The Last Movie You Watched

[The Valkyrie]

"the"?

  "they"

The “the” is a monster from Aboriginal myth. It is an amorphous cloud of black negative energy that hunts people in their sleep, draining them of their life energy and leaving them weakened or dead.




And it especially hates people called Kenny.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, just before dinner, I'm watching the first few minutes of Elf Bowling: The Movie: The Great North Pole Strike

• So, you know those trailers that go before a DVD, the kind that are usually before you get to the main menu or in the special features? Yeah, in this film, they play after you press Play. Specifically, they're for 12 Dogs of Christmas and Noel.
  
• Somehow, it's earned a Richie Cusack clip faster than any other movie in the Project with the possible exception of The Undefeated. It opens on a pirate ship. The pirates are working on a scheme where they steal toys from children to sell them back to their grandparents. You'd think it'd be easier to just take their money, like actual pirates would. And the captain, Santa Maria Clausewitz Kringle. Yes, Santa is the pirate captain. Do I really need to explain why Santa, the embodiment of generosity, doesn't make sense as a pirate? 
  
  
  
• And then, they give Santa a hidden heart of gold, giving some of the toys to an orphanage... by tossing them out to sea in the hopes that they somehow get there. And if this was meant as foreshadowing, they fucked that up, since these hidden virtues don't seem to come into play, and it's not even his idea to give the toys to children. I'll update this if it does,
  
• So, the big inciting incident that sets the plot up? Santa and his brother Dingle are bowling and a parrot rats Dingle out as fucking with the scores. And somehow, the fact that apparently the other side manages to score 51 points in a single frame isn't the big problem, but Dingle changing the score at the last minute for no clear reason. This leads to a fight and they fall into the ocean and get frozen in ice floes IN MID-SWORDFIGHT.
  
• And they get unfrozen by an elf who thinks they're monsters who gets told that it's a bad idea, and the oldest rule in the book by using an orb to unfreeze them saying "Stand back, I'm rewriting the book? "
  
• A guy's pants are on fire and you decide to play the harmonica and just pull out a jaw harp? And that counts as a fandango?
  
• As a strange note, to divert suspicion away from them as pirates, they claim they're really clog salesmen. To pull this off, they replace the hats they were wearing with a soda helmet that says "baseball" and a cheese hat.  I'm not going to question how they got there or what sports hats have to do with clog sales, but I will point out that Santa's cheese hat is most associated with the  Green Bay Packers, a football team.
  
• How the fuck does Santa's workshop stay up with all that bulbous architecture? It's like the Kebler elf tree except there's no actual tree.
  
• So the elves make 10 trillion toys and then just hoard them in hollowed-out mountains? And the elves are masochists who cheer when Santa tosses the orb at them and knocks them down? What? And they're armpit farting to show how much they like him?
  
• And Santa's favourite food is STRUDEL? Do they have even the slightest familiarity with the Santa mythos?
  

You know what, I'm going to just eat dinner and then try to make sense of the remaining hour or so of this movie. And maybe after that, come up with a new set of Deep Hurting Awards.

[Rev. Rye]

And back to the  Deep Hurting Project:

• So, the magic orb just magics up a sleigh with deer? There's really no rules for this orb, are there?
  
• "Only a happy elf is contractually obligated to make toys." This looks like a very bad idea. And the song accompanying it is all over the place. 
  
• So, apparently, the  earliest scenes took place in 600 AD, ad it took 1400 years for the elves to make Santa his own bowling alley. And it takes this long for Dingle to move out of Santa's place? Even with all the scandals Dingle's been involved in?
  
• Plague and Disease monthly? Selling yellow snow? Why? And not-Wired spelled "Ponzi" wrong?
  
• Penguins are imbeciles?  Fuck you!
  
• And apparently, they fucked so bad they're behind 6 billion units. The entire population of Earth. No wonder the "only a happy elf is contractually obligated to make toys" rule is a bad idea. Also, they can't use the 10 TRILLION they have in reserve in the mountains?
  
• And why is Santa accepting a bowling duel with Dingle, even though his empire is at stake and he knows Dingle is a cheater? And he's clearly cheating in the first frame? And that first frame is the ONLY frame?
  
• Goddammit, Dingle's really starting to sound like the Ice King. Having Penguin henchmen really doesn't help matters. Nor does the fact that Tom Kenny also voices Rebel, the black elf, who sounds like something out of a minstrel show.
  
• This is the worst song in the entire movie:
  
  And even if it isn't, it's the first one I can find on Youtube.
  
• So, it's the orb that makes all the toys?
  
• So, there's a sign warning people to not turn on the steam valve? Then why is it even there?
  
• Now that Santa's MIA, and the workshop is destroyed (with all the bowling pins falling in a perfect skull and crossbones formation), and Dingle decides to go to Fiji. I was going to post a Red Dwarf clip of Dave talking about his old plans to set up a diner on Fiji, but I couldn't find it on Youtube, though I was able to find this, a promo image for Series XII:
  
• And now, there's a gold digger who becomes a main character 48 minutes in, and she was on a flight from the North Pole to Fiji and she was wearing a short, ludicrously cleavage-baring dress, presumably in the NORTH POLE's weather.
  
• Somehow, the "Fiji is a-cool-a" song is now the worst song so far. Not sure if it's the worst one in the entire Deep Hurting Project canon, though. And is it weird that the Fiji guy looks like the Indian guy who makes sandwiches at the Subway near my house?
  
• And it turns out slavery is what saves Christmas, with Dingle turning the Fiji paradise into a sweatshop.
  
• Wait, they need 8 billion toys now? And paying the children for their presents is a bad idea. And they don't even have a fucking sleigh to send them there?
  
• And the orb turns two Moai statues into surfer dude bodyguard slaves. Please tell me this isn't the point I just say "why the fuck not" for the rest of the review.
  
• And the Moai head just buries Santa up to his neck (without killing him) and cries his eyes out and lets him out again? Why did Dingle think this was a good idea?
  
• So, a profit of $2.6 trillion, plus a 12% of something I couldn't understand because it was hard to hear and the movie has no subtitles makes a total of $6 trillion? How the fuck does that work? Also, that works out to about $325 (OF PROFIT) per toy. That markup must be obscene, even more than the 300% for packaging and reindeer meat mentioned in the sweatshop scene. 
  
• "How come my underwear's on backwards?" Is that a date rape joke in this Christmas cartoon movie for kids?
  
• Why is Santa accepting Dingle's challenge AGAIN? And what makes "Super Elf Bowling" different from regular elf bowling?
  
• And the Fiji king had a TV and a hidden camera recording the whole thing? And how did he miss the bomb when they saw it blow up?
  
• Neither Santa nor Lex was responsible for saving Christmas. It was Dingle enslaving the elf population.
  
• So, it's the orb that kept the structural integrity of that workshop this whole time?
  
• So, "Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum" was unacceptable for this Christmas movie, but the date rape joke was A-OK?
  
• Also, the ending credits music has this strange noise that sounds somewhere between a tabla, blowing into an empty Coke bottle, and water slowly dropping out of a sink. The fuck?
  

Deep Hurting Awards coming presently.

---

And now for the Deep Hurting Awards:

Awards that haven't changed:

• 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 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. I feel I may need to create a  Richie Cusack Awards post at some point cataloguing the most jaw-dropping epic fails in the Project.
  
• 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.
  
• 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.
  
  
  

Updated Awards:

• Most Brain-Breaking: Baby Geniuses 2: Superbabies. This one literally broke my brain to the point where all I could say was "why the fuck not?" after about 30 minutes. It  fucking wins.
  
• Worst Film I've Ever Seen: Incredibly, Kiara the Brave has proven to be the worst movie I've ever seen. The closest thing the movie has to a redeeming quality is that one kid with the greaser haircut, wife-beater, and pencil thin moustache who shows up randomly to trash-talk the villain and vomit flowers and that's just because it was so random it made me laugh.
  
• 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: LOL. They took a genre that was rare in France, remade an award-winning French film shot-for shot in a market with a glut of those movies. And the only odd thing is the occasional incest subtext between Miley Cyrus and her mother.
  
• The The Eye Creatures Award for Just Not Caring (formerly Most Stunningly Incompetent): The Last Airbender. Sure, if that post I included in the entry for this movie is any indication, Shyamalan actually tried his best, but the fact that Nick cares so little about one of their best shows to put a movie like this out speaks volumes about their competence.
  
• Most Damn Faint Praise: Son of the Mask. In retrospect, it at least does a good job of being a love letter to old Looney Tunes cartoons.
  
  

New Awards:

• Most Ham-fisted piece of shit movie trying to be thoughtful and failing spectacularly: I Know Who Killed Me. Obvious symbolism that says nothing, a serial killer movie by someone who fails to understand what serial killing even is, and some twists so idiotic.
  
• Most enraging twist ending: The Devil Ins- The facts surrounding the Rossi case remain unresolved. Visit therossifiles.com for more information on the ongoing investigation. Or don't because the site went down after it became clear that nobody gave a shit. 
  
• The movie so boring I just stopped bothering to look for new shit after about 10 minutes: The Omega Code.
  
• Most insulting Sequel: Piranha 3DD. You take a good guilty pleasure film, a B-movie that actually fits a good balance between schlock and legitimate goodness, and they fuck up all the goodwill the original film gave them. They even ignored the sequel hook at the end of the first movie. Fuck this movie.
  
• Least Holly-Jolly Christmas movie: It was tough competition between the crass commercialism of Saving Christmas, the cancerous politics of Last Ounce of Courage, and the shitty Elf Bowling the Movie, but given that it exists solely to reject the sort of positive feelings that normal Christmas movies tend to shoot for, I'm going to go with Saving Christmas.
  
• Most Jaw-dropping stupidity: Baby Geniuses. This should explain it all.
  
  
  
• Most enraging use of music: NeverEnding Story 3 having the Rockbiter sing "Born to Be Wild" TWICE.
  
• Most whiplash-inducing sequel: Escape Plan 2: Hades. You go from the more-or-less realistic The Hole in the original film, and the sequel (presumably set shortly after that) has it in a bored Sci-fi dystopia prison in Atlanta.
  
• Worst Original Song: The Identical for "Boogie Woogie Rock and Roll"
  
  
  

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Christmas in Wonderland. And before I get to this movie, here's an MST3K clip.



It turns out that, eventually, Patrick Swayze made a Christmas movie. And not only does he suck in it, it's bad enough that it made the Deep Hurting Project.


Overall, This feels like an utterly formulaic movie. Kids are moving to a strange new place (read: Edmonton) and the kids aren't liking it (well, the boys aren't, they're just bored and they act bored; the girl is just the cutest fucking thing who writes misspelled letters to Santa and is so concerned about Santa she tries to chisel a chimney into the fake fireplace). The mother is stuck in LAX and so they try to take their mind off it all by going to the West Edmonton Mall.

And it looks like it's an extended ad for the mall, including a showcase of their waterpark accompanied by a fake Beach Boys song called "California Christmas" and it sounds so shit I'd actually rather listen to "Hey Little Tomboy" than that song. Though, to be fair, "California Christmas" is better than "Summer of Love." Also, they apparently have a little cage for Rudolph, and the daughter even tries giving him their new address, even if, if I recall the mythos correctly after watching Elf Bowling, if Santa knows if you've been bad or good, he probably knows where you've moved to. And she's already gave (the mall) Santa (who looks like Dumbledore) a change of address card. And we even get Victoria's Secret saleswomen who totally aren't Frau Farbissima.

And, eventually, it turns out there's a plot aside from this: Chris Kattan and one of the guys from Jackass play these low-rent Wet Bandits-types with a bag of fake 100-dollar bills (Canadian). Their plan? Buy merchandise from the mall with the fake bills (less than $100 worth) and get real money for change. And, of course, the bag falls while they're arguing about donuts, so the kids get it and spend it on themselves. And apparently, Carmen Electra is part of the scheme. And meanwhile, 35 minutes in, we get Tim Curry, and he plays an RCMP officer (with a Scottish accent, for some reason, and without the standard red uniform for some reason, and without th e) trying to take down the counterfeiters. And, of course, he discovers that the kids are spending all the money. So, he has his people break into their home, even though, as far as they can tell, THEY'RE STILL IN THE FUCKING MALL. I legitimately feel sorry for Tim Curry for appearing in this movie, and even though he should be the best thing about this shitstorm, he still sucks. 

Also, apparently, Santa (looking like a shitty Jimmy Buffet impersonator) is sitting in LAX with Swayze's wife. And according to IMDB, he's played by the same actor as Mall Santa-Dumbledore from before. And sure enough, the scene after that Santa-Dumbledore is talking with Patrick Swayze. And he dematerialises and of course, they're playing the "Mall Santa was the real Santa all along" card. And he plays five roles who are more or less variations on one role.

As a testament to how shitty the acting is, the kids see Patrick Swayze getting arrested for counterfeiting, and they react to THEIR OWN FATHER BEING ARRESTED FOR A CRIME HE DIDN'T COMMIT IN FRONT OF THEIR EYES with all the surprise of finding out a store doesn't stock a shirt they like in their preferred colour. And this barely improves after they A) figure out that whoever made the counterfeit money is probably looking for it, and B) talking about it while the crooks are behind them on an escalator.

As I write this, I'm 68 minutes into this 99 minute film. If I find anything new in this last half hour of the film, I'll return.

[Rev. Rye]

So, almost immediately after I switched off, the kids are in the corridors to hide from the bad guys, and they open a door, and they see some crappy CGI elves working, and apparently it's the North Pole. And it's never mentioned again.

And their attempt at saving Patrick Swayze apparently involves shopping for some kick-ass Ninja-style clothes, which I can only assume to be shoplifted, going around in what I can only assume is a motorcycle that's just apparently inn the mall and rideable. Hey, remember when the Blues Brothers did a car chase through a mall and that actually made sense?





And despite their planning to have him follow them to the security office, they just settle for having a fake turn through a glass panel into the waterpark. And the daughter's plan to stop Carmen Electra is a bit more lackluster, if actually fairly practical. She lures her up onto the roof, tricks her into walking on a glass panel, which breaks, leading to the money (and one would think they'd have something that could bear the weight of Carmen Electra.) And it's only by sheer dumb luck that Tim Curry witnesses the whole thing, and even then, it has to be pointed out to him what the implications are. And apparently a horse kicked him in the head a while back, which is why he's so dense.

And she's still trying to tell a SEA LION to remember her new address for Santa, even after it's all wrapped up in a bow, and someone named Simon Echols gives Patrick Swayze a job, and in my quest to try and check and see if he was one of the many Santa figures Matthew Walker plays (the name does not pop up in the IMDb cast list phase, but there seems to be an implication that he is Santa, and sadly, the DVD has no subtitles, so I can't confirm whether or not I misheard Mr. Nichols as "Simon Echols"), I discovered that Anna Nicole Smith made a cameo in there somewhere as herself.

And finally, the Mom comes home to find the house all decked out, and apparently, Santa took the time out of his busy schedule to set up a tree, decorations, a Christmas feast, and even installing a fireplace.

I legitimately think Christmas in Wonderland may be one of the worst movies I've watched for the Deep Hurting Project. I can think of very little to redeem it. Everyone's half-assing it, even Tim Curry, the script is asinine, and I'm sure if I were actually Canadian, I'd be even more pissed off. But then again, it at least shows off the West Edmonton Mall well enough, even if the one screen at the West Edmonton Mall that showed it pulled it after about a week.

[BrokenQuill92]

Ip Man 3

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

'Ronin' (1998).  Robert De Niro, Jean Reno.

A much better than average intrigue/action thriller.  Groups of Russians, Irish separatists, and mercenaries are all after a mysterious case.  Solid acting, believable car chases, and a good enough story to keep me interested.  Natascha McElhone's cheekbones were a little distracting, but I was able to power through.

7.5/10

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: A Christmas Story 2

So, this is a sequel to a movie made 29 years ago, and as a result, ABSOLUTELY NOBODY involved in the original is involved. The IMDb page lists Jean Shepherd as the only common cast/crew member in both films, and, of course, he died 13 years before this movie was released, so his involvement is limited to inspiration. Even though he wrote a lot of stories he cold use as further inspiration, that just settled for remaking the original. Of course, we all know why it was made: a cash grab. The original went from an underrated story of Christmas, and a rather unique one at that, to well, basically being the cinematic equivalent of that kitschy leg lamp. They're trying their damnedest to recreate the original, with narration that sounds a lot more like Adam West than Jean Shepherd (or rather, me trying to do an Adam West impression), and Ralphie as a teenager (also, apparently, Gilda's still playing in theatres on Christmas, even though it was released in April 1946; I know releases weren't quite as simultaneous as we'd like, but would it still be in theaters around Christmastime and would people still be talking about it like it's a new film?) looking almost exactly like the 9-year-old Ralphie. I mean, sure, I've kept the same look since I was out of high school, with the most substantive change being an added goose feather in my cap and a Breathe-rite strip on my septum, but still. And he's become even less sympathetic, from his snorting his love interest's hair in band practice to wracking up debt to getting in constant Doug-like fantasies that bog the movie down (plus, even Doug didn't get his imagine spots this frequently. And they were at least a bit inventive, at least to a kid.) It's like an Andy Hardy movie without the moral center of Judge Hardy.

And I think this clip should show the movie's problems pretty well:





Gags that rehash the first movie, but miss the mark in so many ways, from the narrator sounding crap to taking these gags so far they're just not funny. No joke, at first I was reminded of the classic flagpole-licking scene from the original, but once the tongue starts protruding, I'm reminded of the kid from Salo who got his tongue cut out. Also, you'd think Flick would be a bit more circumspect about putting his tongue on things that he probably couldn't pull away from after that incident. 





And while they're not usually this gruesome, imagine everything that comes to mind about the original film. All the gimmicks in there, but in a shittier form. We're talking Ralphie in embarrassing costumes, we're talking Aunt Clara's amazingly embarassing costumes, we're talking the Old Man fighting the furnace, an asshole Santa, fights between the kids that get out of hand quickly, absurdly over-bundled kids, slow-motion "Oh Fudge"s, even that fucking leg lamp and the Chop Suey Palace.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is a film I wanted to watch last week, but given that it wasn't available, I had to make do with A Christmas Story 2. But, hey, at least it stars Bruce Willis, so it's a step or two removed from Die Hard, which is generally considered a great Christmas movie. 

• "There's a bomb set to go off under a bridge. Which one is it?" I legitimately did not know they let Zen masters be terrorists.
  
• And he's ordering the bank's workers around by writing notes, like "open the safe" and "open the fucking safe." In his quest to stay anonymous, you'd think he'd have the foresight to notice that maybe someone might try to find a handwriting analyst. I mean, sure, he uses block capitals, but there's only so far you can keep that anonymous.
  
• It takes almost half an hour for Bruce Willis to even appear in this Bruce Willis film, and he's basically a consultant for Frank Grillo's character, he's seen only in a hotel room, and, you remember how Stallone is barely a bit player in Escape Plan 2? Well, this movie did the same mistake as that film, except worse. It's like he accepted this role on the sole condition that he do as little as possible and still get paid for it. Anytime you see his character, but not his face, it's a body double. This is shit Steven Segal does for his films, and Segal at least has the excuse of hiding how much of a fatass who couldn't possibly do all those martial arts movies he did in his prime he is, and Bruce doesn't even have that excuse. And his scenes are so boring they have to intercut scenes of Grillo at the shooting range to keep it interesting.
  
  
  
• Seriously, this has to be the most boring action movie I've ever seen. Most action movies at least try to keep you interested through, well, action, and this movie barely does that.
  

Fuck this movie.

[Fake Messiah]

I was watching "Killing Reagan" and a lot of the movie is about John Warnock Hinckley Jr who shot Reagan and what a creep he was which is of course all written by an even bigger creep Bill O'Reilly. There are scenes where Hinckley harasses women - something that Bill is all too familiar with.

So is creep writing about another creep an irony or hypocrisy?