again in theaters, and next time I'm bringing a fat handful of plastic spoons.

Ryan's Retort:
I once read a review of "The Room" that simply stated that this movie seems as if it were written by a deer without any understanding of human emotion or the way that we interact with one another. That pretty accurately sums up this entire movie. The best part about "The Room" is that it's obvious that Tommy Wiseau thought he was making a cinematic masterpiece, but in actuality all he was really doing was filming himself take the biggest, ugliest, most amazing dump anyone has ever seen in their entire lives.

Rating: Cheep, Cheep, Cheep *Some Stars* Cheep!

The Woman in Black (2012)

by Ryan

Harry Potter's latest stint tells the tale of a young lawyer who travels to a creepy little town in hopes of selling this abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere for some reason. Whilst looking through the previous owner's belongings he stumbles upon a dark secret that involves a dead child and a really angry ghost lady. The movie opens on three little girls merrily playing with dolls in their room. Then all of a sudden, they stop playing and jump out the window. What we later find out is that the angry ghost lady is the reason for all of the child suicides in this creepy little town. Let me say that again. A fucking ghost is making all of the town's children kill themselves. Pretty messed up stuff. One kid drinks lye and starts puking blood until she dies. Another kid lights herself on fire. Shit's crazy! Overall, Woman in Black is a terrific horror movie. The film does a great job of building the scares until the climax, which literally sent a few chills down my spine. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that Harry Potter had a son. He still sounds and looks exactly like Harry Potter. It's hard for me to buy the fact that he has a little boy that is able to speak and walk already. Even though it makes perfect sense for a 20 something year old in the late 1800s to have a child. The ghost looked scary though. And that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Rating: 4 out of 5 dead children

VHS Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

by Brian
5/5

After watching the dismal failure, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, I wondered if there were any good sequels in the Freddy franchise at all.  A.N.O.E.M.S.3:D.W.  is almost as good as the original.  This time, Freddy is going after a group of kids in a institution for sleep disorders, and its up to Nancy Thompson (the chick from the original film) to save them.  Unlike Nightmare 2, where Freddy just slashes everyone (booring), the murder scenes in this movie are actually creative and super fantastical.  In one scene, Freddy is a giant evil snake, then he's a TV monster, and then... well I don't want to give them all away.  The animatronics in this film are some of the best I have EVER seen.  As a special treat, instead of the kids being just scared wusses in their dreams, they get powers which they try and use to defeat the demon child-murderer.  Dream Warriors also reveals Freddy's super fucked up origin (*cough* nun-rape) as a male doctor in the hospital tries to set Freddy's soul to rest, skeleton fighting ensues.  This movie has delightfully bloody murder scenes, and does not hold back when it comes to brutality.

Tuesday Review: Chronicle (2012)

Brian's Two-Cents:
Chronicle is about 3 teens from the local high school who mysteriously inherit telekinetic powers after dicking around near some kind of extraterrestrial (or maybe extra-planar) pointy thing.  The three affected kids are a popular kid, a not so popular kid, and a social leper.  The students overcome their status differences to hone their new-found powers, which, along with their friendship, get exponentially stronger over time.  Chronicle is interestingly filmed, in that all the shots are from the different characters personal cameras.  As the boys' powers increase to almost god-like levels, they face internal conflicts that end up in awesome telekinetic battles.  This movie really got creative with all the cool shit you can do with telekinetic powers, like flying and ripping people teeth out of their skulls.  With all the crappy and cliche sci-fi movies coming out these days, Chronicle is a pleasant deviation from the norm, 4/5.


Ryan's Retort:
What do you get when you take the best aspects of the found footage genre and the best aspects of the superhero genre, lock them in a room, and force them to have sex with each other? Answer: this movie. Chronicle is without a doubt the best superhero film of the year so far. I'm sure that Avengers will be way better, but that's besides the point. What I found most interesting about Chronicle is the brilliant way they incorporated the cameraman into the film, making him a unique and likable character who eventually gains the ability to move the camera around with his mind. This allows for some pretty awesome camera tricks, whilst simultaneously staying true to the found footage parameters. However, there were some downsides to the film. For instance, that whole cutesy videographer girl storyline is completely unnecessary and uninteresting. I have a sneaking suspicion that they just needed to have another camera-wielding character in the movie. Also, the main character tends to come off as a whiny little bitch a little too often for my taste. But when that whiny little bitch finally turns into an evil whiny little bitch, shit gets fucking serious.

Jelani Agrees:
I agree.

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 floating cameras
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Fuck no.

Tuesday Review: The Grey (2012)

Watch the trailer here!

Brian's Two-Cents:
The Grey stars the always serious Liam Neeson as a depressed wolf killer who struggles for survival when his plane full of middle aged men crashes and sets him in a frozen wasteland inhabited by a pack of bloodthirsty wolves. This movie is depressing as fuck, as one by one the middle-aged men get their faces mauled off by the relentless pack.  The long shots of endless winter wasteland helps drive in the truly hopeless odds the men are faced against.  The wolves are super sneaky, and there are a couple of pop-out moments which made me jump.  The acting is fantastic, but the movie is mostly that, talking.  There was a little too much crying over families and not enough bare knuckle wolf boxing for my taste.  This movie is more about what happens when people are put into a crisis situation than a lesson in how to fight wolves, which I was expecting.  A Black Metal soundtrack would have made this one a lot better, 3/5.

Ryan's Retort: 
This movie was awesome. Brian just didn't like it because he hates feelings. Granted, it would have been cool to see a little more wolf fighting. The trailer makes it seem like Liam Neeson is going to be killing lots and lots of wolves with his bare hands, but in actuality he only kills like 2 and a half. However, that doesn't mean that Liam Neeson is not as badass in this as he is in every other movie he's ever been in. I mean, come on. He's a guy that specializes in hunting and killing wolves. There's this one line that he has that goes something like, "I'm going to start beating the shit out of you in the next five seconds. Your teeth will be knocked in and you'll be drinking your own blood." I don't know about you, but I could listen to Liam Neeson explain things forever. In fact, there's another scene where Liam Neeson explains what death feels like to a dying man. "Look at me. Listen to my voice. You are going to feel a warm sensation overcome your body. Who do you love? Think of her." It's crazy. Every death scene in this movie is uncomfortably real and somewhat disturbing. Speaking of somewhat disturbing, there's this one part when a guy hacks off a wolf's head and triumphantly holds it in the air. Oh, did I say disturbing? I meant "really cool". Also, there were these fucking sweet shots of Liam Neeson literally being pulled out of his lovelorn dreams and tossed into the cold, harsh reality that surrounds him. It's hard to explain, but it's great. Trust me. The only problem I had with The Grey was that it felt a tad bit too long. Towards the end of the second act, our interest starts to fade and that's about when all the characters start talking about suicide and what not. It's sort of a snooze fest. But overall, I highly recommend this movie. If you like Liam Neeson, wolves, Liam Neeson fighting wolves, or snow, then go see The Grey!

Overview
Rating: 4 out of 5 wolf heads
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Yeah, that dingus didn't even show up.

VHS Review: American Gothic (1988)

By Brian
4/5

American Gothic is great horror/ slasher movie about a bunch of youths who get stumble upon a conservative Christian family on a remote island.  The youths renounce their evil ways and become devout Christians who go to church and drink Jesus' blood and all that weird stuff Christians do.  Nope, just kidding, the crazy family is made up of Ma, Pa, and their three adult children who have been brain washed to believe they're still little kids, and the five of them attempt murder the sinners.  The first part of the movie is very Texas Chainsaw Masacre-esqe in that its about a murderous backwoods family, but unlike every other horror movie where a single chick barely escapes only to tell the tale, the survivor decides to take revenge by out-crazying the crazies and mercilessly killing the entire family.  Had to ruin the plot a little bit, but only in order to make the point that American Gothic is basically two horror movies in one.  If you were to only watch the second half, the film would be about a serial killer who murders two elderly parents taking care of their mentally disabled children.  American Gothic has good murders but no tits.  The creepiest part is when one of the adult children coddles a decomposed baby corpse, which she calls her child.  Watching adults talk in baby voices was a little obnoxious, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the way the survivor out-crazies the crazies, that I let it slide.  American Gothic is makes up for being not super brutal with its pure creepiness, 4 decomposing baby corpses out of 5. 

VHS Review: Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

By Brian
4/5

Hatchet for the Honeymoon should have been called "Meat Cleaver for the Honeymoon", because there are no actual hatchets in the movie.  The film is about a rich and handsome fashion designer of wedding dresses, who kills babes in order to find out what happened to his murdered mother when he was a youth.  All John (the main character) wants to do is bang and murder hot chicks, but his bitch wife keeps bothering him.   An interesting twist to this film is the ghost wife aspect.  After John kills his bitch wife, she reverse haunts him, that is, everyone can see her ghost except John.  I had never seen a reverse haunting in a movie before, and it added a fantastical aspect to the movie which kept it interesting and separated it from your ever day thriller/slasher.  Although slow at times, the characters and plot in this film were unique and original.  The murders were not that brutal, but ever time John kills a nice broad, a little more of the mystery is unraveled.  When the big reveal happened, I have to say I was actually surprised.  Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a solid thriller, full of twists, turns, and complainey wives that wont even leave you alone after they've died, 4/5.

VHS Review: Clownhouse (1989)

by Brian
2/5

Clownhouse is about 3 brothers who have the misfortune of running into 3 escapees from the local mental hospital, who have dressed themselves up as circus clowns.  This film invoked in me the memory that clowns actually ARE disturbingly creepy, and there's no one on this planet that enjoys clowns anymore.  Anyway, these phycho clowns spend about half the movie sneaking around these little kids without actually trying to kill them, which was frustrating because I wanted to get to the actual clownhousing.  The phycho clowns turn out to be really easy kill, and are easily thwarted by the 3 young boys.  One thing that I noticed about Clownhouse is the 3 kids, Randy, Casey, and Geoffrey, say each others names about 20 times a minute, so much so that I remembered their names without looking it up.  Clownhouse does not score high on the brutality scale, the kills are mostly bloodless, and are few and far between. Watching this movie was a clownhousedly bad time,  I nearly clownhoused my pants when it was over, 2 whorebortions out of 5.

VHS Review: The Hunger (1983)

By Brian
3/5

The Hunger is a super-80's horror/romance film NOT staring David Bowie.  I love Bowie, his music is awesome, and his persona and mostly everything he does can only be described as the paramount of coolness.  Unfortunately, Bowie is only in a third of the movie, and after he dies, the movie gets dull.  The opening scene is a song performed by Bowie cut with people getting killed and sexy images.  After that it goes really down hill.  Everything else you need to know about this movie can be easily summed up in this graph I made:

 The Hunger is sexy, but not much else.  The ending spared this movie from a 2/5 score, too much romance, not enough horror, 3 references to Ludes out of 5.

Tuesday Review: Shame (2011)

Brian's Two-Cents:
This was one of those "fuck it, lets just see any movie" weeks because Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was sold out and we couldn't just cancel movie night.  Shame was exactly as terrible as I thought it would be, of course achieving its NC-17 rating by just showing a lot of peepazools (dicks) wagging around.  Shame is a boring and awful movie devoid of any semblance of plot or purpose.  Shame is about a sex addict who spends his time jerking off on toilet seats and dreaming about banging his sister, which sounds cool, but isn't because it's just long shots of Micheal Fassbender's stupid face with crappy pussy music (that's the only way I can describe it) playing behind it.  I felt like I was watching the sequel to Drive, especially since it had frumpy actress Carey Mulligan as the female lead.  I would have walked out on this movie if it wasn't so cold outside.  Shame has almost no plot, and it hurts to watch, the only good thing about this movie is that it's only 99 minutes long, even though it felt like I was watching Fassbender make googly eyes at chicks on the train and crying for hours. Fuck this movie, 1 cum-stained toilet seat out of 5.

Ryan's Retort: 
I whole-heartedly agree with my movie crew counterpart, Brian. This movie was incredibly boring and way too artsy for its own good. Basically, it's just Magneto crying and jerking off for 99 minutes. Sometimes he even does both at the same time. Don't get me wrong. I totally understand what this movie is about and what the director, Steve McQueen, was going for. It's a character study. Cool. I can respect that. But I don't give one single shit about anyone in this film. I mean the main characters are a perverted freak, a slutty loser, and a douchebag boss. There was one scene towards the beginning of the film that I actually really liked though. In said scene, Magneto is making googly eyes with this one chick on the train and she seems pretty into it but then gradually becomes more and more sad for no apparent reason. Then there's this awesome reveal of her wedding ring that explains everything. The fact that this is such a powerful scene despite there being absolutely no dialogue is kind of awesome. Kind of. The acting in this movie is phenomenal, but its really not worth sitting through this snooze-fest of a film. If you like watching less than moderately attractive women sing entire Frank Sinatra songs as slow as humanly possible, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Overview
Rating: 1 out of 5 peepazools
Did Jelani Fall Asleep: Almost!

VHS Review: I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

By Brian
3/5

This is another movie that would make my mom cry.  I had no idea that when I slipped this greasy pig into my VCR, I would be thrown into an hour long rape scene.  I Spit on Your Grave is about a city slicker lady writer who goes into the country to get some work done on her novel.  Even though she is really nice to everyone in town, four dudes, including one half retarded gentleman, decide to capture and rape poor Ms. Hills just for some action.  The fully graphic rape, double-rape, triple-rape, and quadrupal-rape (in three different scenes) are really hard to watch, even for someone as desensitized as me.  When all the rape is finally over (a little more than half way through the movie) Ms. Hills decides its time for revenge.  This movie has a lot of rape and not enough murder.  I'm hypothesizing that the directer really wanted to drive home the fact the 4 men were awful human beings but I think someone holding you down so someone else can rape you is reason enough for murdering them, they ALL didn't have to go for it.  The half-retarded, goofy, nerdy guy in the movie is supposed to provide comedic relief, but its hard to make someone laugh in the middle of their third graphic full-bush rape scene of the movie. Ms. Hills also feigns niceness before she murders all her victims, which added suspense and some positive weirdness to the movie.  Her behavior also led me to the conclusion: "Never trust someone after you have raped them."  Too much gang rape, not enough murder 3 out of 5 inappropriate comic relief characters.

Nicolas Cage Movie Review: Vampire's Kiss (1988)

by Ryan

The only reason I even know about this movie is because of that video of Nicolas Cage freaking out for 5 minutes. This is the movie where he's walking down the street screaming "I'M A VAMPIRE. KILL ME, I'M A VAMPIRE" in the middle of the fucking day. Now, I love Nicolas Cage. Probably more than most people. I know he can be a horrible actor sometimes, but I don't mind it because it's god damn hilarious. And that's the only reason I was able to make it through this entire movie. Nicolas Cage is so fucking bad in Vampire's Kiss that it's hard to believe that you're watching an actual movie. Like somebody paid him to be in this. There's a part in the movie when he's crying and he literally screams "BA-HOO". Twice. And it's the best thing I have ever seen. Basically, Vampire's Kiss is about Nicolas Cage thinking that he's turning into a vampire but in actuality he's just really really crazy. Kind of like George A. Romero's Martin, except it's horrible. It all starts one night when Nicolas Cage is macking it to this chick and a huge ass bat flies in through the open window. The next day, Nicolas Cage is talking to his psychiatrist and he confesses to her that when he was fighting off that bat it made him feel strangely aroused for some reason. Soon after, this mysterious vampire woman starts showing up and taking her shirt off and biting him on the neck. She does this at least three times throughout the movie. Eventually, Nicolas Cage has completely lost it. He's jumping on desks at work, chasing his secretary down the street, reciting the entire alphabet, and raping people. It's ridiculous. This was not a good movie by any means. I was tempted to turn it off multiple times whilst watching it. But Nicolas Cage is just so mesmerizingly bad that you can't help but watch the entire thing. You keep thinking to yourself, "This can't possibly get any worse." And then it gets worse. Also, Nicolas Cage makes some of the best faces I have ever fucking seen in this movie. Here's an example:

It doesn't get much better than this.

If you love Nicolas Cage, watch this movie. If you love to hate Nicolas Cage, watch this movie. If you like good movies and do not want to waste an hour and forty minutes of your life, do yourself a favor and forget this movie even exists.

Rating: 2 out of 5 BA-HOOs.

Tuesday Double Feature Review Part Deux: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Watch the trailer here


Jelani's Take:
Having not read the highly acclaimed book, I didn't know what to expect with this one. The trailer didn't explain anything at all, and I was a bit apprehensive about even seeing this movie at all. Now that I have experienced the lurid head-trip that is The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I will never again write off a film before I see it. This one was epic. The story revolves around Daniel Craig whose career is fucked, and who just can't catch a break as he is locked in a legal battle in which the odds ore stacked well against him. He is chosen, with the help of some sleuthing by Lisbeth, (AKA The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo) to investigate a cold case; the ancient 40 year old murder of this old guy's neice. He offers in return, some dirt on the douchebag that is running Mikael (Danny Craig) through the mud in court. Of course he accepts! But this is just the surface of this deeply engrossing film. As it turns out, Lisbeth, a young computer hacker, is having a hard time as well. She is a ward of the state, and is dealing with the most deranged and creepy social worker ever for allowance and limited freedoms. From the get go, it is hinted that Lisbeth is a total badass. Throughout the film, it is firmly asserted that she is indeed the coolest female character ever. She is tactful, ruthless, and brilliant, and her emo/punk rock look throws off everyone as to how deep her skill sets go. She saves Mikael's ass throughout the film, once she teams up with him to investigate what turns out to be a terribly fucked up family. The entire film is merely a backdrop to the life of the tattooed Lisbeth (hence the name.) She exploits every shred of the bleak situations around her and ultimately comes out on top all by her lonesome. The movie was a thriller all around. It was a thoughtful, sexy, disturbing and uniquely imagined tale of suffering and triumph in this fucked up world that we all live in. The entire cast was fantastic, and the scenery, solitary and empty as most of it was, added tension to every scene throughout. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was a great film! I would definitely see it again, although now I will probably never read the book. For telling one hell of a convoluted story with such tact, this one gets a perfect 5 out of 5 from me.

Brian: I think Jelani summed this one up pretty well, but I wouldn't call this a perfect movie, so I give it 4/5.