Zach’s Zany TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: DUMMY & DIE HART (Quibi)

Maybe I should add the word mean on the title of my WordPress Blog & Facebook page because when something is really bad and I’m in the state that I’m in right now, I just feel like tearing it a new asshole. Since I did a little research on QUIBI they count all of their programming on their app ‘television episodes’ or ‘webisodes’ and so even though I reviewed The Fugitive, Most Dangerous Game, and The Strangers as movies, from now on I’m just bumping everything offered by Quibi down to TV Binge Watchin’ ones since they’ve been nominated for Emmy’s, which is a television award. I watched a couple of more Quibi offerings over the weekend, both DUMMY and DIE HART, and I figured that I’d maybe double up with some Quibi reviews from now on since the comedies aren’t as long as the drama/thrillers are. Both Dummy and Die Hart are 10 episodes, ranging from 5 minutes to 9 minutes each, but not over or under. If they were movies, the max runtime they would be are about 90 minutes, minimum 50, but since each episode briefly, around 30 seconds, recaps the episode previously, and considering that every episode doesn’t max out at 9 minutes, they both definitely require less attention from you than if you were to see a regular comedy in the theater. I would say both Dummy and Die Hart range from an 1 hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 20, maybe, the minimum at least a little over an hour for each.

What I’ve also discovered from Quibi is that they have what is called ‘rotating’ technology. That means that no matter how you look at your phone screen, this app is limited to mobile only surprisingly, the image will center on what you need to be focused on if you are holding your phone vertically. Me? I prefer to watch everything widescreen to get the most out of the image possible, but I’ve noticed sometimes that when flipping vertically, that if the widescreen cuts off at the torso, the vertical view will show legs and feet, albeit on the person talking, instead of seeing two characters both in the same shot if you were to just stick to widescreen. Anyway, let’s get past this semi-interesting Quibi trivia and actually review these things shall we? From my intro, you could’ve probably predicted that both Dummy and Die Hart are my two least favorite offerings from Quibi thus far, the latter being truly terribly awful because of one of the actors I can’t stand involved. DUMMY stars Anna Kendrick and Donal Logue and IMDB describes it in the following: “An aspiring writer befriends her boyfriend’s sex doll and the two take on the world together.” Die Hart stars Kevin Hart, Nathalie Emmanuel, Josh Hartnett, and John Travolta and IMDB describes it in the following: “Kevin Hart plays a fictionalized version of himself on a quest to land the action-movie role of a lifetime.” If either of the premises make you scrunch up your face in a “really?” type expression, I can confirm you are likely to keep that scrunched up face the whole time if you watch one or both of these.

Dummy, with Anna Kendrick, is definitely the better of the two, even though I didn’t care for it. It is the better of the two because Kendrick is a pretty decent actress (and I’ve always found her to be a weird kind of sexy) during all of the ten episodes, and I like how Donal Logue is actually playing the creator of Rick and Morty, Dan Harmon. It’s just that the sex doll being able to communicate with Kendrick, and it just ends up saying a bunch of dirty jokes and naughty words gest old very, very fast. And the dirty jokes and naughty words completely only make up the anatomy of what a sex doll has on it and what men can do to it. Crusty sperm, body type, worn out prosthetic vagina, you name it, this show has an unoriginal joke for it that doesn’t even get in the ballpark of smart writing. The plot is semi interesting because Kenrick’s character is trying to write this pilot and the doll actually helps her form a new idea and get the ball rolling instead of constantly having writers block. The conclusion of the story is very weird though, but maybe it was meant to be a cliffhanger since these are technically TV episodes right? The creator of this show, Cody Heller, is actually really engaged to Rick and Morty’s Dan Harmon, and to have him in this story, albeit played by a professional actor, is pretty cool, but Donal Logue doesn’t really act like Dan Harmon. I’ve seen interviews with Dan Harmon, as I’ve been a fan of him since Community, and he is much weirder than Logue portrays him. Gun to your head, if you have to watch either of these, choose this one, as you might chuckle a little like I did.

Where I didn’t chuckle at all (alright fine, maybe once or twice only in webisode 7 of 10) was Die Hart. Truly fucking stupid and truly fucking awful. It would’ve been kind of cool if this premise was meant to be taken seriously and Kevin Hart was really trying to become an action star. But it’s just Kevin Hart being Hart as usual, and to me, usual for him is just screaming all of his fucking lines for laughs with no jokes, and acting like he doesn’t have a clue. John Travolta of course over acts in this (interestingly this role was written for Bruce Willis as himself but he turned it down, Travolta plays an original character) and they get the most screen time, so you can probably imagine what a slog this was to get through. Especially when the webisodes play up the “is this really happening or is this all scripted and planned by Travolta in his characters world?” type scenario. A really odd scene with Jean Reno near the end of one of the first batch of webisodes cooks the shows’ goose really fast (why didn’t they save that for an end reveal), and it is very easy to predict exactly how it was going to end. So during the journey to get to that predictable ending, I was constantly rolling my eyes. The only two celebrities in this that are going to be unscathed are Nathalie Emmanuel and Josh Hartnett. Josh Hartnett plays a fictionalized version of himself, and his bits are the only couple of things, in one out of 10 webisodes mind you, that made me chuckle (and also a blink and you’ll miss it reference back to him at the very end of the series). He wasn’t afraid to poke fun at some of his ‘action’ career and there was a pretty great Hollywood Homicide joke that made me chuckle pretty hard. Nathalie Emmanuel, while she acted like she wanted to be in this and did the best job she could with a very under written character, she’s unscathed for me here…well because she’s just so damn fine to look at. Only reason why I didn’t quit the series. From Game of Thrones to some of the Fast and Furious movies, to this, she is very, very easy on the eyes. Absolutely beautiful. She was the very tiny gold nugget you would find if you were to sift through all 10 shitty episodes in one sitting. I hope Die Hart doesn’t get renewed for a second season and dies fast.

Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: TROLLS WORLD TOUR

“Patience is a virtue. Especially when it comes to $19.99 PVOD rentals.” – Zachary James Alexander

I know I had a couple of guest reviewers take a shot at their thoughts for TROLLS WORLD TOUR a couple of months ago when they foolishly paid $19.99 for a 48 hour rental. Want to guess how much I paid? $5. The kids Universal Dreamworks Animation film was available to rent regularly this week, and since my young little boy likes that kind of shit with a lot of music in it, five bucks seemed like a pretty good deal. And my verdict? It’s honestly not that bad, in fact, I would say it is a superior sequel, as I can’t even remember for the life of me what happened in the first movie, other than I knew I was bored to tears and didn’t care for it. So what made me think this one was decent? Well, it’s really just a harmless 90 minute music video meant for kids and teaches them that all races of people, no matter the skin color or personality, can and should live in harmony. Errr, wait a minute, I said that wrong. It teaches them that all of the different Trolls, with their different varieties and preferred kinds of music, can and should live in harmony. Ah, that’s better. The movie flies by in a fast and frantic pace and is really the movie that Frozen II should’ve been when trying to incorporate political and social messages into its themes. Frozen II went wayyyyyy too dark for children and its end message of “anti-Trump wall and racist values” was eye roll worthy. Argue with me all you want, I proved with instances in my Frozen II review that it was all there. Trolls World Tour is much more light-hearted and doesn’t get too dark even though it still kind of annoyingly wears its messages on its sleeve.

Per IMDB, it describes Trolls World Tour as: “When the Queen of the Hard Rock Trolls tries to take over all the Troll kingdoms, Queen Poppy and her friends try different ways to save all the Trolls.” To add on to that description, the Queen of The Hard Rock Trolls is actually trying to steal all of the Troll kingdoms musical strings (Pop, Funk, Classical, Techno and Country) and convert all of them to JUST hard rock. So basically Hard Rock is Nazi Germany in this instance. Oh, also, half way through the film they mention that the Troll World Map is “outdated” and that there are many more kinds of different trolls and music out there now. See what I mean when I say that it wears its messages on its sleeve? However, it’s harmless and tolerable because of how bright and chipper every story beat is to the very end, even on a 2 second downer note in the climax. It manages to still be a purely innocent kids movie, something that Frozen III should probably take notes on before the script and songs are written for that film in several years. There aren’t many original songs here, the film mostly consists of remixes of current and older songs that you might’ve enjoyed personally or with family and friends over the years. And the remixes are actually kind of cool and catchy. Anna Kendrick, Rachel Bloom, Justin Timberlake and others sing their hearts out in this, and it all sounds good and is enjoyable…to a degree for me.

I’m not saying the movie is great, it’s just half way decent. Probably because my expectations were quite low when hitting that play button. But my young son liked it and my wife and I paid attention to it. I got a little more out of it than I was expecting. Heck, I even laughed out loud a couple of times. Mostly scenes that involved Kenan Thompson, as a new troll named Tiny Diamond, whenever he would open his mouth and then a very dry humorish, 2 second, blind-and-you’ll-miss-it laugh involving a troll shaking its ass right in front of another troll’s face who is not amused (it happens in the country Troll scene if you are on the look out for it). There is also a side B, C & D plots that involve Timberlake’s troll actually being able to be in love with Kendrick’s troll (that’s what she said), a troll that lived in the Pop Music part of the world who realizes he’s actually from a different part of it, and a pinky promise that have tiny little pay offs that weren’t too shabby. I can’t stress this enough, it’s a harmless kids movie. It’s not as terrible as some of my friends and professional critics are making it out to be and it’s not the greatest movie ever that probably flew out of some kids mouths while in quarantine. It’s serviceable, it’s there, it easily kills 90 minutes of your boring quarantine life time. You will either jam to the beat of the music or, at the bare minimum, nod your head to it. It’s definitely not worth the $19.99 rental it was in April, but is sure more than a bargain at $5 now.

Zach’s Zany 2 Guests Movie Reviews: TROLLS WORLD TOUR (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Wait For A Cheap Rental)

Hey Zach here to start off this bitch before I post two GUEST reviews of TROLLS: WORLD TOUR, for which I was cheap enough not to pay for a 48 hr. $20 rental and wait till later this year when it’s like $3 to watch only once. See, I’m a fan of Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, etc for allowing those who missed their most recent movies in theaters to just buy them for $19.99 soon after this COVID-19 decided to fuck everyone in the asshole. But Universal, little pricks that they are, with their movies such as The Hunt, Emma, The Invisible Man, and now this Trolls sequel, said “fuck that fuck ’em, charge them $20 a pop and we will regular release them to buy for the exact same price just a little later.” I’m not going to play into their little game, so instead of a review from me, because well…I wasn’t really looking forward to this anyway, here’s two good guys that I know that paid the $20 and their two cents. My little dude, now 2 and a half, could not give two shits when my wive puts the first movie on, and my wife and I really don’t like the first one beyond the Justin Timberlake song, and based on the previews, looks like it would be the exact same scenario in the end. So without further ado, here are two GUEST reviews (one sort of favorable, one definitely not) of the new Trolls movie, something that should’ve been thought about and released back when they were still relevant in the 1990s:

TROLLS: WORLD TOUR – Guest Review #1 by Don Hernandez

The first major theatrical release to release via On Demand on the same day but likely not the last in this topsy turvy world of COVID-19.
Let me first start off by saying if you enjoyed the first Trolls movie, you should enjoy this one. If you didn’t and you are over the age of 14 then well it really wasn’t made for you. It was made for the children. Most of the cast is back lending their voices (led by the always charming Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake).

This time around, Queen Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch (Timberlake) finds out there are other kinds of trolls out there that dance to a different beat. Which is great except one group of Trolls wants to stop the music forever unless it’s Hard Rock. Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) is collecting the magic musical strings of each group of trolls to make all trolls part of her Rock N Roll army. Now Queen Poppy & Branch must seek out the other groups of trolls to stop Queen Barb. On their quest they’ll see that even though the music is different they all have a common bond.

This was a pretty decent sequel. I don’t think it is better than the original but it is serviceable and worth the watch if you enjoy kids movies. Kenan Thompson stole the show for me as a new character, Tiny Diamond.
Armed with a message of celebrating diversity and inclusion it stays light and doesn’t overpower you with that agenda to the point of eye rolling. The new songs “Other Side” and “Just Sing” are catchy and fit very well with the story. Probably my main issue with the movie is it seemed to move too quick on the “takeover” front. I’d have liked it a bit more drawn out than the brisk 90 mins allowed. Kids though won’t care, they’ll be dancing and singing most of the movie.

P.S. There is a small scene after the credits featuring The Bergens from first movie.

Trolls World Tour is available for rent for 48 hours on all major streaming sites for $19.99

Featuring the voice talents of
Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake,
Jame Corden, Rachel Bloom, Kunal Nayyar, Ron Funches, Kenan Thompson, Sam Rockwell, Kelly Clarkson, Mary J Blige, and Ozzy Osbourne.

TROLLS: WORLD TOUR Guest Review #2 by Dustin Bade

“Trolls, they wanna have fun……oh trolls, they wanna have fun….” Catchy? Yeah, I thought so too. *Newsflash* so do parents and kids. And while I thought it would be fun to pay $19.99 plus taxes and whatever fees, to watch the second installment of Trolls, boy was I ever wrong. To be fair, the kids watched all 90 minutes of it in their chairs. Michelle drew photos on her phone and I sat on the couch trying to watch but something kept happening to me. So my review of the movie goes like this:
An opening scene of Poppy, happy and singing a catchy song, morphs into an awkward scene in which Branch tries to tell her he likes her. Poppy learns that her tribe of pop trolls are not the only trolls in existence, but trolls of all musical genres exist in their own habitat, with the evil rock and roll trolls, wanting to conquer all at a concert. I hear her tell Branch “road trip” and then “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” I wake up to hear some hick sounding trolls and what sounded like Kelly Clarkson singing a good albeit sad country song. Unless I was half dreaming, I swore she was on the heavier side and had 4 legs and big hair. I fall back asleep and wake up hearing J.Timberlake and Anna Kendrick singing a slow love song break up type song………..hear some other music in the background…….”zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” and then I wake up to the last scene and ending credits when my daughter says “that song is pretty.”

Not all sequels are bad, and not all movies need to be sequels. The Dark Knight was a sequel and easily the best (ever) sequel and certainly of that Batman franchise. Wall-E is good, but we don’t need another. I enjoyed Oceans 11 back in the day, but none of the others. Same with Fast and the Furious movies….the list goes on. Trolls didn’t need a sequel. The first one was cute in my opinion and had some cute laughs, catchy music and of course, more scenes with the “cloud.” It should have ended there….but it didn’t…..I mean after all, trolls just wanna have fun!

I wrote this at the request of a movie reviewer friend of mine who said he will not watch the movie and rightfully so. If all goes well, maybe I will be a ghost writer for him. I always had a passion for writing and story telling…..this could be my opportunity….or not!