The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

Now that I've done my third genre cycle through the Deep Hurting Project, I figure it's time to update the Deep Hurting Awards.

Awards that haven't changed:

• Most Brain-Breaking:Highlander 2. This film may have the most plot holes of any film I've seen with the possible exception of Battlefield Earth, which is ineligible for the award to give others a fighting chance.
  
• Most Reprehensible: Vaxxed. Nuff Said.
  
• Best Worst Movie: Guardians. Probably the first film I've watched for the project that I'd seriously consider buying if I found a copy at Half-Price Books. And it's so absurd in how badly it apes the current crop of Superhero movies. The Bratz film is ineligible for this award to give others a fighting chance.
  
• The The Eye Creatures Award for Just Not Caring (formerly Most Stunningly Incompetent): Stranded. It's an incredibly stupid ripoff of Alien played dead serious and filmed on a budget so low that a robotic booklight plays the part of a high-tech space communicator. Thank Jah Christian Slater found Mr. Robot.
  
• The Richie Cusack Award for Epic Fails: Yep, the scene from A History of Violence where William Hurt asks "How do you fuck that up?" is now a fixture of the Deep Hurting Project. And now, I've decided to devote his awards to simple fucking things that the filmmakers fuck up spectacularly. Do I give it to Hilary's America for setting out to make a movie claiming Democrats are the real racists and fail to do justice to targets who would seem like shooting fish in a barrel? Or The Apparition for somehow having more plot in the fucking trailer than the actual film? Nope, I'm giving it to The Emoji Movie. Why? Because they fuck up the most basic aspects of the plot: Gene has the unusual problem of having multiple emotions which forms the basic thrust of the film, except that other emojis actually show multiple emotions, and not just Steven Wright. They go for a "be yourself" moral, but fuck it up because when Gene tries to be himself, it risks THE ENTIRE PHONEWORLD BEING DESTROYED. And it somehow saves the day because the girl he's into is impressed by a weird emoji. They go for a feminist moral claiming that there was an era where female emojis could only be princesses and brides, except that Smiler (a female) was not only the first emoji, but was their leader from time immemorial.
  
  

Updated Awards:

• Most Frustrating experience as a viewer: As bad as Hilary's America was, it at least had a distinctive style that gave some laughs, particularly with the low-budget docudrama sections. The follow-up, Death of a Nation, however, is even worse, basically treading the same ground, replacing the so-bad-it's-good re-enactments with barely competent ones. At one point, he even stops the film about 80 minutes in so his wife could cover a Celtic Woman song. He's basically taking the few sections with any sort of So Bad It's Good appeal and making them just bad.
  
• Worst Film I've Ever Seen: I wanted so bad to put The Babe Ruth Story in this category. But somehow, less than a week after, I saw One Missed Call and found it was even worse. I loved poking fun at the former, but the latter, it was just so dull that I found myself struggling to make jokes, even as the actor who played Leland Palmer on Twin Peaks got reacquanted with demonic possession. It was so bad that the closest thing the film had to any redeeming quality was Margaret Cho deciding to give her character a Southern Accent for about one line in five. Because her just barely deciding to put some effort into her minor character was far more than literally anyone else was putting into the film.
  
• Megatron Award for Bad Comedy: Yep, it's official, Doogal is worse than Bio-Dome in this regard. Taking the Shrek formula, fucking literally everything up so there's no charm in it, even the celebrity voice actors, and doing so with a film that already had a decent English dub. The Magic Roundabout cut is on YouTube, and while I haven't seen the whole thing, from what I've seen, it's a C-movie at best. But given the F-- Doogal dub, it's practically a masterpiece.
  
  
• Most Generic piece of shit: The Legend of Hercules. It seems to exist solely to rip off any and all familiar movies that take place in Antiquity (Gladiator and 300 mostly) and just decided that everything was all part of the legend of Hercules. Even if Gladiatorial arenae were a Roman phoenomena and not Greek, and even if they somehow got a Mesopotamian giant in there by mistake.
  
• Most Damn Faint Praise: Catwoman. It's really not a good movie, and may be one of the worst superhero movies ever made. But it's still a lot more tolerable than The Babe Ruth Story and One Missed Call. This could be because they devoted as much as possible to catering to the male gaze while still keeping a PG-13 rating, but at least Halle Berry puts her all into this piece of shit.
  

New Award:

• The Raw Deal award for films that really deserved better: The Master of Disguise. I think we can all agree that this movie is utter crap, made even worse by catering to the narrow demographic young enough to find fart jokes, ass jokes, and a man named Pistachio Disguisey dressing up like a turtle and biting people's noses is funny, but old enough to recognise Bo Derek, Tony Montana, and Robert Shaw's character in Jaws and relate to Pistachio's ass fetish. But take the initial conceit: a spy comedy franchise built around a man with a preternatural ability to disguise himself, using that as a vehicle for the actor in question to showcase how versatile his performances can be. If Peter Sellers was still alive when this idea was going around, this would have been fucking perfect. Hell, if you've seen Holy Motors, the stuff Denis Levant does throughout the movie fits much the same MO (except without the espionage), and that movie is much better. Imagine what such a thing would have been if it wasn't picked up by a studio who pretty much exists as a welfare organisation for former SNL cast members who couldn't get roles in other studios. And you could even retain the weird borderline-autistic personality Pistachio had (at least if you put more work into it), perhaps adding a Little Voice element into the mix that could help explain why he's so good at it, like his impersonations are a way of trying to blend in to the neurotypical world.
  

[Fake Messiah]

Basquiat 1996 - although the movie is named Basquiat you could say it's not much about him but rather meditation on art, you know: "what is painting and who needs it?" In the past it was easy for painters, they just got orders "paint this god or that portrait" but, as time goes by, painting seems more mysterious.
So the movie can't be about Basquiat because they ridicule people's obsession with him and he, as well as his persona, remains mysterious - not exactly a wikipedia article on Basquiat.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Saw "Endgame" again. I was almost able to follow the action at the end this time.

[Drich]

I saw Mother on net flixs... surprising Good! kinda make you think ending..

---

also lot of good zombie flix on net flix but in korean Joseon period/Japan's samurai but korean style. they are the fast moving type which always creaps me out more and they all have a third thing unique to korean zombies and that they like vampires burn up in the sun light. kind gives a bit of a rest between zombie take over scenes.

I think there are two movies and one like 10 episode show.

[downbeatplumb]

I saw I am mother.

Very good take on iRobot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5BKctcZxrM

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The Hudsucker Proxy

A VASTLY under-rated film.  Tim Robbins is a mail-room dimwit promoted to CEO as part of a deliberate scheme to drive down the company's stock.  Sort of an homage to the screwball comedies on the 30s and 40s.  Loved every minute of it.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

As you may or may not know, for the Deep Hurting Project, I tend to cycle through genres; it currently stands at: Action/Adventure, "Comedy", Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Youth, and "Nonfiction". There's also an extra category for the three Christmas movies I haven't gotten to yet (but will once my local library starts putting them back into circulation in the fall), FWIW. The last time I had an action/adventure movie due, it was the week Endgame was released (so long, sweet Thanos). So, I decided that would be the best week to watch the one Marvel movie in the Project that wasn't directed by Josh Trank. Unfortunately, the 1990 Captain America movie was already checked out when I looked for it, so I had to make do with The Legend of Hercules. Fortunately, this time around, it actually was around for me to check it out.

So, was it worth the wait? It's in the Deep Hurting Project, what do you think?

• This movie was made for $10 million, a tiny budget for a superhero movie, even for one that was likely still in principal photography while I was being born. And somehow, it actually looks more shit than Guardians, which had half the budget and that's not even accounting for inflation. Part of this has likely has to do with the poor quality print used (even though the DVD assured us that it was made from the finest elements, and it still looks like it was dubbed from an old VHS), but that doesn't explain everything, like how the special effects (like the rat in the beginning and Cap throwing his shield) look like a low-rent version of Ray Harryhausen.
  
• The first few minutes of the movie is in Italian. Unsubtitled, except for the rare occasions where they decide to actually include them. And it turns out it's the origin of the Red Skull. He's Italian in this version. And they still make him the supervillainous version of the Nazis.
  
  And this change isn't helped that Red Skull has the worst Italian accent this side of Chico Marx.
  
• They may have decided to have the first scenes in unsubtitled Italian to hide from the audience that the script is absolute shit. At one point, they have what has to be the dumbest line of exposition I've ever heard in a movie: a kid is staying up at night to look at the rocket that Captain America is tied to by saying "How do you expect me to sleep, Mom? We're in Washington DC." Seriously. And then in the next scene, his best friend straight-up tells him that he's his best friend. And he namedrops the Human Torch before the Fantastic Four was created.
  
• Also, he's staying up to watch this rocket go through Washington DC and he's the only person to notice, and he's not even afraid. DURING WORLD WAR 2. And it was going to hit the fucking White House.
  
• Somehow, a president is able to pass sweeping environmental regulations and it's the military who's obsessed with undermining it and not big business. And he needs Red Skull to put a dent in its progress, even though the real-world Republican party's blocked as much anti-climate change legislation as possible like they have a vested interest in the world turning into Mad Max.
  
• Speaking of Captain America getting tied to a rocket, Captain America is an absolute shit superhero in this version. This clip should sum it all up:
  
  It's one thing to have him win so many fights that we lose any tension of whether or not he wins, but most of his fights end in Captain America getting defeated or running away. What the shit kind of superhero lets his archnemesis tie him to a rocket to blow up the White House? (To be fair, this did happen in the comic, but Cap was able to untie himself and even attempted to defuse it before falling into the Arctic Ocean.) And what kind of superhero costume includes fake plastic ears? (Okay, I know why, Matt Salinger's actual ears chafed and this solution was somehow better). And it's kind of a shame, since, according to many sources, Matt Salinger (yes, the son of J.D. Salinger) is the only member of the cast who actually gives a decent performance. Unfortunately, as I write this, he hasn't been impressing me yet. Then again, he just got unfrozen, and at the moment, it's 11:35 and I should probably be going to sleep. So, I'll pick this up tomorrow with the last hour of the movie. 
  

[Gawdzilla Sama]

MIB International: I'm conflicted on this one.

[Rev. Rye]

Looking further into the 1990 Captain America movie, more assorted thoughts:

• They freeze Captain America for over 45 years, and except for a scene where he accuses Ned Beatty of being a spy because he has a German car and a Japanese tape recorder (not knowing that the war's been over for close to half a century) and a few other assorted moments, they do nothing with the fish-out-of-water motif that would inevitably be a part of Steve Rogers' culture shock.
  
• Red Skull has gone from having a shitty Italian accent to a gruffer variation on Ren Hoek's accent, and for some reason, he's been given plastic surgery to make his face halfway presentable. And it looks like shoddy attempt at aping Batman (with the scenes where the Joker pretends to be a legitimate businessman and he puts on flesh-coloured makeup to make it look like he's just normal Jack Nicholson with a Glasgow smile.)
  
• How does Red Skull expect to become the President of the United States after killing him? Did he somehow take all the rest of the cabinet and the President Pro Tempore and not mention it?
  
• The big climactic fight scene at the end is one of the most confusingly edited fight scenes I've ever seen in a movie:
  
  
  
• Also, the final shot:
  
  Could Menahem Golan not afford to make a costume that looked like it could potentially fit Matt Salinger? Was spandex really that fucking expensive in 1990?
  

Well, this was the worst superhero movie I've ever seen. Yes, worse than Fant4stic. I think I've covered most, if not all, the bases between this post and my previous one, so was there anything good about it? 

• Well, Matt Salinger was actually halfway decent. 
  
• Some of the changes to the source material actually worked; you may notice that some of the aspects of Red Skull's backstory (like his being a failed experiment in the same sort of experiments that turned Steve into Captain America and being responsible for the Kennedy assassinations) ended up getting put into the MCU films.
  
• There is a good powering-up leitmotif that sometimes plays just before Captain America starts to kick ass (a rare occurrence indeed). Sadly, I can't find a clip of it on Youtube, and it's kind of overshadowed by the third-rate synth music, third-rate blues, and third-rate Heartland Rock.
  
• He doesn't say this:
  
  

That's pretty much it.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is the movie LOL, starring Miley Cyrus. It's a remake of a movie that won a Cesar in its native France. It was directed by the original director, and is apparently largely a shot-for-shot remake of the original. And yet, it ended up going from an Oscar-winning film to a film so poorly recieved that it ended up in the Deep Hurting Project.  And so, since I don't have access to the original French version, I ask, probably more earnestly than in any previous entry in the Project:




Well, here's what TVTropes had to say: "All the funny moments of the original have the humor sucked clean out and replaced with gratuitous obscenity - which is odd, as other parts of the script were Bowdlerised. It's loaded with padding, and panders nonstop. The plot is mangled, and the dialogue never gets better than trite aphorisms passed off as profound." Apparently, the original film was made after Lisa Azuelos noticed there weren't many teen movies being made in France, so she made her own. And so, she wound up remaking it for a film market with a glut of teen movies, and as a consequence, it doesn't seem like there's much differentiating it from any of those films. It'd be like remaking The Class for an American audience; a true story about a teacher (playing himself) inspiring his students to rise above their stations and excel, and it's not like we haven't seen dozens of versions of this story, even if they make it as realistic as that Palme D'Or-winning film.

Well, here's some extra notes for the rare things that distinguish this movie from every other teen movie ever made:

• In the original film, LOL is a double entendre, meaning both the famous acronym, and Lola's nickname. In her opening narration, Lola says that everyone calls her "Lol." In reality,to quote IMDb's Goofs page, "In the beginning of the film, Lola says her nickname is Lol and that everyone calls her that, but throughout the course of the film, nobody calls her Lol - only Lola." To be fair, that flaw seems to have come from the original film, since the same goof entry is included verbatim in the goofs page of the original version's IMDb page.
  
• I can only assume that there was some cross-cultural dissonance that Azuelos didn't bother to smooth over, and the first big hint is five minutes in when we see Lola's mom and her sister (who looks about six) bathing together. Lola sees this and disrobes. Her mother notices she's had a Brazilian wax. Also, a minute later, in a brief shot that may or may not be an imagine spot, they're spooning.
  
• Also, on that note, while Lola's disrobing, she's got dirty feet like she goes barefoot regularly, but she barely gets any other barefoot scenes. Well, one scene where she's vacuuming, but that's it. It's a minor point, but I expected more from the girl who brought us this:
  
• A love montage reveals that this movie is supposed to be set in Chicago with them on the El Train and playing at Millennium Park. Unfortunately, a lot of the movie was shot in Detroit and sometimes you can see the Renaissance Center outside of one character's apartment, because of fucking COURSE a movie set in Chicago doesn't have the balls to actually shoot in Chicago.
  
• Demi Moore and Thomas Jane are divorced, and having an affair with each other, and Demi Moore still has the gall to chew Thomas Jane out for potentially screwing around with other woman. WHILE BOTH OF THEM ARE DIVORCED.
  
• I legitimately had no idea that Marlo Thomas was that much of a lightweight for her to get falling-off-her-ass-drunk off a single glass of Scotch and Coke!
  
• Somehow, this movie, based on a French movie, directed by the same Frenchwoman who made the original French movie, has an absurdly stereotypical view of France, especially given that they serve Escargot to the Yanks going to Paris at the first opportunity. To be fair, this seems to be based on the original French version, where they go to England and get served white bread, pasta, and marmalade.
  
• What the fucking hell was happening with Fisher Stevens around this time that he appeared both in this and United Passions?
  

In the end, the movie was filmed in 2010 and ended up being released two years later, and apparently only got a theatrical release because of a contractual obligation requiring it be released in 100 US theaters. So it ended up released the same day as The Avengers in 105 theaters. BoxOfficeMojo is failing me on actual numbers, but apparently, that first weekend, its total domestic gross was less than The Avengers' AVERAGE PER-SCREEN GROSS. And given that that was only $47,698, I can only assume the take was abysmal.

Honestly, this is probably the most generic film I've seen for the project. Seriously, most of the bullet points I've written are just cliches and not outstandingly dumb filmmaking or storytelling.