Tag: Maria Canals-Barrera

We here at Gorgon Reviews believe in tradition. It is tradition that puts a review out every weekday, that keeps the chuckles coming, and forces me up late at night to write long lengthy pieces.

That’s right. Another Milestone Review. This time the magical number is 1600. And I didn’t have to look long. My last Milestone Review was The Love Guru, a truly unfunny film that killed Mike Myers‘ career and wasn’t accurate to the wonderful sport of Hockey.

But Myers used to have a buddy. A comprade, a friend, also from SNL. Dana Carvey. He played small roles mostly, never really famous, but he did make his own big flop. One that, basically, also killed his career. No longer could these dude’s just party on, they reached a point where people didn’t want to see them anymore.

And for Carvey, that point was apparently reached in 2003 with the release of The Master of Disguise. A film so hated and talked down upon on the internet, that I imagined there could be no way it was that bad. It was probably just jerks who didn’t even see it and hated the trailer. It is cool to hate on movies in a crowd, after all.

I needed to give The Master of Disguise a chance. It is important, for poor old Carvey’s sake.

I just have to remember that it came out in 2002 when jokes like these might have been funny.

Our story begins in 1979, where we learn about the Disguisey family. They are an Italian family who have learned to harness the power of disguise. Not just putting on a costume and changing your voice, but almost fully becoming a new person. They have used this power for good and to protect the world from bad people. Never anything super dangerous, just common criminals.

Which is why we see Bo Derek running from armed criminals. Bo Derek?! No, just kidding. It is actually Fabbrizio Disguisey (James Brolin) in disguise as Bo Derek. With his help, a criminal, Devlin Bowman (Brent Spiner) gets arrested. He ran a smuggling ring and thus he had to be stopped.

The life of a Disguisey is very dangerous, but it is a calling they feel in their blood. Despite this, Fabbrizio decides to not tell his young son of these gifts and responsibilities, to protect him from a hard future. And he isn’t all the way there in the head.

This isn’t even part of a disguise. For him, this is just Tuesday.

Now, 23 years later, Fabbrizio is presumably retired from the game and just running an Italian restaurant in unnamed Italian family. He has a wife (Edie McClurg), with the name of Mother Disguisey, and a awkward, nerdy son who is a waiter at the restaurant. Now, poor Pistachio, he has the urge to be a true Disguisey without knowing what that means. So instead he spends a lot of his time dressing up in his room and mimicking guests with unique voices.

These are not good traits for a waiter, but damn it, Fabbrizio loves his son. Pistachio thinks he has finally hit it off with a lovely big reared lady, Sophia (Maria Canals-Barrera), but she is actually into another waiter.

But Pistachio is still a good guy. He is nice to kids. Like little Brave Barney Baker (Austin Wolff), who hurts himself skateboarding outside the shop. To make him feel better, Pistachio lets him play with his dog, The Cuteness, whenever he wants.

And that is his mom! We will get to her eventually.

Moving right along, PISTACHIO’S PARENTS GET CAPTURED! Oh no! People break into their home and take them away and he has no idea who did it. He tries to call the police, but he sounds so ridiculous they assume it is a prank! That is when his grandfather shows up, Grandfather Disguisey (Harold Gould), to help him out. Pistachio didn’t know he existed because his dad kept him away. Grandfather realizes he needs to teach Pistachio to become a Master of Disguise, to save his parents. And no, Grandfather cannot do it for him.

Grandfather has to teach Pistachio the power of Energico, a mysterious force that only the Disguisey’s can access. By repeating some lines and focusing hard, they can truly become another person, learning skills they never knew before, or languages, or just general knowledge. It is the most important part of the disguise.

And sure, Pistachio needs an assistant too. After a long search, they find Jennifer Barker (Jennifer Esposito), Barney’s mom. She needs money and likes the fact that there is health insurance, but doesn’t understand her responsibilities. They reluctantly pick her, despite her small butt.

Turtle’s are only into butts that remind them of their mother.

Guess who kidnapped the parents? Of course, it was Devlin Bowman, out of prison after 22 years or so, and looking just as young and as fly as ever.

He has nefarious designs for them. Well not really. He is forcing Fabbrizio to use his Disguisey powers to help him steal priceless treasure from around the world. And that is about it. You know, the Constitution, Liberty Bell, things like that. In order to get him to comply, he has locked away the wife and given her drugs to make her think she is just constantly preparing dinner. But if he refuses to act, he will have her killed!

At the scene of the kidnapping, Jennifer finds a use cigar belonging to The Turtle Club, a members only rich thing in their city. Of course, Pistachio takes this name literally and tries to be the Turtle-ist person he can be. Turtle-ist de Turtle de Derp. This is the scene you can remember from the trailers. Despite Pistachio’s best efforts, they are still able to get inside. Apparently the cigar is super custom made and belonged to a Devlin Bowman. Thanks Turtle Club!

Well isn’t that special.

The duo decide to look for Bowman at a local antique fair in the city, because everyone knows that Bowman loves antiques. Pistachio dresses up like a sex crazed old lady to seduce Bowman (see above, not actually the Church Lady but close enough), and well, it doesn’t work. However, he does take a liking to Jennifer, and invites her over to a party later at his house.

And hey, that is in the job detail. She has to do it. There at the party, Pistachio is now dressed up like a pseudo-Scarface character who likes to party. Because reasons. He uses this character to distract Bowman, while Jennifer goes into his house and looks for clues.

She doesn’t find much, but what she does find is pictures that will help give the whereabouts of Fabbrizio, somehow. I honestly have no idea how that part works.

Pistachio continues to be very annoying, so Bowman sends his henchmen after Pistachio. He escapes by dressing up like a Jaws parody person on a boat and also as grass, complete with cow shit.

Carvey goes into water. Disguises in the water.

For whatever reason, Jennifer is now trapped at Bowman’s house and needs rescuing. But not in a daring way, just an excuse to leave. None of this makes sense, but Pistachio does two different disguises to get her out, changing after he is let in the lobby and no one seems to care. Despite “Rescuing” her, Bowman sends his goons to follow them.

Later, the pair look at the pictures and figure out all of Bowman’s plan, including where his items are being held! Hooray! They also run into Trent (Mark Devine), her boyfriend, on a date with another woman. Oh no! Pistachio uses his magical Slapping powers to take him down, and he is a big hero, slapping a would be cheater dick guy.

When Pistachio drops Jennifer off at her house, he gets a kiss and he is smitten. Despite that, after leaving, the goons decide to kidnap Jennifer and take her hostage. Why her, not Pistachio? Why did they wait so long? Why did he just not keep her when she was at the house? The world will never know.

Either way, thanks to hologram technology, Pistachio figures out a plan and sneaks into the house as a cherry pie.

Okay okay, I will admit, this part was pretty unexpected.

Pistachio, basically the best thing ever now, is able to defeat Bowman’s Ninja army with ease. But Bowman has one more plan. He has brainwashed Fabbrizio! Now Fabbrizio is wearing a Bowman outfit and thinks he is actually Bowman. So the real Bowman escapes with the U.S. Constitution, while Pistachio has to get his father back into his own mind.

And you know, he does that. Hooray! So the return all the artifacts, Pistachio is a master now, and he marries Jennifer. Man, that was quick.

Oh but Bowman got away. They find him in Coasta Rica, so Pistachio dresses up as George W. Bush to get the document back and Bowman is to be locked away!

And then there are about ten minutes of credits, full of bloopers, and other outfits that didn’t make it into the final showing for whatever reason. And after the credits is a 90 second or two minute scene, where Pistachio finds out that a midget was in the Slap Dummy apparatus the whole time. And he is dressed like Mario! Shenanigans! Also The Cuteness, the dog, was the grandfather the whole time.

Did you catch all of those last minute post credit plot twists?!

The Master of Disguise is rated PG for some mild language and crude humor. Why the low rating? Well, apparently Carvey wanted to make a movie his kids could watch, because everything else he had done was for older kids and adults. And so yeah, he wanted a super family friendly movie. Based on that logic, Carvey seemed to want something full of fart jokes, an extremely simple plot, bad acting, and a waste of time.

First of all, Carvey’s main character accent was terrible. It was consistent, if anything, but the Italian-American accent wasn’t even a great parody, so it is annoying we had to hear that throughout the film. One recurring joke was that Bowman would laugh uncontrollably, because he is so evil, and a fart would ruin it. He had gas, and he had it a lot. The ever recurring fart joke.

Another unfortunate recurring joke involved basically sexual harassment in the work place. Pistachio and the Grandfather constantly talk bad about Jennifer’s butt, asked for her measurements for a make believe uniform, ignore the fact that she has a boyfriend (jerk or not) and assume she will eventually fall for Pistachio. On top of that, the Grandfather basically scowls every time she brings up a question on her pay or dental care, basically stringing this poor single mother along who clearly just wants to provide for her son.

Good family values there.

The humor was incredibly low, most of them revolving around Carvey doing stereotypical impressions. We had a German courier and a British detective out of nowhre, completely minor parts. But the funniest bit was the guy from the final picture, who only appeared in the credits as a deleted scene character. Fuck, he was funny and with a really amusing voice. That not making the final film just made me despise most of the other characters that much more.

Give me fat carnival people who talk like Wally Gator any day of the week. But just don’t give me this movie again.

0 out of 4.

If you are reading this and feel confused, don’t be. Yes, I had the nerve to post a fake review. You can read it here, and should. And I did it before. I did a fake review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with fake spoilers. Those were good times, before I had the ability to even see movies early.

But no, now I will really review God’s Not Dead 2. I had to pay money to see this one though. I had to go to a Thursday night screening, and thanks to soccer practice, I had to wait for the 10 pm showing. I had to watch previews and spend like $10, it was terrible.

Why? Well, I wanted to have some integrity in my fake review. If I made a fake review with just the trailer, I would have missed side plots and subtleties and you would have seen right through it. So instead I had to give myself just 3 hours of sleep that day and write a silly review for a silly joke holiday. But don’t worry. This is the real one. This one will pull out all the stops.

Yeah, you might want to wipe that grin away from your face.

GND2 takes place not only after the first film, but in the same basic location. Which turns out is Houston? In a made up high school instead of a made up college. The exploits of the first guy were heard large and wide, but Christianity was still being shunned.

Enter happy go lucky Grace (Melissa Joan Hart). Nothing gets her down except for not being able to help her students. Like Brooke (Hayley Orrantia), from an atheist family. She lost her brother six months ago and her parents (Maria Canals-Barrera, Carey Scott) seemed to have already gotten over it and are harassing her to get into a good college. So she goes to Grace outside of school to ask for help and she talks about Jesus. This is fine of course. Brooke also finds a bible in her brother’s room. He was secretly religious!

Later on at school, Grace is teaching about non violent protesters, MLK and Gandhi, and Brooke asks if it is similar to what Jesus spoke about. Non violence stuff. Sure. Why not. Brooke says yes, cites her source, and moves on. Some nameless kid apparently complains because later Grace has to meet with the school board over preaching in class! She refuses to apologize to avoid punishment, and they don’t want to fire her over it, but they decide to let the ACLU take her to court. They apparently really really want this battle.

The ACLU lawyer (Ray Wise) actually goes to Brooke’s parents to get them to be the main plantiff. Brooke is a minor so she has no say. They agree, because it might help her get into college. And now the ACLU can make an example of Grace, take her for everything she has and get a precedent about any Jesus talk in the classroom.

Also in this movie. Paul Kwo returns as a Chinese atheist turned Christian with many questions. David A.R. White is still a pastor who refuses to give his sermons to the government and serves on the jury. Benjamin A. Onyango is back, because fuck it. And Trisha LaFache is back as a reporter, with her cancer gone because she found Jesus. She doesn’t really have a purpose in this film at all.

We also have Robin Givens as the principal, Jesse Metcalfe as Grace’s lawyer who doesn’t believe either, Pat Boone as Grace’s old dad, Ernie Hudson as the judge, and Sadie Robertson as Brooke’s best friend and the niece of Trisha’s character.

Letting God be your witness sounds nice, but doesn’t help you in the court.

Fppppptbtbtbb.

What in the actual fuck. Let me first say that God’s Not Dead is the worse movie. It ends with one character homeless, abandoned by family (/beaten a little bit), but finding Jesus so its okay. A reporter getting Cancer despite finding Jesus, and the teacher losing, accepting everything, and still finding Jesus in time to get killed right away. It was a complete mess.

This film is also a complete mess, but with less death. Now, one obvious problem with this movie is that they take a normal teaching situation that in no way, anywhere, would there ever be an issue with it. That helps drive the point home I guess, because everyone watching it knows she is innocent and the trial becomes extremely ridiculous because of it. Of course we are on her side, the writers suck and are implying that this type of thing happens all the time. It almost makes every argument the movie tries to make invalid because they didn’t even try to present something plausible.

Like the first film.

They made the ACLU guy out to be some huge evil villain. He probably eats babies. He scowls and twirls his imaginary mustache when he tells the parents before the trial that they will “for once and all finally prove that GOD IS DEAD!” I had to imagine some lightning bolts in the background, it really helped.

But literally the trial isn’t about Jesus existing or not. The entire trial is a bad sham that flows in no logical way. First of all, Grace’s main defense is she did nothing wrong and wasn’t preaching in the classroom. They decide (half way through the trial) that their best defense is to prove a historical Jesus, which means she can mention Jesus in a history class. Makes sense. However, all of the uproar outside of the trial is about religion in the classroom and whether Christians can talk about Jesus in a religious way. Grace isn’t arguing she should be able to do that, she knows when it is appropriate and never suggested preaching should be in the classroom. Or mandatory school prayer. Or anything.

So guess what. She wins in the end. Not by proving the historic Jesus. But because of having a break down when her own lawyer verbally attacks her to talk about her faith. He goes super mean, making everyone feel bad and going to her side. That’s right, they don’t even try to win the trial in a good way. They do something that wouldn’t be allowed in a trial (because treating your witness as “hostile” doesn’t mean yelling and screaming a fit) and end it in the worst way. It is so damn stupid.

As a follow up, Brooke couldn’t talk to the teacher the whole time (because reasons?), and when she finally does, it is after the trial. Everyone is gone after the verdict, but she says no, go spread the word. Somehow Brooke gets out of the courthouse first, before eager reporters and everything, to scream out that “GOD’S NOT DEAD!” to hundreds of Christian supporters for a big party. They were there, silently protesting while atheist people yelled and called names the whole time. Of course, the trial didn’t conclude anything about the legitimacy of religion.

And if the religious people say it was a win for religions, then they missed the point of Grace’s defense and the fact that she did nothing wrong. So they are pretty hypocritical. Celebrating in that way seems to imply that Grace did preach in class and it is now allowed. It is all nonsensical.

I need another picture in here. My bad.

I think that is all I needed to rant about the trial. So here are other annoyances.

One side plot is Paul Kwo finding his new religion difficult to grasp. He doesn’t stop going to classes or anything, he just is also Christian. So we have a scene where his dad comes right off the plane from China, still in his business suit, to yell at him and tell him he has disappointed his family and not his son anymore. Because he became Christian without changing any other aspect of his life. It is ridiculous. A few scenes later, his character decides to become a pastor, which changes his future and would then warrant maybe a father coming to yell at his son for throwing his life away. But the events are all out of order here.

Trisha LaFache’s reporter is useless here. She is a bad spiritual guide or something. But what is strange about her involves Duck Dynasty. A show and cast that are real in this film. She interacted with them in the first film. So they decide to make Brooke’s BFF her niece as well, just to fit her in. And that girl is played by Sadie Robertson, a real life member of the Duck Dynasty clan, who is even on the show. That is both awkward given her plot, and bad given it breaks the immersion having a real person in the world as an actress playing someone new.

Finally, the pastor Dave plot line is all over the place. He gets sick, is super busy, has to be on the jury, but also has to give his sermons to the government for reasons. Why? They only really have one quick scene to explain it, and it is gone in the blink of an eye. A line is uttered that “they tried it in Houston!” to explain its relevance. However, we know that this movie also takes place in Houston, so…

Anyways, Dave refuses to turn in his sermons and instead turns in a letter. After that scene, the movie forgets about it and credits roll. It was a bad way to set up a future movie, again, based on a non real issue. However we did get a post credit scene of the pastor getting arrested for not turning in sermons. Ah, there it goes. God’s Not Dead 3, eventually. Setting up their cinematic universe.

This film has a lot of issues. It brings up real historians and lies about what they said about Jesus. It attempts in no way to actually prove anything through the trial, going for cheap entertainment and to make an echo chamber instead of actually producing any meaningful change.

0 out of 4.

When God’s Not Dead came out in 2014, it was a complete joke. It was a very low budget Christian faith film. It was based on a shitty internet story, not any form of reality. It was supposed to be made and ignored but people flocked to see it so it became a wide release to get some of that sweet sweet money. It was a bad effort.

Needless to say, I and everyone else was extremely skeptical about news of a sequel. What would God’s Not Dead 2 be about? Would it be an unrelated different religious story or it would it be a direct follow up with our old main character destroying more professors? If it is a direct follow up, would it tie up any of the many loose ends of the first film?

Or would it just be a cash grab given the success of the first. The scariest option. More of the same. I shudder at the thought.

So does blank stare Sabrina.

Remember Martin (Paul Kwo), the Chinese student who had the nerve to learn about and believe in Jesus in the first film? Well he is back! So is Amy Ryan (Trisha LaFache) the liberal reporter who got the cancer, and of course Reverend Dave (David A.R. White) and Reverend Jude (Benjamin A. Onyango). But I won’t go into their back stories. Because we have a new hero.

Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan-Hart), an optimistic and great History teacher at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. High School (that’s relevant). In particular, she teachers AP History as well. One of her students, Brooke (Hayley Orrantia), has been having a hard time after her brother died six months ago. She cannot get over it and it is affecting her grades. Her parents (Carey Scott, Maria Canals-Barrera) have gotten over it however and it is because they are atheists. She isn’t Christian, she just doesn’t know. But she talks to Grace outside of school and finds out her brother had a bible. So she starts finding out about Jesus. Which is why during a lesson on MLK and Gandhi, Brooke asks (during class!) if it was the same non-violent approach mentioned by Jesus. And Grace answers. And everyone moves on.

Nope, just kidding. A student brings it up and a complaint is made. The principal (Robin Givens) can’t do anything about it, the school board just wants an apology, but Grace refuses because she does nothing wrong. There is nothing left to do but to go to trial over it then. Where the school board can watch and make decisions from it, because the ACLU has agreed to do this case because they want precedent to make sure God cannot be in schools ever again. Their lawyer (Ray Wise) is a bad bad dude.

So Grace gets a lawyer from her union, Tom (Jesse Metcalfe), a non religious man. And they have to argue that not only was she not preaching, but she was talking about the historical Jesus (and prove he existed) which is why he should be able to be mentioned in AP History. They just have to convince a very good jury who are out for blood.

Also featuring Pat Boone as Grace’s old father, Ernie Hudson as the judge, and Sadie Robertson as Brooke’s BFF.

The face you make when people are mean butts and you just want to not be there.

Harold Cronk, you beautiful genius. You drag us in with the first film by creating a phenomenon out of nowhere, just to build a fan base. Make that sweet sweet cash. He took all that money and wanted to build something bigger out of it. So for the sequel he has better cameras. Someone who knows the word cinematograhy. And better actors. Come on, Ernie Hudson as the judge is brilliant. And having Melissa Joan Hart, a person most well known for explaining things and being a witch, and making her become religious can only be described as genius. No one cared when Kevin Sorbo was an atheist professor, because that makes sense. He used to play a damn demi-god!

Not only are the cameras and cast better, but the script is better as well. The film brings back older characters to tie up the loose ends created in the first film. We now know why the Asian guy was initially afraid of Jesus. We know what happened to the reporter who got the cancer. We know that Duck Dynasty lived on to see another day. We don’t know what happened to the Muslim girl who became homeless due to changing religion, but eh, who cares, she used to be Muslim.

Last but not least, the court room drama. Never have I bit my nails so much. The tension was high as the two lawyers battled over jury dominance. Both sides argued so well, but the Jesus side argued much better. Everything they said was 100% right and factual. Based on the film, I can only hope that a case like this really does open up in the courts, because it would be a landslide victory for religion and its role in government. Fuck, it was so good I am basically a believer now.

Gods Not Dead 2 may be the most important film of the year and will change a lot of people’s minds about faith.

4 out of 4.