Release Date: April 7th, 2006 Directed by: Dennis Dugan Written by: Allen Covert, Nick Swardson Music by: Waddy Wachtel Cast: Rob Schneider, David Spade, Jon Heder, Jon Lovitz, Craig Kilborn, Molly Sims, Tim Meadows, Nick Swardson, Bill Romanowski, Reggie Jackson, Terry Crews, Dennis Dugan, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Rachel Hunter, Doug Jones (voice), William Daniels (voice), James Earl Jones (voice)
Happy Madison Productions, Revolution Studios, 85 Minutes
Review:
“My wife is the only one who gets to twist these man titties.” – Gus
This is both a bad and a dumb movie. Still, I like the hell out of it because sometimes bad and dumb are just what you need to mindlessly escape from an increasingly shitty world.
Also, this is the type of movie that can’t be made today. When I say “type of movie” I mean “comedy”. We’re not allowed to laugh at things anymore because it could offend a small portion of the population who go through life like Howie in this movie. Although, Howie finally faced his fears and went outside where he made real friends and learned how to overcome his irrationality and begin to heal.
The Benchwarmers is the same sort of movies as Grandma’s Boy and, in fact, it’s made by some of the same people. Unlike Grandma’s Boy, though, this doesn’t focus on smoking dope and programming video games, it focuses on standing up to bullies and playing baseball.
While most of the characters in this are borderline ridiculous and way over the top, this is also the writers and actors poking fun at themselves for being nerds and non-jocks that probably just wanted to be able to hang with the dudes that picked on them growing up. This just takes the concept to the extreme because it’s easier to laugh at ourselves when it doesn’t hit super close to home.
This isn’t particularly well acted and many of the nerd tropes are way overdone to the point of cringe but in some way, it works for this movie. We really shouldn’t take this movie too seriously just like most of the things in our lives.
I get that a lot of people will hate this movie while watching it. But ask yourself this, “Are those people fun? Or are they just boring snobs thinking that they’re above a fart joke or shitty pun?” Basically, fuck those people.
Release Date: March 31st, 1995 Directed by: Rachel Talalay Written by: Tedi Sarafian Based on:Tank Girl by Alan Martin, Jamie Hewlett Music by: Graeme Revell Cast: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Malcolm McDowell, Jeff Kober, Reg E. Cathey, Scott Coffey, Iggy Pop, James Hong, Doug Jones, Frank Welker (voice)
Image Comics, Trilogy Entertainment, United Artists, 104 Minutes
Review:
“Look, it’s been swell, but the swelling’s gone down.” – Tank Girl
While Lori Petty was a great choice to play Tank Girl, this is a pretty awful movie that I’ve never been a fan of.
The concept is cool but the execution of it was terrible in just about every way.
I will say that I like the general look and aesthetic of the movie but it’s the clunky and unfunny script that really drags this concept down into the mud and drowns it before it has a chance to save itself.
The jokes never land and that’s not Petty’s fault, as she’s working with the script they gave her. And honestly, I have to give her props for really giving this her all, as she brings her A-game but basically wastes it in what should have been a really cool flick that could’ve even spawned a franchise had it been handled much better.
I also think the direction is a big problem too. I’ve never been a big fan of Rachel Talalay’s film work and that started with the abysmally bad Freddy’s Dead, which truly derailed the Nightmare On Elm Street franchise. By this point, nearly a half decade later, she still hadn’t found her footing as a director.
Now I do generally like most of the characters in this but you’ve got Malcolm McDowell and yet, he’s severely underutilized and it feels like he’s barely in the film other than about three key scenes.
Honestly, this is just disappointing and the source material could’ve been harvested much, much better.
Side note: this is the cutest Naomi Watts ever was. I think I watched this shit movie more times than I should’ve in my teens because I was crushing so hard on Jet Girl.
Rating: 4/10 Pairs well with: other sci-fi B-movies of the early-to-mid ’90s. Especially, those based on comics or video games.
Original Run: March 27th, 2019 – current Created by: Jemaine Clement Directed by: Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, various Written by: Jemaine Clement, various Based on:What We Do In the Shadows by Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi Music by: Mark Mothersbaugh, Norma Tanega (opening theme) Cast: Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Harvey Guillen, Mark Proksch, Doug Jones
FX Productions, Two Canoes Pictures, 343 Incorporated, 10 Episodes (so far), 24-30 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
What We Do In the Shadows was one of my favorite comedy movies of the last few years. Maybe, my favorite, in fact. But I wasn’t too keen on any of the ideas they threw around for spinoffs, whether it be the werewolf movie they mentioned or this television show. When you’ve got something great, you shouldn’t diminish it by milking the cow for more.
However, having now seen it, I do mostly like the show. Granted, it isn’t a straight remake of the movie. It’s very similar with the same general premise but it follows new characters in a new city. This also explores other types of vampires, which opens the door for more possibilities.
The humor is good and pretty consistent with the film. I don’t know most of the actors but I do know Matt Berry, who I became a fan of due to his work on The IT Crowd and The Mighty Boosh.
Still, it feels lacking after experiencing the greatness of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi in the film version. Both men have directed episodes of the show and I think that’s helped it, along with Clement providing some of the writing. And maybe they’ll make cameos at some point.
The show, overall, is off to a pretty good start and it’ll be interesting seeing how it evolves over time. But I fear that the formula could get tiresome fairly quickly. Only time will tell but for now, it’s definitely worth checking out for fans of the movie and Clement and Waititi’s brand of humor.
Rating: 7.25/10 Pairs well with: the film it’s based on, as well as other works by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi.
Original Run: September 24th, 2017 – current Created by: Bryan Fuller, Alex Kurtzman Directed by: various Written by: various Based on:Star Trek by Gene Roddenberry Music by: Jeff Russo, Alexander Courage (original theme) Cast: Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, Wilson Cruz, Anson Mount
Secret Hideout, Roddenberry Entertainment, Living Dead Guy Productions, CBS Television Studios, 29 Episodes (so far), 37-65 Minutes (per episode)
Review:
I didn’t want to subscribe to CBS All Access just to have access to this show. There wasn’t much else on the service that I wanted to watch. So I figured that I’d wait till this was out and then I’d binge watch the first season.
However, based off of what I heard about the first season (and later, the second season) I refrained from subscribing, even for a month.
Well, I finally got to check it out on a Delta flight. I figured I’d watch the first two episodes and figure out if I wanted to continue on. I didn’t.
This show is a fucking abomination. My worst fears were true and this was just a shittier version of J. J. Abrams’ mostly shitty modern Star Trek stuff. Throw in a bunch of identity politics nonsense to boot and I’d rather wipe my ass with a sharp spoon than watch another episode.
A guy at work kept telling me, “Don’t believe all the negative hype, it’s not that bad. Give it a shot. I think you’ll like it.” I put in a formal request to have this guy fired. I don’t think that my employer will approve it just based off of my comments, so I also included a thumb drive with clips from the show.
On a side note, I really like Anson Mount. Dude is a stellar fucking actor but I couldn’t get through two episodes of this Dumbo-sized shite to even make it to his episodes. Between this fucktard show and Inhumans, dude might need to fire his agent.
The special effects aren’t as good as people have said yet this show is insanely expensive to produce.
Also, what the fuck is up with the Klingons? No, seriously? They don’t look like Klingons, they look stupid. I think that somewhere down the line, these Klingons reproduced with that tar monster that killed Tasha Yar on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
This is NOT Star Trek. It’s some fan fiction by a fan that isn’t even a fan, who got all their Star Trek lore from some drunk old hippie at the corner bar.
This is to Star Trek what Applebee’s Riblets are to A5 Wagyu.
It’s unwatchable, unexciting and will turn most people into somnambulists.
It’s fitting that this show is abbreviated as STD. I should have bought two condoms and just put them over my eyes because this is certainly the genital warts of the franchise.
All that being said, I hated this show like a vegan bitch hates Longhorn Steakhouse.
Rating: 1.5/10 Pairs well with: a bladder infection or anal fissures.
Also known as: Fantastic Four 2, Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four: The Next Chapter (working titles) Release Date: June 12th, 2007 (London premiere) Directed by: Tim Story Written by: Don Payne, Mark Frost, John Turman Based on:Fantastic Four by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby Music by: John Ottman Cast: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Doug Jones, Beau Garrett, Laurence Fishburne (voice), Brian Posehn
Marvel Entertainment, Constantin Film, 1492 Pictures, Dune Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, 92 Minutes
Review:
“…I stayed in and studied like a good little nerd. And fifteen years later, I’m one of the greatest minds of the 21st century. I’m engaged to the hottest girl on the planet. And the big jock who played football in high school, he’s standing right in front of me asking me for my help, and I say he’s not going to get a damn thing, unless he does exactly what I say and starts treating me and my friends with some respect.” – Reed Richards
After revisiting the first film in this duology, which was really just an unfinished trilogy, I thought that I’d watch this one again too. Granted, I didn’t expect to be wowed by it, as I wasn’t wowed in the first place when it came out 11 years ago. But I’ve been slowly working my way through the Marvel films that existed before the Marvel Cinematic Universe kicked off with Iron Man in 2008.
I thought that I preferred this one to its predecessor from what I remembered. However, having watched them again, this is the shitty one of the two films. Both are really shitty, mind you.
There is so much wrong with this film that it’s hard to pick where to start but I guess a lot of it can be lumped into one thing: tone. The tone just doesn’t work and this picture doesn’t seem to know what it’s trying to be. This is a mish mash of extreme cheese, rom com cringe, buddy movie antics, sci-fi thriller elements, terrible villains and a pail full of wet turds.
The extreme cheese portion of the movie is the type of stuff that will make you puke in your mouth while experiencing uncontrollable shivers. If you don’t believe me, just watch the Reed Richards dance scene. Ioan Gruffudd is probably a nice enough guy but this whole sequence makes me hate him, the director and the special effects team. And ultimately, I cried inside because Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis had to be a part of it.
The rom com cringe comes from all the Reed Richards and Susan Storm marriage bullshit. There’s this ongoing joke throughout the movie about how their wedding keeps getting interrupted, it’s played up for comedy when it’s really not that funny and always takes a turn towards a serious attempt at stopping a threat which is poorly executed each time and falls victim to the extreme cheese residue that seems to be smeared over the celluloid that this was filmed on. Plus, this is one of the most unconvincing romantic relationships I have ever seen on screen.
When it comes to the buddy movie antics, the first film handled this stuff much better. I actually loved the relationship between Johnny and Ben in the first chapter. It carries over into this one but this story is more about how much of a fuck up Johnny is and it’s just not as funny. And since he becomes a responsible grown up by the end of the picture, it probably would’ve been worse in the third picture that didn’t get made. But where they try to push the buddy comedy shtick here, it just feels like a soulless copy of what’s already been done.
Then the film also tries to get serious and be a real science fiction thriller. The problem is that you are so bogged down by the cheesy bullshit that it doesn’t fit. I guess the best way to describe the confusing tone is to imagine taking a movie like Step Brothers and then trying to edit it together into one film with Terminator 2. The shit just doesn’t work and it’s weird.
Plus, Jessica Alba’s Sue Storm looks even more unbelievably bizarre in this film than the previous one. She’s a beautiful woman but the blonde hair and blue eyes are so exaggerated here that she looks like an alien in some scenes. I mean, it’s really fucking distracting. But in some scenes she looks fine too. Really, her whole look throughout the film is grossly inconsistent and when she does look weird, it’s super weird because 30 seconds earlier she probably looked okay.
I have to discuss the villain problem as well.
For one, I hated Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom in the first movie and he’s just so much worse in this one. The dude does everything he can to not wear the Doom mask, which is the main thing that makes the villain visually terrifying. But then when he does wear it, his dubbing is fucking deplorable. He doesn’t sound like a mad scientist in a cool mask, he sounds like a male dance choreographer trying to berate six year-old ballet students that don’t have the attention span to commit to his community theater production.
Then there is Galactus. Or isn’t there? One of the most powerful villains in the entire history of Marvel Comics is simply a cloud in this film. A fucking cloud. I don’t think I need to say anymore about that.
Also, the plot makes no sense by the time you get to the end. The Silver Surfer is helping Galactus eat planets because if he doesn’t, Galactus will eat his homeworld. But then in the end, Susan Storm convinces the Silver Surfer to stop him. So how does he do it? The Surfer flies into the cloud, tells the cloud he isn’t his servant anymore and then the cloud blows up and goes away. Couldn’t the Silver Surfer have just done this like fifty planets ago? Hell, couldn’t have just gotten Galactus’ power and then instantly turned on him without actually leaving his own planet and not only saving it but also all the worlds he prepared for his master like duck confit with a side of foie gras and truffle risotto?
Fuck, this movie is so stupid.
So I must put this movie through the Cinespiria Shitometer. The results read, “Type 1 Stool: Separate hard lumps, like nuts (hard to pass).”
Rating: 3.5/10 Pairs well with: 2005’s Fantastic Four and the 2015 reboot. And I can’t forget 1994’s unreleased Fantastic Four film, which can be tracked down and seen nowadays. However, all these movies are terrible.
Also known as: Judas (working title), Mutant (Poland), Métamorphose (French Canadian) Release Date: August 22nd, 1997 Directed by: Guillermo del Toro Written by: Matthew Robbins, Guillermo del Toro Based on:Mimic by Donald A. Wollheim Music by: Marco Beltrami Cast: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Alexander Goodwin, F. Murray Abraham, Charles S. Dutton, Norman Reedus, Doug Jones
Dimension Films, Miramax Films, 106 Minutes
Review:
“Evolution has a way of keeping things alive.” – Dr. Gates
I haven’t seen Mimic since it first came out on VHS back in like 1998. I rented it once, watched it while drunk with friends and didn’t remember much other than it being visually creepy and having a lot of gross bug stuff.
I hate cockroaches. I can deal with spiders, snakes and rabies raging raccoons but roaches are my sworn enemy. They’re gross, carry disease and well, they look like roaches. So I’ve never been big on bug horror, other than The Fly remake because that was some incredible otherworldly shit, visually. And to be honest, it just isn’t the fact that I hate roaches, which makes me not like bug horror, but it is the fact that most of these movies are pretty drab and just rely on the gross bits.
Plus, my mind always mixed this film up with Relic, which was another horror film that came out at the same time that dealt with some creature in the dark and had a five letter title that ended in “-ic”.
Mimic has the benefit of being directed by Guillermo del Toro and not too long after he did another bug-themed horror film with his breakout picture Cronos. And while this is a pretty pedestrian horror film it does have a fantastic atmosphere provided by del Toro. Watching this now, I got to take in a lot of shots that were very breathtaking and gave this an artistic feel that a film like this isn’t typically deserving of. That early shot where we see the children’s hospital, as the camera starts high and gradually sweeps towards ground level looked like something straight out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil.
This film also has a pretty strong cast but unfortunately, none of them are used that well. Mira Sorvino’s bug scientist is the most interesting person but she’s about the only character you’ll care for in this film, which boasts the talented lineup of Sorvino, Josh Brolin, F. Murray Abraham, Giancarlo Giannini, Charles S. Dutton, Norman Reedus and Jeremy Northam. It also features del Toro regular Doug Jones, as one of the bug creatures.
Mimic is pretty forgettable but it spawned some direct-to-video sequels. I really have no interest in watching this as a series but I’ll probably eventually work my way through those followups.
I have only rated this as high as it is because it had good atmosphere and style to it and it wasn’t awful. It could have had a better script, better characters and been more engaging but it’s a product of its time and not too dissimilar from slightly above average horror pictures from the late ’90s.
Rating: 7/10 Pairs well with:Relic because they always blend together in my memories and I suppose the sequels to this film, as well as del Toro’s other bug/body horror movie Cronos.
Release Date: August 31st, 2017 (Venice International Film Festival) Directed by: Guillermo del Toro Written by: Guillermo del Toro, Vanessa Taylor Music by: Alexandre Desplat Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg, Octavia Spencer
Double Dare You Productions, Fox Searchlight Pictures, 123 Minutes
Review:
*Warning: there will be spoilers!
“You may think, “That thing looks human.” Stands on two legs, right? But – we’re created in the Lord’s image. You don’t think that’s what the Lord looks like, do you?” – Strickland
I was fairly excited for The Shape of Water, as it isn’t very often that we get movies with Gillmen or some variant of one. The Creature From the Black Lagoon is one of my favorite movies of all-time, so I have always had a soft spot for aquatic humanoid monsters. Plus, Guillermo del Toro is pretty much the godfather of the modern dark fairy-tale.
It should probably go without saying that this film was a visual delight and that it boasted incredible cinematography and great lighting. All of this was enhanced by the great care and attention to detail in the set design and the overall early 1960s setting. It was like the flip side of a Mad Men world, where instead of light and cheeriness, there is a looming darkness and a cloud of depression over these characters and their world.
This isn’t a straight up reinterpretation of The Creature From the Black Lagoon though. It is actually closer to that film’s sequels, which saw the Gillman in captivity and being experimented on by human scientists. But even then, this is more of a Beauty and the Beast story than anything else. It just so happens that the beast is an aquatic creature from the Amazon and that he is a prisoner of evil men.
Beauty in this case is Sally Hawkins’ Elisa. She is a cleaning lady that works at a big government institution where they are doing experiments on the monster. She has an immediate attraction to the creature, as both are outsiders who have been treated badly by others. You see, Elisa is a mute and she is constantly treated differently because of her handicap.
As the story rolls on, Elisa falls in love with the creature, as he doesn’t see her as someone with a handicap. While the story generally works well it is a bit forced and overly sappy. Del Toro lays it on real thick.
Eventually, Elisa frees the creature from the institution and keeps him at her home where the two do get it on. Maybe I’m old fashioned but the sex element to the story was a bit bizarre and brings up questions of bestiality whether or not the creature is intelligent or not. In the film, this just seemed to be an afterthought because love is the focus. Well, I’ve loved all my dogs over the years but I never fucked them and one of them was intelligent enough to open doors.
The sex with the creature angle would be okay in some twisted grindhouse picture that’s made to shock people but here it happens in a film that carries a message of love and is well made, well produced and will probably be up for a lot of big awards in a few months. And the issue just felt like an afterthought. It’s not just some plot point to accept within the context, it’s a pretty big moral curveball. But I guess most of the other critics are okay with Beauty banging the Beast before he returns to human form. But this film isn’t cheap fantasy erotica… or is it? Is this just Fifty Shades of Beast Cock?
The film also keeps beating its audience with how much these people are outsiders. It doesn’t take much to figure out and it could have been done much more subtlety. I feel like del Toro is falling into the same trap as a lot of contemporary filmmakers, where he feels the need to spell everything out and then keep reinforcing those points throughout the movie.
The film is also two hours but it felt like it was three. The first half moves fairly quickly but once the monster escapes the clutches of the evil humans, everything just drags to a crawl. We get a big showdown in the end but ultimately, the film was pretty predictable. Well, except for the bestiality curveball. Glad I didn’t take my mum or one of my aunts to this. I never would’ve heard the end of it, “Oh, Robbie… the fish man is nice but why would you have sex with him? He’s a fish man!”
I liked this movie from a technical and visual standpoint but I was letdown by the story and its execution. I thought the acting as exceptional but that can’t save a poor script and clunky narrative.
Release Date: October 22nd, 2005 Directed by: David Lee Fisher Written by: David Lee Fisher Based on:The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari the 1920 film written by Hans Janowitz, Carl Mayer Music by: Eban Schletter Cast: Judson Pearce Morgan, Daamen J. Krall, Doug Jones, Lauren Birkell
Highlander Films, Image Entertainment, 76 Minutes
Review:
I’ll admit it, initially, I was pretty stoked about this movie before it came out in 2005. I remember a friend directing me to the website where I watched the trailer and read about the development of the picture. I was then quick to buy a copy as soon as it was made available. I wanted this to be good.
Unfortunately, it falls short in a lot of ways.
First, the film is a technical achievement in how it was shot and presented. While it is filmed with a lot of green screen work, the actors are transported into the visual world of the original The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Most of the technical work goes off without a hitch but in some spots, sets may have worked better and its not like recreating the original sets would have been that costly, it may have been cheaper and easier than filming in green screen and trying to get the actors to match up with the original shots. Plus, I’m not sure that a shot for shot remake was necessarily the best idea either.
Also, the acting, for the most part, is pretty bad. I can dismiss it to a point, due to it being a recreation of the original body of work, as silent films employed a lot of physical action and overstated expressions but this film overstates its performances pretty profoundly. I’d hate to come off as a dick but it felt like a community theater troupe giving the film a Shakespearean panache.
The only real acting highlight was Doug Jones as Cesare. However, Jones is well-known for his physical performances, which is why he constantly plays weird sorts of characters and will forever be employed by Guillermo del Toro. Lauren Birkell was also fairly good, as she was the only major character that was subtle and mostly played her part to a t.
It is hard to remake a bonafide classic, however. I just feel like it would have been better had the filmmakers done their own interpretation of the film, as opposed to trying to seamlessly recreate it with the addition of sound. It put them into a box and it was a box that was already perfect the way it was.
I’m not against a Caligari remake, it just needs to have its own identity and breathe its own life into the story. Look at what the 1970s remake of Nosferatu with Klaus Kinski did; it was a stellar film in its own way and still a fantastic homage to the original silent classic.
I can’t deny the appreciation that the filmmakers had for the original, however. It is obvious that their intentions were noble and they tried their damnedest to recreate the Caligari world but the approach and execution were off.
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Talking Pulp 
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