SON IN LAW (1993)

We know reading is hard. So we're podcasting this like all the cool kids do.

Beth and I are talking about the real issues of this movie. Things like "Why would anyone bring Pauly Shore home?" Its intense stuff.

Also, we should have mentioned that Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers appears and is unsure of what he's doing or that a movie is being filmed. The management here solemnly apologizes.

Why Did I Get Married? (2007)

To call Tyler Perry presents Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? starring Tyler Perry “ham handed” would insult the graceful subtlety of ham. Thank you Netflix for making this train wreck available in the month of September. Buckle up.

This is Janet Jackson and she wrote a book called Why Did I Get Married, just in case one minute into the film you forget what it’s called. Each year JJ, her husband, and their three closest couple friends take a vacation together, a “relationship retreat” if you will, and she used all of them as characters in her book. My favorite part of this scene is when a student asks a question about one of the couple and JJ’s all “I don’t like to talk about my friends.” Also, like EVERY OTHER CHARACTER, Janet has a deep, dark secret.

Oh well, off to vacation with friends!

Couple number 1: This is Tyler Perry and his wife. He’s a doctor and she’s a lawyer, and while you think about all which 1980’s sitcom that was lifted from, let’s go ahead and start spilling secrets because there is so much going on in this movie you’ll need some kind of chart or graph to keep up. He wants another child (even though he did a secret paternity test on the first one! Oh no he didn’t!) and she secretly had her tubes tied (I guess that’s possible?) because she loves her career.

This is Jill Scott and her husband. See that woman behind her? That’s her husband’s “employee” that he’s bringing on the couple’s retreat with them (oh no he didn’t!). The first time I saw this movie I thought the husband was a bad character, but upon more reflection I think he’s a nice guy to take care of a mentally challenged lady who can’t see what’s going on. Also, Jill is asked to get off the plane because she’s too big for one seat, and her husband is all “you drive to Colorado. Me and my employee will meet you there.” That’s no way to start a week of reflecting on your marriage, sir.

This is Angela and her ex-NFL player husband Marcus. His name is easy to remember because she is always yelling at him. She’s also almost always drunk. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Angela is hands down the best character in this movie. Side note: Angela is portrayed by Tasha Smith, and she teaches an acting class in LA. Want to learn how to yell “Marcus!” with conviction? Now you can!

Moving on...

Everyone arrives in Colorado, and the ladies are all “Men! Amirite?” and “Where is Jill Scott and why did her husband bring another lady on our vacation?” and “I hate my husband’s babymomma.” I like how Tyler Perry doesn’t use stereotypes and cliché as a crutch. Note that this movie was made in 2007, when we all had a much more liberal view on wearing fur.

 The men are all “I cheated and now have an STD!” “My wife works too hard!” “I don’t like my wife, but my secretary who came with me sure is nice...” Is your head spinning yet? Intrigue! Now we learn about the 80/20 rule. Tyler Perry lets us know that the most you get from someone is 80% of what you want. If you go looking for the other 20% that’s missing, you lose 80 and only get 20. I’m no mathematician, but that sounds like some inspiration that belongs on a poster.

Here comes Jill Scott finally. Good to see that the local sheriff is accompanying her on the last leg of her journey. The vacation can only get better from here.

 No it doesn’t. Despite the sheriff being black, apparently the only other black people this store clerk has seen are from rap videos, so she walks right up to our heroes and lets them know that she “doesn’t keep money in the store.” Yes. The women wearing gauche furs are going to rob you.

This is the dinner where all the secrets are revealed! Cheating! STDs! Paternity tests! Divorce! Can I interject here that for a group of couples that do a vacation every year specifically to work on their marriages, none of the lessons seem to have gotten through? I blame Janet Jackson’s skill as an...author? Marriage counselor? Professor? What does she do exactly? End of vacation.

The marriage retreat was a big bust, because Marcus is fed up with Angela drunkly yelling at him and his ex all the time and Anglea is embarrassed at Marcus’ fashion choices. Why are we tucking a tie dye Affliction shirt into our jeans?

Jill Scott stays in Colorado with the sheriff after her husband asks for a divorce. Sure. If I didn’t realize that my husband was cheating on me with a woman he brought on our vacation, I would be so embarrassed that I moved out of state.  

Ah, Janet can fix things! After her friends come to her asking what to do about their relationships, we realize why she is an author and speaker. Janet tells her friends to make a pro/con list about their relationships and decide based on that. What!?! C’mon Tyler, you’re not even trying. 

The men aren’t much better. Janet’s husband gives them all another version of the 80/20 rule, and they complain some more about their relationships. Does any of this help? I guess so, because...

Months later (?), everyone shows up to support Janet getting some kind of book award. Even Jill Scott, who forgot to tell everyone that she stayed in Colorado and got remarried to the sheriff. Maybe some of Jill’s “friends” should have checked in with her a little more.

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LAST ACTION HERO (1993)

For years, I have used this title as a punching bag for bad movies that nearly bankrupted studios. But I've never seen it.

UNTIL NOW.

Lets take the time machine back to 1993, which was one of those blockbuster years for movies. We got Jurassic Park, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Tombstone, etc. It was a good time to be a movie going kid. And then there was Last Action Hero, which Schwarzenegger got $15 million to make.

If you haven't seen this movie, its about an impressionable boy who's only crime is to love the movies, so much so that he skips school to go, only to be pulled into a level of ultraviolence parading as fun as Schwarzenegger mugs for the camera. He learns a very valuable lesson in that violence always gets you what you want. #murica

I do not doubt the talents of the cast and crew that were hired to make this. As is the usual case with these movies,  I know that hundreds of hours of talented people's lives went into this and they can't be at fault. I did pinpoint where this movie goes wrong.

(Yes I know this movie is a parody of action movies - in case you were starting to draft a comment about it)

Here's the thing that puts a damper on the whole production.

This face:

They put this face near children, folks. A studio put money behind it and that's what happened.

Our story involves a kid skipping school, going to the movies and getting a golden ticket which allows the creation of worse movie making to enter an already bad movie. Step aside Intersteller - this movie will really scramble your head of space and time.

The star of Touched by an Angel and Lawnmower Man 1 and 2 is a seemingly wide eyed innocent kid who just really loves super violent movies. We also find out he likes to say disturbing things like "Who do I gotta kill around here to get in to see that movie?" His mother lies to cover for his truancy and during a disturbing scene where a meth head (I'm assuming) breaks in, terrorizes this kid, the police just shrug and say, "Tell your mom when she gets off her shift."

None of this bodes well.

I'm sure this sight gag was pitched as the big joke of the movie. And here it is.

You should also know that Arnold Schwarzenegger plays two characters. One is his movie within a movie character and the other is himself. Sort of a pre-Being John Malkovich. Just without the thoughtful script and without Arnold out mugging himself in every scene.

This movie has probably one of the best lines of dialogue ever written: "What you want a bunch of guys dancing and throwing cocaine at each other? Just kick the door in!"

This child gets to sit and drive through mass explosions and have a gun discharged within inches of his face. Had more people seen this movie, I'm sure the parental outrage would have been through the roof.

Impressionable Child : "Where are you going?"
Arnold "Got to catch the red eye."

(slow applause)

I realize that this is a parody of action films. I realize that none of it is supposed to be taken seriously. Its just a little trouble how easy this movie hands guns to minors and has them blow groups of people away.

That being said, Arnold and this kid's negligent Mom really hit it off.

Given that this is the year 2014 and we've seen horrific headlines over the past few years, I don't think I need to describe how unsettling this scene was.

Hilariously (I guess) Arnold 1 and Arnold 2 end up in the same theater together, each one trying to out act the other. Again, a great idea in the pitch room. In practice, its just two hammy guys winking at the camera.

This kid gets put in the most traumatizing circumstances and the movie merely shrugs its shoulders and barrels on into the next action sequence. And don't tell me since its parody, the kid would be fine because once I dreamt that we had an intruder in our house because my dad didn't patch up the walls made by the Kool Aid guy breaking through it earlier and I woke up in a cold sweat #truestory

The movie has three factors. Either Schwarzenegger is mugging....

Or this kid is explaining something in a high whiny voice...

Or firearms are being used obscenely inappropriately.

One might argue that that's pretty much most action movies of the 80s and 90s, but I'll tell you this. At least Die Hard didn't ask a child to murder.


Thoughts? Feel free to discuss in the comments or on our Facebook page or Twitter.

INFERNO (1999)

I think the movie's tagline says it all...

"Left for Dead. Burning for Revenge..."

I get chills just thinking about it. That and the fact this was brought to us by the same guy who made a squeaky voiced Ralph Macchio roar.

This is how we meet our hero...

Drunk and passed out. You can't see it, but his motorcycle is crumpled up in a heap somewhere off in the distance. Maybe it was written in the script but something tells me this is just JCVD being JCVD.

Its now occured to me that the movie's tagline "Left for dead..." isn't exactly true. More like "Wasted Loser Life, Might Get Up Later."

The other thing we establish very quickly is that JCVD's best friend is a guy named Johnny Sixtoes. No one questions this last name, they just plow into the story as if we all didn't just hear one of the silliest names in movie history.

As the movie will explain to you (through the ramblings of a drunk JCVD) he's here in the middle of nowhere to drink himself to death over his actions while serving in the Army. Honoring his Army training, he recklessly fires shots in the air, which makes Johnny Sixtoes disappear (the name stays though) and a group of guys in a truck appears upset about JCVD's inability to understand gun safety.

What follows is flareups of tempers and conflict that could have easily been avoided had these guys just driven away from the gunfire. But that would have been a blissfully short movie and we would have watched another 75 minutes of JCVD slobbering unconsciously.

If there's one thing this movie has that other Van Damme movies don't is that Jean-Claude is rocking a cowboy hat for most of it. He clearly really likes himself in said hat, because once its on, he seems reluctant to be without it.

Guns, grenades and cowboy hats....Van Damme for President 2016.

It should be mentioned...

Mr. Miyagi is in this. His role in this movie is useless, which is fantastic because its long been forgotten and he can remain a cherished icon of our childhoods. Instead, he works at a dumpy diner with this little love interest (van DAMN!)

Her acting is genuine - it says, "I'm playing a character that doesn't know she's supposed to kiss Jean Claude Van Damme later."

Johnny Sixtoes comes back. He's also Danny Trejo, pretending we don't remember his name is actually Johnny Sixtoes.

He hangs out, soothes Jean Claude's ego and then disappears into the night. God bless you Johnny Sixtoes. I'm hoping for the sequel where we meet his wife, Susie Fourthumbs.

You would think this movie would be about JCVD overcoming his suicidal guilt Army thoughts, but no, its just about him getting back at the guys who got mad at him for almost shooting them. So his plan of attack is, kill the guys and have Hot Waitress and Mr. Miyagi help dispose of the bodies, making this one of the darkest movies I've watched for this blog (please keep in mind I sat through two Insane Clown Posse productions).

I realize JCVD wants us to know that he's a formidable force for good, but when you garble out dialog and insist on wearing cowboy hats that are too big for your head, it just defeats the purpose.

Man loves his hat. Not much else you can say about it.

He does take it off from time to time though...

Because its extremely hard to do a roundhouse kick in one. If Chuck Norris has mastered it, then he's not showing it nor talking about it.

The lesson we learn from this is that if you're depressed, do whatever makes you feel better. If someone has a problem with it, feel free to introduce them to Sonny & Cher (aka your fists).

"You guys, I'm really working my way through the grumpies. Thanks!"

Better than therapy, albeit way more messy. No word on how Mr. Miyagi and Johnny Sixtoes coping skills have held up.

Thoughts? Feel free to discuss in the comments or on our Facebook page or Twitter.

DOLLS (1987)

Its another Halloween - lets find something that tries so hard to chill the inner workings of our soul and fails on every level. So we're going to talk about the movie Dolls.

You should know this movie holds a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Whaaaaaaaat?!?!?!

Our story involves six people stranded in a creepy mansion in the middle of nowhere  (so far, our story wins originality points). There's a little girl and her love withholding father and mother,  and two Madonna clones.

Parents, if your child isn't getting the love and attention they need from home, they will look for it in creepy dolls. Its science.

They end up in the quaintly creepy home of an elderly couple who makes dolls and seems a wee bit too attached to them but still the best example of parenting you're going to get in this film.

So cruel and uncaring parents have made Judy give up their teddy bear, but Judy gets something waaaaay better - this Punch doll. FACT - Punch dolls are twice as cuddly as teddy bears and kids just can't get enough of Punch's violent tendencies.

As you can guess, its a night of terror, with people being picked off. First to go is the Desperately Seeking Susans...

After watching these two try to steal from the elderly couple, and then get beaten up...

...and shot by a firing squad, its not a bad idea to have killer dolls as your house security system.  Lets see that pitch on Shark Tank.

Next up is the cruel mother. The dolls looked for a heart and couldn't find one. So they attacked her post-shower and sent her out the window. Here's where I'm really impressed with these killers. No laziness here - they actually bring the body back (cleaned up the mess) and put it back in the bedroom.

Dad runs into the same character flaw that most horror movie characters do. He's unloving and insensitive  but incredibly bland. Espescially when it comes to the fact there's a chance homicidal dolls are out for blood.

They're also the spirits of others, but whatevs. Shrug it off.

As you can imagine, things get a little out of hand.

I used to work at a toy store where we had a whole wall full of Madame Alexander dolls. There is no difference between them and what I just watched.

NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL.

And to the surprise of no one, Punch turns on Judy. There's a big fight that involves human adults fighting off tiny dolls. Its stupider than it sounds. Also, there's a lesson...

Its a very serious lesson and if you're not paying attention you'll miss its subtleness.

The kindly old people explain they have guests over all the time. But they put their guests through a test  to see if you respect childhood and are pure of heart - if you fail, you're dismembered by a doll. Sort of like Willy Wonka's less socially acceptable brother.

And we end with another group of terrible people coming to stay at the Doll house ignoring, what I'm assuming is its many negative Yelp reviews.

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