By: BabyRuth –
Hey, remember when everyone thought this whole pandemic thing would be over by now? Ahh, we were so young and naïve back around March 42nd. So here we are, continuing to look for things to take our minds off the never-ending hopelessness. To do my part, here’s a fresh, steaming pack of six more turds to watch and drink along with in the safety and privacy of your own home.
Money Plane (2020) – Four Beers
Since this film was announced it has been my most anticipated release of 2020. I mean, dude, it stars Adam Copeland (aka WWE’s Edge – my all-time favorite) as our hero, Kelsey Grammer(!) as the big, bad, powerful villain, Denise Richards (in hindsight, “stars” may be a bit of an exaggeration as she’s in the movie for about a total of five minutes), a pipe-smoking Thomas Jane, and ALL THREE Lawrence Brothers (Whoa! And one of them is even the director!). And the plot – One last heist! In a flying casino! Where anything goes! Filled with the world’s most dangerous criminals! Sign me the hell up!
Between the cast and the premise, this had everything going for it to be a balls-out, ridiculous homage to 90s action movies.
And it is. Almost. Unfortunately, it just isn’t as much fun as it should be.
Budget limitations play a part, (if it is not immediately evident that this was made on the cheap, the décor of the Money Plane should settle that. Spoiler: it’s a hollowed-out passenger plane with a single poker table and a lava lamp.) though, it does add to the WTF factor in a charming way.
The biggest problem with Money Plane is the screenplay, which plays like a first draft written by a fourteen-year old boy. Nothing makes sense when you think about for it longer than a minute and things are set up that never pay off (Like the lead character having a gambling addiction in the past. Surely this would pose a potential conflict in his completing the mission. Nope!)
And for an action movie that stars a professional wrestler, Copeland doesn’t have much to do besides sit in cockpit for the majority of the movie and Skype with Grammer’s character, who by the way is named Darius Emmanuel Grouch III, aka “The Rumble.” No one gets speared on the wing of the Money Plane, sorry. Most of the action sequences feature Katrina Norman as Isabella, the real muscle of the ragtag team, which is refreshing, but it’s still a bummer that Copeland’s manbun stays perfectly intact.
Overall, I’d say Money Plane is still worth a watch as it truly is one of those movies that needs to be seen to believed. And watching Kelsey Grammer ham it up in full Scarface mode, dropping f-bombs and all, is most definitely something amazing to behold. I just wish they would have gone full-out insane because this could have been amazing.
“I got your tossed salad and scrambled eggs right here!”
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever anyone says “Money Plane”
Take a Drink: for every death
Take a Drink: whenever you wonder why the Money Plane doesn’t have more security
Take a Drink: when Denise Richards has a line of dialogue
Arlo, the Burping Pig (2016) – Six Pack
Yes, the tagline is “Gettin’ Piggy With It!”
And now we head into the talking animal family film portion of our show. The segue from Money Plane to Arlo, the Burping Pig is a smooth one since both films share a producer and star Joey Lawrence and a WWE wrestler.
This is one of those talking animal movies that doesn’t actually have a talking animal, just a voice that the audience hears. In this case the voice is provided by Drake Bell (of Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh).
Despite a whole scene which seems to set up a talking animal (the main character reading Charlotte’s Web in school which starts a classroom debate about whether animals can talk), the humans in the movie cannot hear Arlo’s internal voice like in other similar kids’ movies (more on that in the next selection), it’s just there for the “benefit” of the audience. Oh! There’s also a “talking” dog named Buster, played by Jonathan Lipnicki (yup, the kid from Jerry McGuire who is no longer a kid nor sounds like a kid and no one would even know it was Jonathan Lipnicki so I’m not entirely sure what the thought process behind this particular piece of casting was but good on him for getting a paycheck!).
I watched this one a few weeks ago and right now, honestly, I’m straining to remember anything about it, which should give you an idea of the quality.
So I’ll leave it to djjazzyjoe-75160’s stellar IMDB review:
Extra points if you read this in the voice of Paul Scheer. 5 STARS!
The MVP of this movie is definitely John Hennigan (WWE’s John Morrison/Johnny Nitro), who really gives it his all as the dimwitted painter with a heart of gold.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a drink: whenever Arlo burps
Take a drink: whenever the nerdy older sister reads the same book
Take a drink: whenever the other sister drinks out of the water glass that Arlo uses
Take a drink: for every mention of bacon (As a vegan, this irritates me to no end. Living pigs do not smell like bacon!)
Andy the Talking Hedgehog (2018) – Six Pack
Another entry into the unending library of cheaply-produced talking animal movies is one I would actually recommend because it is so baffling and unsettling, it almost reaches A Talking Cat!?! levels.
*Note: at no point in this film does the hedgehog ride a horse. In fact, a horse never appears in this movie at all.
I’m not sure who this movie was made for. You’d think the answer would be kids and families, but I question that because this one goes to some dark, dark places. A grouchy, bald, old cat waxes existential (“Sooner or later, the truck comes for all of us”), Dean Cain has a mental breakdown (this explains many things), and we learn flowers are sentient and then see many, many dead ones. In fact, the talking hedgehog doesn’t even make the top five insane things in this movie!
Tara Reid’s “Fairy BFF” does though. She appears to young Lily (Karina Martinez) and grants her one wish. Lily’s wish is for all animals to talk. And just like that, the wish comes true and Lily’s beloved pet hedgehog Andy, along with any and every other animal (plus flowers) can talk. Now, don’t get too excited. There are no Duffy-esque moving black dot mouths, we simply hear the voices (most of which are performed- and I use that term loosely- by director/producer Joel Paul Reisig). But two dumb handymen/bad guys (think low-rent Wet Bandits) overhear Andy talking and plot to kidnap him to win some online contest.
Dean Cain clearly had some stipulations upon agreeing to star in this movie. One was that he gets to do nothing more than sit around eating potato chips (and in the strangest manner). The other is that every female character must comment on how handsome he is. And yes, there is an “in-joke” reference to his being a “Super-Dad” (get it?).
Again, this is required viewing because it’s so bizarre, even for a cheap talking animal movie.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever Tara Reid looks confused
Take a Drink: every time one of the dumb villains falls down
Take a Drink: every time Bubba farts
Take a Drink: whenever the frames speed up or slow down (this was not intentional – I thought something was wrong with my TV at first)
Do a Shot: whenever Dean Cain eats a potato chip
Last Call: stick around for the end credits and the director’s attempt at a meta-“We meant to that ridiculous thing” explanation.
*Tara Reid, Dean Cain, and Joel Paul Reisig team up once again in the upcoming Baby Bulldog, in case you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse. Of course, I will watch it. (NOTE: this movie appears to be about a Pit Bull and not Bulldog.)
Robot in the Family (1993) – Six Pack
I became aware of this movie when fellow Movieboozer and bad-movie masochist Henry J. Fromage sent me an email with the subject line “I’m Sorry.” I immediately knew the contents of the email would be yet another cinematic atrocity, as we’ve been trying to one up the other with new discoveries for years now. I also knew that Henry was in fact, not sorry at all and that this was my payback for making him watch Andy the Talking Hedgehog.
You may have heard of this film from a recent Red Letter Media Best of the Worst episode. I hadn’t and went into this blind. I came out of it with a headache.
The plot revolves around an antique store owner and inventor played by Joey Pants himself (Pantoliano is also an Associate Producer) who invents a robot to help around the house, provide security, and also detect gold (the robot’s name is Golddigger). Judging by the cover image, you’d expect this to be a wacky comedy in the vein of Short Circuit about a family and their robot. You’d be wrong. It’s actually about two rival antique store owners (the stores are located right next to each other) and the search for a stolen ancient artifact. There are a whole lot of zany “action sequences,” many that have nothing to do with the plot. And I use the term “plot” very loosely. The only consistent thing about the movie is the volume. It’s loud. There is so much screaming.
The attempts at comedy are as bad as Joe Pantoliano’s accent. Golddigger is supposed to be a lovable klutz, but he’s so annoying the entire time I just kept yelling “DISASSEMBLE GOLDDIGGER!”
Often with these kinds of movies, the story behind it is even crazier than the move itself. This is one of those cases. I came across an article allegedly (cannot guarantee authenticity, but really, how could one even make this up?) written by the director. It’s lengthy, but definitely worth a read:
The biggest takeaway from this insane backstory is that Martin Scorsese sat through that movie.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever Golddigger calls Joey Pants “Daddy”
Take a Drink: whenever anyone says “gold”
Take a Drink: every time you can’t follow what is going on
Take an Aspirin: when your head begins to throb
Do a Shot: when it’s finally over
The Kissing Booth 2 (2020) – Five Beers
I hate you Netflix.
I hate you so much.
For whatever reason (boredom, alcohol, self-hatred), I subjected myself to the first Kissing Booth movie and it was everything you’d expect from a film based on a novel written by a 15-year-old. For another whatever reason, I decided to sacrifice another 134 minutes of my one life to watching the sequel.
I can say that the sequel is better than the first movie, in the way that Pence is better than Trump. They’re both awful, but one is slightly less awful.
It was also a bizarre experience watching a movie with a central setpiece of a kissing booth during the coronavirus. It would be like a watching a movie called The Salad Bar, which actually sounds preferable to The Kissing Booth. (Also, one of my many gripes about these movies is that there is no actual “kissing booth,” it’s just a big stage where the kissie is blindfolded and the kisser is not, and the crowd hoots and hollers.)
We really didn’t need a second chapter in the ongoing saga of Elle and Noah (oh shit, I just realized: Elle and Noah, The Notebook’s Allie and Noah. Ugh), but Netflix algorithms thought otherwise, so here we are. Noah has gone away to college and Elle is left behind to start her senior year of high school. Can this couple make the long-distance relationship work despite new temptations? Will Elle and her BFF/Noah’s younger brother Lee be further strained? How will Elle pay to get into her choice of Ivy League universities? Why is this thing over two damn hours long?
I guess enough people needed to know the answers to these questions, because there is already a part three in the works. I’ve already started a spec script about the entire school contracting COVID after the annual kissing booth event (think a teen rom-com version of Contagion), so Netflix, if you’re reading this, hit me up!
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever anyone says “kissing booth”
Take a Drink: for every text message
Take a Drink: every time there is a missed communication between Elle and Noah
Take a Drink: for every practice session for the big dance competition
Take Another: for the actual big dance competition
Do a Shot: obligatory airport scene
The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson (2019) – Six Pack
From the writer/director of Hilary Duff’s biggest regret of 2019: The Haunting of Sharon Tate, comes his take on the Nicole Brown Simpson murder, which focuses on the theory that Glen Rogers, aka the “Cassanova Killer,” was the true murderer. It stars Mena Suvari as Brown, Nick Stahl as Rogers, and Taryn Manning as Nicole’s friend and maybe lover, Faye Resnick. Several years ago, this would be an impressive cast, but now, it’s just kind of sad that these once promising young actors have to take this kind of garbage (Suvari is even an executive producer).
I had the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach during The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson that I had during Loqueesha. It’s beyond bad, it’s just wrong, and it made me feel like a terrible person for watching it. Bad taste doesn’t even begin to describe this mess. This goes beyond bad taste. This is a shit sandwich laced with arsenic. It tastes rancid going in, but that’s nothing compared to what it does to your intestines.
You know how Quentin Tarantino made sure to honor and respect the memory of Sharon Tate in Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood? Well, director Daniel Farrands and writer Michael Arter do the exact opposite to Nicole Brown Simpson’s in this, fetishizing a real-life tragedy. It’s grotesque.
The most mind-boggling aspect of this film however, aside from the fact that it was greenlit, is the supernatural subplot. There is a moment this movie goes from just plain awful to flat-out bonkers. Because I advise against watching this trash for yourself, I will spoil it. Nicole is awakened in the middle of the night by an unseen force that drags her out of her bed, up the wall, and onto the ceiling Nightmare on Elm Street-style.
There’s also an attempt at some kind of cinematic universe tying into The Haunting Sharon Tate, because Glen Rogers suffers from multiple personality disorder and often refers to himself or hears the voice of “Charlie.” See where they’re going? It’s so, so awful. (Also, just how is the spirit of Charles Manson possessing this guy when the film takes place in 1994 when Manson was still alive?)
This is the worst thing I have seen all year, and that includes Trump press conferences.
Mini-Drinking Game
Take a Drink: whenever “Charlie” is mentioned
Take a Drink: every time Nicole predicts her death
Take a Drink: whenever Kris Jenner appears
Do a Shot: for the Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off scene
Do a Shot and turn this movie off: before the final murder scene (Trust me)
Hit play at your own risk. Until next time Boozers!
