Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews: THE SWING OF THINGS

If 2020 is a giant dumpster fire, then THE SWING OF THINGS is a mini dumpster fire inside said dumpster fire. HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT. I was laughing throughout this whole movie so hard… and not because of the movie itself, but by how awful it was. This film is one of worst sound edited, worst acted, one of the worst edited in general and one of the worst directorial efforts of ALL time. The only reason why I watched the whole damn thing was because…it was a literal dumpster fire and I wanted to watch the entire thing burn to the ground. I’m not listing this as my worst film of the year list because I wanted a title or two you all probably knew at the top, as this is a film I guarantee would elicit a few, “what the fuck is The Swing Of Things?” if it happened to come up in conversation. This is not even a so bad it’s good movie, like Anaconda or Snakes On A Plane, this is a bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad fucking movie that the guys at Red Letter Media would be watching and putting up in competition with other bad movies in one of their ‘Best Of The Worst’ segments. If you happen to catch this movie where it is playing on Hulu, or God forbid, be a giant dumb fuck and spend money to rent the mother fucking thing, it’ll probably remind you of really really bad late 90s/early 00’s gross out comedies such as Freddy Got Fingered, Tom Cats, Say It Isn’t So and Slackers. But those films and my worst film of the year so far, The Wrong Missy, are masterpieces compared to this abortion.

IMDB describes The Swing Of Things with the following: “A groom-to-be accidentally books his destination wedding and honeymoon at a swingers resort in Jamaica.” What is even more embarrassing than that awful film premise is some of the names that they actually got to be in this thing. Supermodel Olivia Culpo, Adelaide Kane, Jon Lovitz, and even fucking Luke Wilson are in this, albeit Lovitz for probably an hour of work and Luke Wilson looks drugged out of his mind just to get through the shoot to get that nice paycheck at the end of the day. I wonder if he joined as part of a lost bet? This is one of those “Sandler Vacation” films, meaning that all involved probably jumped on board because a free vacation was in the cards along with the shoot. The jig is up if you go to Olivia Culpo’s Instagram and scroll down to right before COVID-19 hit, as you can see exactly when the shoot took place. One of her stories has her in the same white bikini she wears in the film, talking about vacationing with her real life football player fiancee. By the way, her and and Adelaide Kane were completely hired only for their looks and scantly clad swim wear and other outfits. I’m surprised that neither one of them filed a sexual harassment suit against any of the other cast or crew. The story is really just a back drop to watch how poorly made this movie is. The only way to describe all the bullshit to you is to give you a list of bullet points of the beats that go down in the film:

A seagull has a cigarette in its mouth and says “God Damn!” as a woman in a yellow bikini runs in Baywatch slow motion type fashion across the beach. Remember how I said the sound editing was terrible? They couldn’t even match the “God Damn!” to when the bird opened it’s beak twice.
A flock of regular little birds, instead of chirps, keep repeating “TITS TITS TITS TITS TITS TITS TITS TITS TITS N ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS ASS” in two scenes for what seems like forever.
Dolphins rape people on this island. I shit you not.
For this movie having a premise of accidentally holding a wedding at a swingers resort, there is little to no sex in this movie. No smart sexual humor either.
The sexual humor that is in this movie has been done before, is cheap, ans is resorted to small dildos and little whips being strapped to pens when signing up for activities on the island. One of the older women in the wedding party can’t decide what she wants to do, so instead of tapping just a pen to her cheek to simulate that she’s thinking, she’s tapping the dildo and/or whip on her cheek. Ha…Ha.
For what little nudity there is in this movie (I’m surprised Culpo or Kane didn’t show anything), the camera obnoxiously zooms in on naked body parts of extras. That joke is about 21 years old, first done in Road Trip…no originality.
Does anyone remember Jack Black’s awfully annoying and racist character, Jamaican White Guy, in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer? There is one here too, but add on about 1000% annoyance.
The audio has an echo and/or tries to readjust itself several times in several scenes. If the movie needed any additional ADR, which it did, Luke Wilson obviously said no, as there seems to be someone impersonating his voice in parts that were probably hard to hear audio wise and needed several more takes.
It’s just a bunch of incoherent scenes strung together, and when a possible plot is brought into the mix, whether or not the male fiancee cheated on Olivia Culpo, it’s solved in less than 5 minutes flat.
A girl character loathes this other male asshole character the whole movie and then has sex with him and blows him underwater to get some secretive info out of him and then for no reason is in love with said asshole at the end of the film.

See what I mean? This movie is COMPLETE BULLSHIT. And very misogynistic and degrading to women. How director Matt Shapira, who replaces Uwe Boll as the worst director of all time for me as this movie compared to ANY of Boll’s make them look like masterpieces, got financing for this thing is anyone’s idea. I honestly think everyone knew each other in some way shape or form, and wanted a vacation, and Shapira got Culpo and Kane because he is a giant fucking pervert flashing dollars bills and a fun time in the sun in their eyes. The screenplay was written by five people…let me repeat that…FIVE PEOPLE. It’s like they were on pot and wrote it together over dinner one night, passing the screenplay to the left and instead of trying to fix and expand upon the previous ones work, just added on to it without reading the scenes that came before. Then once shooting began, everything was shot in one take and the editor had absolutely nothing to work with but the bare bones of dailies. The framing is bad, the actors seem as though they tried to memorize their lines 2 minutes before “Action!” was yelled…it’s basically a feature length porn movie with no sex scenes…and even some of those are better than this trash. When you are on Hulu or if you are wanting to rent a comedy on another streaming site and come upon this abysmal disaster, swing the other way. Swing FAR the other way.

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: 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 TV Binge Watchin’ Reviews: THE BOYS SEASON 2 (Amazon Prime)

If THE BOYS SEASON 2 made any mistakes from coming off an incredible first season is that they should’ve released all 8 episodes at once like they did last time, and not this “3 episodes the first week then one per week for five weeks” bullshit. Hey Amazon, we are used to binge watching, get with the program. We know why you did it, it’s to get more and more ratings and views each and every week. But enough is enough, next time, for Season 3, just release all the episodes at once, you’ll thank me later instead of bitching about being review bombed by trolls simply because you tried to take advantage of fans during a pandemic. That being said, I still thought the second season of The Boys was really good, just not as masterful as the first season, and that’s because instead of having all 8 fantastic and solid episodes like the first season had, this season only had 5, with three episodes where it didn’t seem like much was happening to advance the plot/story. But that may just be me. If you are living under a rock and don’t know what The Boys even is, it’s a very popular original television series on Amazon Prime, based on a popular comic book series, that IMDB describes with the following: “A group of vigilantes sets out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers.” In my other way of describing it, it’s the most realistic take on superheroes in our real world that I have ever seen. Even more realistic than Zack Snyder’s DCEU. Of course all superheroes wouldn’t be high and mighty like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc. Some of them would be just as nasty, evil, psychotic, perverted and corrupt like some of our celebrities and politicians in modern day. It’s a delicious idea that is executed brilliantly here with over-the-top action and violence wrapped around a “supe-terrorists”, conspiracy, and revenge plot.

The main overall story is best described on Wikipedia, “The story follows a small squad, informally known as “The Boys”, led by Butcher and also consisting of Mother’s Milk, the Frenchman, the Female, and new addition “Wee” Hughie Campbell, who are charged with monitoring the superhero community, often leading to gruesome confrontations and dreadful results; in parallel, a key subplot follows Annie “Starlight” January, a young and naive superhero who joins the Seven, the most prestigious – and corrupted – superhero group in the world and The Boys’ most powerful enemies.” Without any spoilers there are some plot threads left over from Season 1 that trickle their way into Season 2, along with new threads and new characters such as the vicious Stormfront and a former asshole seeking redemption, Lamplighter. Speaking of the latter, when he eventually shows up (Episode 5), played magnificently by Fox’s X-Men Iceman Shawn Ashmore (gotta love the coincedence on this) that’s when The Boys Season 2 gets masterful and special. The solid episodes are easily 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Episodes 1, 2, and 4 are what are called ‘bridge episodes’ to get to the better content later in the season, but they can be kind of a drag with plenty of pacing issues where nothing really significant happens. Where I end up do loving where the story ends up going this season, with the end game finally revealed around the end of the 6th episode, the story and plot are easily upstaged and stolen by the acting from all involved and the gleefully fun, over-the-top, gory, and shocking violence. For example, a face is ripped off, people spontaneously combust, heads explode, and one of our “Boys” is almost choked to death by another super’s giant cock. Yeah, that scene is shockingly hilarious as you’d expect it to be.

Tip of the hat mainly to Anthony Starr as Homelander and Aya Cash as Stormfront this season. While everybody is solid, those two stand out from the pack, especially the former. I don’t understand why Starr wasn’t nominated for a supporting Emmy last season, but if he isn’t for this season, something is truly wrong with the television organization. Homelander is a character that you love to hate and Starr’s performance is so pitch perfect, insane, and bizarre that it would be really hard at this point to imagine anyone else in the role. He is THAT brilliant. I think I enjoyed this season finale more than Season 1. There are several shocking character twists that happen that don’t co-align with what happens in the comics (note: I have not read the comics but know the gist of what happens) and that is a good thing. While enthusiasts of the comic book series might scoff at the changes, I would like The Boys to be its own thing and be unpredictable. This season finale is certainly that. And I was screaming things at my television such as, “YES!” “HOLY FUCK!” “GOD DAMN FUCK YEAH!” and haven’t been that into an episode of television in quite awhile. It also uses The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” song perfectly, especially if you read between the lines with it when it comes to what certain characters will be without at the start of next season. The finale also felt like a series finale but then one last minute twist, that I didn’t see coming, hints at what is to come, and I’m very excited about Season 3 and where it will take us. I would just recommend the writers try not to make any bridge episodes and try to advance the plot, even just a little bit, in each and every episode like the first season. Even though the 2nd one didn’t quite match its predecessor, The Boys still very much fucking rocks, and was a nice distraction from this, what Billy Butcher would probably say, “Cunt year.”

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 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.