Cheese List Preview

This week’s Cheese List entry is focused on two things: hockey and the fine art of woo-ing a fella or lady depending on your preference.

                It was co-written by and stars a comedy icon. He’s a former “SNL”-er who has created some of the most memorable big screen characters of all time.

                Also in there is one of the most successful musicians of our time. A guy who once made time with the leading lady from last week’s Cheese List movie.

                The film tells the story of a pro hockey player who needs a little help with the ladies before he can truly make it big.

                I’m of course talking about Mike Myers and Justin “J.T.” Timberlake! The movie… well, it’s “The Love Guru.”

                Credentials:14%, Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) // 3.8 out of 10 (Imdb.com) //24 out of 100 (Metacritic.com) // Nominated for 7 Golden Raspberry Awards at the 2009 Razzies, won 3 (Worst Actor- Mike Myers, Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay)

                Let’s see what the critics had to say about “The Love Guru.”

                “It’s just deadly,” said Richard Roeper of Ebert and Roeper. Hmmm… let’s hope he was exaggerating just slightly or a whole lot. I’m not that dedicated to this unpaid blogging venture.

                “It's a rare film that makes a reviewer consider giving up the movies altogether. My own Waterloo came forty-five minutes into ‘The Love Guru’ when I briefly considered stabbing out my own eyes so that I wouldn't have to watch it anymore,” said Joshua Starnes from ComingSoon.net. I’m seriously beginning to regret this decision.

                Let’s get some good news shall we?

                “I guess the real audience is 40 year-old men with the mind of an 8 year-old,” pointed out Scott Nash from Three Movie Buffs. Well, I may not be 40, but I’m still full of childlike wonderment and such. So yeah. Good news.

                Bumblebee tuna.

Review: Crossroads

Plot: Three adorable, precocious little girls bury a shoebox filled with all their hopes and dreams for the future. Several years later, upon their high school graduation, the girls return to dig up the box, just like they swore.  Only problem is? Well, they all kinda hate each other now. One of them grew up to be Britney Spears, the other grew up to be a trashy trailer park gal with a lisp, a baby in her belly and a heart of gold (Taryn Manning), and the other one is now a bitchy Queen Bee type (Zoe Saldana). So even though they hate each other, they still dig up the box and then pretty much out of the blue, they decide to take a road trip together to California. Seems the trailer park gal wants to take part in some kind of singing competition, the Queen Bee wants to go see her boyfriend and the Brit would just love to see her estranged mom who lives in Arizona. Only problem? They need someone to drive them there. Luckily there’s a generic good-looking guy hanging around town who may or may not have been in jail for murder. After all, what could possibly go wrong for three young ladies traveling cross country with a suspected homicidal maniac? Oh …

Thoughts: Well, luckily for our three leading ladies, “Crossroads” ain’t that kind of movie. Turns out the guy is not a killer and in addition to being extremely, generically handsome, he also has a heart of gold.

                Oh well. You get lucky sometimes.

                So, let’s see. “Crossroads.”

Mixed bag of acting, weak, shallow and cliche story, a total lack of focus, but the adorable Taryn Manning would almost, almost make me OK with watching it again many years from now.

                People throw around the term “star vehicle” to describe movies built for the sole purpose of putting over an actor or actress. Never before has that term been so accurate. Everything in “Crossroads” exists solely to serve Brit.

                Everything in the movie is hers for the taking. Spoiler alert, she gets the generically handsome dude, even though he started out sort of friendly with the trailer park gal. While she’s at it, Brit also takes the trailer park gal’s lifelong dream of becoming a singer and gets to perform at the big singing competition.

                Somehow, through all those trials and tribulations, the trailer park gal never loses her spunk or her positive outlook on life. Even after she has a miscarriage. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, her baby dies. There’s some random heavy stuff in this movie.

                This girl gets so much crap dumped on her throughout the movie (she was raped earlier in her life, too, told you about the heavy stuff) it’s mind boggling that trailer park gal never just absolutely loses her mind.  Especially when she has to sit there and listen to the other two girls complain about their lives.

                Oh boo-hoo Brit, your mom doesn’t love you and Queen Bee, your boyfriend cheated on you.

                Needless to say, it’s kind of hard to care about the other two leading ladies. I did really like the trailer park gal though. Taryn Manning is a cutie and how could you not like such a punching bag of a character?  

                Let’s not forget the fact that there’s really no reason for these three girls to be together. They haven’t been friends for years, in fact, Brit and the Queen Bee are depicted as basically enemies at the start. Yet all that goes away almost for good at the first mention of the word road trip.                     

                In addition to the clunky story, “Crossroads” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a movie. It’s meant for younger girls, I guess, due to Brittney being in it, but there’s underage drinking, premarital sex, endless examples of parental authority being ignored. Not a great message to send to kids. Also, Britney dancing around for long stretches of time in her undies sends a weird message too.

                Allow me to get philosophical for a moment. Perhaps, like the soundtrack’s big hit “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” “Crossroads” is stuck in the middle. It’s got too much adult stuff to work for kids and is too mind-numbingly hollow and Britney-centric to be geared towards adults. So it’s stuck somewhere out in the middle, not really doing much of anything for anyone.

                The few times Britney gets to stretch her chops as an actress are kind of a mixed bag. She’s got one good scene with the generic good-looking dude after her mom rejects her, but she’s got plenty of other clunkers that cancel it out.

                The rest of the cast, including Dan Akroyd as Brit’s loving, but overwhelming father, is completely forgettable outside of Manning. Everyone else, feh!

                Worst of the Worst

                Britney and the generic good-looking guy sit around a piano to turn a poem she wrote into a moving, beautiful song. Well, they try anyway. The song’s terrible and they’ve got the exact opposite of chemistry.  The scene is super uncomfortable to watch and man is that one of the most childish and stupid songs ever written? Brit, lose the heavy-handed messages and stick to catchy pop tunes.

                There you go, “Crossroads.” Bumblebee tuna.  

Review: My Soul to Take

Plot: Sixteen years ago, the town of Riverton was haunted by a sadistic killer with multiple personalities known as the “Riverton Ripper.” Eventually, the cops tracked him down and sort of killed him maybe? See, when they found him, he’d already stabbed himself a bunch of times, then they shot him a lot, then they put him in an ambulance but the ambulance crashed and then it exploded. But despite all that, the mystery remains: Is the Riverton Ripper dead?? I’d frigging hope so, otherwise the guy’s real name must be Clarke Kent. Anyway, on the night he may or may not have died, seven kids were born. Legend has it each kid got one of the Ripper’s personalities. Flash to the present day, the kids are all obnoxious and in several cases, really disgusting, borderline evil teens. Shockingly, someone starts offing the kids one by one. Is the Ripper back? Or is one of the kids doing the killing? Or is it someone … else? Spoooooky!

Thoughts: I’ve watched a lot of movies for this blog, and I’m not lying when I say almost all of them have been pretty poorly written. I mean, for god sakes Tommy Wiseau wrote one of them and I’m almost positive he’s insane.

                And yet, I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that made less sense than “My Soul to Take.”

                The biggest problem is Wes Craven. I mean, he wrote, directed and produced it so yeah, this is clearly his fault. I feel confident saying that this is the worst piece of crap he’s ever attached his name to and this man has attached his name to lots of junk over the years. 

Everything sucks. I'm not sure about the acting, I think it mostly might be Craven's horrible writing, but it's still not a great cast.

                Craven can’t figure out what kind of movie he wants “My Soul to Take” to be. Is it a slasher? Or a psychological thriller? Supernatural something or other? It’s got elements of all three sort of jumbled together into one big nasty stew.

                In the plot summary I mentioned each of the seven kids got one of the Ripper’s many personalities. Of course, one of those personalities is a psychotic killer, so we can assume one of the kids is a killer (or is the Ripper still alive???). That’s one. The Ripper also had a personality that was very artistic, and we learn one of the kids is awesome at designing costumes. That’s two.

                Other than those two examples, Craven completely ignores this plot thread. And the artistic one I had to piece together for myself while I was brushing my teeth this morning so for all I know that wasn’t even intentional.

                There’s also a lot of spiritual hooey about condors and how they eat the dead and supposedly absorb the souls of their meals. Turns out, one of the kids must be part condor because he has this power also. I mean, he doesn’t eat people, but I guess when people die nearby, he can absorb their essence. I uh… guess. I’m flying without a net here because none of this gets explained very clearly. It’s all in the movie, but Craven doesn’t seem that interested.

                Look, let’s forget about all that and just focus on the only thing Wes cares at all about: teenagers and their stupid f’n problems and relationships. This is his wheelhouse.

                We spend ample time finding out which girls our main character Bug (Max Theriot) wants to date, and we get to see him in class and presenting a project for Biology class, and him hanging out with his best friend, dealing with bullies. All this time wasted on trivial issues may have been better served trying to make sense of the rest of the plot maybe? No of course not! Kid problems!!

                Also, “My Soul to Take” does something unforgivable in my book. In the movie, the kids are constantly shown wandering around their high school, sitting in courtyards and things but are almost never in class. This is not how any high school works. If you don’t want to show kids sitting bored in class, make it the weekend or after 3:30. No public high school on the planet in the year 2005 just lets students roam freely for hours at a time.

                Somewhere around the third act the movie decides it’s a slasher again and so Craven grabs his other security blanket: talky endings. He actually does the “Scream” ending again. You know, the one where the previously ruthlessly efficient killer can’t stop talking about his/her grand plans and suddenly forgets how to kill things? Wes you lazy basterd. You (and Kevin Williamson) used the same frigging ending in four “Scream” movies and a werewolf movie, then you used it by yourself in “Red Eye,” and now this? Are you serious?

                I can’t even. I don’t know. The story is such a disaster, the directing is a mess. The opening sequence is an absolute joke well before the ambulance randomly explodes. I’m not even sure how bad the acting is because the material the actors are given is such a cluster f, it’s not super fair to judge the kids.               

                Still, I’ll assume it wasn’t great. Either way, the characters are all horrible clichés. The psycho with the abusive dad, the other psycho with the killer dad, the cute blonde, the rapey jock, the religious freak. Don’t care about any of you. 

Worst of the Worst

                At one point the killer says: “F you and f your unborn baby.” True story.

                I guess the real worst scene though is the opening. It’s full of so many quick cuts and fakeouts that it’s impossible to follow. Cops make insane decisions like embracing seemingly dead serial killers. And the frigging ambulance blows up. Perfect storm of craziness.

News: When bad movies happen to good actors and such

I never thought I’d say this, but that “Beautiful Creatures” movie about the lovey-dovey teenage witches actually inspired something interesting.

                I mean, it only has a passing connection to the movie, but hey, take what you can get.

                KLS.com’s John Clyde was writing about how awful “Beautiful Creatures” looks and how it’s getting mostly negative reviews. Nothing groundbreaking, but he happened to notice how awesome its supporting cast is, featuring talent such as Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis.

                That bought up the interesting part: a list of good actors in horrible movies.

                Clyde’s list includes: George Clooney in “Batman and Robin,” Christophe Waltz in “The Green Hornet” and Al Pacino in “Jack and Jill,” though honestly Pacino’s resume lately is far from sparkling these days.

                Check out the rest of Clyde’s list here.

                My own ideas? Hmm… Johnny Depp in “Private Resort,” and more recently “The Libertine.” Dustin Hoffman in “Little Fockers,” Ben Kingsley in “BloodyRayne.”

                It’s an interesting topic and certainly one worth discussing, especially considering bad movie news has sorta dried up lately. So feel free, talk amongst yourselves.

                Info: KLS.com

Cheese List Preview

This week’s Cheese List entry is part of a blockbuster cinematic franchise. In it, a group of seemingly average people run afoul of an ancient Norse god. A god who delights in raining mischief down on all those around him. A god called … Loki.

                That’s right! In a shocking twist worthy of Attitude-era WWF, this week’s Cheese List feature is this summer’s hit superhero epic “The Avengers!” What? The world is off its axis! Up is down, left is right, pigeons are eagles! Chaos reigns supre … 

               

                Oh wait. Scratch that. This week’s movie does feature Loki, but it’s not “The Avengers.” It’s “Son of the Mask” starring Jamie Kennedy and Alan Cumming.

                Whoops. Well, at least all is right in the world. We can all sleep this evening, pigeons can resume their usual assignments. Bullet dodged.

               

                Credentials: 2.1 out of 10 (Imdb.com) // 6%, Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) // 20 out of 100 (Metacritic.com) // Nominated for eight Razzies at the 2006 Golden Raspberry Awards (Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Actor- Jamie Kennedy, Worst On-screen Couple- Jamie Kennedy and anyone else in the movie, Worst Supporting Actor- Alan Cumming, Worst Supporting Actor- Bob Hoskins, Worst Remake or Sequel. Won for Worst Remake or Sequel.

                Now let’s hear what our friends the critics had to say:

                Garth Franklin, from Dark Horizons, said: “Sequels without their original stars are usually sent direct to video. Some deserve better, [but] this isn't one of those.”

                “Sequels without their original stars are usually sent direct to video. Some deserve better, [but] this isn't one of those,” lamented David Germain, from the Desert News, Salt Lake City.

            On the positive side of things, Ed Gonzalez from Slant Magazine pointed out: “You mean, that's the same place they shot the police station in Blade Runner? Well, guess I'm buying this DVD post haste.

                And then there was this. Andrea Gronvall, from Chicago Reader said this, um thing: “Whatever possessed director Lawrence Guterman and writer Lance Khazei to transform the sequel to 1994's libidinous hit comedy into pabulum?” Uhhhhh … yeah? Take that or something. I use those words all the time too. Totally. In fact, I just called this guy a pabulum today cuz he was ticking me off. Blew his mind.

                Bumblebee tuna.