Bad Movie Club: The Star Wars Holiday Special

1978 television event

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (Josh: 4/5; Libby: 3/5; Johnny: 4/5; Fred: 5/5; Dylan: no rating; Mark: "whatever the worst score you can give," but I don't know if that means 1/5 or 5/5)

Rating: n/r

Plot: Han Solo's trying to get Chewbacca to his family in time to celebrate Life Day. George Lucas loses his fucking mind.

I'd seen very tiny bits and pieces of this despite George Lucas's efforts to keep it hidden from me. And I'd read about just how atrocious the thing is--like a giant Jar Jar Binks puppy pile. Nothing really can prepare you for the Star Wars Holiday Special, however. Like, careers-should-have-ended and a franchise-should-have-withered-away kind-of atrocious.

We start with about 10 solid minutes of Wookiee talk, untranslated of course since the makers of this assume we're all like Han Solo and can understand the language. I mean, why wouldn't they assume that? We all watched the first movie. If you can't watch A New Hope and at least pick up enough to speak conversational Wookiee, you're probably not smart enough for the Star Wars Holiday Special. You get a nice glimpse of what domesticated Wookiee life is as Chewy's wife--a WILF if I've ever seen one--putters around the kitchen, his son Lumpy wanders around and occasionally stares directly into our souls with some of the scariest eyes you'll ever see, and his father (or perhaps father-in-law--it's never really clear), the oddly-named Bitchy, does what you'd expect an elderly Wookiee to do, pretty much just sit around scratching himself.

And other than that, nothing of note really happens in the Star Wars Holiday Special. And I'm not even joking. That this flimsy plot was stretched into a little over 90 minutes is possibly one of the most remarkable human achievements this side of Tatooine.

There's a whole lot of oddness here, and if anybody actually sticks around for the duration, it's likely only to see what kind of stupid they're going to throw at you next. Skits and songs go on for far too long, and it's often hard to tell if the sequences are supposed to be funny or even entertaining. It's almost like the producers decided, "Hey, let's just put something that no human being in the galaxy would care to see on the screen for ten minutes to see if people will actually keep watching just because they were promised a Boba Fett cartoon." Honestly, I don't think I could have made it through this thing without the Bad Movie Club. I might have stuck around for that Boba Fett cartoon, but I would have been more than likely committed suicide once I saw how poorly it was animated or heard Luke--with creepy eyes that rival Lumpy's--talk about how friendly Boba Fett was. Without friends to watch this with, I would have dove head-first into the nearest vaginal Sarlacc Pit because being digested for a thousand years would have been better than watching the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Mark Hamill makes an enthusiastically wide-eyed appearance in X-Wing fighter orange with R2-D2 at his side. Carrie Fisher, clearly wacky on some sort of junk, and C-3PO check in. The Imperials and some dude with giant headgear that makes him about as comical as Rick Moranis's Dark Helmet show up for a while and watch a Jefferson Starship video that is just about the most awful thing I've ever seen or heard. Darth Vader is in there somewhere. And of course, there's Bea Arthur because what Star Wars story would be complete without Bea Arthur? Arthur's in what is arguably the most delightful part of the whole special as she plays a bartender in the Mos Eisley cantina. I don't know if she's scum or villainy, but seeing the odd cantina aliens and that groovin' band playing what is apparently the one song they know was a little bit of fun. Or more accurately, it's fun compared to the rest of this shit. Bea Arthur even performs a song with the cantina band. There's also a terrifically weird scene where Art Carney, who seems like he had just enough to drink before shooting his scenes, shows Bitchy some sort of pornographic virtual reality thing with Diahann Carroll, a singer who was apparently chosen for this because she already had a Star Wars first name. What? You don't believe me that it's a "pornographic virtual reality thing" in a family holiday special? Well, here's the dialogue, straight from imdb.com:

Holographic Wow (yeah, seriously): I'm found in your eyes only only eyes only. I am in your mind as you create me. Ohhh yes. I can feel my creation. [giggles] I'm getting your message. Are you getting mine?"
Bitchy: [ORGASMIC SOUNDING] ARRGGHHHUGHH!
Holographic Wow: Oh...oh...we are excited, aren't we?

Life Day itself is as anti-climactic as the rest of this. It should be weird watching a Wookiee family pray or a bunch of Wookiees in maroon robes walking directly into the sun, but we've already seen that terribly unfunny cooking show, a broken gadget gag that lasts for about a half an hour, Bea Arthur serving drinks to characters who were de-armed or killed in A New Hope, some weirdo dipshit acrobat hologram performance that also seemed to last for an eternity, and Han Solo gleefully hugging everybody, so nothing seemed weird at that point. Then, the Star Wars Holiday Special thankfully ends, and you are left to wonder what the thing would have looked like if Jar Jar Binks or the Ewoks had been around.

Lumpy

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

1963 action comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Witnesses to a horrific automobile accident where a guy just went sailing right off there are told of thousands of dollars buried under a giant W in a park. They decide to go hunt for the cash, double-crossing each other along the way.

The final action sequence, one involving a very long ladder and some clay figures, is so ridiculously fake looking that it's almost impossible not to love. This comedy, which for better or worse probably laid the groundwork for The Cannonball Run II, seems to go on forever, but there are so many characters drifting in and out and such a flighty pace that it doesn't matter. This is really all about the cameos, a who's who of funny people who sometimes do a great job of letting the situations be funny and at other times seemingly try to out-perform each other. Not that there's anything wrong with the latter because I could probably watch Ethel Merman, who released the greatest disco album in the history of the genre (by the way), as this mother-in-law character chew up the scenery all day. At times, the cameos start to turn into this "Hey, look at who we put in the movie now!" situation. For example, the Three Stooges appear on the screen for about three seconds to pretty much just wave at the audience. But if you can find me another movie with both Three's Company landlords, the great Buddy Hackett, Andy Devine with that voice of his, Jerry Lewis (don't blink), and my main man Buster Keaton, I'll go ahead and be less impressed. Watching all of these familiar faces pop into the story just keeps this fun.

Keaton was about three years from his death when this came out, but he's still Buster. He's in the film briefly and in a completely inconsequential scene. But I had to watch that couple minutes a second time because I enjoyed watching him move exactly like he did in the 1920s, that goofy lean as if he's looking around something that only he can see, those panicky gesticulations. It's always good to see Buster Keaton.

Here's a question: Why do you think they settled on four mads in the title? Do you think there was a conversation like the following?

Producer: Well, I say we go with It's a Mad, Mad World. Two mads sounds perfect to me.
Another producer: Why stop at two mads? Why not three? Or even more?
Another producer (because they probably had a thousand producers, one for every actor and actress in the movie): Let's go with thirty mads!
That second producer: Hell yeah! It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World! That's perfection!
Producer: Umm, no. That's ridiculous. That's way too many mads. Nobody wants to ask for a ticket to It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. They'd miss the previews.
Lurking producer: How about this, gentlemen? How about four mads? It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
First producer: Hey, that's an idea.
Another producer: Yeah, I like it. It's one more than three.
Yet another producer: And it's one less than five! It's perfect!

There are all kinds of funny moments in this, but I think my favorite few minutes is right before the intermission, a feverishly-edited montage where our characters are in various perils--crashing in planes, exploding in basements, and so on. You're on the edge of your seat even though you know none of these characters' lives are actually threatened at all. I loved it. I also loved Ben Blue, an actor not nearly as well known as most of the others in this, the guy who played the biplane pilot who gives the most perfect OK sign I think I've ever seen. Dick Shawn, playing Ethel Merman's other offspring, is also fun to watch as he dances in his domicile with Barrie Chase.

Seriously, that's how I want to live. You just get the sense that Dick Shawn's character does nothing but dance around his pad, interrupted only by his mother's phone calls. That's the life, people! I'd take that right now even with an 82-year-old Barrie Chase. I bet she could still rock that bikini.

I'd like to see some figures on how much damage these characters caused. Completely-leveled gas stations, heavily-damaged hardware stores, lots of vehicular damage. It's got to be in the millions.

Anyway, this is a fun movie although it really is too long. I would have liked to see more Don Knotts, of course, preferably in a sex scene with Buddy Hackett's character, but I guess that would have been far too risky at the time.

American Ultra

2015 action comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A super spy who doesn't know he's a super spy is scheduled to be eliminated, but he and his girlfriend fight back.

I'm going to be following the career of Jesse Eisenberg--an Eisenberg--very closely. Because you know who he's starting to remind me of? One Nicolas Kim Coppola. Here, he's out to prove that he's got action chops, playing a bright and mostly-stoned millennial. It just doesn't really work. I don't even know if I'd describe the performance as bad or not. I'd just describe it as Eisenbergian. Kristen Stewart, an actress who is about as thrilling as a thermos and who has the range of a cardboard cut-out of herself, adds virtually nothing. I don't believe their human story, and I can't buy the superhuman aspects of their story either.

This is one of those sharply-edited action pieces with hyperkinetic fight scenes and whoosh sounds. The violence is exactly what you'd expect, shockingly mundane. Blood's all over the place, folks are stabbed and blown up, hammers connect with skulls, and you wonder how there are so many bullets. But it's all just so typical that it becomes boring, and the stoner-Bourne angle doesn't work well enough to distance it from its peers. The story feels oddly familiar, and you're fairly positive you know exactly where it's going to end up and not surprised at all when the characters end up in the exact spots they do. Eisenberg morphs into Cage-light, and then there's an animated closing credits sequence that's probably the most entertaining part of the movie.

Heavenly Creatures

1994 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Two friends imagine wildly.

Here's further proof that Peter Jackson's career was far more interesting before he made all those movies about Hobbits walking around and a King Kong remake. This is one of those examples of truth being much stranger than fiction. At the center of Heavenly Creatures, we watch a friendship develop. Jackson paints the story like a fairy tale; the camera vibrantly floats around, even through the innards of a sand castle, and there's a garden's worth of colors. Eventually, you get the sense that this fairy tale friendship is going to end up being more like a Grimm fairy tale. Somebody's losing toes, in other words. By the matter-of-fact climax, chilling because of just how matter-of-fact it is, you just sort of nod and think, "Yeah, that feels about right," even though nothing about it feels about right. Show somebody individual shots of this movie, and you could probably convince them it's going to be an imaginative and colorful family film, like The Secret Garden or something. This story, however, tackles a much darker flavor of childish imagination. This is more Willy Wonka boat ride than it is The Secret Garden, but it sneaks up on you really quietly.

I'm not sure this movie would have worked without the two very good performances from the leads, Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey. Winslet's as good as you'd expect her to be, although not nearly as naked, but Lynskey gives the more nuanced performance. And I looked up pictures of the real Pauline and Juliet and was shocked to see just how much Lynskey resembled the former. She nails the character with posture, deepened gazes, and sad hair curls. Watching their decline into the depths of madness is fascinating, especially since there's nothing wacky or artificial about it. You get the madness from the perspective of the central characters, so it feels like something very real. And at the same time, you're sympathetic, almost rooting for the duo no matter what they decide to do about their problems.

There's nothing wacky, but that's not to say there isn't some weirdness. Those clay people sequences contain imagery that will likely be memorable, and I really have no idea how those scenes were filmed. I was a big fan of stalker Orson Welles although that entire scene seemed a little out of place. I'm not sure how realistic this look at mental illness is exactly, but Jackson sure does portray it in a way that is likely to stick in my mind for a while.

This movie is not an easy experience, less easy because you watch it while knowing that it's all based on a true story.

The Maze Runner

2014 dystopian movie

Rating: 10/20 (Abbey: 13/20)

Plot: Boys try to figure out how to get out of a maze.

Despite impressive special effects, this movie failed to grab me. I was really bored.

Because I was bored with the actual story, I tried to figure out a subtext. Once the lone female character was introduced, I thought for sure this would end up being some sort of metaphor for the sexual awakening of males with that complicated maze representing--even visually in some shots--the complex and foreign anatomy of a woman, man's search for that mysterious G-spot, a terrifying jaunt for snipes or a clitoris. Boys holding poles, screeching cootie monsters, bad cases of hickeys and probably blue balls as well.

The movie turned out to have nothing to do with any of that. It was very literally about boys trying to find a way out of a maze.

Ant-Man

2015 superhero movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A burglar is recruited by Michael Douglas to mess up some bald guy's science project.

Ehh, this is fine, but it's got the exact same beat as all the rest of the Marvel superhero movies. I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it. This is likely the silliest of all the Marvel movies although when you think about it, movies about a guy who gets large and green when he's irritated and a Norse god who hits bad guys with a giant hammer are pretty silly, too.

I'm not sure I understand the science behind this movie. Am I supposed to?

Paul Rudd brought his usual charm, Evangeline Lilly brought a new hair cut, and Douglas brought this voice that reminded me of somebody else's voice. Thomas the Tank Engine makes a goofy appearance in a scene that I'm sure the producers of this thought was cleverer than it actually was, and there's also a Baskin Robbins commercial in there somewhere. Because when I think about eating ice cream, I want to imagine a bunch of ants.

It's a fun little popcorn movie, up there with the best of these Marvel movies that are all pretty much the same. I'll watch the sequel, mostly because Evangeline Lilly will likely be in some sort of superheroine costume.

Chappie

2015 sci-fi movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A.I. robot becomes a gangsta.

"You gave me a retarded robot!"

Here's something I apparently have no tolerance for: schmaltzy science fiction movies. Throw this on the heap with E.T. and A.I., the former making me hate aliens and wrinkled old men and the latter making me hate robots shaped like little boys. This movie just made me hate in general, yet another movie from 2015 that made me question what I was doing with my life.

I really hated the robot who, after kidnapped by gangsters, learns the lingo of the streets of South Africa or wherever the hell this is supposed to be. I don't need my science fiction movies to be all that realistic, but that seems to be Blomkamp's thing. Here, this jive-talkin' robot just took me completely out of the experience. And there's so much exposition here. Hugh Jackman's character is running around being up to no good, but it takes him forever to get anywhere. By the time a real conflict develops, it's way too late, especially since it just kind of erupts into science fiction action violence anyway.

The only redeeming quality of this whole thing might be that Ninja and Yo-Landi Visser, "rave-rappers" from Die Antwoord, are in this. Visser's got this strange sex appeal. I didn't think their characters would last too long and was surprised they ended up being major characters.

Anyway, I didn't like this movie.

Bad Movie Club: Blood Freak

1972 anti-drug movie

Bad Movie Rating: 5/5 (Josh: 4/5; Libby: 4/5; Fred: 2/5)

Rating: 3/20

Plot: A poor biker gets hooked on the marijuana and transforms into a turkey-headed blood-thirsty fiend. Only prayer will be able to save the blood freak.

With some foresight, I could have had a "blood movie" streak that could have rivaled the legendary "man movie" streak that this blog is most famous for. Unfortunately, that streak only made it to two.

Here's what sealed the deal on this as a near upper-echelon good-bad movie classic: One of the narrators--Brad F. Grinter, the one who doesn't also star in the movie--narrates, kind of like chain-smoking Rod Serling crossed with Criswell. Here he is:

His narration is bizarre and ruins the pacing as much as you'd expect it to, but the real magic doesn't happen until the very end of the movie which ends with yet another shot of Grinter adding his own exclamation mark to the proceedings. But it all ends in a coughing fit! It makes you wonder what's going on. Is it possible that this whole thing is more self-aware than I thought? Were they just too cheap or lazy to do a second take even though the final thing you get to see is a narrator coughing? It was enough lack of professionalism that made me bump the bad movie rating up to a 5/5.

Find me another anti-drug, pro-religion movie that is rated X. Or just find me another one with a turkey-headed monster like the blood freak in this one. This movie's like a 70's sleazy update of Reefer Madness, wilder and somehow even less realistic about the dangers of recreational drug use. It's hard to tell whether the protagonist goes through hell because of the drug use or because he spent too much time on a turkey farm. Regardless, it's clear that pot can lead to violent seizures, terrible acting, and the morphing into a turkey-headed beast. And that's an important lesson, kids.

That protagonist is played by the other director--burley Steve Hawkes. I did a little research on this guy, and it's been a rough ride for Mr. Hawkes. He was inspired to act by seeing Johnny Weissmuller playing Tarzan and was making a Tarzan movie himself when he was badly burned in an accident on the set and forced to retire from acting. That movie's name changed from Tarzan at the Rainbow to Tarzan and the Brown Prince, by the way. That was in 1970, the same year he got divorced for the first time. Eventually, he owned an animal sanctuary but had a pet tiger named Bobo shot after he escaped. And in 2012, he had two other tigers and a leopard removed from his property because he didn't have a permit. At least he's got this as his legacy, and watching him jerk around on the ground in a simulated seizure is enough to get anybody in some sort of bad movie hall of infamy. For the majority of the movie, he's wearing a ridiculous turkey head. I'll save you the trouble of having to use your imagination:

And yes, that table saw definitely gets some significant screen time. It's the most horrific turkey-related movie scene since Jennifer Lopez's "It's turkey time--gobble gobble." Women are suspended upside-down and throat-slit, guys have their legs table-sawed right off, and you can't sleep for a week and a half because you can't get the imagery out of your head. But you've stopped taking drugs, so you have that going for you.

I've got to talk about the screams in this movie. My loving wife puts up with a lot of my nonsense, but she was visibly annoyed and angry and the length and volume of terrified screams in this one. I think Blood Freak, as well as ending my addiction to marijuana, nearly ended my marriage. It's a good thing the screams are loud enough because a lot of the dialogue is inaudible. I could have sworn I heard the cameraman's breathing at one point, and I know I heard somebody say "Action!" before a scene. The camera work is just about as bad as you'll ever see, so bad that I felt bad for the camera as it tried its best to focus. It all helps add to this outsider art vibe.

And there's this beauty of watching anti-drug propaganda that just has to have been made by people who were on a ton of drugs. It's a wonderful work of art.

Blood Diner

1987 horror comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Brothers kill visitors to their diner in an effort to bring some Egyptian goddess to life.

Maybe I'm a chauvinist, but I can't believe this movie was directed by a woman. She's Jackie Kong who also made Night Patrol and a couple other movies. There's a warning at the beginning of the movie, but it's warning the viewer about the wrong thing. The movie isn't horrifically graphic, especially by today's standards. It's embarrassingly juvenile though, and it has this mean streak that makes the entire thing really unpleasant. There's a scene where a bulbous man is being run over by a van repeatedly, and after the fifth or sixth time, while you're watching onlookers on the screen laughing and having a lot more fun than you are, you wonder what the point of the whole thing is. Another scene has a woman's head being hush-puppied and then swatted off. It's comic ultraviolence, and although I'm sure there's an audience for it, I was just wishing I could watch that new Evil Dead t.v. show instead. Or even something from Troma. When you pale in comparison to Troma, you're just not very good.

Some nudity; a talking brain in a jar voiced terribly by Drew Godderis, star of Cannibal Hookers; a handful of oddly-placed Nazi references; and a nifty musical performance near the end keep threatening to make this a little enjoyable, but it never quite gets there. I almost wanted to like it just because of this character:

That guy's the sidekick of the owner of a rival diner, and the other characters just kind of treat him like he's an actual human being even though he clearly isn't. That's at least something.

Dillinger Is Dead

1969 movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A guy dicks around.

This is nearly plot-free, like all great movies should be. It's filled with scenes of the main character cooking, sitting around, watching home movies, playing cops 'n' robbers or something, spending time with the women in his life, teasing his wife with a phallic symbol, finding another phallic symbol, painting polka-dots on a gun. Not much actually happens. Even finding that gun, an act which should probably be at least odd and probably a bit shocking, is just ho-hum. Michel Piccoli plays the guy, and he does it with a childlike cool. It's a perfect performance although he never gets a chance to do anything spectacular. A lesser actor/director combo would have created a character too wacky to make something like this work although I would like to see Nicolas Cage in a similar situation. Piccoli is the anti-Cage here, a guy who just lives on the screen for an hour and a half and does nothing to stand out from the situation of the movie, a situation in which almost nothing of importance happens. I liked the quiet performance a lot.

I also liked Anita Pallenberg, a woman who apparently had sex with most of the Rolling Stones. She's fetching.

She never leaves the bed in this movie. It kind of reminds me of my wife. Ba dum tss!

Marco Ferreri, the guy who directed the fun La Grande Bouffe, directed this, and it's definitely a product of the late 1960s. There's an easy-going style and nods to pop art--especially with the painting of the gun (see poster) which is movie's most iconic imagery. There's also a lot of great music, eclectic enough to match the decor of the apartment. Piccoli's character lives in a time and place that makes me envious. He's fooling around with his hot little maid, has that hot little wife of his, and has a great record collection. Ferreri's storytelling, if you can even call it storytelling, feels organic and freeform. The character meanders in a way that almost doesn't seem worthy of being on anybody's screen, but that fascinating performance and a sneaky sense of mystery keeps you engaged. Your eyes are glued to the screen because you want to find out if anything at all's going to happen.

Things do eventually happen. A climax is reached although you're not going to be sure how or why it got there. Nothing builds up to that climax, and combined with a surreal denouement, it makes for a genuine what-the-hell experience. It's a cool little flick, and at the very least, it reminds me that I need to see La Grande Bouffe again. That one's got both nudity and food.

As Long As You've Got Your Health

1966 comedy anthology

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Four comedy shorts from the mind of Pierre Etaix.

More mostly wordless comedy from Etaix, one of my favorite discoveries of the year. I'm not sure anything is truly great here, but this is my kind of comedy. Fans of Chaplin/Keaton/Lloyd or Tati will find more than enough to enjoy with these. So much of silent comedy is about how our actions affect others, sometimes in unexpected ways. That's definitely true with one of the best of these shorts, the last one involving a hunter, a couple trying to enjoy a picnic, and a man building a fence. The penultimate one, the one that shares its title with the collection, might be the funniest, a series of gags that deal, a very Tati-esque way, with the stresses of urbanized modern life. It's a short that starts with a jackhammering sequence that might be the best example I've seen to humans looking like Warner Brother cartoon characters. The second short squeezes every single ounce of funny out of an idea that doesn't seem like it would have all that much funny--a guy trying to watch a movie. And the first is a cute little story of an insomniac enjoying a vampire novel.

This isn't Yoyo, and unfortunately, it doesn't seem that Etaix had another Yoyo in him, but this kind of stuff is great for people like me who wished the 1920s had lasted a lot longer. And typing that sentence just gave me a great idea for a movie.

I am unable to explain that poster. Slim picking with this one.

Shaun the Sheep Movie

2015 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 13/20; Dylan: 11/20; Buster: 20/20)

Plot: After their amnesiac farmer gets lost in the big city, Shaun and friends have to find a way to get them back.

This, from the folks at Aardman Animations who brought us the wonderful Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit, is just a delight from start to finish. Like those other movies, the climax is nearly too wacky and jarring, but the characters are lovable and the sight gags rival the brilliance of Buster Keaton. Most of my favorite storytelling, as well as my favorite humor, is wordless anyway, and in Aardman's world, the animals are anthropomorphized but unable to talk. The people also become animals here (animalmorphized), depending on grunts and raised eyebrows to communicate. They're all in the background anyway with the farmer a McGuffin and the others just background or there only to respond to the animal shenanigans.

I'm a sucker for stop-animation anyway, and Aardman stop-motion stuff always has this playfulness that puts a smile on my face. There's an ingenuity, but nothing ever gets in the way of the storytelling. In other words, you're always less interested in "How are they doing that?" and more interested in where the characters will end up. Part of that is because the characters are really likable. You just want to be a little kid again so that you can cuddle with a little stuffed Shaun the Sheep. There's nothing revolutionary about the plot, its stranger-in-a-strange-land situational comedy, or the thematic elements, but it's still somehow fresh.

If you like those aforementioned Aardman movies or silent comedy, check out this delightful movie for your next family movie night.

It did make me wonder if I actually enjoy fart gags though. And it made me want to do some research, something I'm too lazy to do. But what movie do you think contained the first cinematic fart joke? And when was the first case of audible movie flatulence? If I was a better movie blogger, I'd probably have that information for you.

And if I was a better movie blogger, I probably wouldn't end a review of a delightful movie experience writing about fart jokes.

Vacation

2015 comedy reboot

Rating: 6/20 (Jen: Luckily, she fell asleep after about five minutes of this movie.)

Plot: Rusty takes his family to Wally World.

If my blog accomplishes nothing else at all in the however-many-years I've done this, I hope it prevents some people from having to endure the painful experience of seeing this movie. I generally write about movies in the order that I see them, but I felt the need to make an exception with this one as a public service.

Please do not watch this movie.

When the appearance of a man who looks a little like Chevy Chase but is actually probably a man who devoured Chevy Chase is something that dramatically improves the experience, you know you're watching a terrible movie. I like Ed Helms just fine, but the guy needs to find something better to do with his time. He seems completely lost here, and so does the movie, a meandering mess in search of something--anything--that's a little funny. It opened well enough with credits that presented a funny take on the awkward family photos website, but it was all downhill--and I'm talking a steep decline--from there. Cursing, penis references, and potty humor, like the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a 5th grade boy who gets to watch South Park when he stays all night at his buddy's house, are thrown at you, the writers just hoping that something--anything--will stick. There's a scene where the characters are swimming in sewage, and from the 25 minute mark or thereabouts on, I felt like I was doing the same.

I might have laughed at the car though.

Trust me--this movie is a travesty, and every single person involved should be ashamed of themselves.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

1977 monster bed movie

Rating: 11/20

Plot: It's pretty much in the title. A demon-possessed bed eats people while the ghost of a painter trapped behind his own painting watches.

I first heard about this movie in a Patton Oswalt comedy bit, but as much as I like bad movies, it didn't cross my mind to actually watch it until it showed up on the 366 Weird Movies site, one of my favorite movie places. It ended up not being nearly as bad as I expected it to be. In fact, I enjoyed it enough to be glad that Oswalt's act has brought it out of complete obscurity to become somewhat of a cult classic.

It's got a 70's stink all over it and is largely incoherent. The pacing's bad, the acting's probably worse, and there's a special effect or two that will make you laugh at times you're not supposed to laugh. What sets it apart from other sleazy 70's horror flicks is that it's got a strange black humor while still maintaining a serious vibe. This never feels like a film that isn't taking itself and the ridiculous concept seriously, but it's got some unexpected humor thrown in. Add in some arthouse tropes, and you may wind up scratching your head and wondering what the hell this movie is even supposed to be.

It's definitely surprising that it's writer/director George Barry's lone venture into filmmaking. I can only imagine that it was when the people who helped Barry finance his project saw this special effect:

that the poor guy was never allowed to work again. It's this scene where Mr. Skeleton Hands says, "There's no flesh left. There's hardly any blood. It's almost like a surgical operation. Great. Cartilage is decaying. They'll fall off one by one," delivering the line like it's not a joke. He leans his head back dejectedly, moaning "I don't think I can stand it" like an actor who never wants to work again. Another victim, a handlebar-mustachioed gangster, nails his big line: "I'm being eaten alive!" But this is mostly about that monstrous bed, a villain made more dastardly by some genuine movie magic. That is if you consider gratuitous munching and panting sounds, suggesting that the titular bed might be both hungry and horny, to be genuine movie magic. I can just imagine sound guys working for hours on getting just the right sounds. There's also enough warbling noises that I wondered if there was something wrong with the audio in the version of this that I watched.

Plenty of memorable moments here. There's the weirdness of the guy behind the painting, a guy who also narrates because he's in the 1970s and was told he had to. There's pretentious blood letting, a wacky bucket of chicken, and a painfully long scene where a woman crawls away from the bed with red paint on the back of her jeans. There's a wonderfully weird dream sequence, a shot of an old woman reading a magazine about lesbians, and a great death scene involving a preacher. There's even an orgy, one accompanied by carnival music.

Oh, the special effects that show the bed beginning the digestion process? I'm not sure if I needed to see them fifty or sixty times, but they really were something else. And how about that Pepto Bismol product placement?

Ok, maybe the movie was a little too jokey.

Anyway, this is worth checking out for fans of strange movies although you will start to wonder why so many people are willing to sleep in a bed without knowing what those sheets have been through.

Time Travel Movie Fest: Predestination

2014 time travel movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A time traveling agent hunts for a terrorist.

I'm not going to write much about this one because it would likely spoil things. Plus, I'm lazy. You should probably just trust me that it's worth a watch and ignore the rest of this.

If you're into time-travel movies at all, this fun little puzzle of a movie is worth watching. It's well-acted and full of intrigue. Combining noir and science fiction elements, this kind of has a similar tone to something like Alphaville. The narrative is fractured, but the storytelling's coherent, at least until a few big ol' what-the-fucks settle in. Ethan Hawke makes up for Boyhood with his work here, but it's really Sarah Snook who impresses. She distracts by resembling Leonardo DiCaprio but gives this almost terrifying good, captivating performance.

You might see the twists and turns coming. I did, and I'm not very good at spotting things like that at all. Regardless, it doesn't make this movie any less enjoyable. I mean, you get to see what the puzzle looks like because the damn thing is on the front of the box, and puzzles are still a lot of fun. Oh, they're not? Forget that comparison then.

See this movie because it's better than a puzzle.