The Last Movie You Watched

[WinterHold]

The Joker scenes from "The Dark Knight".

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Bratz. As I've mentioned before, I am actually intimately familiar with this movie. You may well ask, Rye, the fuck? Well, it all started when I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the theaters. The trailer was attached to the movie, and when I saw it, I knew this had to be utterly horrible or utterly great. It turns out, it was both:





Naturally, I was not allowed to see it in theaters, but I did try to torrent it, especially after it came out. The critics were scathing, but what they described was so unfathomably insane I had to see it. Unfortunately, whenever I tried to download it, the watchability was compromised because it was ALWAYS dubbed into what I think is Korean, and, for some reason, it kept going between black and white and colour randomly like Natural Born Killers. Speaking of NBK, for whatever reason, the day after Christmas 2007, Dad and I decided to go to some electronics store in the boonies, and we wound up getting it (along with the new properly widescreen edition of the theatrical cut of Manhunter and NBK.) We showed my mother what I got and she was actually more horrified when she saw the Bratz movie than the one that's been linked to a depressingly large number or murderers from people who totally missed the damn point. While, of course, the movie didn't switch between colour and black and white like the editions I torrented did, it still had enough insane shit that I knew I had found gold. And without further ado, a small sampling of the crazy shit you'll find if you get a copy of Bratz and just ride the snake (and ignore the shallow leads, story, and Comic Sans font for the opening credits):

• One of the most bizarre design choices in film since Tommy Wiseau decided to put several framed photos of spoons in his room: Yasmin, the Mexican member of the Bratz has her own LIVE-IN MARIACHI BAND! (Apparently, according to the DVD commentary, there is a legitimate reason for this. It's just never actually mentioned in the movie.) To tell the truth, they kind of represent literally every Latin stereotype suitable for a kid's movie and some new ones that don't make any sense.
  
• Sacha, the black girl's dad has trouble using the toaster. Specifically, he can't get the bread to stay in. No, it doesn't even burn. It just ejects automatically.
  
  
  
  
• School signs like "Obey" "Submit" and "No Littering." The principal, played by Jon Voight, is introduced by reading a book called "How to Run a Prison." And it's named after Carry Nation, the famed prohibitionist, complete with a big fucking statue, for no reason. I legitimately have no idea why they did this, since neither alcohol nor her strong Christian ideology has any bearing whatsoever on the plot. That said, it still looks a hell of a lot more vibrant than my actual high school experience, with random bikers, contortionists, and girls changing clothes in public.
  
•  No, really, they get in a group huddle with Jade, the Asian girl with a mother with a shrill voice, lying on the ground and flinging up all her clothes before coming up with an entirely new outfit out of bloody nowhere.
  
• There are 48 distinct cliques designated by the principal's daughter, (and Chelsea Staub gives the best performance, and that's because it's totally fucking insane) and I'd be surprised if half of them even get mentioned. There are apparently two groups of gangstas, and I swear I'm not making this up: one of them is "KIDS WHO LIKE TO DRESS UP LIKE DINOSAURS." How the fuck did this become a thing? And this isn't a one-off joke, there are extras in several scenes just randomly dressed like dinosaurs (or wearing bell-bottoms in the case of the Disco Dorks). I swear, this is what would happen if Federico Fellini was brought back from the dead, taught to speak English, and handed the script for a high school movie.
  
• And one of her posse manages to mirror my own thoughts on the movie: "They look kind of cool. Yeah, in a totally trashy, beneath our contempt, maybe we could find a little spare time to crush them into the dirt sort of way." Or maybe the later "Awesome...ful" would be more to my liking.
  
• A main character is introduced by one character bumping into another. The exchage: "Are you blind?" "No, but I'm deaf." That said, there is a little bit more of a "deaf accent" than I remember, but not that much.
  
• And I think the sudden "2 years later" timeskip 19 minutes in is a good enough place to stop the movie for now.
  

And, just so we're clear, this is another "Rye made the dubious decision to start this movie late at night and will have to split this into several posts" movie. And, wonder of wonders, I just discovered that, finally, I have a kindred spirit with regards to this movie.

[Rev. Rye]

And we're back to Bratz.

More crazy shit:

• I forgot to mention the fact that Meredith, the alpha bitch of the school, has this I think Pomeranian named Paris who accompanies her everywhere and frequently dresses up like her, including, in the final scene, in a black turtleneck and balaclava.
  
• Random out of nowhere scene where the music teacher convinces Dylan to become a DJ
  
• This fucking food fight scene (seriously, was the Blue Danube waltz the best music to score this scene? Why not La Gazza Ladra?):
  
  
  
• About half an hour into the movie, Chelsea Staub's insanity really starts to shine. Not content to just play the Queen Bee, she's got her own conference room in the school with hidden cameras, blaming her friends for her own faulty plans, looking straight into the camera with a Kubrick stare while carrying a flash drive (always referred to as a "jump drive.") At another point, she starts threatening Yasmine with a fucking Katana she keeps there. 
  
• So, why exactly is a Mexican girl singing "La Cucaracha" with her grandmother while she's wearing The Mask blackmail-worthy?
  
• A superpower is not something you hide from the world. It's something you show off to the world while you put on another persona. Unless you're Iron Man, in which case you just do it.
  
• "If I see one more violin playing contortionist, I'm going to scream!"
  
• The Bratz sit down together for lunch while Ennio Morricone-style music plays.
  
• This movie has no understanding of how class works. Chloe's family is allegedly poor, but she looks like she can afford the same sort of conspicuous consumption as her friend. The only way this is conveyed (aside from talking about it) is that her mother is... well, do you remember how Helga's mom on Hey! Arnold spent most of her screentime listless and mumbling about making smoothies because Nickelodeon wouldn't let Craig Bartlett outright say she's an alcoholic? Chloe's mother does the same thing. Also, a principal's daughter is rich enough to live in a fucking mansion. Hell, her dog gets its own pool, and she has the connections to get on that celebration of sybaritism, MTV's Super Sweet Sixteen.
  
• Oh, yeah, Meredith decides to throw a second Sweet Sixteen party and tape it on MTV. Bear in mind: she's eighteen. And she's throwing a Sweet Sixteen Party just for popularity points. And even her posse points out that it makes no sense.
  
• Yasmin's kid brother is blatantly trying to hit on Meredith's kid sister. The latter looks like he's passed puberty, and the former doesn't seem to have hit menarche. I can't confirm William May's Day of Birth, but it looks skeezy as all fuck. He even hits on her when she's dressed up like a clown.
  
• The Bratz are intiailly not invited to the Sweet Sixteen, but it turns out that Chloe's mom is supposed to cater it, and they manage to sneak in while dressed up like... sexy clowns. And it took about five minutes for them to change it from traditional clown outfits to the monstrosities they wear to the party.
  
• Meredith comes into the party riding a fucking elephant. I swear that was part of a joke made on SNL about the show. And then she does the first of her musical numbers, and I swear that she's cribbing from Frank Zappa during the bridge: 
  
  
  
• Somehow, the Bratz name sounds extremely forced here. They're not particularly bratty.
  
• PLUNGERMAN!
  
• What a coincidence, Yasmin finally gets the nerve to talk about being blackmailed just as her friends are ready to forgive her and meet them outside her window.
  
• Seriously, every single attempt Meredith makes to undermine the Bratz' authority (such as it is) ends up becoming a jaw-dropping failure. She tries to keep them apart by sending them to detention? They finally decide to reconcile. She embarrasses Yasmin with the "La Cucaracha" video? The band starts playing it and nobody cares? Meredith decides to carry through on my blackout threats? It all becomes a group confessional. And they immediately get a record deal.
  
• And so, the film ends with two crappy music videos.
  

Rev awards this an "Exterminate All Rational Thought" out of 10.

[The Valkyrie]

Shazam.

5/10

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'Inglorious Basterds' (no link, everyone knows what I mean).  Found it vastly overrated.

High points:  Christoph Waltz (per usual), and Brad Pitt speaking Italian.

Low points:  Everything else.  4/10

Boru

[The Valkyrie]

'Inglorious Basterds' (no link, everyone knows what I mean).  Found it vastly overrated.

High points:  Christoph Waltz (per usual), and Brad Pitt speaking Italian.

Low points:  Everything else.  4/10

Boru

There’s a reason I don’t watch Tarantino films.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'Inglorious Basterds' (no link, everyone knows what I mean).  Found it vastly overrated.

High points:  Christoph Waltz (per usual), and Brad Pitt speaking Italian.

Low points:  Everything else.  4/10

Boru

There’s a reason I don’t watch Tarantino films.

Which is...?

Boru

[The Valkyrie]

There’s a reason I don’t watch Tarantino films.

Which is...?

Boru

I haven’t seen a good one yet.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Which is...?

Boru

I haven’t seen a good one yet.

I thought Kill Bill was hilarious.

[Little lunch]

I just watched the Hitcher with poor old Rutger Hauer.
I was in grade 10 when I first saw it and it blew me away.
Still a good movie.