Sunday, October 31, 2010

Worst of the Worst: #66, The Fog

Old people suck.

That's the gist I got from watching The Fog, the sixty-sixth worst reviewed movie of 2000-09 on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie is about an island near Oregon that is about to celebrate the centennial of its town's founding. The founding fathers had a dark secret that helped them to create the society. An island insulated from the outside world, the teen descendants of the founding fathers can tell that something bad is about to happen as their ancestors' secret comes due. Old people suck -- you never can tell when something your great-grandfather did is going to come back to really ruin your day.

The secret comes due in the form of a fog that covers the island, bringing with it ghosts. Okay, the fog only really comes in the last thirty minutes or so, but it is the name of the movie, so we'll pretend that it was really scary. These ghosts happen to be lepers that the town's founding fathers totally screwed over and killed so they could steal money to start the town. Old people suck -- you never know when leprosy is going to give someone dark powers so they can do stuff like tangle you in seaweed, throw knives, and burn you up. The leper ghosts also give someone leprosy at some point, so perhaps that person will in turn come back to haunt the leper ghosts and outfog their fog.

The script is miserable. The plot makes little sense. Why should anyone give a hoot about some isolated island? The acting is passable by the best actors (Tom Welling, Maggie Grace), really weak by worse ones (Selma Blair), and the token black character, portrayed by DeRay Davis (who was in last week's Code Name: The Cleaner), was so much worse than anyone else that he literally sucked the life out of every scene as if he were the fog. Perhaps the leper ghost, given leprosy by the original leper ghosts, who is trying to outfog the fog will in turn be outfogged by the fog of DeRay Davis' diseased performance. Maybe none of this makes sense because the movie, supposedly a horror film, is about as scary as paint drying, even if the paint is a really spooky color like grey. And all of this is made even worse because the movie is a remake of John Carpenter's second film. Sure, they changed everything, because why would you ever want to rely on anything that the GREATEST HORROR DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME decided to do? Old people suck -- John Carpenter doesn't speak to today's youth so we have to keep remaking his movies and failing. I'm looking at you, Rob Zombie.

This movie is so forgettable that my brain is now in a fog. Congrats, leper ghost movie makers. You win again.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Videos

I know it's annoying when someone tries to make a viral video and succeeds, but this is sort of funny because it's so dumb, so really, really dumb. It's all about the seal at the end.


And then, of course, you get the organic viral videos...

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Game 1

Early in the first game of the World Series, I was about to start referring to Cliff Lee as "Gentile Koufax" (Goyfax)? But then the weak-hitting Giants pounded him and that went out the window.

I might have overshot it in saying Giants in 7; they are now firmly in control of the Series.

Sure, the Rangers lost the first game of the ALCS, but it was very different circumstances. They had gone up big and their bullpen blew it, plus they had their second starter going and still had Lee to look forward to. Now, they gave their ace a two-run lead, which he lost spectacularly, and have to go downhill pitching-wise. The Giants have momentum, better pitching, and hot hitters. It's looking good for San Francisco.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Random Sports Predictions

  • Giants in 7. Yes, that means they'd have to beat Cliff Lee, but they have the superior pitching overall. While the Rangers were just better than the Yankees, the Giants were not as good as the Phillies but found a way to win. I give that a lot of credit.
  • The team with the best record in the NFC will not have a good enough record to have been a wildcard team in the AFC. When you consider that only five of the Ravens, Steelers, Jets, Patriots, Titans, Colts, and Texans, will make the playoffs, it's reasonable to imagine that an 11-5 team could miss the playoffs. Is the best record in the NFC going to be 12-4 or better?
  • The Lakers will complete Phil Jackson's third separate threepeat. I'm not judging the Heat based on one night where Wade was hurt and they hadn't yet gelled. I just think Kobe is going to will the Lakers to victory because of all of the hype in Miami.
  • Michigan State will win the National Championship in basketball. They are #2 in the preseason polls and return most of their players from last year's surprise Final Four team. Michigan State is dangerous when they have marginal talent. When they're good? Watch out.

Monday, October 25, 2010

No Congratulate

  • The Monologue:
    • Who asked Christine O'Donnell to put a spell on my fantasy teams? Romo gets hurt, the Saints offense stinks, the Giants refuse to run the ball consistently even though Eli is throwing picks like he's Brett Favre. The NFL sucks this year.
    • I know this is less a monologue than a rant, but it's true. Even the four best teams (Ravens, Steelers, Jets, Patriots) have been very lucky to win the last game or two that they've won. The whole NFC is so bad that Tampa Bay might actually be the best team. It's even only marginally entertaining as Chargers players don't hustle or don't know the rules, Favre runs and throws around like a mad man, Jay Cutler chucks the ball without looking, coaches screw up everything.
    • The league is a disaster this year. You know it's true in your heart of hearts.
  • Random Pop Culture:
    • Even the TV announcers are atrocious. They won't knock Favre, they don't know the rules, they speak in platitudes.
    • It's interesting because anyone can win at any time, but the overall quality is miserable.
    • And they're going on strike next year, unless the season goes to 18 games, at which point every player you care about will be brain dead by the end of the year.
  • Random Video:
    • Since I'm spewing hate, here. This song sucks, too.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Worst of the Worst: #33, Delta Farce

The formula for the success of a spoof movie is very particular. You need to go after a movie that people will recognize. Airport was a blockbuster, so people got what Airplane! was trying to do. You need to go after a movie that takes itself seriously. Nobody could successfully spoof Animal House because the spoof wouldn't be funnier than the original. You need to be poignant with your jokes. The ____ Movie films fail because they just throw loads of crap against the wall and see if any of it sticks (99.9% of it doesn't). Delta Farce fails on the latter two of these accounts, but it most egregiously misses on the second count. Delta Farce spoofs a spoof. Bad idea.

See if this plot rings a bell. Three goofy, but well-intentioned, men end up in Mexico. After fighting poorly, but winning by surprise, some locals ask the men if they will help protect a small village from outlaws. The men try, fail, but somehow muster the courage, with the help of the noble townspeople, to defeat the bad guys. If those three men are played by Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase, you're talking about The Three Amigos. That film was a spoof of The Magnificent Seven, and I probably appreciate it more through nostalgia than the film's actual quality. If those three men are played by Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, and a mustachioed DJ Qualls? Uh-oh.

The three actors (Qualls replaced Jeff Foxworthy, who couldn't make it because of scheduling conflicts) play National Guardsmen, who are called up to fight in Iraq. They are ill-prepared, but they joined up and they have to carry out their duties. Thanks to circumstances that make so little sense that I won't recount them, the men end up dumped in the middle of Mexico. Of course, they think they're in Iraq. The fact that people ARE SPEAKING SPANISH TO THEM doesn't change their minds. I think I can understand ignorance, maybe even racism. But confusing Arabic and Spanish? The men don't realize they aren't in Iraq, until one of the villagers tells Larry -- and he doesn't have a last name in the movie, so his uniform says "Larry" on it -- at which point he realizes that one of his other men is wearing a sombrero and he notices the pinatas everywhere.

Because one of the villagers is hot, the men decide to stay and fight. They drink and dance. The bad guy is played by the great Danny Trejo, and even he is horrible in this movie because the writing is so bad. The three main characters? Nobody ever confused Larry the Cable Guy with Chevy Chase as an actor, much less Steve Martin. A few hundred racist and homophobic jokes later and the men find a way to win, of course.

There is no denying the poignancy of the plot, no matter how off the jokes may be. Mexico is a very violent place right now and the people are terrorized. Everyone who tries to help seems to be getting murdered. Judging by their success in protecting the village, perhaps we should send Larry the Cable Guy and company to Mexico to bring peace. Whichever way it comes out, it's win-win.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Rankings

TV Ranking time. Last week for the #1 show. Looks like it's going to be one hell of a fun baseball weekend.

Top 10 Currently Airing Scripted TV Shows as of October 21, 2010 (Last week's rank):
  • 10. Grey's Anatomy (10) -- Didn't see last night's yet, but no reason to change. Not much change this week, at all.
  • 9. House (8) -- Drops a spot, more on the strength of the show that moved up.
  • 8. Boardwalk Empire (7) -- Still two episodes behind, but Michael Kenneth Williams got more involved in the last episode I saw, which only means good things. It's certainly well-acted, with Michael Shannon doing a great job.
  • 7. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (9) -- The more you watch this show, the more you realize how great it is. I'm not sure they've made a truly bad episode.
  • 6. Community (6) -- There hasn't been a standout episode in a few weeks, so it's just consistently strong. The auto-tuning YouTube videos was a nice touch in tonight's episode.
  • 5. Dexter (4) -- Happy to see Dexter getting involved in the main plot of the season. Way too much Batista and LaGuerta.
  • 4. 30 Rock (5) -- On fire. Tonight's episode was another great one with crazy Tracy, good Jack and Liz time, and "The Best Friends Gang" slayed me. Frajier!!!!!!!
  • 3. Sons of Anarchy (2) -- They've taken too long to set up this trip to Belfast. I'm betting the show will be at the top of its game now that the trip is finally underway.
  • 2. Terriers (3) -- This became the best current show on TV as of 11:01 PM last Sunday. It hasn't had anything approaching a weak episode yet.
  • 1. Mad Men (1) -- The season finale wasn't only as good as the rest of the season, but it makes perfect sense if you take some time to think about it. A lot of weird things happened this year and the season finale was all about confusing this string of weird coincedences for fate.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Anita New Sense Of Humor

  • The Monologue:
    • I'm sure everyone would get tired of it, but I could do a whole post of Ginny Thomas jokes. I could do a week full of posts of Ginny Thomas jokes.
    • Ginny Thomas called Todd Heap to ask him to apologize to Brandon Merriweather.
    • Ginny Thomas called New Orleans to ask them to apologize to Hurricane Katrina.
    • Ginny Thomas called Magic to ask him to apologize to AIDS.
    • It's fun to run jokes into the --
    • Wait, I'ma let you finish, but Ginny Thomas calling Taylor Swift to ask her to apologize Kanye is the greatest Ginny Thomas joke of all time!
  • Random Pop Culture:
    • Survivor is lame this season. There, I said it. They have to try to falsely drum up suspense. They can't all be winners and this one is following in some huge footsteps.
    • Fox is excited about a Rangers-Giants series! I don't care as long as it doesn't involve the Yankees.
  • One More:
    • Ginny Thomas called your already growing boredom with Ginny Thomas jokes to ask it to apologize to me.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

What The What?

I didn't post last night because I was commuting out of town and didn't get home until really late (same tonight), but I interrupt my meeting for this article.

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Monday, October 18, 2010

Sunday Night TV

TV from Sunday:
  • Still nobody separating themselves in the NFL. The Ravens lost a game they could have had. The Steelers beat a severely undermanned opponent. The Jets won on a horrific pass interference call (the call itself wasn't that bad, but the fact that they could win by essentially throwing a hail mary and hoping someone interfered was). To add to it, the Falcons looked like crap and the Saints looked like the Saints again. Who knows?
  • I still have no favorite team on The Amazing Race. Everyone is either stupid, annoying, bickering, or some combination of the three. It's still fun to watch, but I have nobody to root for.
  • Hard to imagine Dexter could follow up its best season without being disappointing in some way, but it's been very good again. It was nice to see the cop storylines finally involve him.
  • And, what else was on? Hmmm. Oh, yeah, the Mad Men season finale. It was surreal. Last year's was surreal because it was so tonally different than anything that had come before. This year's was surreal because it just didn't make much sense while you were watching it. I think it does actually make some sense when you think about Henry Francis' line about how there are no fresh starts. In light of that line, the characters may be in for some very sad awakenings as season five starts. The episode was good overall, but Elizabeth Moss was particularly awesome and the scene between her and Christina Hendricks was as good as anything this season besides the Don-Peggy episode.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Worst of the Worst: #37, Code Name: The Cleaner

In The Bourne Identity, Matt Damon played a spy who wakes up with no memory and has to piece together who he is and why he has the military training he has. He plays the part with subtlety and just enough intensity. Code Name: The Cleaner is exactly the same, minus Matt Damon, the subtlety, the intensity, and anything good in the movie. Much like in the Larry the Cable Guy movie, Cedric the "Entertainer" is incapable of showing anything through his acting and therefore has to narrate all of his actions so we can tell what the hell he's doing. "Who am I? I don't know what's going on. Let me look in this mirror. Oh, my head hurts. I don't know who I am." Not exact dialogue, but close enough. In addition, this movie is similar to Witless Protection in that both involve the main characters as a fish out of water, dealing with rich white people. Essentially the same bad guys, but whereas Larry the Cable Guy puts on a redneck minstrel show, Cedric puts on a black one. He tries to show the cultural differences to an extreme, but instead ends up making the character so unreal that he celebrates foolishness.

This is yet another movie that is more lame than purely awful. It's not funny in any way. Cedric is a bad enough actor, but Lucy Liu is also pretty bad here. The plot isn't even worth talking about. It's just lame and annoying.

The only thing worth noting is that the big bad guy is played by martial arts actor Mark Dacascos. I love when he's in movies. Not because he's a great actor, though he's just fine, but because he's the actor that plays the commissioner on Iron Chef America. I love watching that show and seeing him play up all of the drama while knowing that he co-starred in the Double Dragon movie. Seeing him cracks me up every time. If only Cedric had gotten the same reaction from me.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Rank and Phile

Didn't get home from work until 11:15 last night and that, combined with my weird sleep hours (and lack of sleep hours) to begin with doomed the prospect of a post last night. It's gotten tougher to be consistent with the crazy sleep stuff going on.

Anyways, there's a writer for the SF Chronicle that ranks his favorite TV shows every week. Since I haven't been to a movie in a couple of months -- The Expendables was the last I saw in the theater and I'm expecting Harry Potter to be the next -- TV seems to have become my area of focus of late, if it wasn't already. So I'm ripping off the idea. I'll start by doing a current ranking of my top ten non-reality shows on TV as they stand right this second. Maybe it means you miss me railing about what a disaster tonight's 30 Rock live episode was, but it was a live episode of a sitcom, so what else did you expect? Sure, it's the same people who are able to put on SNL each week, but, hello, it's the same people who put on SNL each week.

Top 10 Currently Airing Scripted TV Shows as of October 14, 2010:
  • 10. Grey's Anatomy -- Yep. A lot to be said for consistency. You know what you're getting week in and week out right now. Wouldn't be surprised to see this drop off at some point.
  • 9. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- Only a couple of episodes so far this season, but they've been really, really good. This show is probably the epitome of consistency.
  • 8. House -- It would usually be ranked higher, but it's in a pretty bad formulaic rut right now after a very strong season last year. Still enjoyable, but hasn't quite found its groove yet.
  • 7. Boardwalk Empire -- I've only seen the first two episodes and I've heard it gets even better (for instance, the third episode is apparently strong on Michael Kenneth Williams), but it's already very good. Incredible visually and the potential for greatness is there.
  • 6. Community -- I was more excited for this than maybe any other returning show besides Dexter and the first few episodes (before tonight's relative miss) were really, really funny. How I Met Your Mother has been the best character development sitcom for years, but Community is challenging it.
  • 5. 30 Rock -- When it's on, no sitcom besides Curb comes anywhere close. Tonight's live fiasco aside, it has been on this season.
  • 4. Dexter -- The usual great lead performance that is now taking the show to new places.
  • 3. Terriers -- The pilot episode wasn't good, it was great. Each episode after has gotten better and better. I want to just gush and gush and gush about how great this show is. There is a serious chance that this could be #1 soon.
  • 2. Sons of Anarchy -- The second season of this show is one of the great seasons of any show and the third season has built from a slow beginning. It looks like it's about to get really, really good with SAMCRO finally leaving Charming to fight on someone else's turf, which is a nice plot device.
  • 1. Mad Men -- No need to sing this one's praises. If the second season of SoA was one of the great ones, this fourth season of Mad Men belongs in the rarified air of The Wire and the first season of Friday Night Lights. The only thing knocking this out of the top spot is the fact that with the season finale coming this Sunday, it won't be currently airing anymore.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

She Does It Again

Before you watch this and laugh at the insanity of doing this in a political commercial, stop and think. This woman is running for the United States Senate. There is someone who is running in a general election, as the candidate of one of the two major parties, for the United States Senate, of which there are only one hundred members, and this person starts an ad by assuring people she is not a witch. And then what happens towards the end in the next ad? You start to wonder if she's even taking this seriously.


Maury! Maury!

  • The Monologue: Brett Favre Edition
    • No way it could have been Favre texting pictures. He's too old to do that. He telegraphed his passes tonight.
    • Why does Favre wear 4? Shouldn't he have worn 6 or 8 to at least cast some doubt?
    • In the end, Favre came up short tonight.
  • Random Pop Culture: How I Met Your Mother Edition
    • I have a lot of complaints about tonight's episode, which was actually pretty funny overall.
    • The laugh track is never more apparent than when the gang is outside or on the subway. At least in the bar, you can pretend it's a studio audience.
    • The show was reasonably realistic, in a farcical way, about the subway. But there was basically no traffic?
    • This episode would have benefited greatly from a Cash Cab gag. Did the writers try for it and 30 Rock had already taken it, or are they just that much less creative than the 30 Rock writers?
    • Biggest of all, the frame story continues to be horrible. The producers created this whole thing that now drags on everything. The idea of a father telling the story this way is ridiculous. The stagnant motion towards the mother is frustrating. Tonight, older Ted confirms with his kids, in 2030, that they know who Maury Povich is. Any chance kids in 2030 will know who Maury Povich is? Bad, bad writing.
  • Random Video:
    • Daryl Hall is 61 today.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

In The Funny Pages

Now that we know that Christine O'Donnell thinks The Flintstones (Creationism) and Pinky and the Brain (mice with human brains) are realistic portrayals, we looked deeper to find how she may vote in Washington based on other similar beliefs:
  • Underwater exploration is vital to understanding our world. Think of the things we can learn from the society of ocean-floor-dwelling creatures with tubes sticking out of their heads.
  • There are still parts of the world that haven't been fully mapped out. It's quite likely that we can find a new source of gold by finding the stash housed in a building in the center of the town run by sentient ducks.
  • The only way to catch Bin Laden is by inserting one agent, well-equipped to carry out the mission, deep in enemy territory. He should be able to overcome any obstacle through the use of tools like a helicopter in his hat and skis that pop out of his shoes.
  • Workers can be incentivized to excel at work, even on hated Mondays, through the liberal use of lasagna.
  • The threats to our nation require a new kind of defense, such as robot lions. If needed, as the esteemed senator from Delaware, she will even form the head.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

In Which I Realize I Have Not Yet Made Fun Of The Tea Party Enough And I Only Have Like Four Weeks In Which To Do It

  • The Monologue:
    • In "other Tea Party candidates who aren't a witch" news, Sharron Angle says that two towns, including one that hasn't existed in thirty-five years, are being taken over by Muslims. She even used the term "Sharia law" that those who fear Islam often use as a dog whistle for "white women are going to have to wear burkas". These people are crazy. I'm sorry, no jokes here, except for how incredibly stupid these people are.
    • Seriously, it's 2010. We have vast deposits of knowledge at our fingertips at all times. How are people still so ignorant?
    • Also, we should throw Christine O'Donnell in a lake and see if she floats. Witches are made of wood.
  • Random Pop Culture
    • Community was okay tonight, but 30 Rock is on fire this year. Queen Latifah used the term "flag troops" in talking about what was important to congresspeople and John Amos played the father on a fake sitcom. So good, even if Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, and Rand Paul don't like it because it's subversive.
    • Okay, I presume they don't like it. It is pretty liberal and NBC is probably run by Jews who don't believe in Jesus. Also, is it the Chinese or the Muslims that are trying to take over America? The BBC projects that 20 to 100 million Chinese are Muslims. So maybe they specifically mean those people are trying to take us over? But then we totally have them outnumbered. Or maybe the Chinese and the Muslims are working together like the Russians and Cubans in Red Dawn?
    • Also, Wolverines!
  • Random Video:
    • Mice with human brains. They're coming, y'all.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Doctober

Sons of Anarchy? Survivor? Terriers? For another night. Tonight is about this. Only this.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Your List Sucks!: Do What You'd Do

First watch this:


"I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do." Here are the Top 5 Things Christine O'Donnell Will Do in Washington:
  • 5. Go to the zoo. She can look in the small mammal house for those famous human-brained mice.
  • 4. Search for street parking in Penn Quarter. Once she finds a spot, she can search Chinatown for people plotting to take over the US.
  • 3. Grab a beer at the Brickskellar. When finished, she can walk around Dupont and diagnose identity disorders.
  • 2. Walk around Northwest DC. While she's there, she can visit K Street, where she can go to the lobbying firm American Solutions to find its founder, a certain Mr. Gingrich, and obtain eye of Newt for her next "project."
  • 1. Visit Capitol Hill. She can chide all of the congresspeople she meets, since we know how much she hates self-congratulation.

Monday, October 4, 2010

An Impossible Whip Acted Upon By A Supernatural Force

  • The Monologue:
    • An article on Yahoo tonight wants to teach you new buzzwords and phrases in the workplace, like "take it offline." While you're at it, I don't understand "groovy" or "I can dig it" either.
    • A study says that racially-motivated predatory loans helped fuel the housing crisis. In other earth-shattering news, the sky is often blue.
    • Snooki wrote a book. The cover is white, but was sprayed to look orange.
  • Random Pop Culture
    • This season of Mad Men is easily the best season this show has ever had, but it just continues to get more and more depressing. Not that it couldn't still happen, but I had a pit in my stomach in this episode as I became more and more sure that Roger was going to kill himself.
    • They're doing some interesting plot stuff on Dexter to have the side characters move the season's story along as Dex deals with his introspective stuff. It's not as good a show when he's not on screen, but it makes sense to not put everything on hold.
    • The Ravens radio guys referred to the winning TD pass yesterday as a miracle. A miracle means something that seems impossible, but is enacted by the physical involvement of some supernatural force. "Miracle" is a word that is way overused. The Steelers had been very loose in letting the Ravens run out patterns to get down the field, so with no safety back, Houshmandzadeh faked an out pattern, Flacco pump faked to freeze the corner, and Houshmandzadeh cut up field and was wide open. Good set-up. Bad defense. Act of a supernatural force?
  • Random Video:
    • The Smiths played their first live show together twenty-eight years ago today. I've never tried to compile a list of my favorite songs, but this would be right near the very top.

Interlude

In less than a week, this blog will have been in existence for three years. Over those three years and however many of the blog's 1,041 posts for which I am responsible, I pride myself on never having been entirely sincere. So I hope that you will forgive me -- you really have no choice anyway -- putting off TV or why the Ravens' victory was not actually a miracle, as the radio guys said, to be sincere for the first, and hopefully only, time. I'm sure that it being almost 2 in the morning helps, as if I'm a pensive drunk, except I'm drunk on lack of sleep. But I just need to write something somewhere and it can't be on Twitter, on which I am even more sarcastic than here.

There is an indescribable quality to staring at your young child and pondering how anything in this world can be so perfect, innocent, and untainted. It is something that seems impossible until you're in the moment.

It's a good thing the children are our future. I just hope we are able to teach them well and know enough to step back and let them lead the way.

Okay, so it lasted two sentences.


Sunday, October 3, 2010

Worst of the Worst: #6, Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2

There are a few sequels on this list for which I have not seen the first movie, but that is not the case for this one. Superbabies bears almost no resemblance to Baby Geniuses. First, none of the actors return from the first, except for the main baby who plays an entirely different character. Second, the plot of the second is in no way related to the first, except in that babies talk, so it could also have been a Look Who's Talking movie. Third, the first movie received a 2% on Rotten Tomatoes, while Superbabies pulled the Blutarski -- zero point zero.

0%. The rare and magical movie that nobody liked. Even Battlefield Earth, the movie that I truly believe to be the worst movie ever made, didn't pull a zero because a couple of critics thought it was worth seeing due to its historical ineptitude. On the list of movies ranked by IMDB users, Superbabies is dead last.

It's awful to me because it squanders its immense promise as the funniest bad movie of all time. Here's the plot:

A former Nazi scientist in his seventies has developed some way to use TV to control kids' minds. He works with the owner of a day care center who doesn't realize anything nefarious is going on. In order to win, the scientist has to overcome his archenemy, a baby with superpowers. The day car center owner's baby son and friends help the super baby by taking on their own super powers.

Ok, dumb, but it has unintentional comedy, right? What if I mentioned that the evil scientist is played by Jon Voight, with thick German accent? Or the day care center owner is played by Scott Baio? Or the baby archenemy is actually the scientist's brother, who drank a fountain of youth potion when they were kids and the scientist has never forgiven him and the baby has no accent because, as it is explained, the scientist has more of the German side of the family in him? How can that not be funny?

Because the writing is bad. Bad like the writers of Saturday Night Live think it's too corny. Because the babies, as in the first one, appear in some sort of CGI Clutch Cargo way to move their lips to the bad dialogue, but the lips aren't quite right. Because the seventy-plus-year-old super baby does martial arts where the movie employs a stunt double (apparently, it's the little person that was in Pirates of the Carribean, who happens to be the fastest little person in the world) that looks way too big to be a baby doing martial arts. Because Jon Voight is not as bad funny as he is just difficult to watch. Because the idea of Scott Baio is much funnier than the reality of it.

I don't think it's the least entertaining movie I've ever seen, because a) Jon Voight's accent is good for a chuckle at first and b) I've seen Master of Disguise. It is pretty awful, though. My kid is never going to watch the movie if I can help it. It's to kids' movies for me what Brokeback Mountain or Bowling for Columbine is to adults' movies for a Tea Party member. It's not just the fact that I can't allow any movie, just because it's marketed to kids, regardless of the quality. And why does this one make sense for kids anyways, since it's about babies, who can't understand anything? I can't let my kid watch this movie because you have to be old enough to see Anaconda first, to understand the brilliance of the bad Jon Voight accent, before you're subjected to this.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Me Scusi

Pardon the lack of post for a couple of days, but it's a mixture of Jewish holidays and me putting all of my creative energy into a video for a fantasy football league. New bad movie review coming tomorrow, one that I am very excited about. In the meantime, allow me to beg your pardon the best I know how.