Film

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… Dumb Movie Ideas

Posted on by sgottahurt

"So what's it about?" "Well, it's a whole movie about the opening scene of Lethal Weapon. Except it's a dude. And he's clothed."

Man on a Ledge may actually be a good film, but at first glance, it seems like a dumb idea.  (Not as dumb as this idea.)

(SIDENOTE: The strangest reaction I get from the previews is that I feel like I kind of missed Sam Worthington being in a movie.  It should be noted that this is not because of Avatar or any one of the 100 other flicks he made in the last two years… it’s because of a silly video game commercial.)

This got me thinking about other dumb movies that had dumb ideas and should have never been made (again, not saying Man on a Ledge shouldn’t have been made, but really), and here I’ll rank them from The Shit to Just Shitty.  I saw every one of these in the theater.  I paid to see them.  Minimum wage pay in most cases.

(SIDENOTE: The alternative to this diatribe was about people trapped in situations and things, but I already did that once before.  So moving on…)

THE SHIT

Not about ice cream.

This film being ranked as The Shit comes out of nowhere, pretty much like a tornado.

Twister is one of those films that was made mostly because it could be made (CGI effects were getting better).  Aside from the graphics, it introduced cow as a catchphrase (effectively replacing Bart Simpsons’ famous cow quote).  There are TV shows based around storm chasers these days, so there’s something to its premise.  But then again, there are also shows about lady hoggers.

ALMOST THE SHIT

Not about a spelling bee.

I almost placed Arachnophobia at the top because of this scene:

I remembered it being better.  But then again, I was only 15.  Oh, if you couldn’t guess, this film was about spiders.  Bunches and bunches of spiders.

PIECES OF SHIT (tie)

I like their use of yellow. It reminds me of urine.

If you stop and think about it, I paid to see not only a Jerry O’Connell vehicle, but a David Arquette one, too.  What was I thinking?

Tomcats was about a group of friends that were in an eternal struggle to be the last bachelor (to win a wager); Ready to Rumble is about two wrestling fans that try to help their favorite wrestler regain his championship title.  Sure, neither of their ideas are as obviously dumb as the previous two, but… I’m mostly embarrassed I saw these Pieces of Shit at the theater, hence their inclusion here.

A COMPLETE TURD

They should have tried to steal the University of Phoenix.

Jason Lee.  Tom Green when people knew who Tom Green was.  One of the Kids in the Hall directing.  Stealing Harvard should have stole my heart made me laugh, but instead, it stole my money.  The premise is simple: an uncle resorts to thieving to raise money for his niece’s tuition.  No comedy ensues.  This remains to be the only film I’ve ever walked out on.

JUST SHITTY

...& Boredom

Even my love for Olivia Wilde couldn’t make me like this abysmal so what? of a movie.  If you guessed that it’s about cowboys fighting aliens, you’d be right.  You’d be right about everything you’d guess.

(SIDENOTE: Dear Olivia, I approve of Jason Sudeikis, at least until we meet.)

Unofficial Trilogy… Meta-Mental Edition

Posted on by sgottahurt

These posters are almost like Neapolitan Ice Cream.

Mental illness is nothing to laugh about, and these films don’t take them lightly.  They take them light-ish.  Depression is depressing enough.

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Sure, Will Ferrell’s Harold Crick may not be too mental, but he sure needs some help.  When he begins hearing the narration about the mundane details of his systematic life, he seeks not only psychiatric help, but literary help.  Is his life a comedy or a tragedy?  Same goes for this film.

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Ryan Gosling’s Lars Lindstrom has a problem.  He can’t deal with the fact that his sister-in-law is pregnant (it is explained), so his response?  Get a mail-order girlfriend… that’s not really real, despite what the title depicts.  The whole town ends up chipping in and helping with his malady, so that maybe – just maybe – he can find true love with a real girl, like the title says.

THE BEAVER

Forget about Mel Gibson’s public exploits; his Walter Black is much worse off.  He’s so depressed that the only way he can keep giving a dam (ha!) is to speak through a beaver puppet.  This film isn’t as funny as you may hope it could be, but it is interesting… especially the end.  It’s certainly not flat like a beaver’s tail.  Sorry.

InASense, Lost… Kids Movies, Now And Then

Posted on by sgottahurt

Over the holidays, my buddy/boss Paul was kind enough to inform me of how terrible Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked happened to be (it was his children’s choice… at least I believe it was).  I told him “thanks” and “I figured.”  But it got me thinking… they sure don’t make kids movies like they made when I was a kid anymore.

In fact, there’s practically no way they would make the movies I grew up with, and here’s a few plus the reasons why:

The Last Starfighter (1984)

THE PREMISE: Kid in a trailer park plays an arcade game so well he gets recruited to be an intergalactic war hero.

THE STOPPER: Justifies kids playing video games.

Sure, arcades don’t exist anymore, so there’s that.  Besides, this idea has already been tackled in more adult fare, such as Barry Levinson’s Toys and the sci-fi flop, Gamer.  There is no talk of a remake, but there was a 2004 off-Broadway musical based on it…

The Monster Squad (1987)

THE PREMISE: A group of kids battle the classic movie monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolfman, The Mummy, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

THE STOPPERS: Talk about virgins (and sex “not counting”) and wolfman nards.

Sure, kids these days are way more hyper-sexual in their text messages than the language in this film, but would parents complain?  Someone would complain.  There’s talk of a remake, but it’s supposedly going to be about more current monsters, like Freddy Kruger or the Predator.

The Goonies (1985)

THE PREMISE: A group of kids seek out a pirate’s treasure to save their town.

THE STOPPERS: Racism, Sloth, and gluing penises upside-down.

Sure, you may get Samwise Gamgee out of this movie one day, but you also get Jonah Hex.  (And Corey Feldman.)  They’ve been talking about a sequel to this longer than an Arrested Development film, and we all know how that’s going… they’re making it!

Cloak & Dagger (1984)

THE PREMISE: A kid finds a video game cartridge containing information that could get him killed, so he runs for his life with the help of an imaginary friend.

THE STOPPER: The kid kills a bad guy.

Sure, it has that whole “video game could get you killed” angle, but the kid really shoots someone!  Cross my Atari!  And so far, no sequel, prequel, remake, or reboot talk at all… even though this was pretty much a remake.

Big Shots (1987)

THE PREMISE: Two kids are chased by bad guys because they stole a car with a dead body in its trunk!

THE STOPPER: The premise!

Sure, this was marketed as a kid movie, but we didn’t know better at that time.  It was written by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas… you know, the guy that scripted Flashdance, Basic Instinct, and Showgirls.  There isn’t even a DVD release planned for this flick.

A Handful Of… My Latest Crushes

Posted on by sgottahurt

I know you’ve been clamoring for this list for a while now, so I’m glad to present A Handful Of… My Latest Crushes:

She's the ideal girl next to the window.

Ms. Woodward first came to my attention last year during the first season of Raising Hope, and she’s held my attention ever since.  I’ve never seen the movie The Haunting of Molly Hartley, or the show she was on previously (The Riches), but they are definitely in my Netflix queue now.

She's keeping the wall stable, but not my heart rate.

I didn’t watch Two and a Half Men with any regularity, but I was aware of Ms. Stables when she had a recurring role on it.  Since I only caught her appearances in random reruns, I was pleased to find out she had a new show on TV Land called The Exes, which is actually pretty good… emphasis on the pretty.

Don't worry. She's 25.

I’m pleased to admit that Tim Allen’s latest show, ABC’s Last Man Standing, is funny.  But even if it wasn’t, I’d still be in inclined to watch it because of Ms. Ephraim.  She plays middle daughter Mandy on it, and just like middle son Randy on Home Improvement, she steals many of her scenes.  And surprise, surprise… I’ve now added Paranormal Activity 2 to my queue, too.

Maid in Heaven (or Hell)

As I mentioned in regard to Ms. Ephraim, I will watch a show I don’t particularly like if I like an Actress! on the show.  So when it comes to Ms. Breckenridge, she was a primary reason I watched FX’s American Horrible Story (well, her and Jessica Lange’s scenery chewing).  Let’s just say I’m glad that show was only thirteen episodes long.  And I hope Ms. Breckenridge gets another gig quick.

I am no longer the master of my domain hosting.

I’m not a fan of Go Daddy for many reasons, and their commercials do not help.  On the other hand, Ms. Dearing helps their commercials, so there’s that.  She’s also in Will Ferrell’s Everything Must Go, so you know what I’m going to do to remedy not seeing that.  In the meantime, I guess I’ll stumble over to Go Daddy’s website to see how her commercials end.  Gah, I hate that!

JusWondering… How Should We End This Movie? With A Dance!

Posted on by sgottahurt

I just finished watching Gnomeo & Juliet (it’s a new release on Netflix streaming and I was just testing out my new Blu-Ray player and I picked this and I ended up sticking to it no excuses… it was highly entertaining and pun-derful), but something about the ending bothered me.

It ended with a stupid dance scene.

I don’t know where the idea for this cop out ending began, but the last time I noticed it was during the end of Despicable Me (I watched this one on a long flight to Prague no excuses).  This was the first dance scene that really bothered me because it seemed to be an answer to the question posted above – how should we end this movie?

(SIDENOTE: This is how…)

When the live action version of Alice in Wonderland came out, there was a lot of brouhaha over this ending (amongst other things).  For the record, I’ve not yet never seen this movie:

So did this start the trend?  Let’s see if there were any others before these (I will not count dancing during the credits):

  • Shrek 
  • Robots
  • Shrek 2
  • Megamind
  • Rio
But hey!  Those are all Dreamworks films!  That’s like picking on them for their Dreamworks faces!

Okay, well to be fair, here are some live-action, non-musical, non-credit dance number endings:

  • Beetlejuice
  • The 40-Year-Old Virgin
  • Hitch

Even though this walk down memory lane hasn’t really produced an answer, I have a theory.  Beetlejuice is the oldest one on here, and the scene fits in with the rest of the movie’s universe, so I could probably discount it for the film I truly lay the blame on… There’s Something About Mary and the infectious (in every sense of the word), Build Me Up Buttercup:

(SIDENOTE: I’ve always found this Farrelly Brothers’ flick to be overrated.  Also, I had never heard The Foundations ode to Legos-shaped flowers (build… buttercup… ha!) before, and people picked on me for that.  Plus, I worked at Circuit Shitty at the time of DIVX, and it was claimed at the time that TSAM was partly to blame for its demise.  Apparently, 20th Century Fox released it on DIVX earlier than DVD, and DVD owners were pissed you had to have a “special format” to watch the movie a week or two earlier, and wrote angry letters to Fox.  Not that I was on the DIVX gravy train or anything, but there’s something to TSAM’s ruining everything!)

*end rant*

(help from here)

monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK… Mini-Thems

Posted on by sgottahurt

I didn’t always have a blog, if you can believe that.  This posts imagines what I might have written about when Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me came out… in 1999.

Oh behave!

I can’t get the sequel to Mike Myers’ Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery out of my head.  This is the main reason why:

Mini-Me and Dr. Evil

They were hilarious!  A clone identical in every way… just one-eighth his size.  But their odd pairing got me thinking, where have I seen this before?

Let’s start with…

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo

Scrappy was Scooby’s beloved nephew, not a clone.  Nor was he really all that much of comic relief.  So maybe it’s not them…

Garfield and Nermal

There was no relationship between Garfield and Nermal, but at least Nermal was the color gray, like the good doctor and his clone’s uniforms.  And I might have thought the old comic strip was funny at one point.  But still…

Godzilla and Minya

Godzilla was the father of Minya, but he could have also been a nuclear reaction that was called “son.”  They were cute together, and Minya was about as useful as Mini-Me.  Let me think a bit more…

Kermit and Robin

Kermit is Robin’s uncle, but their cut from the same cloth, literally.  Or should I say, the same felt.  Robin is similar to Kermit in every way, just one-eighth his size… and confidence.  Wait!  I’ve got it!

You should try Frosted Evil Wheats.

The Sh– To Just Sh–ty… A Ranking Of Famous Sean’s

Posted on by sgottahurt

Hi, I’m Sean.  This is my blog.  This post is about other people named Sean (spelled the right way) that have done more than write a stupid little blog.  Some of them I consider The Shit; some of them are Just Shitty; most fall somewhere in between.  Here’s how they fall in my rankings:

THE SHIT

Seans Connery, Combs, and Bean

Why are these three Seans ranked so high?  Let’s see… one was Boromir in The Lord of the Rings and a James Bond villain (plus supposedly fantastic in HBO’s Game of Thrones), one was the original James Bond and Indiana Jones’ father (who has since quit Hollywood), and one is a bad boy for life.

Nuff said.

JUST SHY OF THE SHIT

Seans Penn and Astin

Sean Penn has had a hell of an interesting career and life…  He’s been fantastic as an Actor! (Mystic River, Milk) and as a director (The Crossing Guard, Into the Wild); he was married to Madonna back at the height of her career and Robin Wright back when I had a crush on her back in Toys and Forrest Gump.  So why isn’t he considered The Shit?  He also got to bang Scarlett Johansson.  Screw him.  He gets #2 on my list of #2’s.

As for Sean Astin?
Pros: The Goonies, Toy Soldiers, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Cons: Encino Man and Rudy.  Fuck Rudy.

NEITHER THE SHIT NOR SHITTY

Seans Hayes and Patrick Flanery

Sean Hayes played the zany comic foil to the straight (gay) man in Will and Grace well, and he started a reality TV show to find a new scripted show (which flopped); now he co-produces NBC’s Grimm and TV Land’s Hot in Cleveland, so there’s that.

Sean Patrick Flanery was one of The Boondock Saints (which is a little overrated in my opinion), and he also played Indiana Jones, so there’s that.  Neither is either.

CRAPPY

Sean Young and Big Sean

I used to really want to see Sean Young naked; now I really want to see Paget Brewster naked (she looks like the upgraded version of her… plus, I fear I’ve said too much).

As for Big Sean, do I really need to remind you of his contribution to society?

—————————————————————————————————

And now the drumroll please… what, there’s no drumroll?!

JUST SHITTY

Sean Hannity: a man of so many emotions, shirts

This smug bastard doesn’t even know how to smile like a human being!  Go ahead and do an image search!  He always looks like the turd that he is!  Why couldn’t he have spelled his name like Seann William Scott so he would have never made it on here!  I’d much rather have ranked Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) or Shaun White if their parents knew what all the parents of the people above knew–

–how to spell Sean!

Hibbidy-Wah?! There’s Fake And Then There’s FAKE

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This, of course, is fake (but spot on):

As for this TV spot previewing The Darkest Hour, keep a lookout for this guy at the 0:15 mark:

No, that is not a hula hoop around him.

Is that Max Headroom, or a waxy-faced man who doesn’t know how to run natural?  Here’s the commercial:

BONUS (MAYBE) FAKE!

In this ad for eHarmony, do we really believe Jon?  No guy really doesn’t want to be single that bad… plus, I only think about 1 in 10 guys roll their eyes upward when counting to the number two:

Unofficial Trilogy… B-Movies With B+ Endings

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This is an Unofficial Trilogy I would never brag about, but I have to recommend.

One of these won't leave you feeling icky.

Galaxy of Terror

This Roger Corman classic is known primarily for three things:

  1. Joanie (Erin Moran) from Happy Days and Freddy Kruger (Robert Englund) are in it
  2. James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) worked on this film’s special effects
  3. The worm scene

It’s because of #3 that I loathe to recommend it, but it’s story ended up impressing me slightly (because my expectations were so low).  Hence, the B+ ending.

The Toolbox Murders

This one starts off so stupid, I barely paid attention to it.  But there were two scenes that made me take notice:

  1. It contains Stephen King’s favorite death scene (Hint: it involves a nail gun.)
  2. The conversation between the kidnapped girl and the killer… is better than this film as a whole.

Group those in with the ending, and I say, it’s kind of worth watching if you like stupid slasher films.

Brotherhood

This is the respectable one in the bunch.  It’s about a fraternity prank that goes very wrong,  similar Very Bad Things.  It’s fairly believable, and it ratchets up the tension quite well.  Then there’s the ending!  Use this one as a palette cleanser.

In Defense Of… Some Of My Strange Sacred Cows

Posted on by sgottahurt

There are three things I’ve recently stumbled (or restumbled) upon that have bothered me.  If you would have asked me in advance if they would, I would have laughed at you and said:

I guess it’s possible.

Then I would have went back to my day.

Nonetheless, here they are, in no particular order:

  • At first. I was upset they made a sequel.  Then… I got really upset.

I’m not a fan of the film Hoosiers, but I recognize its place as a revered sports flick.  Maybe I need to see it again, but I remember seeing it during all the hoopla (pun!), and not thinking it was anything special.  So it took me by major surprise when I thought there was a sequel to the Gene Hackman classic, starring Matthew Perry instead.

It was called Hoosiers II: Senior Year.  My temper shot up the charts; how dare they, I cursed.

But then I found out it was a spoof preview that played at the ESPYS… and my anger didn’t subside:

IT’S SO FUCKING HORRIBLE I’D PREFER A SEQUEL!

  • I don’t think I’ll ever like Michelle Williams.

This is probably the best picture I've ever seen of her.

I can’t stand Michelle Williams.  I tolerate her, not only because she’s probably not leaving Hollywood any time soon, but because Heath Ledger had to see something in her (other than his baby).

I don’t find her disgusting, a terrible actress, or an awful human being.  So what causes this disdain?

Joey (Fucking) Potter

I loved Katie Holmes on Dawson’s Creek so much that it’s weird I can no longer stand her either (CRUISE! *shakes fist at the sky*)… you see, Williams played “the other girl,” Jen Lindley. whom Joey had to compete against for the affection of Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek), and I guess I can’t let that go.

(SIDENOTE: I should mention that I stopped watching the show pretty early on, although I know she and Pacey ended up together.  PACEY! *shakes fist at the sky*)

  • Please don’t let this become a trend.

You know how naming gimmicks come in waves… first there were commas:

Truly, Madly, Deeply / Girl, Interrupted / Definitely, Maybe

Now is it going to be four word titles?

Words! *shakes fist at the sky*

Martha Marcy May Marlene and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are at the fourfront forefront of this impending trend.

Why can’t they use good ol’ commas, ampersands, articles, pronouns, and and’s like Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane or The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, & Her Lover.  Even shorter lists do it, like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.

Speaking of Martha Marcy May Marlene, did you know that Elizabeth Olsen is the younger sister of these two?