Tag: TV movie

I know, I know, I’ve been reviewing too many movies lately. And I know, I know, recently I reviewed Teen Beach 2, a Disney Channel original movie, but that was for a special occasion. It and its predecessor were milestone reviews, and thus, weird things were acceptable. Add in High School Musical and you will see the only Disney Channel Original movies I have reviewed have been musicals.

So why Descendants? Is it just to confuse my readers who might it get confused with the amazing The Descendants? Nope. It is because I used to watch these movies all the time. Not to show my age, but the new monthly movie used to be something special. (WARNING! WARNING! NOSTALGIA APPROACHING!) I was able to see things like Zenon, The Luck of the Irish, Motorcrossed, Cadet Kelly and more. I am not including Halloweentown, because Halloweentown sucked.

And you know what, those films are probably terrible now. But maybe Descendants is just like them. The plot has potential for an adult to enjoy. Maybe it is better than them. Maybe they can make a decent film that involves no music.

Alternatively, someone should review every single one of these films, while drunk. I am sure your website would get way more visitors than my own.

Not a scene from the film, but damn it, too many important characters to ignore.

JUST KIDDING IT IS TOTALLY A MUSICAL TOO, I WAS WRONG.

Ahem. Ben (Mitchell Hope) is the son of the Beast (Dan Payne) and Belle (Keegan Connor Tracy, who is also in Once Upon A Time), and wants to make his first proclamation as almost king! You see, a long time ago, after his parents got married, they brought all the kingdoms together under one rule, which apparently is a bunch of Disney stuff. They then took all the bad people and left them on a magical island to live out their days all sad and shit.

Those bad people also had kids, so Ben wants to give a few of them a chance and bring them over to rich people awesome boarding school. He only wants the worst of them for now, for a trial run. And apparently the four worst on the island are…

Mel (Dove Cameron), daughter of Maleficent (Kristin Chenoweth), Evie (Sofia Carson), daughter of The Evil Queen (Kathy Najimy), Jay (Booboo Stewart), son of Jafar (Maz Jobrani), and Carlos (Cameron Boyce), son of Cruella de Vil (Wendy Raquel Robinson).

Great! Now their kids can carry on their parents wishes. Mel needs to steal a wand to free them from the island, Evie needs to find a prince to marry to take over his castle, Carlos needs to…I dunno, kill a puppy or something, and Jay needs to just steal stuff like a criminal street rat.

So it should be easy! They just need to also deal with, you guessed it, high school life. Girls, boys, class, sports, balls, homework, mutts. All of this wonderful stuff. And hey, a big plot line involves them using magic to make the hair of some of the girls at school prettier. Actually, that is a big plot line. Like, top 3.

Of course this asks the question, do you have to be like your parents, or can you sing yourself into a better position?

The rest of the cast is basically made up of people just to name drop. Like Mulan’s dauhgter, Lonnie (Dianne Doan), Aurora’s daughter, Audrey (Sarah Jeffery), Chad Charming (Jedidiah Goodacre), the Fairy Godmother (Melanie Paxson) and her daughter (Brenna D’Amico), and Doug! (Zachary Gibson), son of…Dopey. Sure. Whatever.

Yeah, no one likes Beast when he goes human. Booo. Hiss.

Somehow before this point, I have already reached 600 words in the review. Shame, because I have a bunch more to go!

I was definitely surprised to hear music in this film, kind of came out of nowhere. It was mostly okay. Some songs were bad. The Song “If Only” was decent, however it featured the worst lip singing from Mel and featured a lot of flashbacks from the movie during it. The movie isn’t that long and the song happened halfway through the film, so there wasn’t really much to flashback, or a need at all.

It also had too many central characters, not knowing what to do with them. Carlos was afraid of dogs at the start, and then liked them? Okay, boring. Jay just…stole things for a little bit then played sports and also was sent to the background. Jafar probably had two whole lines and waste wasted. Cruella de Vil was turned into a crazy lady.

Speaking of de Vil, how in the fuck is that the best they have to work with? Not only does 101 Dalmations not even remotely fit in timeline wise with the rest of them (And Aladdin is a huge stretch), it is a lady who wanted to kill some dogs for their fur. They say she is one of the top evil people there, and that is just bananas. I cannot even begin to let that be any amount of believable.

The villains all live together in one house too. And literally no one is married outside of Belle/Beast. Each of these kids only knows about their evil parent, the other member just completely gone.

Descendants is an average to good concept for fiction, it truly is. But it seems they half-assed the whole film. If they kept it to just Mel/Evie, it could probably be a stronger film (but the male demographic!!). Too much wasted potential. They are apparently going to turn it into animated series later this year, which is a great place for it. With a cartoon some of these characters can actual gain some depth and not just background pieces to Mel.

Remember when I hit 1000 reviews? Sure, that was fun. Kind of takes away a lot from hitting 1050. But damn it, I promised a larger review every 50, to keep things interested, and that is what I will keep doing!

Because 1050 is incredibly lackluster of a Milestone Review, I wanted to go for what appeared to be a completely lackluster movie. Another Disney Channel Original Movie.

The last milestones similar to this one were of course my High School Musicals review, and the spin-off, Sharpay’s Fabulous Adventure.

So, besides Disney Channel Original Movie, it is similar in other ways. It has music, and it has an extremely generic name. I mean, High School Musical is technically about a high school musical, but the name also describes the movie…a musical set in a high school. Teen Beach Movie takes the generic-ness up a few levels and gives us Teen Beach Movie. Holy fuck, they aren’t even trying anymore.

Yeah, definitely looks like they have given up.

Upon even further remembrance, fuck, I already reviewed a different teach beach musical movie. From Justin To Kelly. Shit, there are a lot of these types of movies in my milestone reviews.

So this movie is about two kids, Brady (Ross Lynch) and McKenzie/Mack (Maia Mitchell). They are enjoying the summer before Junior year of high school. They are surfing having a blast and being all lovey dovey. Well, disaster strikes!

Mack’s aunt (Suzanne Cryer) is here to take her away! She agreed to go to a fancy boarding school her last two years, to get into a good college and start being awesome. Boo! Brady is sad! She is leaving before the big perfect condition waves tomorrow, too!

NO. NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR JAZZ HANDS. THIS IS SAD TIME!

Well, ever conflicted, she still goes on the waves missing her flight, but still planning to move. Unfortunately, the waves get SO CRAZY HUGE OMG! Brady goes to save her when she falls off her board, and when they emerge from the wave, they find themselves in the 1960s.

No, they haven’t just time traveled, they have become part of the very “famous” movie, Wet Side Story. Yes, a fictional movie, based on West Side Story, which is based on Romeo and Juliet. Basically, the only real similarities to West Side Story is singing/dancing rival gangs, and the love interest between the two.

This time the gangs are “bikers” vs surfers. Much fierce.

So, these kids are transported into a musical, where everything is happy go lucky and sunshine lollipops. The actual movie isn’t. Just the movie in the movie.

Ho. Ly. Fuck.

This movie is a mother fucking parody. A parody of not only West Side Story, but also I can sense a lot of Grease in here. But even more importantly, this movie is a parody on High School Musical. All of them. Disney Channel is parodying their own movie. They even have their own Zac Efron looking mother fucker.

And he’s fabulouuuuuuuuuuusssssss.

That’s not all. They have half the cast of High School Musical in here. Not actually, just people who remind me of them. That main chick Mack? She has some Vanessa Hudgens characteristics.

Anyways, their existence in the movie messes things up. The two romantic leads ends up falling in love with them instead of each other! Oh no! Now the rift between the two gangs will never be saved!

Lela (Grace Phipps) is the biker chick lover, brother of head biker dude Butchy (John DeLuca, who looks like Josh Peck).

Tanner (Garrett Clayton) is our Efron, main singer for the beach goers.

Aww, how are they going to fix this beach time love madness? Through song?!

Why does it matter? Well, stuff that belongs to the two main kids start to disappear. If they can’t fix the plot, the movie can’t finish and they might be stuck in it forever.

The good news is, because they are in a movie, they have things to work with, such as movie magic. So, scenes change easily, and costumes come freely. Mack has also decided to introduce woman’s rights while she is here, because all the girls only talk about boys. It is annoying to her.

“Bitch, I am still fabulous. Talk more about me!”

I dunno. Then some more stuff happens. Songs, love games. Oh, I guess there are also villains here. A Les Camembert (Steve Valentine) and Dr. Fusion (Kevin Chamberlin). They are building a machine to change the weather to chase those beach rats and bikers away from their homes. Mwhahaha!

I guess that is important. If the two groups don’t befriend each other, there is no way they will be able to stop them!

Science is the real enemy here.

Eh, there are other people in this movie too. Like Barry Bostwick, who plays Brady’s (dad? grandpa?). The only reason he deserves this note is that it is fucking Brad from Rocky Horror Picture Show, all old though. These sneaky Disney bastards, paying tribute to older musicals like this.

Chrissie Fit is also in this, as a biker head lady as well. And Jordan Fisher plays the best friend of not-Efron. And yes, he looks like the black guy from High School Musical, aka, Efron’s friend.

Seriously, this can’t be a coincidence right?

Alright, let’s look at this here movie.

I assumed it would be a train wreck. A terrible invention. The fact that I even knew it existed because it had some ads at the local movie theater, and it looked terrible.

But as a parody? A satire on the older musicals and lifestyles presented in them? Well, it works. I am not saying this is a fantastic movie, no, but it has its moments.

The songs are all incredibly cheesy, but again, it makes sense given the movie. There wasn’t one that was particularly atrocious, they were all at least okay minus the first one where I was still flabbergasted at what was happening. My favorite two songs would have to be Can’t Stop Singing, where are main two leads realize they can’t get out of the musical and are forced to sing and dance (while singing and dancing about it). And Like Me, which felt very Grease-y and was just overly ridiculous, and reminded me of the parody songs from the South Park episode Elementary School Musical.

It has obvious issues, yes. The graphics were horrible, and thus every surf scene was horrible. The singing was clearly done ahead of time, which is standard, but these no name actors did bad at lip syncing in my eyes. The acting itself was cringe worthy at times too, ignoring the on purpose cheese factors.

But fuck, it was a decent showing and parody.

Ah yeah, a completely random movie I have never heard about it. Sexy.

Racism aside, the cover of Somebody’s Child had two black men and one woman on the cover. I will say I figured it would be some sort of baby daddy drama. Nope. Wrong again. I also got it because I knew the star was great at kicking ass and taking names, so there could be a fight scene or two!

Needless to say, this movie offered none of this, and I was just as confused as these two men.

No baby drama. No fight scenes. So much sadness.

Douglas (Michael Jai White) is a simple man. He is a single dad, who also lives with his mom, Constance (Lynn Whitfield). Well, she lives with him. He owns a restaurant and believes in giving people second chances. No time for love, not yet. Especially with his mom needing a Kidney, and waiting for a match.

Alright, so that isn’t any good. But they know they will get through it. They just have to believe and trust God.

Well, at the hospital they see another man, Benjamin (Byron Minns), and she convinces him to offer him a job at the restaurant instead, knowing for sure he must be a felon working on getting his life back on track. They were right! He is on a path of redemption too.

And uhh. Then some redemption happens. Secrets. Everything kind of works out for the best and the movie ends.

Douglas also starts dating Hope (Nadine Ellis), their travel agent, but that plot isn’t important to the story.

What the fuck is this? Why in the hell is there a painting of a scene from this movie? Or super weird lighting?

I think I accidentally watched a lifetime movie. That would explain it. IMDB tells me it was made for TV. It must have been lifetime. Or Hallmark. Because not a lot happened in this film.

There was one twist roughly near the end, but something pretty easy to figure out way before hand. The bigger part of the twist was more confusing. But I don’t want to spoil it.

Fuck it, spoilers, here we go. Benjamin and Douglas are brothers, the mom had to give Benjamin up for adoption and his life was rough. So karma eventually brought them together because they all did good stuff for strangers. Yay. Benjamin also donated the kidney to the mom, out of the goodness of his heart, before he knew they were related. Yay being friendly to strangers! Yay Jesus!

So yeah, very basic inspirational made for TV movie, that teaches us everything works out kind of. Even if your life is shitty and in foster care for many years, causing you to circumstances that might end up with someone dying. Even then.

Damn it Michael Jai White, no more movies where you don’t fight anyone.

Revenge of the Bridesmaids is another movie I thought I would ever watch. I noticed it before, but usually just in disdain. Mostly because it seemed to come out when Bridesmaids came to Theaters, to try and build off that Success. A live action example of Chop-Kick Panda, if you will. But damn it, someone requested a review, and a review there will be!

Wooo. Movies.

Raven and JoAnna Garcia are friends! They also have two other friends, Chyrssie Whitehead and Virginia Williams. The last one there is rich and wonderful. Lives in a mansion! All of the friends used to play as they went to school or something. She was spoiled though, because she was rich, so she might have been ruder. Raven and JoAnna left that town and moved to NYC to become a writer and an actress. But they come back, and surprise, spoiled brat is getting married!

They hate her now, and surely they would just decline and not go. But the groom? The groom is their other friends former long term lover! Whats up with that?! So they want to get to the bottom of it. Eventually they decide (like action movies?) they need to infiltrate the area, become bridesmaids, and try to ruin the wedding. For their real friend. Shenanigans!

So, while watching this movie I got suspicious. Something else was not right with it. The camera work was dreadful, reminded me of day time soap opera during parts of it. Clearly a rushed thing sure. But something else bugged me. Once I noticed there was weird transitions involving fading out and a new scene? I figured it out. This is a damn made for TV movie, ABC family or something. Arggggh! And it shows. I mean, made for TV movies don’t have to be bad. Lifetime and ABC Family just give them a bad name. Other networks had made decent ones, but this is not one.

I thought the acting was pretty bad, as was all of the “schemes”. Type of stuff that is only done in bad sitcoms, or, well yeah, made for tv movies. Damn it again.

The morals of the movie aren’t the best either. The guy in question seems like kind of a douche, and is a bad guy for the two girls to be chasing after. Similarly, the daughter wasn’t too bad. She was spoiled, and thus kind of bossy. The movie made it clear that it was probably thanks to her mom, played by Beth Broderick, that she is the way she is. But punished for her upbringing she is anyways. It then ended with a “happy ending” where somehow it worked out well for the not rich three girls. Oh joy.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find this picture on Google by just searching “Douches”.

1 out of 4.