Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION (Netflix)

THE FORTY-YEAR-OLD VERSION, that just premiered on Netflix this past weekend, is thankfully another solid original from the streaming platform, and yet another movie you probably haven’t heard of. Why is it always the good ones that no one hears about or watches, yet you guys kept jerking off to Hubie Halloween this past weekend? Seriously, has this pandemic gotten you all on the spectrum? HOW HAS HUBIE HALLOWEEN BEEN #1 ON NETFLIX SINCE FRIDAY YOU FUCKING HACKS?!?!? **cools down** Anyway, for every Hubie there is something like this that maybe people will discover weeks, months, or years down the line, especially if it gets an Oscar nomination or two this year. I don’t know if this will, haven’t done much research on it other than that it’s 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDB describes this film with the following: “Radha is a down-on-her-luck NY playwright, who is desperate for a breakthrough before 40. Reinventing herself as rapper RadhaMUSPrime, she vacillates between the worlds of Hip Hop and theater in order to find her true voice.” Although the movie bogs down in some cliches, such as her embarrassing herself the first time she is on stage, the best friend agent, and the unlikely love interest, those aspects are quickly forgiven when you realize this is an excellently told gentrification movie about gentrification and overcoming those odds. This isn’t only surface level in your face gentrification themes like the ho-hum Vampires Vs. The Bronx that came out a couple of weeks ago on the same streaming platform. This gentrification is much more subtle, and it goes deep down under the surface, where it should be.

There are not any recognizable faces in this movie, so try to go in with an open mind, and this movie is also in black and white, which I think added a unique look and layer to the film other than if it had just been in color. There are a few snippets of color, but they are used in the right places to strap down the themes the movie has in store for you. With all of that, and even a tad bit over a two hour run time, the movie is very entertaining and well acted. Radha Black has not only crafted an important screenplay that opens the window a little into her biographical life while hitting home important racial and sex themes, but she even has some solid acting chops and a nice eye behind the camera. I don’t know what made her film this in black and white, but it was definitely a nice touch and makes it stand out from other films in that genre. She also frames shots very well, and moves the camera to character point of view with perfect flow and grace. The freestyle rapping was actually decent, didn’t feel staged or fake and had some nice beats. The film also took its time to get to familiar story beats which made them not so familiar, even when you know what is going to happen at the end of the opening night of her play that was taken over by pretentious white douche bags. The subtle themes relating to Radha’s mother was a nice little footnote in the story as well, very emotional. There is nothing much more to say other than to give this movie a chance if you are looking for a pleasing drama that is smart if you need a vacation from the dumb stupid idiotic same old same old bullshit from Adam Sandler. Come on guys, let’s either get him to do better or cancel his ass altogether. Grow some brains during this fucking shit year.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: SPONTANEOUS

SPONTANEOUS not only easily enters one of my top 5 films of the year so far, but it is easily the best blind buy I have ever made on VUDU. Ever. It also joins Palm Springs and The Devil All The Time as two of the best straight to streaming movies I have ever seen. And…you’ve probably never heard of this film. That’s okay, that’s what I’m here for. It stars 13 Reason’s Why Katherine Langford (she played Hannah Baker) and IMDB describes it with the following: “Get ready for the outrageous coming-of-age love story about growing up…and blowing up. When students in their school begin exploding (literally), seniors Mara and Dylan struggle to survive in a world where each moment may be their last.” It sounds sort of like schlocky fun right? WRONG. This movie takes itself as seriously as it should, blending a pitch perfect trifecta of tone, romance, and dramedy (mostly drama). I was enthralled the entire hour and 41 minute run time and I couldn’t believe how invested I was in the story, characters, the atmosphere of the movie, everything about it. It was also very eerie, because when you watch it you can easily make sound parallels with what is happening in the movie to the bullshit year we’ve been having because of COVID-19. The movie is bloody fun, but it is also very moving, tense, and I was choked up with moments by the end credits. It breaks the 4th wall a couple of times, but not enough to be annoying, and I’m a breaking the 4th wall connoisseur. This movie is better than it had any right to be. It’s a horror film, a sci-fi film, a romance film, a teenage angst film, a quarantine film, a riveting drama, it’s an almost everything film, definitely not for young kids. It’s as if David Cronenberg’s Scanners fucked and had a baby with any John Hughes film you happen to have in your video library.

Any other year, if this movie had played in theaters, and I was a member of the Academy or a producer of this film, I would try and get Katherine Langford an Academy Award nomination. She completely sheds Hannah Baker from her persona…fuck, she sheds any other character she has ever played in other films and completely gives in to Mara’s weird yet lovable teen angst phase. I loved her in this movie. Charlie Plummer, who plays Dylan, is very solid, although I couldn’t tell much of a difference from his performance in this and another film I saw recently where he was also one of the main protagonists, Words On Bathroom Walls. I want to describe why this movie is so great and why it resonated with me so well, but to do that, I would have to divulge a lot of the surprises this movie has in store for you, so this is going to be one of my rare two paragraph reviews, even though I want to scream its praises. Let’s just say if you don’t like this movie, then it’s probably hard to please you with most movies, and you should stick with mind numbing cheap fare like that new American Pie Girls’ Rules movie, which I just reviewed earlier today. This movie was adapted from a novel I now want to read and directed by Brian Duffield, who has been more miss than hit in his career. He wrote the one time watch Underwater earlier this year and he also wrote Insurgent…the second shit film in the Divergent Series (which didn’t even finish the 4 film plan it had)…but he also wrote Netflix’s fun The Babysitter film. Spontaneous is easily his best and another film he wrote comes out next week that I’m definitely going to check out because of this, called Love and Monsters (he didn’t direct it though). He’s a great director here and wish he would try his hand at more. The spontaneous combustion is quite scary and serious, and he films it in a way where it looks real and not schlocky. I spontaneously wanted to watch this movie when I saw a trailer, but I encourage you to skip that and check it out after you spontaneously read just this review.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: AMERICAN PIE – GIRLS’ RULES

Is it wrong of me to not think this movie was THAT terrible? I mean, yes, it’s very inauthentic when you consider that it is supposed to be a girl centric version of an American Pie story and it is written by two guys. The film did keep my interest the whole way through…and I chuckled throughout it… so to me it was just…harmless? And better than all the other 4 straight to video American Pie Presents films? So am I recommending AMERICAN PIE – GIRLS’ RULES? The only answer I can come up with is ‘sort of’, as I appreciated more for what it was trying to do than Adam Sandler’s new bullshit Netflix Halloween film. It tried to gender swap the American Pie movie because of today’s overly ridiculous political correctness debacle, and it did it…politically correct…and to be fair, I think teenager girls will get a kick out of it, even though there is no way that they talk to each other likes the characters talked to each other in this movie. And if you are much older than a teenager, I guess if you have nothing else to watch and need something to quickly kill and hour and a half. It certainly isn’t boring, just don’t go in expecting any greatness spawned from the original four films. The only aspect that makes this an American Pie Presents movie is that one of the 4 main girls’ last name happens to be Stifler. Out of the five direct to video films, which I’ve only now seen this and Band Camp, I think there has been a new Stifler(s) in each one, and I couldn’t tell you how the fuck they all relate to each other. Maybe that’s the joke, each movie becomes so much more convoluted involving the Stifler family tree that it wants viewers to take the Tenet approach, “Don’t try to understand it, just feel it.”

IMDB describes this film with the following: “It’s Senior year at East Great Falls. Annie, Kayla, Michelle, and Stephanie decide to harness their girl power and band together to get what they want their last year of high school.” That harnessing their girl power turns into a way too coincidental plot of them accidentally falling for and going after the same guy. And since this new guy at school happens to be cool and not an asshole, us viewers know that he isn’t going to try and end up with all four girls. The plot is so ridiculous and convoluted that you know exactly what girl he ends up with when they meet on screen for the first time, and you know what other guys the other three girls end up with as soon as they first show up to share the screen as well. For me, the movie was all about the crude and sexual humor jokes surrounding the outlandish plot. They involve the girls saying weird stuff about their bodies, sex toys including vibrating underwear, randomly screaming obscenities, and I’ll admit it, I chuckled, so sue me. The movie isn’t just dirty humor the whole way through at least, it knows when to lay it’s sweet and charming chips on the table and actually bring some humanity into the mix. The acting is decent for a direct to video debut as well, as it seems like more of a real movie than the other spin offs brought us. Sara Rue plays the school’s new principal and her scenes were probably the best of the bunch with that picture perfect blend of crude humor and charm. And Danny Trejo seems to have filmed his scenes maybe after production was done as a silent Janitor, but those didn’t work for me as it felt like an excuse to have one recognizable face in the credits. There’s nothing more to say about this film other than that if you go in expecting a harmless crude and sexual humor romp that in no way masters the greatness of the original four American Pie films, you maybe won’t be disappointed. Who knows, my brain might be a pie chart right now whose sanity is just a tiny, incoherent, sliver of a piece.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: BOOKS OF BLOOD (Hulu)

BOOKS OF BLOOD, a Hulu Original Movie that released a couple of days ago, is just generic and bland horror, plain and simple. There are a couple of good yet cheap jump scares and a couple of neat bloody visual shots, but for the most part it is all uninteresting, schlocky cheap, not frightening, and the intertwining of the three stories near the end left a lot to be desired. IMDB describes the movie with the following: “A journey into uncharted and forbidden territory through three tales tangled in space and time. Based on the Books of Blood, a series of horror fiction collections written by the British author Clive Barker, Books of Blood adapts Clive Barker’s framing device story from his novels but also includes brand new stories written for this film that Barker was involved in creating.” In essence, this is a sequel to the much superior film Book of Blood (they went with just an S here, like Aliens did), released in 2009, but more of a reboot/remake as the main story that binds the other two together is the same from the 11 year old film, just rewritten with different story elements and plot twists. Other than a couple of good scares and some neat bloody visuals. the only other compliment I could give it is that it has two decent performances from Britt Robertson and Anna Friel. Other than that, if Clive Barker did help coming up with these brand new stories, which is kind of confusing because the screenplay is credited by two others, then he is truly out of his game, and hasn’t been relevant since his decent novels, stories, and filmography of the mid 80s to early 90s.

I’m just going to list a one sentence little log line in my own words for each story:

The first story involves a professional killer whose latest assignment clues him in on a priceless book, called The Book of Blood, that may allow him and his wife to permanently retire.
The second story involves Jenna, a depressed and hypersensitive girl who suffers from ‘misphonia’ (an abhorrence of sound), and as she learns her mother is about to send her back to the psyche ward, she steals her cash and sets out for Los Angeles and may or may not end up at the BnB from hell.
The last story involves Mary, a psychologist who has gained fame as a skeptic that debunks all theories or beliefs that are not solely scientifically based after she lost her 7-year-old son to leukemia and then met Simon, a potential medium.

The way the stories are linked together before the end credits and the content in them individually are anemic and clumsy. Frustrating too because all the stories show potential but they back off before that potential is fully realized. There are not any likable characters among them all. The best story of the three is the 2nd one which stares Britt Robertson. Even though all the characters are a bit flat, her performance, and along with Anna Friel, who plays Mary in the third story I mentioned, clearly showed that they tried with what they were poorly given. The stories don’t “tangle” organically, as you can tell that a couple of threads were thought up of last minute to try and make the viewer exclaim, “oh so that’s what that was!” I’d like to think that people are smarter than that and also answered with, “Nah, we ain’t buyin’ it.” One of the teleplay writers hasn’t done much, wrote the mediocre The Haunting In Connecticut, and wrote the abysmal Carnosaur and Snoop Dogg’s 2001 horror film, Bones, so with Adam Simon, you get what you pay for. However, the other teleplay writer, Brannon Braga (who also directed), should know better, as he has written some great episodes of television, such as 24, The Orville, Cosmos, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. It doesn’t even seem to be as if he’s trying here. The only thing this movie made me want to do is go out and search for Clive Barker’s 6 ‘Books of Blood’ that were published in 1984 and 1985 and read those. I bet they would make for a great Halloween treat. This ‘book’ I threw after slamming down the back cover in angry angst, hoping that I could draw blood from it.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: CHARM CITY KINGS (HBO Max)

Out of three original movies since their launch (American Pickle and Unpregnant, I count Class Action Park as more of a documentary than movie) CHARM CITY KINGS is easily HBO Max’s best. And most of you, including me, probably haven’t heard of it. For me to describe it easily to you, it’s a 2 hr youngster, gangsters with dirt bikes, redemption drama. IMDB describes it with the following: “Fourteen-year-old Mouse desperately wants to join the Midnight Clique, an infamous group of Baltimore dirt-bike riders who rule the summertime streets.” This Midnight Clique, what you can garner from my description, they rule the streets both physically AND metaphorically. And while the movie does relegate to gangster group and youngsters trying to avoid a life of crime cliches during its runtime, and the movie drags just a tiny bit in the second half, the movie keenly kept my attention the entire run time, I thought it was very entertaining, the acting is top notch and the direction is visually striking. I haven’t heard of actor Jahi Di’Allo Winston, apparently he is great in a television series called Everything Sucks! but he’s fantastic here as Mouse, and I’ve heard of Meek Mill, I’m not too familiar with his regular music except when it’s in movies like Creed or Spring Breakers, but he’s a pretty damn good actor as well. However if you are looking for mainly dirt bike action sequences & stunts, other than a pretty neat chase at the beginning where the camera glides across the inner city effortlessly and the end credits, it was lacking just a little bit. Director Angel Manuel Soto, who I’m not familiar with, does a remarkable job with the rest of the film, there is neat camera work even in the tightest of spots, and I look forward to his future career.

For me though, not having that many dirt bike action sequences worked, because it easily could’ve been a movie that was all stunts, action and no substance. This has plenty of substance. The screenplay was written by Sherman Payne, who apparently has written the worst episodes of both Shameless and Season 3 of Scream The TV Series (yikes). Charm City Kings stretches his craft for sure, but that probably had something to do with the story was thought up by Barry Jenkins, whose film Moonlight won best picture at the Oscars several years ago (deservedly so although I would’ve loved for La La Land to have one) and even though I didn’t much care for If Beale Street Could Talk, it was written and directed well for what it was. Now Barry Jenkins is doing a live action CGI sequel to Jon Favreau’s terrible shot by shot CGI live action remake of The Lion King and all I have to say is…good luck with that. Anyway, the film is really really good for something straight to streaming. It’s not masterful or even great, but it’s very good. The movie even made me choke up a bit. Mouse has a side job as a veterinarian before he gets involved with the clique, so you can see everything that is coming from a mile away, but at least they didn’t totally abandon his vet skills like so many movies have done before, hoping you forget about a character’s gifts so that they can bring it back in an emotional climax. I also would’ve liked to see a bit more with the female love interest for Mouse, but at least it had a completed arc. But it’s the Winston and Mill show here and their chemistry and their scenes together make Charm City Kings for what it is, not so much the king of streaming movies, but a worthwhile charm.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: BLACK BOX (Amazon Prime)

You ever watched one of those movies where you guess what is going on and what will happen the rest of the movie about a third of the way into it? And then once ALL of your predictions start coming true, one by one, even though the movie is still a half way decent one time watch, you kind of zone out a bit and you emotionally lose investment in the characters and what is happening on screen? That’s BLACK BOX, which is basically just Get Out (funny, because it’s from Blumhouse, the producers of that movie too) but on a much smaller, more personal scale and absolutely no racial undertones (in fact I think there was only one white character in this and she has about two lines). Yeah, I probably just gave a clue to many twists and turns within this film, but there is really no way to describe how I feel without hinting to you why I lost interest, even though there was nothing wrong with the execution of the story, what was wrong is that it didn’t go anywhere that other movies haven’t been to before. SSDD, Same Shit, Different Day. Black Box is part of a Blumhouse set of four ‘Welcome To The Blumhouse’ movies that the first two, where this and The Lie (reviewed it yesterday) came out Tuesday, and then Nocturne and Evil Eye come out next Tuesday. IMDB describes the movie with the following: “After losing his wife and his memory in a car accident, a single father undergoes an agonizing experimental treatment that causes him to question who he really is.” What really kind of irks me about the whole thing is that it stars one of my top ten favorite rising actors, Mamoudou Athie, and he’s just not getting the more than solid projects that he is capable of being masterful in. I mean…maybe in another two years, as he apparently has a substantial role in Jurassic World: Dominion?

And you know you always got to get into a blockbuster movie before you are offered other and better roles I guess nowadays. He has starred in much more smaller fare throughout his whole career. He was in Underwater that came out in January of this year, but he was in the film no more than 10 minutes before getting killed off. I know him from and started gaining keen interest into his career from one of his first independent feature debuts, called Patti Cakes, where he plays the weird love interest. He was also the only good thing about Brie Larson’s directorial debut Unicorn Store, and his best film so far, was earlier this year on Netflix, called Uncorked. Highly recommend you check either the latter out or Patti Cakes. He’s good in Black Box too, probably the best thing about the movie as it does stretch his range as an actor, it’s just the script and story around him is very plain and dry, so much so that the plot could be used in a beat by beat example in a Screenwriting For Dummies 101 book. The movie basically slaps you in the face early on of what is going on before it is revealed midway through, and the clues definitely could’ve been more subtle. I hate it when movies scream in your face in order for you to “get it” once it shows you it’s hand after the river card. Then once all is revealed, I pointed at the screen and said, “okay now this character is going to do this and this and this and this, and this other character is eventually going to come into the fray and do this and this and this and this, and then redemption story arc complete, obligatory sequel scene, end credits.” And I was 100% on the mark.

The film also stars Clarie Huxtable herself, Phylicia Rashad, and as the doctor trying to help this man gain his memories back she was adequate, but then once some things come into the light, she seemed a little too low key and under qualified for the role. Though maybe it’s just me on that one. The acting is good all around other than that, and when he enters the black box, his memory like sequences that come back to the protagonist are nice and creepy like any Blumhouse movie should be, there just wasn’t enough of them. There are only two, when there should’ve been 4 or 5, and the movie also should’ve been a bit longer than an hr and 40 minutes, where they could’ve saved the big reveal a little bit more than just halfway into it. They hired that dude that can contort his body all around to be an evil entity in the memory sequences, Troy James (used him better in the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark movie), there just wasn’t enough of him to make a creepy enough impact like he’s been in other movies. In summation, you’ve seen different iterations of this movie done plenty of times before, and done much better, which is probably why this film went straight to streaming instead of into theaters, regardless of the pandemic, in my opinion, it is where it needs to be. The film very much lags in the second half of the film when the protagonist goes to visit one of the people he sees in his unearthed memories. It was a 15 minute scene that needed to be about only half that. When you have a movie about trying to conjure up lost memories, you need just more than two for the audience to get emotionally invested with what is happening. Only two feels like a budgetary and screenwriting cop out, and for a movie titled Black Box, it was a little disappointing to open up and discover no surprises.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE LIE (Amazon Prime)

THE LIE’s twist ending, which I predicted a mile away, might make or break your opinion of the whole film, and that ending will unfortunately overshadow how many stupid actions the characters make during the course of it. There are many idiotic mistakes and decisions that A. don’t make any logical sense and B. cause too many plot holes. For me, even though I predicted the ending, it was still frustrating because some of the scenes earlier in the film contradicted the reveal when revealed. The movie was written and directed by Veena Sud, who I just gave great praise to in Quibi’s The Stranger and I loved her television show The Killing, and while the way the film is shot, the desperate tone, the dark mood, atmosphere, and acting are all top notch, the screenplay for me was a giant problem here. You will constantly be screaming at the screen the correct decisions the characters needed to make and then wondering if anyone is legitimately that idiotic in real life (spoiler alert: there is, anybody deeply involved in politics). There are no politics in this however, only moral dilemmas, but the characters are so horribly underwritten that their moral decisions are unfocused, blurry, confusing, and make no sense in contrast to scenes that have just played out for the audience. This was filmed in 2018 and has been sitting on Blumhouse’s shelf for a couple of years, nobody really knowing what to do with it. Nothing like a pandemic delaying the blockbusters to just dump stuff like this on streaming services to give lazy pussies something to watch, am I right???

IMDB describes THE LIE, originally titled ‘Between Earth and Sky’ (WTAF?!?), with the following: “A father and daughter are on their way to dance camp when they spot the girl’s best friend on the side of the road. When they stop to offer the friend a ride, their good intentions soon result in terrible consequences.” Since the inciting incident happens no longer than ten minutes in, I’m just going to tell you what happens so you can gain some context into my review and the stupid decisions and things that happen afterward. The daughter and friend get the father to stop the car to go off to pee in the middle of a snowy forest and bridge that happens to be on the side of the road of the route they are taking, and the daughter, after a minor argument in the car moments earlier, pushes said friend into the chilly river and lake below. The rest of the movie is the father (played by Peter Sarsgaard) and the mother (Mireille Enos) trying to cover up what happened so that way their daughter (played by Joey King) won’t go to jail for murder and ruin her future. The stupid decisions literally start right after you hear a scream from the forest and the father comes upon his daughter on the bridge alone (he was respecting their privacy and waiting by the car for them to do their business, so he doesn’t see what happened). From there you get dumb decisions and actions such as:

1. When one character runs away from another in their neighborhood and seemingly gets away, the character that ran off immediately afterward starts walking slowly down the middle of the road in their neighborhood.

2. A character doesn’t answer the front door from a other angry character and thinks he/she can’t be seen in the house even though the windows behind he/she are all open for the world to see. Any sane person, if wanting to see if anyone is home combined with being really angry, can and WILL just go around to the back of the house to see if anyone is hiding.

3. The parents constantly tell their daughter to stay put, not to show herself, don’t come outside, etc etc other smart things that the daughter constantly disobeys not two seconds later.

4. Possible evidence at the crime scene is not only left and not looked for stupidly but the evidence that hasn’t been disturbed and needs to stay there is moronically taken back home by one of the characters.

5. The parents don’t interrogate the daughter correctly and ask the right questions, and the police are really really really dumb and their investigation is borderline malpractice here.

There are many more than just those five listed, and I don’t want to go into spoiler territory, but you should catch my drift. There are a few good things about this film, as I have mentioned earlier. It’s filmed really well. The mood, atmosphere, and tone is dark and dreary. The situation that would present a huge sense of dread among those involved in the real world is perfectly replicated here I think. All three key players, Sarsgaard, Enos, and King are all top notch here and their acting is great as always. The movie is certainly watchable, because even though I had a problem with it I can’t deny I was entertained for 95 minutes and wanted to see everything play out. And in a film that could’ve been written and handled much better than this was, the twist probably would’ve worked for me (I bet you can guess what the twist is already, I’ve provided enough clues as to what it is). But alas, it didn’t because of the contradictions to what came before combined with some pretty big plot holes. What it all really bogs down to is whether or not I give this a recommendation. While I was entertained, I really just can’t give it one, because when I try and think back fondly on it, the stupid character decisions and the loose screenplay keeps sinking into my brain to the point where I can no longer lie to myself. The truth is that it’s a frustrating miss and mess, plain and simple.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (Shudder)

Probably the last thing I’ll ever watch on the Shudder streaming service (yet you know me, don’t quote me on that), RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE had at least somewhat of an interesting well rounded idea, some awesome gory, disturbing special effects, and a solid ending. Too bad most of the execution leading to said ending was botched to shit by co-writer/director/co-star Jay Baruchel. I don’t get why this project wasn’t handed to someone with better experience. It’s a short (1 hr and 21 minutes) and watchable film, but I don’t have any desire to ever watch it again because the execution of everything wasn’t very memorable. IMDB describes the film with the following: “A pair of comic book writers begin to notice scary similarities between the character they created and horrific real-life events.” The entire film’s message is about the glorification of violence and criticizes how the depiction of it and the glamorization of serial killers in media can often negatively impact an audience when in reality they are just twisted people driven by no logical motives. That message is very unfocused, blurry yet somehow ham-fisted until the film’s last ten minutes. The other hour and ten minutes is filled with underdeveloped and unlikable characters, and some cringe worthy dialogue. Whoever was responsible for all the blood, guts, and glorious practical effects in this movie deserves a raise and better projects to work on, as some of those images were some of the most realistically disturbing I have seen since last year’s Midsommar.

Recognizable faces Jessie Williams, Jordana Brewster, and Jay Baruchel star in this movie and while Jessie Williams does a decent job with his underdeveloped protagonist, unfortunately for Jordana Brewster, who has always been nice on the eyes and always seems like she wants to be in the movies she’s in, her dialogue makes her performance hammy and too unrealistic, and Jay Baruchel is completely wasted here, playing yet another just depiction of himself. I’m sorry, but other than having a great voice for the lead in the How To Train Your Dragon series, Baruchel is not a great actor, and after this, Goon, and Goon 2, he isn’t a very good writer or director either. I would only want to recommend this movie to you if practical effects and some realistic disturbing images and violence are your jam. One guy gets stabbed about thirty times during the movie and it actually showed each and every jab of the knife into his torso and I cringed every time before impact. I’ll even recommend it to you if you want a decent ending with a decent message of the glorification of violence, but other than that, you are better off watching something else on the streaming service, such as Host or Spiral (NOT Saw 9). This movie is based on a graphic novel, but I have a feeling if a complete rewrite of the script were to have happened, maybe a bit longer with more developed and likable characters, and a bigger yet subtle focus on the film’s messages, there could’ve been something great here. I have a feeling though that Baruchel was just out of his league with this one, throwing random shit on the wall just to see what would stick.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: HUBIE HALLOWEEN (Netflix)

Holy shit, Sandler went full gibberish! HUBIE HALLOWEEN is the 2nd worst thing to happen to Americans in 2020. Stuck between a virus and a copter crash. On one hand, it is probably Sandler’s most tolerable Netflix original film to date. On the other hand, if you watch this, and actually laugh and enjoy it, then you might want to see someone, as you’re probably on the spectrum. Right at the very beginning of this film I moaned out, “oh no” as Ben Stiller shows up in a cameo as his awful orderly character from Happy Gilmore. Not too far after, there was another “oh no” out of me as there is a kid named O’Doyle that likes to pick on Sandler’s dumb character and after a prank yells out…you guessed it…”O’Doyle rules!” The man has run out of jokes and can’t come up with anything new that he has lowered himself to constantly bringing back and referencing his two most popular films from the 90s. Here’s a decent question: Why is it that Sandler has to come up with these stupid characters with jibberish names (Bobby Bouche in Waterboy, in this it’s Hubie Dubois) that almost speak literal jibberish because of his fast talking fucking annoying accents? Why does he keep using cheap, over-used physical bodily pain comedy that died over two decades ago? Why? I’m just so fucking tired of it. Aren’t you? And you know what the scariest thing about this absolutely non-frightening new Halloween film from the asshats at Happy Madison Productions? The scariest thing is that this is NOT the “worst film ever made” that Sandler promised us if he didn’t get nominated for an Oscar for the masterful Uncut Gems. No, this film was made last year before this year’s nominations were even announced. The horror. The horror of what’s to come.

IMDB describes Hubie Halloween with the following: “Despite his devotion to his hometown of Salem (and its Halloween celebration), Hubie Dubois is a figure of mockery for kids and adults alike. But this year, something is going bump in the night, and it’s up to Hubie to save Halloween.” Don’t be fooled by the rip off plot set up of a Michael Myers type escaping a mental institution to wreck havoc on Salem, the whole plot is a giant red herring and the reveal near the end is so unbelievably stupid and unbelievably unbelievable that you’ll laugh just at the fact that the movie tried to pull THAT rug out from under you. I’ve mentioned being frustrated by a film’s potential this year before, and again I am frustrated, because I’ll even admit it, there is a decent film in here somewhere. Turn Sandler into a normal nice guy that gets picked on by the town for no reason at all, a character without the jibberish talk and dumb childlike innocence, wrap him up in a people missing/getting “killed” murder plot, actually ADVANCE said plot instead of it just being skit scenes of Sandler being picked on by the town, HAVE NONE OF HIS FUCKING STUPID SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE FRIENDS IN IT, create a different inciting incident other than just another mental institution break out, completely change the “gotcha” ending, make it somewhat scary and you might have yourself another family friendly Halloween classic that you watch every year other than just Hocus Pocus. I know that seems like a lot to ask, but that’s all they had to do. But nope, it’s just been there, done that before, cheap and crude potty humor with no frights. There’s a boner joke throughout the movie that starts beating a dead horse the moment it is introduced, and don’t get me started on Hubie’s dumb fucking Swiss Army Thermos the film desperately wants the audience to think is funny.

You know what the sad part about this is? If you loved this year’s The Wrong Missy, also made by Happy Madison Productions, your dumb ass will probably love this more. Which goes to show you, you are the reason that blockbuster films are being delayed this year other than the virus, as your dumb fucking ass eating these shitty made “comfort food” movies, making them popular along with your overrated sports to where you don’t need to go to a theater, you’ve gotten pussified, lazy and pathetic. Why doesn’t Netflix hold Sandler accountable for the shit films he makes with his shitty contract with them? Oh, it’s because you fucking idiots watch his bullshit over and over and over again on the streaming platform, and they only have hearts made out of dollar signs. The only other positive thing I have to say about this film, other than that there is a decent movie in here somewhere, other than that there was no shameless product placement like in Sandler’s other films, and other than the only two things that made me chuckle were Kenan Thompson’s facial expressions to some tomfoolery and a Kevin James Muppet joke, was that the movie actually looked like a movie. Meaning the production design and direction were decent for what it was. It actually looked like a town that really enjoys Halloween. Gotta give the director Steven Brill, who also directed Sandler in Little Nicky and Mr. Deeds, but also directed him in Netflix’s The Do-Over and Sandy Wexler, yet gets a free pass from me for directing one of my favorites, Heavyweights, some kind of credit. Him and the crew actually tried to make everything around the mediocre story and Sandler look look legit. I desperately wanted to add this film to my recent review list of movies that I couldn’t finish in buttfucking 2020, but I also wanted to watch the whole thing just so I could tear it a new one in this review.

Every year Netflix still manages to have me place a new Sandler film in my worst of lists. Last year Sandler surprisingly had a movie on both my worst and near the top of my favorite lists. That’s likely never to happen again though. It’s just a fast, who gives a fuck, script to get Sandler and friends some kind of paycheck, so they can buy more expensive and useless shit in their regular lives. At least this time the plot wasn’t set on some exotic locale just for an excuse to give Sandler, family, and friends a vacation along with a paycheck…although Sandler’s wife and his kids of course show up in cameos in this. Almost forgot to mention, the film has an interesting side plot with one of Julie Bowen’s character’s kids (Will from Stranger Things) having interest in a girl a little older than him. But once that girl shows interest in him too, the side plot is over, as there is no conflict thrown into the ring to make it a little more interesting, not even a cliched “she already has a boyfriend” predicament! Sandler looks bored even though he tries to look lively with his dumb shenanigans, Julie Bowen looks like she really misses Modern Family, wondering why the fuck she’s in a movie like this and why her character would have any interest in Hubie in real life, Kevin James is annoyingly stupid and awful in this, Steve Buscemi is embarassing, Shaq shows up in a dumb and tired scene that’s ultimately embarassing too, and even Sandler’s other SNL friends seem dumb downed and desperate here, including, but not limited to: Maya Rudolph, Rob Schneider, and Tim Meadows. We have to make this shit stop, so please do not watch this like I did. I only watched this to warn all of you to stay far, far away. It already makes me sad that Halloween this year is probably already ruined because some dumb ass Chinese guy ate an under cooked bat, but now Adam Sandler has thrown his hat into the ring to ruin it further. This film will make you wish you were in the same universe as his Click movie, with a remote control to fast forward all of us to whenever this depressing shit ends.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: VAMPIRES VS. THE BRONX (Netflix)

Yes, VAMPIRES VS. THE BRONX is a real Netflix original movie, but no, the movie isn’t as fun and schlocky as it sounds, and that is part of its problem. With a title like this one, or Snakes On A Plane, or Sharknado, you either go full fun, non-scary, dumb yet entertaining schlock, or you go home. This movie tries to be too The Lost Boys or Blade, and in doing so, doesn’t even get close to replicating their classic magic, and so this films title doesn’t live up to what is seemingly promised. This movie is too tonally in the middle of all those movies I just mentioned, which in turn makes it a cookie cutter, run of the mill, PG-13, bloodless, ho-hum, lame, by the numbers, assembly line product you’ve already seen and rejected before. I should’ve expected it though. The marketing for it, which little there was, only started the week before this film premiered, the trailer was bland, and the poster for it is one of the worst photo shopped shitty pieces of art that I’ve ever seen in my life. However, after watching the whole thing, it is not one of the worst films of the year. It’s just…there…and in about a week will be lost with all the other standard stuff that Netflix keeps rolling out each and every week. It’s frustrating because this film does show a lot of promise as I laughed out loud at some of the jokes, the film even has some familiar faces in it and everybody involved seemed like they wanted to be there. But it didn’t go where it needed to go to be a memorable schlocky romp that I was hoping it was going to be. It’s as if you opened up a coffin in a scary castle, saw the most vicious looking vampire you have ever seen in your life and they suddenly open their eyes. Yet it somehow isn’t intimidating to you, so you yawn, close the coffin, walk away and the son of a bitch doesn’t even have the audacity to try and chase you down and drink your blood.

Per IMDB, it describes this movie as: “A group of young friends from the Bronx fight to save their neighborhood from gentrification…and vampires.” It’s a simple description, yet reading between the lines it teases something that could be quite special. I was expecting it say something about race, gentrification, and middle-class. In a nutshell, I was expecting it to poke fun at white people. I mean, not that this really is a spoiler, but the heroes and good guys in this are African-American kids, their parents, and the community around them…and the vampires are all white for goodness sake. Surely the film would play with that and say several somethings about that scenario to its advantage, but other than one gangster pulling out a gun and calling one of the vampire’s ‘Hamilton’ because of its git-up, there are no really no other solid or smart jokes that cater to what the film might be trying to get at. In the end, there wasn’t enough tonal focus for me to even say with any complete confidence if the film even truly had a message buried deep down inside it, because it was all over the place tonally. There is a small fun scene, that only lasts less than 20 seconds, of our heroes stocking up on vampire hunting gear that was interesting, such as filling water balloons with holy water, but that kind of goofy fun (it reminded me of writer/director Edgar Wright and his ‘getting ready close up quick shots’) was short lived nor was it done as often as it should have. And there is only one funny vampire kill. That just cannot be in a film titled Vampires Vs. The Bronx. Not to mention all the kills are bloodless, off camera, and if a vampire does get killed we get that shitty disintegrating CGI that makes Blade’s seem as though it should’ve been nominated for an Oscar in special effects.

I hardly blame the direction, it’s completely the screenplay. The movie looks and feels like a movie, as director Osmany Rodriguez keeps shots somewhat dark in tone, and even in the daylight there was a gritty feel to the cinematography. I kind of dug the look of everything. The screenplay is co-written by him, but the other writer is a white guy. Remember how some of you felt that Antebellum or Green Book was inauthentic because a writer/co-writer/director was white? Same thing here, and I think that this Blaise Hemingway…who co-wrote Uglydolls and the awful Playmobile: The Movie mind you, should’ve taken a story by credit and handed the script fully to Osmany or another writer for a full rewrite. The familiar faces, Sarah Gadon, Shea Whigham, Method Man, and a glorified cameo from Zoe Saldana, look like they are having fun and want to be there, and the 4 hero kids definitely look like they want to be there and are having fun, but the final product doesn’t match their enthusiasm. The vampires come off as really stupid, and not in a fun, smart and jokingly way either. The action is tepid, there are no scares, tension, or any build up, and there is definitely not that much character development. I would even go to say that there were way too many characters for that given that it clocks in at only an hour and 25 minutes. Not really any plot arcs for any of them other than them telling the adults “told you so.” This film should’ve been about half an hour longer and taken its time getting to its revelations. The kids find out about the vampires not more than 15 minutes into this. In the end though, the most offensive thing about this movie is it’s title. It should’ve been titled something such as Bronx Nights or Blood Of The Bronx or it could have even sort of stolen Wes Craven’s shitty, mid-90s Eddie Murphy film and have it be called Vampires In The Bronx. Sorry, this movie does not earn the v or the s.