Tag: 0 out of 4

Here it comes! Studio Ghibli has crossed a line many animation companies have already crossed. They have made a CGI movie. Will they fully cross over and become completely CGI? They were probably the last major holdout that was doing a more traditional look for all of their animated releases.

And I already hate it. I will admit, looking at the stills/trailer for Earwig and the Witch, I didn’t have high hopes for the film. It doesn’t look  great at all. The animation levels look like a small independent company doing their first film ever, that happens to be CGI. Not a pretty successful animation company trying CGI. They have money, they can make it look better.

But alas, I have been iffy on Studio Ghibli movies lately anyways. I have been having a hard time getting into their whimsy and mystery. Maybe this one will fix it?

Spoilers: It wont. Earwig (Taylor Henderson) was left on the porch of an orphanage as a baby, from a mysterious woman. They didn’t like that her name was Earwig, and apparently from a witch, so they figured they would hide that latter fact and also call her Erica Wig.

Ten years later, she is a bit of a terror in the orphanage. She does what she wants, she whines and complains, and she knows she wont be adopted ever, so she is biding her time. That is until a scary lady, Bella Yaga (Vanessa Marshall) and a tall scary guy, The Mandrake (Richard E. Grant) waltz in and totally pick her. But why?

Well, Bella Yaga is a witch, she could sense the witchy-ness in Earwig, and she needed an extra set of hands for potion making. Earwig thinks she will learn how to do magic and will totally help out! Turns out that Bella has absolutely no intention of making it pleasant for Earwig, or teaching her magic. Just someone to gather ingredients.

Ah, this new situation sucks. Who would have known that you can just adopt a kid to get a house worker?

Also featuring the voices of Kacey Musgraves, Logan Hannan, and Dan Stevens as a cat.

“Damn, that’s a huge witch.”There are quite a few problems with Earwig and the Witch. And honestly, the CGI is probably the least of its concerns. The CGI is still not great and notably average or below average throughout the movie, but it is not the biggest cause of concern.

Band plot – Worthless. Check out this poster graphic for the film. It is the most common form of advertisement I saw. It definitely does not represent this film. There is a brief band plot, involving history, the witch, mandrake, and Earwig’s mom. And it goes absolutely no where. It certainly doesn’t end up with them all being a band together with Earwig the lead vocals. This poster makes it look like a musical or band movie or anything, and it certainly is not. It teases some of these elements, and never does anything useful with them.

Earwig – She has no growth in this film. She is put into a trial to overcome and succeeds. The problem is, she started as a do whatever she wants child, and the movie ends the same, although definitely worse. No lessons learned. It is a terrible message. When she kept repeatedly calling the cat by her old friend’s name, I assumed it was some twist about the old friend being the cat. But no, they are two different entities. She is just a shitty kid who doesn’t care about the names of who she is talking to. They made a kids movie about a shitty kid.

The ending – By far, this is likely going to be the worst ending of a movie I have seen all year. I can easily imagine this movie making my worst list, and it is far too early to know where it land. But holy shit, this ending is such a waste.

SPOILERS ON THE ENDING. SPOILERS ON THE ENDING. Okay, here it is…It just ends! After some changes with magic occur, we get some weird time jumps, and it feels like the last hour of movie should have taken like 20-30 minutes max. It feels like the movie is about to start and do the main plot. And then with the a door opening and a mom arising, the movie is like, lololol credits. It makes absolutely no sense to have an ending there. It is like we got a prologue of an eventual story, but one I will never seek out, because of being dicked around in this film.

I hope this movie continues to get blasted, because it is truly really bad. And I hope Studio Ghibli doesn’t look at this and blame it on the CGI. Because sure, it is bad, and if it helps not make more like this, then that is swell. But fix the goddamn narrative structure, because this movie is absolutely a waste of anyone’s time who decides to watch it.

0 out of 4.

The word Caged should bring up some very specific imagery, especially with recent events on the border these last couple of years. People in literal caged prisons, crammed together, families separated.

But really, what is the difference between those cages and the prison cages that hundreds of thousands of Americans are already inside of as well? I am not saying that we shouldn’t care about one because the other exists. No, we should care about both and be furious at both. Other countries have prisons wildly different than hours, that actually focus on rehabilitation versus punishment, and social programs to help communities to reduce crime.

But that isn’t relevant to this movie. Which is a horror movie about a guy in solitary confinement losing his touch on reality.

You can tell this is the Warden by the facial hair and the flag. Dr. Harlow Reid (Edi Gathegi) is imprisoned for killing his wife (Angela Sarafyan). He claims he is innocent. The government doesn’t believe that to be so. And he lost he first case, landing him in the big house, so he is working on his appeal. There might be some evidence that the lawyers did not reveal that helps him out and he thinks he can fight it.

But the start of the film has the law firm representing him, a good friend of his, canceling the appeal because all of his assets were taken. He has to do it on his own, but he is educated, so he can handle it. However, the issue is for whatever reason he was deemed threatening and is put in solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement sucks. One of the guards (Melora Hardin) there seems get pleasure in ignoring him almost. In his misery. Despite listening to everything, it is almost as if he is being further tortured by this lady. Not with waterboarding, but emotional and psychological torture. And when the wall starts to talk to him, that is really when Reid feels it.

Also starring Tony Amendola, Robert R. Shafer, James Jagger, and Andy Mackenzie.

We will see their entire relationship played out on one scene on a boat. Oh check it out. This is my first 0 out of 4 of the year! Congratulations Caged!

Where to begin? Well, on a superficial level, the film clearly has a really low budget. The special effects, when they start inside the cell, are not great. The scenes are extremely limited.

For example, in the flashbacks with his wife? We don’t see any real part of the relationship. We see literally one scene with an awkward argument between the two, that is broken up into tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny components, and sprinkled throughout the film, to give a sense of mystery. But it is disjointed in a way to make it look like it should have bigger time gaps between cuts instead of a few seconds. It should have been one scene, for real, and flashbacks of them doing more to really build and see a reason for the relationship to exist. Or why the suspicions exist. They jump the connection and the flashbacks do nothing for the viewer.

The audio is absolutely one of the reasons I hate it. In order to make the film more jarring for the viewer, to get some of the main character’s angst, we get to hear terrible sounds and screeches too. And sure, I am annoyed now too. And I don’t like it. It isn’t done in a good way. It is done to be annoying and it works.

However, the plot is kind of really shit. I don’t care about the lead, it fails to produce empathy outside of the first scene. If you want to be scared, it also won’t produce any of those feels. Just an uncomfortable movie, that you wish to end to put yourself out of your own misery.

0 out of 4.

Check out my interview with Martin Owen, the director, here!

What would you do if your son was at home, crying all alone on the bedroom floor because he’s hungry? And the the only way to feed him is to escape from a video game you got sucked into playing the part of one of the weaker side characters and really hoping you don’t die?

Alright, only some of that is relevant to Max Cloud. Max Cloud is a space hero. But he is also a video game character. And someone does get sucked into the video game. But don’t worry, no sons will be hungry tonight.

Ah yes, heroes, ready to fight, and to eliminate evil.

Sarah (Isabelle Allen) is just a teenage girl living at home with her dad in the 1980’s. She loves video games and he (Sam Hazeldine) doesn’t love her spending too much time on them. He constantly has to tell her to get off of them to do something else. Sarah would rather play the space game all day, and try to win. She wishes should could play it all day! Enter game based space witch (Jason Maza). And sure enough, Sarah gets whisked away into the game! But she doesn’t get to be Max Cloud (Scott Adkins). She has to play Jake (Elliot James Langridge), the cook, one of the few survivors at the start of the game, with no skill set.

Being placed in a game is cool, but how is she eventually going to get out? The space witch was like an Easter Egg and she has no idea how to activate it. And what if she dies in the game?!

Sarah has some help in the game, with other NPCs, and her best friend (Franz Drameh) in her room to navigate her character closer and closer to the end game. But what happens if they win? Would it just reset?

Too much afoot for Sarah to figure out. Just have to hope that Max Cloud is as good as his box says he is!

Also starring John Hannah, Lashana Lynch, and Tommy Flanagan.

You know you are a bad guy if you sit and laugh in the dark.

Max Cloud isn’t the first movie or book about being sucked into a video game and having to deal with the consequences, and it certainly won’t be the last. It is, however, a film that is incredibly uninspired and doesn’t offer much new into the “getting sucked into games” genre.

It takes place in the UK, and in the late 80’s, so maybe that is supposed to be enough of a reason to differentiate it? Not really. Most of Allen in this movie is just her voice, speaking through the TV to her her friend and dad. The scenes inside the game don’t feel like a game, just like a sci-fi broken ship. It was going for realism for the characters inside the game, but it also never felt really like a game at all, which is what I as a viewer would hope for. Outside of a few jokes or occasional reference, she could have also just been sucked into a campy sci-fi show and there wouldn’t be much difference.

The real world plot is simple, they are hoping to beat the game for her so that maybe she can escape. The plot of the Max Cloud video game is very bad though, and technically, most of the plot in the video game. If it was intentionally bad on purpose, for a campy reason, they should have made it more obvious, but it just drags the whole film down with it since it maintains a slightly serious tone for a comedy film.

I guess one of the biggest problems with the movie is it isn’t clear what it wants to be. It is a “Getting sucked into a game” movie that really would probably rather just be a straight sci-fi movie. It isn’t sure if it would rather be serious or a comedy, so it tries for both, giving the viewer not much of either. It had the potential to do more with its side characters and villains to make them interesting, but everything felt two-dimensional (heh). That could be the goal, if it was going for the bad video game vibe, but that goal can’t be achieved if the main real characters only talk about how awesome the game is. The bad video game plot just becomes bad movie plot, and the whole film suffers from it.

Max Cloud is messy, but not in a good way, and forgettable, in the worst way.

0 out of 4.

Fuck, it is 2020.

And I am not saying that for all the many reasons you might be thinking about. I am saying that because it is an even year. And every even year, for the last 8 or so, we’ve gotten stuck with a summer/fall documentary by Dinesh D’Souza.

It is clockwork now. Big election soon? Let’s get my huge ass propaganda piece out so help convince people with false facts and weirdly produced scenes.

For example, Trump Card, it begins and ends with a torture scene. A futuristic big brother thing of a government official torturing and brain washing a regular republican to a new way of life. All the same or else. Completely ridiculous stuff, and that is just one of the many things Dinesh throws into his movies.

Like most of his previous documentaries, this one has overall the same theme. Democrats are bad an evil, Republicans are trying to save the world. Repetitive talking points, no real proof, and occasionally patriotic music to really drive home that propaganda.

Ah yes, this is the part where Dinesh is the main focus.

You see, at this point, these documentaries are basically all about Dinesh too. He can’t help have himself be part of the main focus. He can’t help showcasing himself more in every interview instead of the speaker. He loves to ask his interviewees leading questions as well. You know, to get that specific sound bite. But for some reason Dinesh doesn’t even edit these things to get rid of that fact. Come on dude, you could make it look more menacingly if you don’t look like you are spoon feeding the people on what to say!

And so how does he phrase these arguments? Eh, just regular old gaslighting. “You know how the democratic parties seem to appeal to women, or the gays, or black people, or Hispanic people, or foreigners? Well, here is one person saying they don’t. And also everything they do is evil, and it is actually the Republicans who help these group the most! Yayyy!” Usually he also likes to give a throwback to something decades ago to why the republicans today are totally helpful. Because decades ago was relevant.

But hey, he is not done. Let’s go and attack Ilhan Omar, and Biden’s family some more, and things like that. And at the very very very end? Give a quick comment that sure, Trump might sometimes not be the most eloquent, or not be nice with his words, but can we blame him, what with all the attacks he deals with?

If you like being gaslighted, you will love this documentary. And if you do see this documentary and love it, please let me know.

-1 out of 4.

2020 is a weird year, for life, for cinema, for you, likely, in all aspects.

And through the ashes of this year, despite how high they pile up, is this the year that Pauly Shore rises through those ashes? The great phoenix, often spoken about in hushed tones as a relic from the 90’s.

He has been missing from cinema for some time, with the occasional cameo, or playing himself, or documentary series, but as a lead? The last time he was the lead or co-lead in a film was in 1997, something called The Curse of Inferno, which I also never heard about before in my life until typing this up a second ago.

That doesn’t mean he cannot come back and be a force to be reckoned with, for the new movie Guest House. It isn’t like he was just lying dormant in a basement somewhere waiting for a time to strike. Hell, we had Bill and Ted Face the Music just last week, and that was surprising in that it wasn’t terrible, unlike many comedy sequels that have been coming out decades later.

So. There. Is (was?). A. Chance.

“‘Never Tell Me The Odds’ – Han Solo” – Pauly Shore

Sarah (Aimee Teegarden) and Blake (Mike Castle) are not newlyweds, and they aren’t even engaged, but they are looking to get a house together. A big commitment, and something that is only doable because of Sarah’s dad (Billy Zane) helping out, even if he doesn’t approve much of Blake because of his slacker and party past.

After a long search, they find nothing good in their price range, until they found the perfect house. Lots of space, a big yard, a pool, and a guest house! So what is the catch? Oh, there is someone living in the guest house. Randy Cockfield (Pauly Shore), a user of drugs and alcohol, a loud mouth, a exhibitionist, and all together strange person. He was there from the previous owner and totally “about to leave” so that is why the main house is cheap.

They end up taking the deal, because he will be gone soon. And the rest of the movie plot sort of writes itself. Is he actually trying to leave? You know he isn’t. And with squatter rights in California as they are, it would be a long and lengthy and expensive battle to even get him out of that place, so it looks like they will have to go to war.

Also starring Lou Ferrigno, Erik Griffin, Steve-O, Liz Katz, and Chris Kattan.

How excited am I to see Chris Kattan in a movie? Well…

Okay, it turn out this is not Pauly’s time to rise out of the ashes.

Guest House was certifiably not a great film. Right away, the cinematography leaves a lot to be desired, feeling like it is a made for TV film. It doesn’t go for interesting anything with the camera, and it just feels so dreamy, I guess is a way to describe it.

The main characters? None of them are people we care about. The couple is bad to each other and bad people in general who clearly shouldn’t be together. The husband’s job feels so unimportant, with bad coworkers, so we don’t end up caring about that either.

As for Shore, the third main character, he is playing a meaner and more lewd character than he ever played. It isn’t an R-rated Weasel, it is just a not fun person. I can’t even imagine them having friends that would want to stop by and do drugs? It is hard to believe that level of king party animal.

The events that happen are just contrived, and even the lessons learned at the end are not how I would take it away in real life. It is a miserable situation for miserable people to be in, and we are all losers for having to watch it.

0 out of 4.

Against all odds, My Spy is finally out today, in the US, legally, August 26, 2020. It is available on Amazon Prime.

So how did it get here? Well, it was supposed to come out in August of 2019 (and likely would have been the best result in retrospect) but got moved back a month before that. It was pushed to a January release of 2020, then pushed again to a mid march release in 2020. You know what happened then. So about a week before coming out, it got pushed back to mid-April, to see what was going on in the world then.

And of course, before that happened, they cut their losses, sold it to Amazon and no theatrical release anymore. Well, it did come out in theaters in the UK in March. And in Australia in January, but hey, whatever, not like pirates exist.

My Spy annoys me because it is the last screening I saw in theaters before everything went down. The last actual movie I saw in theaters was Birds of Prey, the next morning, but that was already out for a month so no one cares about that.

And with it out today, finally, I can tell you why it sucks.

Here is a frame. It combined with all the rest made a poor film.JJ (Dave Bautista) is a big strong man, who used to be in special forces, and is now in the CIA. He likes to punch things and blow things up and isn’t used to being subtle. And because of that he is being punished. Yuck. He is being sent to Chicago (ew), with a tech support spy (Kristen Schaal) with the only purpose of spying on a family.

Why? Well, silly plot reasons. It involves nuclear weapons surprisingly. But a bad guy stole some weapon blueprints, brother of bad guy stole them from him to be a hero and not let them get out, brother dies. No one knows where the plans are, but maybe they are with the brother of the bad guy’s wife (Parisa Fitz-Henley) and daughter (Chloe Coleman), who have moved from France to Chicago after the death. Very sad times.

Unfortunately for JJ, because everyone is a noob, they almost immediately get found out in their safe house by the daughter character, who thinks she has found spies (accurate) but not sure why. Thanks to hilarious blackmail and set up, she uses JJ as a way to find acceptance in life. She gets “spy” training, and a friend in her lonely world, while JJ gets forced into her life as a neighbor, and starts to fall in love with a widow.

Typical spy stuff. Things go wrong. Bad guys. Ahhh-xplosions.

Also starring Greg Bryk, Ken Jeong, Devere Rogers, Noah Dalton Danby, and Nicola Correia-Damude.

Ah yes, tropes. 

My Spy picked a bad year to finally come out. Because of how many movies aren’t coming out this year, it is almost certainly going to make a lot of worst of the year lists. It might have made them last year too, but it probably would have been decent box office numbers, given its probably lower budget.

There is nothing excitingly new about this movie. It is your typical big strong man must become more loving or family man. Like almost wrestling turned actor film. I thought we wouldn’t get one of these any time soon since we were stuck with Playing With Fire last year. But this isn’t the genre’s fault, it is the wrestler turned actor fault.

Since we currently have John Cena and Dave Bautista doing that, they are both likely to have have one of these, and they happened to be very close to each other. It is our burden to bare.

This film offers nothing new, isn’t funny, and is rather stupid. It should have come out in January or August, because it would fit perfectly there in the movies people want to ignore. Now I suggest we all ignore it on Amazon Prime, like most of you planned on doing that anyways.

0 out of 4.

(dis)HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Just a few this time! A Hidden Life, for having me waste my life with another Terrence Malick movie. We have Dumbo, for being a soulless remake from Disney, with bigger eyes cause of Tim Burton. Skin, which surprisingly isn’t in the top 15, because I always like to include ones people maybe never heard about before, so they don’t stumble into it in the future. And The Last Astronaut, which I don’t know if it counts as a 2019 release, because I saw it at a festival and it was a snooze.

15) JexiWhy is it on the list? Honestly, a vindictive Siri like app on a phone could be interesting or funny, but it went there in all of the worst ways. Bumper can’t lead a movie on his own.
Least favorite moment? Wasting Michael Peña.
Any Worst Awards? Worst digital sex scene of 2019!

14) BreakthroughWhy is it on the list? This true story becoming a religious miracle is pretty week. Very little happens, except for a boy laying around in a hospital bed, while people discuss what to and not to do.
Least favorite moment? Unnecessary young hip pastor and religious conservative overcoming their differences.
Any Worst Awards? Worst film about people sitting around and waiting of 2019!

13) A Dog’s Way HomeWhy is it on the list? A film like Homeward Bound, but with less personality, and a whole lot weaker story. They could have made this with a pit bull and had a bigger message overall.
Least favorite moment? The cartoon-y dog catcher.
Any Worst Awards? Nope. Turns out I have similar films that are like this but worse, so it gets nothing out of me.

12) The Secret life of Pets 2Why is it on the list? This movie is a jumbled mess of various plot lines that get badly wrapped up together at the end. They repeat the mistakes of the first, and go even worse with it.
Least favorite moment? The farm subplot.
Any Worst Awards? Worst animated movie about pets of 2019!

11) A Dog’s JourneyWhy is it on the list? In order to maximize tears, this sequel gives us four dog deaths and a real person death at very predictable times! That is the point of dog movies right? For them to get home or to watch them die.
Least favorite moment? Any conversation with the mom.
Any Worst Awards? Worst movie about actual pets of 2019!

10) Dark PhoenixWhy is it on the list? This movie is so bad, they dropped “X-Men” from the title. If at first they don’t succeed, make a worst version of it over a decade later I guess.
Least favorite moment? Stairs.
Any Worst Awards? Worst superhero film of 2019!

9) OvercomerWhy is it on the list? Oof, this guy has never made a film that can stand on its own. It could have been an okay sports story. But since they made it up, went heavy on religion, and pretty much set up an elaborate ploy to cheat, I don’t know who would enjoy it.
Least favorite moment? Where the dad yells at his loved ones.
Any Worst Awards? Worst sports movie where they win by cheating of 2019!

8) PomsWhy is it on the list? Completely low energy, boring performances, and a cookie cutter feel good cast with villains who are villains because poor writers.
Least favorite moment? The “wow the video has gone viral!” scene.
Any Worst Awards? Worst sports movie of 2019!

7) Playing With FireWhy is it on the list? A film straight out of the 1990’s or early 2000’s, that includes a popular wrestler, who is too cool for kids, and has to deal with kids. Hah! Hilarious!
Least favorite moment? The end of the birthday party is tied with the wedding scene.
Any Worst Awards? Worst wrestler in a lead role, worst use of MLP, and worst comedy of 2019!

6) Maleficent: Mistress of EvilWhy is it on the list? The first one shouldn’t have been remade, to redeem a character who means evil. But then they did it, and doubled down on her being evil. Because why not. Also let’s have the plot be very similar, but bigger.
Least favorite moment? The forever lasting final battle.
Any Worst Awards? Worst fantasy, worst sequel, and worst live action “remake” of 2019!

5) Playmobil: The MovieWhy is it on the list? Not just feeling like a bad lego movie, it has poor animation, weird voice acting, and a plot that is meant for only those who have practically no attention span.
Least favorite moment? The parts where it was animated.
Any Worst Awards? Worst advertisement film, worst partial musical, and worst animated film of 2019!

4) CatsWhy is it on the list? Lacking a plot worth talking about, this movie musical is just a series of introductions until it finally ends, with visuals that you will never get used to.
Least favorite moment? The boat rescue.
Any Worst Awards? Worst CGI, worst furry fantasy, and worst musical of 2019!

3) ClimaxWhy is it on the list? I will admit the movie is disturbing which it set out to do, and sure, a horror/thriller. But disturbing doesn’t mean its also good. This movie is a crime against my eyes.
Least favorite moment? All the terrible set up for child trauma and rape.
Any Worst Awards? Worst horror, worst sex scenes, and worst dance movie of 2019!

2) The FanaticWhy is it on the list? Well, Travolta is actually acting in this movie. But the movie is so stupid and pointless, a shell of a potentially greater film, that it feels awkward when one person is trying to swim, but everything else is shit.
Least favorite moment? Our fan first asking for the autograph.
Any Worst Awards? Worst thriller, worst t-shirts, worst “event to make the plot start” of 2019!

1) UnplannedWhy is it on the list? There is a lot of things wrong with this film. Being a religious film doesn’t make it inherently bad, but increases the chance of being really low quality story wise. Couple that with a giant attack against one of the best organizations around to try and help provide support to those who don’t have it because our country’s health care sucks. And of course the lead character is a hypocrite, who had abortions and was grateful for those choices/abilities, and now actively makes sure that others can’t? Sounds like a raging asshole.
Least favorite moment? Any moment her boss, the straw woman, talked about needing to up those abortion numbers because of money!
Any Worst Awards? Worst religious movie, worst “real story” film, worst drama, and worst movie of 2019!

Thanks for reading! If you disagree with part of this list, let me know. If there is something I missed, let me know (but I probably saw it and reviewed it on this very site!

And as always, I accept hate mail via the post office, email, or tweets.

I was told a few warnings about Climax before watching it. Not about actual content, but more about the director, Gaspar Noé.

A controversial fellow, Noé has done plenty of films that I have never seen and shorts I have never seen. Apparently Love was very graphic, but I never got around to it.

I can expect a movie called Climax to be graphic. It is sort of there, in the name. I can hear warnings about French film, but that is really hard to put into one box.

No matter the warnings I received, none of them were really enough and none of them could really explain just what I was getting myself into when I decided to finally check out Climax.

And I felt. fabulous! No, wait. The opposite of that word!

In this movie, we have a few people who are getting a dance troupe together. Selva (Sofia Boutella) is the lead dancer of the troupe, and is working with someone else to pick people for their group and the music. I won’t tag anyone else in it, because everyone else is professional music people/dancers in some way only, and that is why they are in this movie.

The movie opens with a big, long dance sequence in one shot that is interesting, but strange. No wait, before that they show clips from fake interviews with these dancers on questions they asked before joining the troupe. No wait, before that, we see a woman bloody running in the snow. Oh.

After the big dance number, we get to see people talking. People dancing. Some interactions between a few of the characters. Back and forth talks between just pairs, making you really strain to pay attention to the plot point of the film. This is where you get backstory, kind of, sort of! After that confusion ends, we go back to dancing and people interacting.

But, the dancing gets stronger. The people get angrier. The people get weirder. Oh no, someone spiked the sangria and a lot of people are now going on a bad trip.

And then a lot of bad stuff happens the rest of the night, resulting in some deaths, some rape, some deaths, some uncomfortable moments, some sex, some dancing, and some other gross unfortunate terrible moments. Hooray!

Hooray?

I think I definitely did more of a plot description than normal compared to other films. And it feels justified.

There are quite obvious from the conversations early on that seem to be the main focus, and some of the characters who are definitely less of a nice person. The interview portion is completely forgettable after the dance, and probably should be rewatched for clues now that you know the characters better. But it is a huge struggle early on to remember what aspects of what characters were told and are important, with there being such a big cast of dancers and the conversations going so quick.

Now, once the tone shift happens in the film, and everyone starts to get on the bad trip, it definitely gives an uncomfortable feeling to the viewer. Oh no, bad things. And guess what? Basically every bad thing you can imagine happening, based on the earlier conversations and events, totally does happen.

It is very predictable in regards to probably the three worse things that occur in the movie. And this is a wildly gross and sometimes scary film, but having the worst/grossest parts easy to guess seems odd. Basically, if it could go bad, it does go bad.

I will admit, I first just assumed everyone was going to die in some extreme ridiculous ways, and not a lot of people die by the end. But no one is super happy by the end. People have been violated, or killed, or threatened, or raped, and it is just uncomfortable moment after uncomfortable moment. And the whole time we are getting a constant trance background beat, with some characters constantly screaming in the background. We get a power outage and thus, more darkness, a “scarier” hue to the whole thing, and even more bad stuff.

It has a lot of uncomfortable moments, but at no point does it feel worth it. Like you should have to see it, like any character deserves their fate. It is just basic exploitation for the sake of.

And what the hell. There were like, three times in the first half of the film where we got opening credits. I don’t know what was going on there.

0 out of 4.

What? You didn’t see The Fanatic in theaters? I mean, it would have been impressive. It only opened on 52 screens and made a few thousand dollars, so it was a big bomb, but an expected big bomb.

Apparently it isn’t the 1970’s and John Travolta isn’t a big box office draw anymore. Did you know that? I hadn’t heard and neither did Fred Durst.

Fred Durst directed The Fanatic and it is his third directed movie, with this one being really not similar to anything else he has done before, and his first directed movie in over a decade.

There is a lot going wrong with the Fanatic, but I will go into more detail about that later.

And we are all just choking with anticipation over this film. 

Moose (John Travolta), don’t worry, it is a nickname, is a loser. He thinks he is awesome and thinks his movie knowledge should be celebrated, but no one cares. He dresses up on the street to get tips from tourists, but his accent is bad, his characters are bad, and his jokes are nonexistent. How dare the world not see his wonder!

He has a lot of passions that deal with movies, besides watching them, including getting things autographed and speaking to these celebrities. He gets an opportunity to see Hunter Dunbar (Devon Sawa), whom he regards as one of the greatest horror actors of his time! I honestly couldn’t tell if he actually thinks that, or if he thinks that purely because he happens to be in town at that moment. He seems like the type who would say that just because as a better chance of getting autographs.

Either way, he waits in a line for awhile, and right before his autograph, Hunter has to take a quick sidebar out back to talk to his ex wife about kid situations. Not a big deal. Until Moose decides he needs to go out right after, hearing his personal conversations and still trying to get an autograph at the worst time.

This pisses off Hunter. So he curses him out and vows to not sign his stuff, and stay away from him. So Moose does not stay away. He finds his house, talks to his kid, sneaks in, tries to apologize, you know all the grossest stuff he could have done. The Fan needs his closure damn it, and he is going to tie up Hunter and kidnap him if he has to.

Also starring Ana Golja, Jacob Grodnik, and James Paxton.

Sign the paper, or he’ll put on worse button up shirts!

Ooof. Where does one begin?

Travolta seems to be doing something very strange in this movie. I feel like he is for sure acting and trying to get into this role. But this role is terrible. Not in a “what a bad person, I am fascinated” type of situation, but just, badly written and designed. That part isn’t his fault, I guess.

But never do I feel scared about his character, or sorry for him, or really any emotion at all. I feel a little slimy mostly. And I feel a little stupid. Like myself, personally, somehow I am now stupid for this whole thing.

This is the type of story that could have been good, it could have felt threatening, like Misery! But it just absolutely feels like nothing and achieves nothing on the way to that point. A waste of time for everyone involved and the poor people like me who had to watch it.

0 out of 4.

Maleficent stormed onto the scene many years ago, one of the first of the Disney live action titles, outside of that bad Alice one.And it was pretty forgettable. A weak plot, a lot of time of just watching a kid grow up, and then some terrible CGI fight battles.

But hey, the whole reason for doing it is to say that someone with the name of Maleficent,meaning to cause harm supernaturally, isn’t actually bad. Oh okay. And sure, they made her seem misunderstood, and basically a revenge film about a rape, metaphors aside.

So why is this sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, doubling down on the badness? But she isn’t bad. Just bad looking. Now she is also the mistress of evil? I uhh, don’t know why they want to do this?

I’ll go ahead and say this early enough, that they don’t have a good plot reason for this title.

Ah, green fire magic. Magic-y. Evil. 
Alright, so Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) was a sort of hero, killing a king who was a liar and a bad person, and I guess everyone agreed? She magically got her wings back and restored some sort of order, and went back to her magical forest to chill with magic forest people.

But apparently in like, a year or two, the story changes so much that she is a bad guy again. Cool.

Well, Aurora (Elle Fanning) wants to get married finally though, to Prince Philip (Harris Dickinson), who was definitely recast between movies. So they get their parents together, Aurora finding Maleficent, and Philip getting King John (Robert Lindsay) and Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Neither set of parents like this at all, especially not Ingrith, who sets about immediately being a bitch. This leads to a curse being cast on a King, Maleficent noping the hell out of there, and then a war against the fey, again.

But hey, this time there are going to be lots of people like Maleficent this time, so you know, bigger stakes, and lots of CGI warring.

Also starring Sam Riley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ed Skrein, David Gyasi, Jenn Murray, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville, and Imelda Staunton.

The king has huge look of regret about this whole thing.

Without a doubt, this is a two hour movie that feels like four hours. On the first day of the year, ready to watch a bunch of films, I was completely warn out after this one, my 2nd film of the day, because of how much this movie dragged.

This felt like more of the same, with worse reasoning for existing. This time, the big CGI fest battle happened for a bigger chunk of the movie, if we start it with the very obvious double cross that started against the magical creatures.

This film tries to do more world building this time, but it is building a world, answering questions none of us had. Maleficent is stronger and better than others because. Just because.

Pfeiffer’s character is completely stupid in this film. An antagonist without a good reason. And honestly, Pfeiffer does nothing to really elevate the role at all, she is here for a paycheck.

Maleficent 2 is a movie with more CGI that is exhausting in his excess without being worth looking at. It has acting from all fronts that is forgettable. It tells a story that is very, very similar to the first one, but with “bigger scales” that don’t really matter either. It is a waste of what felt like four hours of my life.

0 out of 4.