It's A New Year and a New Movie/Show/Series/Whatever You Watched Rating Thread! Let the exclamation points abound!!!

[Dancelot]

But if she HAD chosen Elvis, you know what that means, right? It means I would have been Lisa Marie Presley instead of RodeoSchro, which means that I had slept with Michael Jackson. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, and now you know why!

you know that there is a whole universe/timeline out there, where this is actual history, right? grossss...

 

[Dancelot]

A Few Good Men (1992)

Another quick rating for a classic I have seen a couple of times, which is still hard to skip when it is on TV, like yesterday.

A wonderful constructed script by Aaron Sorkin, a well crafted unfolding story with memorable dialouge and great tension and also some well balanced humour, great directing by Rob Reiner (the Spinal Tap Reiner) and wonderful performances especially by Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, a bit behind is Demi Moore, and basically all supporting actors like Kevin Bacon, Keither Sutherland and others are doing a great job.

8.5 out of 10

 

[RodeoSchro]

you know that there is a whole universe/timeline out there, where this is actual history, right? grossss...

LMAO, I don't buy into that String Theory stuff, no matter how much Sheldon from "The Big Bang Theory" loved it!

But........I did just finish a great novel about time travel/String Theory and I highly recommend it.

It's called "Expiration Date" and it's by Duane Swiercynski. His books are GREAT! He does graphic novels for Marvel too, so he knows all about this String Theory stuff, LOL.

 

[RodeoSchro]

PADDINGTON 2
July 20, 2023

You'd better believe I saw "Paddington 2"! After all, both Nockels Cage* and my son said it was AWESOME.

And they were right!

You may recall if you ever watched "The Unbearable Coolness Of Being Nockels Cage" (or whatever it was called) that at the end, Nockels and his daughter settle down not to watch "Nostradamus" or "Insert Name Of Any Felini Movie Here" but "Paddington 2". Nockels explains that it's the epitome of film-making.

I watched "The Unbeatable Fun Of Being Nockels Cage" (or whatever it was called) a second time - with my son - and he confirmed that "Paddington 2" is AWESOME.

Imagine my delight when scrolling through the movie offerings on our Southwest Airlines flight that "Paddington 2" was one of them! Even better - the movie was shorter than the flight. As I am an experienced air traveler and probably could have been a fighter pilot, I eschewed the pre-flight disaster instructions and dove right in to "Paddington 2".

I was laughing out loud before the wheels left the ground.

Just as I eschewed the pre-flight disaster instructions, I'm going to eschew much of the rehash of the story-telling that I'm famous for. All you need to know is this:

"Paddington 2" is the feel-good movie of the decade, no matter which decade you're in. And you didn't even have to see "Paddington 1" to enjoy this, either.

How can you beat that? You can't! "Paddington 2" gets 5 Thumbs Up From Nockels Cage And My Son out of 5 Thumbs Up From Nockels Cage And My Son. Don't ask me where the extra thumb came from.

* If you don't know where "Nockels Cage" came from, click here. And read my stuff more often, I'm not going to post this kind of reference material very often

 

[RodeoSchro]

THE OUT-LAWS
July 21, 2023

It's summer time. You want to know who had the best summer ever?

O.C. and Stiggs. that's who had the best summer ever. How do I know? Because it was all chronicled in a story called the "Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O. C. and Stiggs" and it was written by O. C. Oglevey, the O.C. in O.C. and Stiggs, and published in that storehouse of literary excellence, National Lampoon. I have owned this particular issue of National Lampoon since it came out in October 1982. Assuming no one had a more utterly monstrous, mind-blowing summer before 1982, I can assure you that O.C. and Stiggs had the best summer ever.

And I've been ripping them off ever since.

I kind of feel bad about it, but since O.C. and Stiggs don't actually exist, I don't feel that bad. And since National Lampoon completely ruined the O.C. and Stiggs story by making a putrid movie about them, I don't feel bad about ripping off National Lampoon, either.

In what ways did I rip them off? Well, here's one - "squeaking and beeping". You hear me use that term to describe my auditory interludes on ROCK AND ROLL RADIO. Actually, my brother ripped that term off from O.C. and Stiggs back in 1984 to describe what he thought Prince's singing sounded like, but I've been using it ever since. So to be precise, I ripped off my brother. It doesn't sound so bad when you put it like that.

But there's another phrase I've used to great effect in a few reviews, and that is "a 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement". I'm going to use it in this review too, because this whole movie is a 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement.

EDITOR'S NOTE - I was going to provide a link at the end if you wish to experience the Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs for yourself, but no way - it is not politically correct at all. There are a few phrases in it that may have been semi-accepted in 1982 but are absolutely not accepted in 2023. Just so you know, in case you search "O.C. and Stiggs National Lampoon" for some reason that I won't judge you for.

"The Out-Laws" stars Pierce Brosnan and that should have been enough to bring the movie to at least a 2.5 rating.

Nope.

The usually-reliable Adam Devine starts the movie out by introducing himself as a bank manager. Devine is getting better at comedy - he should be, having been in 3,285 movies over the last few years. Devine is getting married to someone named Nina Dobrev and man, is she in trouble.

You see, she has no tattoos in real life. But in the movie, she has the worst tattoo I've ever seen. It's a giant All-Seeing Eye on her arm. This:

​

It's just horrible and I'm guessing it was a lame attempt to jerk the chains of those idiot conspiracy theorists who think the All-Seeing Eye is an Illuminati symbol.

Now - those of you from that other site might remember that yours truly is a card-carrying member of the Illuminati. We would never jerk the chains of conspiracy idiots because they are too busy jerking their own chains, as well as probably other things. Anyway...


...Ms. Dobrev made a 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement. You see, she bet the director that if the movie made it to #1 in Netflix worldwide, she'd get one of the tattoos her character has. All I know is that she'd better hope Jaime Foxx's new movie keeps her out of #1 because her character has no redeeming tattoos whatsoever.

There's no word what she gets if the movie doesn't go to #1, which means that if it doesn't and she gets nothing in return, then it really wasn't a bet, was it?

See how stupid this movie is? Even stuff that isn't in the movie is stupid.

Let's get into the stupid stuff in Part Two.

END OF PART ONE AND REMEMBER - YOU'VE BEEN WARNED ABOUT GOOGLING "O.C. AND STIGGS NATIONAL LAMPOON".

 

[RodeoSchro]

THE OUT-LAWS, PART TWO IN WHICH WE LEARN JUST HOW DESPERATE FOR CASH PIERCE BROSNAN MUST BE.

Devine and Dobrev are getting married and surprise! Dobrev's parents are coming! Yay, because Devine has never met them! They've been off in the Amazon, making things better for people that live in the Amazon.

Brosnan and Ellen Barkin arrive and are ultra-cool. So far, so good.

But one thing leads to another and Devine's bank gets robbed. During the course of the robbery, Devine realizes that the disguised bank robbers are his fiancee's parents.

This is another 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement. How much better this thing would have been if Brosnan and Barkin weren't actually the Ghost Robbers but were instead government agents tracking the actual Ghost Robbers? Oh yeah, there are two bandits called the Ghost Robbers, who've robbed 100 banks over the years and disappear completely after each robbery; hence, Ghost Robbers.

This is where it all falls apart. Brosnan and Barkin are bank robbers. They're bad guys. Who cares what the motivation for their bank robbing is? Bank robbing is a crime.

Shucks, this whole movie is a crime. And I remembered why, just after I remembered a very telling piece of symbolism. A supernatural marker, if you will.

I'm typing this review with a poop sack in my pocket. That's right, a poop sack. For a dog, not for me.

Here's one in use, probably holding a copy of "The Out-Laws" and/or something that is equivalent to the producer of this movie's ability to deliver funny movies:

​

The producer of this movie is Adam Sandler.

Speaking of Adams, I also just found out that it's "DeVine" not "Devine". But it didn't used to be, I'm sure of that. To confirm this, I checked out Mr. DeVine, where I learned that: (A) yep, his real name is "Devine", but (B) holy moly! He was run over by a 42-ton cement truck and broke every bone in both legs! It's amazing that he's alive, much less that he can walk. WOW.

Anyway, sadly the movie degenerates into a poop sack. A poop sack full of actual poop. I think a conversation something like this took place between the two writers, Evan Turner and Ben Zazove:

TURNER: How nice of Adam Sandler and Netflix to hire us to write a movie based on the two-line pitch we gave Sandler while we were all waiting at the DMV!

ZAZOVE: Absolutely! And suggesting we cast Richard Kind and Julie Haggerty in some kind of parts was a stroke of genius!

TURNER: I am so excited about the eleven pages of dialog we have so far! This movie is going to be great!

ZAZOVE: It sure is! Say, has the check from Netflix cleared the bank yet?

TURNER: Yes, it has! We are fully paid!

ZAZOVE: Great! Let's quit trying and go get high!

That's about the sum of it. Ten minutes of reasonably funny stuff and then a permanent 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement.

Based on the reviews, I hopefully feel confident that Ms. Dobrev is not going to have to get a tattoo and that's really good because as I said, her character's fake tattoos are simply horrendous. Should she actually have to get one of those images tattooed somewhere because of her own 100-foot cliff dive into the Lagoon of Stupid Judgement, I highly suggest she get it somewhere that no one can see.

"The Out-Laws" gets 1 Water Gun out of 5 Water Guns and it only gets that 1 Water Gun because the stuff Turner and Zazove wrote before they got permanently high was kind of funny.

 

[RodeoSchro]

I need to get this shirt and wear it where ever goofball conspiracy theorists hang out:

 

[RodeoSchro]

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART ONE
July 23, 2023

Man, are we in trouble.

I haven't been following all this AI hullabaloo but if AI is anything like what's portrayed in "Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One" we are in a pickle.

Unless Tom Cruise rescues us!

Which I assume he will.

"Part One" is a really fun, very exciting and sometimes humorous movie about the probable end of the world as we know it. I think I raked the last "Mission Impossible" movie over the coals. In fact, I clearly recall deriding it as "Mission Impossible - Fallout Boy". Given that "Part One" is the sequel to "Fallout Boy", I was questioning my decision to take my Favorite Mother-In-Law to the Booze and Chow, especially considering we had no booze at all.

Plus, we were over run by Barbie maniacs. Man oh man, is that movie blowing up! We left "Part One" at 11:30 PM and there were two or three hundred people still streaming in for the midnight "Barbie" movie.

On a Sunday night.

But this review is not about "Barbie", it's about Tom Cruise - a guy that would probably have made a good Ken, too. I mean that as a compliment.

Between "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Part One", I've come to realize how much I like Tom Cruise. The bad news is that I missed most of his movies over the last 25 years but the good news is that now I have plenty of movies to catch up on. See? Every cloud does indeed have a silver lining!

I'm kind of meandering but here's the point - there's no use in going in-depth on this review. A lot of cool stuff happens. Tom Cruise rides a motorcycle off a mountain top and ends up in a train. Plenty of cool fights. A few neat gadgets. Only one good guy dies but I forgot why she's so important to Tom Cruise, so who cares? So far, everyone else has lived.

It's kind of long - about 2 hours 45 minutes but it never drags. It's a great summer movie. "Part Two" drops next year. Go see "Part One" now and then we'll all go see "Part Two" together next year!

I rate "Part One" as 4 Spectacular Tom Cruise Hair Paint Jobs out of 5 Spectacular Tom Cruise Hair Paint Jobs. Whoever does his hair painting really does do a spectacular job!

 

[RodeoSchro]

MECHANIC: RESURRECTION
July 29, 2023

We're going to see "Barbie" tomorrow night so I did what any of y'all would do in the same situation - I watched a Jason Statham movie.

Not just any movie, either - the sequel to the excellent Statham killing vehicle, "The Mechanic". As you may recall, Statham's character was a mechanic who restored a classic Jaguar to pristine perfection. He also killed people and made it look like an accident. That was his forte.

Everything came to a head and Statham ended up blowing up his own house and Jaguar via a specially-coated record played on a special record player. He also blew up Donald Sutherland's son but only because that guy realized Statham had killed his father. Statham also presumably blew up himself, but of course he didn't really.

"M:R" (much easier to type than "Mechanic: Resurrection" plus also how I bet Barbie would abbreviate it, if Barbie was real) picks up with Statham living aboard an awesome fishing vessel, complete with super-cool record player. All Statham residences have super-cool record players, apparently.

As he's enjoying lunch at the local seaside bistro, a mysterious woman sits down and says, basically, "I know who you are and my boss, a guy named Crain, wants to hire you to kill three people". Statham feigns an ability to speak English but it doesn't work, and Statham ends up beating up everyone in the seaside bistro. He then blows up his own boat and disappears.

But not good enough.

He goes to his old friend Mei's Thailand hut village, where a woman and a guy are anchored just offshore in a sailboat. The guy has obviously been beating the girl, and Statham heads out to their sailboat to fix that. But in the course of the fixing, he accidentally kills the guy. And the girl turns out to be - surprise! - bait, and Crain's guys are enroute to get Statham but they're going to wait until Statham naturally boinks the girl and falls in love with her, so as to have created something Statham cares about.

Statham boinks the girl.

Luckily, Statham has foot lockers full of guns, cash, passports and other vital stuff everywhere he goes but they are of no use as Crain's guys get the drop on him and the girl post-boinking, and take them to Crain. Which is probably actually what Statham wanted, the boinking was merely a side benefit.

Crain says, "Kill these three guys and you can have the girl back. BUT - all the deaths have to look like accidents, not murders. Fail or try to rescue the girl, and I'll kill her and all the kids at the Child Support School she runs in Cambodia".

The first guy is an arms dealer whose in the most maximum-security prison in the world but in short order, Statham gets himself arrested, sent to that prison, and puts himself in a position to save the arms dealer from an assassination attempt from a guy with a knife for a hand. This gets Statham invited to the arms dealer's private prison hut, where Statham poisons him and then blasts his way out of prison.

Next up is an arms dealer in Sydney. This guy lives in a 54th-floor penthouse that has a swimming pool that goes out over the edge of the building. It's cool but it was all CGI. Here's a shot from a GREAT article on how the SFX were done on this flick:


Shucks, here's the whole article. it's reall very cool!

MECHANIC - RESURRECTION: Ajoy Mani - Senior VFX Supervisor - The Art of VFX

In 2012, Ajoy Mani talked to us about his work on THE EXPENDABLES 2. He then took care of the visual effects of movies such as HOMEFRONT and THE EXPENDABLES 3.

www.artofvfx.com

Statham uses his special tweezers - and by the way, Statham uses tweezers a lot in this movie - to make a compound that dissolves the bottom of the pool, and that's the end of that guy.

He then tries to rescue the girl but it doesn't work. So, off to kill arms dealer number three! By this time, Statham has figured out that what Crain is doing is using him to eliminate the competition.

Arms dealer number three is Tommy Lee Jones or as we know him around here, TLJ. Playing his usual flamboyant part to the edge of over-acting, it turns out TLJ is actually an arms dealer with a heart of gold. You see, he only sells arms to the underdogs fighting bad regimes. So Statham decides to fake TLJ's death and use the resulting confusion to rescue the girl. And kill Crain, of course.

He accomplishes all goals.

"M:R" would probably be better if you never saw the first movie. Statham is way cooler in that one, and the character development is much better. "M:R" is really just an exercise in great SFX but with a plot that never stands up to the slightest scrutiny. You and I know that I could spend 5,000 words scrutinizing this thing in just such a way but I like Jason Statham, so let's forgo the scrutinizing and get right to the rating.

"M:B" gets 2 Barbies out of 5 Barbies and I don't mean shrimp on the barbies. Catch it if you're bored or haven't seen the first one yet or better - just watch the first one.

 

[RodeoSchro]

BARBIE
July 29, 2023

I thought a lot about this.

But not good thoughts,

That's right.

This movie is S-T-U-P-I-D. Absolutely, positively as stupid as it gets. And unfortunately, not the good kind of stupid - the stupid kind of stupid. Where to begin?

At the beginning, I guess. Why not, the beginning is the only really amusing part of the movie and that can be boiled down to a little girl destroying all her baby dolls once she sees Barbie.

There you go. I should have known better, too. Of course I am referring to the RodeoSchro Movie Previews Indicator Device. And what, pray tell, were the previews for "Barbie"?

A new "Hunger Games" movie, which I can guarantee you there is no possible way I will EVER watch a second of that POS. It's about children fighting to the death in order to win a prize. Screw that. Screw everyone involved in this putrid piece of donkey excrement. As far as I'm concerned, they can all lose their jobs.

Then we got the Seth Rogen turtle movie. Seth Rogen. The name simply reeks of marijuana smoke and lame jokes, doesn't it? Yes, it does. The turtle movie preview had exactly 0.00 funny lines in it, all while some idiotic voice-over guy was screaming stuff like, "The funniest movie ever!" and "The greatest cast ever assembled!" No, no and no. Seth Rogen is not and has never been funny, either in front of or behind the camera. He might be a good dude, who knows, but he simply is NOT funny.

Well now! After those brain-crushing previews, it was time to "Barbie"!

If the RodeoSchro Movie Previews Indicator Device wasn't enough of a warning, the theme song should have been. Here is an actual line from it - "Gah a lah of impor-an things to do!" Whoever was vocalizing - and I use that term generously - is one of those moronic "silent T" fools. I'm sick and tired of it. The words are "goT", "loT" and "imporTanT". Dropping the t's makes you sound like a little baby. That goes for everyone that ever does it, no matter who or where you are. Quit it, you sound like a babbling infant.

Oh, and speaking of horrible songs in this movie - and they are ALL horrible - the song played over the credits has the word "bitches" sprinkled throughout. Way to go, Greta Earwig, or Whatever Your Name Is.

So I'm about 20 minutes total into my viewing experience, and I'd like to say things got better. But they did not.

I put a lot of thought into how I should portray the stupidity of this movie. However, it's so stupid that it defies all methods I can think of. Seriously. Think about that.

I, the foremost Certified Movie Reviewer in the world - probably, as far as I know or care - am stumped. Me, a guy that thrives on stupid movies and built an entire career supported by litrully tens of people by expanding on stupidity in ways no one else can or will employ. I cannot create any imaginative or witty way to get across the level...nay, the depth of stupidity in this "movie". And I have successfully illustrated the stupidity of, what? Three hundred or more stupid movies? But "Barbie" has reached a level of stupidity that no other movie has ever reached.

It's not like I didn't try. We went to the Booze and Chow and I drank more than my fair share of Movie Theater-Quality Cabernet (Freakshow to be exact, which is a pretty good cab). That didn't help. Maybe if you were high on 'shrooms or LSD, this movie might elicit a couple more chuckles, but I'm definitely not advocating that.

If all the above flashing red lights weren't enough to dampen my enthusiasm, I should have known this was a turkey simply by the presence of Ryan Gosling, an alleged "movie star". That guy is a movie star? In what Bizarro World? In what example of String Theory gone wrong? Who decided a plain-looking guy with zero charisma is a movie star? Surely Clark Gable and James Dean are rolling in their graves.

Enough of this. There's only one thing to do and that's ruin the end of the movie for everyone. Because, of all the ridiculous crap contained in this movie, people are going bonkers over the last line. And here is that last line:

"I'm going to see my gynecologist!"

Yeah, that's right. The conclusion of this atrocity is that Barbie grows a vagina. So there, you don't have to waste a second more on "Barbie" because God knows I'm not.

Zero.

 

[RodeoSchro]

HIDDEN STRIKE
July 30, 2023

Boy, did I need this!

I know what you're thinking: "RodeoSchro, you deserved an entertaining movie after some of the turd burgers you've been forced to watch lately, specifically that horrid Barbie movie!"

Thanks, I appreciate that. But "Hidden Strike" isn't what I'd call a good movie.

It sure is a good rabbit hole, though!

Little did I know that this thing was so so close to being Jackie Chan's "The Day the Clown Cried". You don't know what "The Day the Clown Cried" is? Join me in the rabbit hole!

"The Day the Clown Cried" was Jerry Lewis's beloved project. He poured all his heart, soul and money into it. And it sucked.

It sucked so bad that no movie studio ever released it. It sucked so bad the Jerry Lewis rounded up all the copies he could find and burned them. It sucked so bad that no one, and I mean no one, ever even saw it except for - apparently - Harry Shearer. I remember the 1992 story in Spy magazine about the movie, and Shearer's comments that it was as bad as bad gets,

To Jerry Lewis's credit, he agreed; at least, he agreed it was bad and it was his fault. He'd comment on how bad it was from time to time but always maintained that no one would ever get to see it. And he kept true to his word, until he died.

When he died, he left a copy of it to the Library of Congress, with the stipulation that it can't be shown until June 2024. That's less than a year away! I should get some tickets to it and review it, don't you think?

Well - this John Cena/Jackie Chan movie almost went the way of "The Day the Clown Cried". Why? Good question. The movie was actually filmed in 2018 in China - funded almost entirely by Chinese investment companies - and was called "Project X". Then it was called "Project X-Traction". Then it was shelved because COVID. Then when we all reappeared, Cena made a comment during an interview that Taiwan is a country. That did not go over well with the Chinese, who assert the opposite. Then I guess other stuff happened, and it looked like the movie was destined to be our generation's "The Day the Clown Cried".

Enter Netflix! With a new name for the movie!

I don't know how they got the rights but they did. OK, I know how they got the rights - money. But regardless, it's now on Netflix, hopefully knocking a Ryan Gosling or Owen Wilson movie off the site.

Speaking of Gosling, I know why he doesn't have any charisma. John Cena got his own charisma AND he got Ryan Gosling's charisma, leaving no charisma for Ryan Gosling. This movie isn't very good but John Cena is REALLY good. He's simply cool and I'd forgotten but he was in "Barbie". Not nearly long enough to save it, obvs, and hopefully not long enough to kill his career.

The gist of the plot is that in the future, there is an Oil War. Someone has something important - it doesn't matter what - and Chan and Cena first fight over it, then join forces to get it. Which they do.

The plot is disjointed to say the least, but Cena is just so cool. And you have to stick around for the blooper credits. They're hilarious! I think the last time I saw blooper credits this funny was after "Deadpool 2", which was five years ago. Did COVID kill all the blooper credits money?!?

With any luck, "Hidden Strike" will be #1 on Netflix. You know who's probably pulling harder for that than anyone else?

Yep - that goofball with the horrible fake tattoos in "The Out-Laws" who stupidly promised to get real-life stupid tattoos if her movie hit #1 on Netflix.

So watch "Hidden Strike" for these and possibly other reasons:

1. To find out where all the charisma that was supposed to go to Ryan Gosling really went;
2. To laugh at the fantastic end-credits blooper reel;
3. To watch a movie that is 15% Chinese subtitles;
4. To prevent that poor young lady from having to get career-ruining stupid tattoos; and
5. To see our own "The Day the Clown Cried" without having to actually watch the real "The Day the Clown Cried".

I'm going to rate "Hidden Strike" higher than you think I would, based on what I've said about it. But it gets a full point from me just for all the cool rabbit holes. Man, have I missed rabbit holes!

Let's give "Hidden Strike" 3.5 Rabbit Holes outs of 5 Rabbit Holes. Remember - some stupid tattoos are riding on whether or not you watch this!

 

[RodeoSchro]

JULES
August 10, 2023

Hmmm. I've stumbled onto a movie about an alien crash-landing in the back yard of an Academy Award winner. He's joined by an original "Saturday Night Live" cast member. And the spaceship runs on cat corpses! This should be great!

But it's only OK. And I shall SPOILER ALERT you now, seeing as how I kind of already SPOILER ALERTED you in the first paragraph anyway.

Gandhi is now old. Of course, I am referring to Sir Ben Kingsley. It's been 40 years since he won an Oscar for playing Gandhi but that's still how I picture him. He was that good in that role. Oh yeah, he also won a Grammy. Not for Gandhi of course, but still - you have to be pretty cool to win an Oscar and a Grammy, even if it was for reading an audio book. Halfway to EGOT, baby!

Well, Kingsley portrays a guy who's in the beginning stages of dementia, or Alzheimer's. They don't say but it's clear he's got some problems. He's a cranky old guy to begin with, always asking the city council to change the town slogan, etc. He doesn't get along well with his daughter, a local veterinarian, and he hasn't spoken to his out-of-state son in years. He just dodders around the small Pennsylvania town in which he lives, doing old man stuff.

But then a spaceship crashes in his lawn. Kingsley is more upset that it ruined some of his flower beds than he is surprised that there's a flying saucer in his backyard. So he calls 911 and tells them that a flying saucer has crashed in his backyard and destroyed some azaleas. He is not taken seriously, so he goes back to bed.

A day or two later, he wakes up and not only is the spaceship still there, but there's a little green man who has apparently crawled out of it and is now passed out on Kingsley's deck. So he does the most logical thing - he lays a blanket down and sets a glass of water beside the unconscious alien. Then he goes about his day.

The next day - and do you get the idea this is moving kind of slow? - the alien wakes up and is cold, so Kingsley covers him with a blanket. Ultimately the alien is led into the house, where Kingsley finds out the dude will eat apples. So he buys a bunch at the grocery store.

A day later, while enjoying a nice apple meal with the alien, a local lady comes by. She sees the alien and exclaims, "What the f$^* is that?!?" To which Kingsley says, "He's an alien who crash landed in my back yard and destroyed my azalea bushes".

The alien never does anything except look at them, but he's amenable to hanging out and watching TV while not working on his flying saucer. Also, he draws pictures of cats for Kingsley.

Snoopy lady Jane Curtain also comes by and discovers the alien. All three bond with the alien and give him a t-shirt to wear. They make a pact not to tell anyone about the alien because as Jane Curtain says, "We've seen all the movies and we know what the government does to these guys. And those movies have to be based on something".

Which, it turns out, they are. There is a secret Government Facility several stories underground that seems to monitor every phone call, looking for people talking about aliens. This is important because the government somehow knows a spaceship crashed in western Pennsylvania, and they're listening to phone calls to see if they can catch where there ship actually is.

The lady who isn't Jane Curtain - dang, now I have to go find her name - had been trying to start a teenage mentoring program. It was a dud but then one day she gets a call. A teen would like to be mentored! The lady - and now I know her name is Sandy - meets the guy at her house. He's actually 27 but is the epitome of a slacker. Plaid shirt, open jacket with a hoodie, tennis shoes. Just the kind of kid an old person would yell at to get off their lawn.

He's not really that much of a slacker though. In fact, he's a thief and has used Sandy's friendly mentoring program as a way to get into Sandy's house and help himself to her jewelry. Sandy catches him and goes to call the police but the dude goes from simple burglary to attempted murder in the blink of an eye.

But speaking of eyes, the alien has the ability to see his friends even when they're somewhere else and he sees in his mind an image of that dude choking Sandy to death. So he uses his superpowers to make the dude's head explode right off his body, saving Sandy's life.

The local police are perplexed, seeing as how Sandy can provide no explanation of how a dude's head exploded right off his body while in the act of choking someone to death.

It was at this point I was thinking, "Alright! Heads exploding right off bodies? Now we're talking!"

It was also at this point that the alien retrieved a dead cat and placed it near his spaceship.

It was just after this point that I decided this needs a PART TWO.

So - END OF PART ONE. PART TWO WILL BE ABOUT CATS, MORE OR LESS.

 

[RodeoSchro]

JULES - PART TWO. DON'T READ IT IF YOU LIKE CATS.

I'm sure your curiosity is piqued. And you know what they say about curiosity, right?

It killed the cat.

Sandy named the alien "Jules". Jane Curtain preferred "Gary". Kingsley saw no need for a name and therefore never called the alien anything except "alien".

As we enter the Cat Phase of this review, we're going with "Jules".

Remember when I told you that Jules kept drawing pictures of cats and giving them to Kingsley? Yeah, I barely do too. But he did, and it was always a drawing on a piece of paper comprised of seven rudimentary cat heads.

But the next drawing only has six cat heads.

The gang quickly deduces that Jules needs seven dead cats to make his flying saucer go. He just dug up one, so that's why the pictures only have six cat heads on them now. Hey, Kingsley's daughter is a vet. I bet she's got all the dead cats they need!

Kingsley calls her and asks for some dead cats but she's understandably perplexed. And she's mad too, because earlier she'd tricked Kingsley into taking a cognitive test so as to validate her concern that Kingsley was not well and put him in an assisted living center against his wishes. And let me tell you - tricking a parent into taking a cognitive test for your own nefarious means is the lowest thing you can do. The absolute LOWEST. No one with an ounce of integrity, honesty or goodness would do that to their mother or father.

The phone call is testy at best and results in no dead cats for the gang. So Sandy and Kingsley go scouring for dead cats along the roadside. They find one and a half. Ewwwwwww!

Jane Curtain, who has a cat of her own and absolutely nothing and no one else in her life, says she can do better than one and a half dead cats. She takes off and later returns with three and a third dead cats. Putting their knowledge of fractions to use, the gang realizes they are still more or less one dead cat short of the amount of dead cats needed to get Jules' spaceship up and running. (No one seriously thinks they can find the 0.17 portion of a dead cat needed to get to exactly seven.)

Everyone looks at Jane Curtain.

"You have a cat," says Kingsley, "and it's old and it can't see and it can't walk and it's really dead anyway". In a scene that will definitely produce the waterworks, Curtain brings her cat to the alien, tells it goodbye, and places a bowl over its head. "You know, to limit the mess when its head explodes" she says.

However, when killing a cat, Jules can do it in such a way that nothing explodes. The cat is just dead.

Jules places Curtain's dead cat on the pile with the other dead cats and dead cat pieces, then places a shiny silver sheet over the corpses. Bumps appear under the sheet and you think, "Awesome! Jules if going to revive all the dead cats, including Jane Curtain's, and we can stop crying!"

Nope.

The cat bodies congeal and turn into a giant red pill. It looks like a cough drop.

Jules places it into a slot and wham! The spaceship lights up. Can you believe it - a flying saucer that runs on dead cats! In addition to proving the vast superiority of dogs over cats, this also begs the question - does Jules' home planet have cats? They must, or at least they have creatures that are cats on the inside. And since their flying saucer's energy is derived from processed dead cats, Jules' species must have giant cat farms, where they grow cats for fuel. I think that's awesome!

If you're a cat person, you might not agree with that.

Jules opens the craft's door and beckons the gang to join him (everyone agrees Jules is a male although like Barbie and Ken, there are no visible genitals). Kingsley say, "I'll go!" but right then the phone rings. It's his daughter, who apologizes for being a complete scumbag and tricking him into taking a cognitive test. That's a really rotten thing to apologize for - in fact, I'm not even sure any apology for doing that would work in real life - but they both say they love each other, and the daughter says she wants to be friends.

So now Kingsley decides to stay. But right then, guess who shows up?

Government agents, of course.

So everyone rushes into the flying saucer and they fly away.

Seconds later, they land. "Wow! This place looks exactly like Earth!" That's because it IS Earth. Jules only flew them far enough away to escape the government agents. So the gang gets out and Jules continues on his way home. Bye, Jules!

The story is picked up with a visit among the gang, and it looks like Kingsley has deteriorated. But really, not so much. Later that night, as he's lying in bed, guess what lands in his backyard?

Well, you have to guess because all we see is light coming in from outside and everyone's going to assume it's Jules, because Kingsley smiles.

The end.

We're left to answer the following questions:

1. Was it Jules?
2. If so, was Jules there to pick up Kingsley?
3. If so, why? Kingsley clearly told Jules that after his daughter apologized for violating his trust and love, he wanted stay on Earth
4. If Jules isn't there for Kingsley, why IS he there?
5. Is it to pick up Jane Curtain? She clearly stated that since her cat was now spaceship fuel, she had absolutely no reason to go on
6. But if Jules is there for Curtain, why did he land at Kingsley's place?
7. Or - and I feel this is the most likely explanation - is Jules back because he's realized Earth is swimming in cats/potential rocket fuel, and he's about to start the great Aliens vs. Cats War of 2023? Now, that's a movie worth making!

"Jules" is OK. I respect what they were going for, but I don't think they really ever got there. That doesn't mean it's not worth watching but I have to tell you - the scene where Curtain sacrifices her cat will make you cry. It might make you a little mad, if you're on Team Cats. That's why I don't feel bad about spoiling it. It's quite possible that I've saved you several years of therapy, trying to reconcile your love of cats against your happiness that an alien was able to go back home. You can thank me later - or now, if you have Venmo.

"Jules" gets 2.17 Exploding Heads out of 5 Exploding Heads. You know I could have used dead cats as a rating tool but you also know there's no way I'm passing up Exploding Heads.

 

[RodeoSchro]

THEY CLONED TYRONE
August 14, 2023

If there's anyone that needs a good movie right now, it's Jamie Foxx. In addition to very scary health problems, Foxx has been on a losing streak movie-wise.

I don't think this is movie that's going to break that streak, although it's getting good reviews. Not from me, though.

Jamie Foxx is among the most talented people I've ever come across. The man can do anything. Sing, act, dance, write, produce - you name it, he can do it and do it as good as anyone. It pains me to see him in less-than-stellar movies. I haven't seen all his movies but it's been six years since "Baby Driver" and what I have seen since then hasn't been very good.

This is not to say "They Cloned Tyrone" is bad - it's just weird. Plus - and this is my pet peeve, you all know it - Big Tobacco clearly paid a lot of money for product placement. Everyone smokes, all the time, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Plus, the Bad Guys poison every single consumable product in The Glen (the community where this movie takes place) - every consumable product but one, that is. Guess what's NOT poisoned?

Yep - the one product that when used exactly to the manufacturer's specifications can kill you.

Anyway, the movie. Hey, let's focus on the positive! Like the car that Fontaine drives! By the way - we don't learn this until the end but Fontaine is actually a clone of some dude in LA named Tyrone. Hence, they cloned Tyrone. I guess the movie producers thought it would be clever to wait until the final five seconds to introduce Tyrone.

But enough of that! Here's what Fontaine drove:

​

That, my friends, is a 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix. Not a 1977 mind you, but the only differences are the make-up of the grill, and the tail lights. So, close enough!

You already know that "They Cloned Tyrone" is going to get one full rating point for this car. Tell me you know that.

OK, where were we? Oh yes, accentuating the positive!

This movie is positively weird. The plot really makes no sense - the original Fontaine is cloning all Black people through a government program, but lightening them up each generation. His plan is that ultimately, there won't be Black people any more. "Assimilation is better than annihilation" he says.

But wait just a moment - who exactly is this original Fontaine? He's much older than the Fontaine in the movie. OG Fontaine looks to be about 65. However, doesn't the movie end by showing a young guy in LA named Tyrone, who is the guy that was cloned to make Fontaine? If so, where is Old Tyrone? Is the explanation of this that OG Fontaine cloned himself many times over and inserted his young clones all over America under different names? This is never explained and shows a vital flaw in the way I chose to consume this movie - I watched it sober at home, instead of blasted at the Booze and Chow.

I couldn't watch it at the Booze and Chow, though - it's a Netflix-only movie! Someone failed to take me into account when marketing this movie.

"They Cloned Tyrone" isn't a time-travel movie but it might as well be. "The Glen" is a "retrofuturistic" place where the movie is set. That 1976 Grand Prix? It's a new car in The Glen. All the TV sets and computer monitors are from the 80's. But at least one guy has a cell phone. I hate that kind of stuff. To me, it says "Hey - we couldn't make up our mind so let's just throw crap from many different eras and call it art!"

Laaaaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy.

Fontaine - who isn't played by Jamie Foxx but instead by some classically-trained British "Star Wars" guy named John Boyega - spends most of the movie scowling in his best Marky Mark fashion (did they really teach scowling at the Identity School of Acting in Hackney, England?). His answer to everything is to grab a gun and shoot people, which is a pretty good answer to everything most of the time.

Sad to say though, this time shooting everyone doesn't work. Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

If you want to watch "They Cloned Tyrone", I recommend you read this review first (which you obviously are doing right now, God bless you!) and then tune into the last fifteen minutes. Those are the best fifteen minutes of the movie and you really don't miss anything if you skip the first hour and forty-five minutes. Except that ultra-cool 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix, but I've provided you with a picture of it so you're good to go.

At this point you're probably wondering, "Just where does Jamie Foxx fit in all this?" Watch the last fifteen minutes to see some vintage Foxx. Skip the first hour and forty-five minutes so as to not see some embarrassing Foxx.

I'll do what you want me to do - rate only the last fifteen minutes. This, in addition to the aforementioned 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix, will give "They Cloned Tyrone" its highest possible rating. I'm happy to do this because I think so much of Jamie Foxx. So here goes:

The last fifteen minutes of "They Cloned Tyrone" gets 3.5 Purple Dranks out of 5 Purple Dranks. Keep in mind one of those Purple Dranks is for the car.

 

[Dancelot]

Moonfall (2022)

directed by Roland Emerich and this is… it’s just…. it is….


Oh boy, I will give the rating first this time, and this one get’s a solid 0 out of 10.
Or rather 0 out of 100.
Or maybe more 0 out of 1,000.


A freaking bad movie if ever there was one. Don’t get me wrong, I can enjoy some over the top action and doomsday movies, Independence Day was groundbreaking and still is a classic, a high-end Blockbuster budget for an awfully dumb B-movie story, this was really pushing it to the extreme back then. Unhinged “Plan 9 from Outer Space” idiocy made for 100 million dollars? This was something new.


But one hundred movies of the same kind have passed since then, and frankly it is getting tiresome, the same flat cutout characters, the same last second escape action sequences we’ve witnessed a thousand times before, this was really, really hard to sit through. And the over-the-top CGI may leave you blind when watching without sunglasses.

And the ending? Unreal… this was just even more idiotic than the rest of the movie, the hero saved the world, so they conclude… but what the fuck did he save?? Since the planets oxygen was temporarily sucked away into orbit, at least 99.9 % of mankind must be dead now, unless they had some oxygen tanks in their closet and were lucky enough not to get sucked into space themselves… and with the destructive force of the moon there cannot be much planet left to live on, New York is gone but I assume so are certainly most cities, infrastructure, agriculture, ALL animals on earth dead (unless they had oxygene bottles at hand)…. That does not look so good in my eyes....

So during the next few weeks the surviving rest of humanity is gonna slaughter themselves in some postapocalyptic wasteland until they all starve.… but they wanted to sell this to us as a happy ending? Boy oh boy oh boy….

Don't get fooled, in my book this time they clearly DID NOT save Earth and humanity!
So at least this was some kind of suprise ending if you want...

but still zero stars

 

[RodeoSchro]

^I'm glad you watched it so I don't have to - which is pretty much my motto when acting as a Certified Movie Reviewer!

 

[RodeoSchro]

COLLATERAL
August 19, 2023

A Cab Driver Is Unaware That His Passenger Is Dangerous Ex-Special Forces Assassin

And there you go!

That's how this movie would be titled if one of those "Recap" channels did a recap of this one. I'm assuming you know what recap channels are. Oh, you don't? Well, let Uncle Greg explain!

They're yet another rabbit hole in my online life. Some people figured out that you can get around the copyright protections for movies if you only show snippets that are either less than two seconds, or are freeze-frames. They then realized that you could put together all the important parts in two-second clips and get through the whole movie in about 15 minutes. Then they had a genius inspiration - why not use the robotic AI voices to read the script you wrote, explaining with was going on with the movie? But then they had a Mensa-level revelation:

Only recap action thrillers and title them with ultra cool descriptions such as:

They tried to RAPE a teenage girl unaware that her saviour was a ruthless GRIM REAPER​

Russian mobsters didn't know they were torturing a feared CIA agent​

Psycho Family Kidnaps a Guy Much Crazier Than Them​

Gangsters KILLED an innocent girl not knowing what her father could do to AVENGE her death​

They KILLED her friend and STOLE her dog not knowing that a 16 year old girl would end their LIVES​

Gangsters Kill An Innocent Boy, Not Knowing His Dad Is A Retired Mercenary​

How could I NOT watch a video titled "The Russians Killed His Pregnant Wife But Regretted It When He Mutated Into A Killing Machine"?!?

I could not not, so I did!

Same with "Collateral". While it has no pithy/explosive AI-generated slogan, it DOES have Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. And for 30 seconds, it also has Jason Statham!

In fact, the movie starts with a smartly-dressed Cruise walking through an airport and bumping into Statham. As they exchange apologies, they also exchange briefcases. Cruise now has a briefcase with all the data needed to kill the five people he's been hired to kill tonight.

All he needs are some wheels. Enter Jamie Foxx.

Foxx is LA's best and most courteous cab driver. This movie was released in 2004 so there was no Uber. Hard to believe there ever was a time with no Uber, isn't it? But there once was an Uber-less Age!

Prior to picking up Cruise, Foxx had delivered an attractive federal prosecutor to her downtown office. They hit it off so well that she gave him her card and asked Foxx to call sometime. A cab driver scoring a date with a federal prosecutor? Talk about movin' on up!

So Foxx is understandably giddy when his next fare is the dapper Cruise. Although it's against company policy, Cruise convinces Foxx to take $600 in exchange for driving him to various stops. As you may have surmised from my clever recap title, these stops involve Cruise killing various people.

Foxx figures it out after the first kill - really, it didn't take much figuring out, as the body of Cruise's victim fell out of a window and landed on Foxx's cab. Cruise waxes philosophically about his job as an assassin. "There are trillions of stars and billions of people. We are less than the smallest possible speck in the universe. So what if I kill a few people? How does that affect the universe?"

Foxx tries to rebut that argument after Cruise guns down police officer Mark Ruffalo, arguing that now Ruffalo's family has to live without him, but Cruise remains nonplussed about it.

As you may have also surmised, the fifth and final target on Cruise's list is the federal prosecutor with whom Foxx has struck up a relationship. For those of us of a certain age, you'll laugh nostalgically at Foxx's cell phone follies and you'll absolutely commiserate with him when he has to go to a rooftop to get a signal. We've all done that, haven't we?

There is a Final Showdown that ends up on LA's mass transit thingie. Cruise loses and his dying words are, "If a guy dies on the MTA, will anyone ever know?" I'm guessing "yes", as he dies on the MTA, is left behind by Foxx and the prosecutor, but will be found after he either has coated the floor in blood, or begins to smell like someone who'd be dressed in rags rather than in a $2,000 suit.

As you may have finally surmised in this, your third surmising, I've left out a lot of details. That's because this is a pretty good movie and I didn't want to spoil everything for you. (If you tell me that you weren't sure that Foxx would save the girl and kill Cruise, I won't believe you.) And there was this bonus:

Before the movie started, we saw a preview for the new Liam Neeson movie "Retribution". He's in a car that's rigged to blow up if the doors open! I announced to all present that this Friday they could expect to join me at the Booze and Chow, and that there was no way I'd be the one driving home.

This may or may not have enhanced their viewing of "Collateral" but I do know that everyone enjoyed it. I surely don't remember this one when it came out but of course, in 2004 I was preoccupied with an 11-year-old and a 9-year-old, so that could be why. But "Collateral" is a fine movie and it's fun to see Cruise playing an ex-Special Forces assassin who is the bad guy. So let's give "Collateral" 4 So That's What Mark Ruffalo Looks Like When They Straighten His Hair out of 5 So That's What Mark Ruffalo Looks Like When They Straighten His Hair, because Mark Ruffalo straightened his hair for this and it wasn't until the credits that I realized that was, in fact, a hair-straightened Mark Ruffalo.

 

[RodeoSchro]

Psycho Family Kidnaps a Guy Much Crazier Than Them​

August 23, 2023

OK, that wasn't the name of it. But it was pretty close!

This movie is called "BLOODY HELL" and man, it IS bloody hell! And it's a GREAT movie! I'm going to SPOILER IT although if you don't see these SPOILERS coming, shame on you, not shame on me.

Yep - this is a movie I got from one of those awesome recap videos. I have to tip my hat to those who come up with the video names. And in this case, they got pretty close. But our hero - Rex - isn't crazy as much as he's a killing machine who talks to a version of himself. Much like Nockels Cage did in "The Unbearable Coolness Of Being Nockels Cage". Shucks, Rex even looks a little like a young Nockels.

The movie starts though, in Finland with a blond woman running through the woods. She's being chased by her family, who are wearing animal masks. They catch her and bring her back home.

Meanwhile in Boise, Idaho, Rex is at the bank, waiting to see a bank teller he has a crush on, when guess what happens? That's right - bank robbers! They too are wearing animal masks but this is just a coincidence.

While sitting on the floor, holding his wallet up for collection, a purse falls into his lap. In that purse is a gun. Long story short, Rex kills all the bank robbers but sadly, when he kills the last bank robber...well, actually he shot the dude in the nuts for grins, the robber's shotgun goes off and kills a woman hiding that Rex didn't know was there. Maximum bummer!

Rex is charged with involuntary manslaughter and it's mostly because his shooting of that guy in the nads caused the death of the hidden woman. He gets 8 years and when he gets out, he's a celebrity. Most people thought he was a hero for offing several bank robbers, and also for shooting one of them in the nuts in what appeared to be a fit of personal hilarity. So he's on a magazine cover and everywhere he goes, the Idaho paparazzi relentlessly take his picture. This bothers him so he goes to Finland. He'd already decided on Finland due to the scientific method of shooting three spitballs at the map in his prison cell, and all three stuck to Finland.

While in the Boise airport, he notices some creeps eyeballing him. One of them says, "He'll do just fine". Erroneously writing this off as idle chatter, Rex looks at his ticket. He's going from Boise to Helsinki and the boarding pass says "BOI TO HEL". Rex laughs at that but shouldn't have.

Landing in Helsinki, Rex gets a cab that was obviously staged just for him. The reason is, this cab has a knock-out gas canister in the front seat and the cabbie releases the gas, knocking out Rex.

He comes to in a basement, suspended from the ceiling by a rope tied to his hands, and also missing his right foot, which had been sawed off just below the knee. All in all, a below-average introduction to Finland. Where's Michael Monroe when you need him?!?

Rex's alter ego appears and works the facts. All he can tell is that Rex is tied up and judging by all the discarded luggage in the basement, he isn't the first one in this position.

About that time a little boy - who we'd seen being put to bed by the girl who'd been running through the woods eight years later, via the reading of a version of Jack and The Beanstalk where the giant eats Americans - enters the basement and approaches Rex. The boy has a knife and Rex's alter ego figures, "Hey - if I can get my legs around this kid's neck, I'll have him in a position where I could easily kill him, and I can trade that for my freedom!"

Rex accomplishes this by kicking the beejezus out of the kid's face, and then catching him between his knees. The girl - whose name is Alia - comes down and wants to help Rex, but the kid's face is a bloody mess. Two things happen - Rex drops the kid, and Alia flees with the near-corpse of the boy. Plus also the knife.

"Dang it!" says Rex's subconscious buddy. "Vat eees this?" says the Finnish cannibals, finding the kid in bed with a face that looks like scrambled eggs doused in ketchup. "He fell," says Alia and believing that, the entire family sans Alia takes the kid to the hospital. But while there, the doctor says, "This was no boating accident" and the family realizes that the kid did not, in fact, fall out of the bed. Thinking Rex is still knocked out from the knock-out gas, they pin the damage on Alia...

...who has been visiting Rex while the family is at the hospital. She thinks Rex is sexy and gives him the knife, but the family comes back and does two things:

WANT TO FIND OUT WHAT THOSE TWO THINGS ARE? READ PART TWO!

 

[RodeoSchro]

BLOODY HELL, PART TWO - HERE COMES THE BLOOD!

The two things are: (1) lock up Alia in the wooden cage they'd built for her with their super-industrial nail gun eight years ago, when she'd tried to run away; and (2) go down to the basement and stick Rex with some knock-out drugs, which knocks out Rex.

He comes to a little while later, having found it hard to be knocked out while one of the twin sons has set about cutting off his other foot. Rex still has the knife, hidden up in the knots where his hands are tied, and is able to maneuver the son right into an ear-knifing.

It might help if I mentioned at this point that Rex was a Super Soldier, having been a war hero in Afghanistan before becoming a bank robbery foiler/accidental cause of death for one woman.

Rex cuts his way out of his predicament and gathers several weapons from the bags of former victims, as well as some tools used by the family for nefarious purposes. By the way - the reason for all this killing is so the family can feed Pati, the oldest son who is a deformed cannibal monster that will only eat human flesh. For some weird reason, the family believes that Pati's thirst for human appendages is the most important thing in the world.

There's one little problem - Rex only has one foot, and he needs to climb some stairs. He fashions a makeshift prostheses out of a golf club, and climbs the stairs intent on killing everyone in the house except Alia, whom he is going to save and make his wife.

TEXAS SIDE NOTE: We have a saying down here - if it doesn't move but it's supposed to, then hit it with WD-40. If it moves but it isn't supposed to, wrap it in duct tape. You probably have that same saying where you live, don't you? It's a universal saying.

Rex uses duct tape first as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding from the partially-successful second foot amputation, then uses it to secure the golf club (an over-sized driver, if you must know), to his stump. Is there anything duct tape can't do?

The family realizes that Rex is gone, and that one son is dead (the one with a knife in his ear). They really can't blame it on Alia, as she's been caged up most of the time. But they figure there's no way Rex can get very far, and they'll hunt him down. All they really need to do is spend one night away from home, in case the cops get wise.

They're congratulating themselves on their top-notch planning when some of them start spouting blood. What the bloody hell?

It turns out that not only is Rex still there, but he's underneath the table, shooting them with that super-industrial nail gun (I bet that as soon as you read "super-industrial nail gun" above, you knew you'd see that super-industrial nail gun somewhere down the line, didn't you?). Rex kills the dad, and staples the surviving son's foot to the floor. He rises up to nail mom but alas! He's out of nails!

No problem. Alia takes a belt and chokes her mother to death through the bars of her cage. Meanwhile, Rex is busy playing Catch The Knives I Throw At You with the guy who pried his stapled foot off the floor and is in attack mode. The dude successfully catches both knives with his gut but somehow doesn't feel like he won that game.

About the time that Rex is giddy from killing everyone, the house starts shaking. "What the bloody hell?!?" he would have exclaimed if he was British. "Uh oh, that's Pati!" And yes, it is Pati.

He's a giant ogre and begins throwing Rex around the kitchen. Then Pati sees his beloved mother, sitting dead against the cage. This makes him sad and also gives Rex time to get out the flare gun he'd secreted. Rex shoots Pati with the flare gun but unlike that stupid with a flare gun at Montreaux, Pati is not burned to the ground. He's not even hurt; but he IS reminded he's got a guy to finish (Finnish?) killing.

He returns to pummeling Rex but in the process, Rex is able to open the refrigerator door. Guess what's in the fridge?

Arms! Legs! Feet! Rex's foot! Which has been partially devoured from the top, leaving a foot-long shinbone sticking up out of the foot!

Rex inserts said bone all the way down Pati's throat, and that's the end of Pati. He rescues Alia, and they decided to take the kid whose nose Rex broke with them, and start anew in America. It's at this point that Rex's alter ego decides his work is done, and he fades out.

Some time later, Rex and Alia are partying with Rex's American friends and one asks, "How did you meet?" Rex basically tells the story, ending with "Alia's family hated me but I killed them all". Everyone goes "HAHAHAHAHAHA!" and one lady puts her hand on top of Rex's hand.

Alia's eyes go all weird and she imagines slitting the lady's throat with a cleaver, but she returns to reality. The kid? Not so much. He's at home and pulls out a family photograph. First of all, there's apparently one more son who wasn't there that night. Where was he? Who knows? But the kid looks at his picture and says, "Time for an American banquet".

AWESOME.

I would like to thank our Artificial Intelligence Overlords for ginning up the recap of this great movie. Would I have watched it if the recap title was something like "FINNISH FAMILY GETS FINISHED BY AMERICAN SUPER SOLDIER"? I'm not sure. But throw in the word "PSYCHO" and I am there.

"Bloody Hell" is a great movie that has as much humor...dare I say dark humor?...as it has blood. It made a whopping $60K at the box office, which makes me say "What the bloody hell?" This thing should be a hit and maybe it is on streaming platforms. It is surely a hit in the AI movie recap community.

I'm giving "Bloody Hell" 5 Deaths Via Bloody Stumps out of 5 Deaths Via Bloody Stumps. This is the kind of movie that will make you forget you ever had to see "Barbie"!

 

[RodeoSchro]

RETRIBUTION
August 25, 2023

It has begun.

Cash Grab Season is upon Liam Neeson. There's no other explanation for this.

Also - I was the one who drove home from the Booze and Chow. Early on, I realized there was no point in drinking another half bottle of Movie Theater Quality Cabernet because, well, no amount of booze could help this thing.

I know I've done this once before and since it was so good, I'm going to do it again. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for another exciting episode of RodeoSchro Dissects A Turkey And Tells You Where Everyone Went Wrong (I don't think I had such a cool name for it the first time I did this). Clearly Liam Neeson didn't care - the bad choices and plot holes in this thing are simply too ginormous for him to not have known they were there. So it was a Cash Grab for Liam but a chance for me to polish up on my Certified Movie Reviewing skills. Here we go.

Neeson is a cool dude who lives in a cool house in the cool part of Berlin, with his cool daughter and semi-cool wife and son. The movie starts with Neeson warming up on the heavy bag in a cool room overlooking some cool German scenery. Well, alright!

The phone rings. It's Matthew Modine, Neeson's partner in his investment firm. "Hans is getting nervous! He wants to pull out all his money! Liam, please call him and do what only you can do!!!!!" Neeson of course says, "No problem" and then bundles his kids into his cool Mercedes SUV to: (a) drive them to school, while (b) calling Hans down off the financial ledge. We learn that Neeson and his wife seem to be getting along OK, although the spark has surely been diminished. Unsurprisingly, the 10-year-old daughter still thinks Neeson hung the moon but the fifteen-year-old son is being rebellion.

Oh, you thought I used the wrong word, didn't you? You thought I meant "rebellious". No, I did not. I never use "rebellious" and haven't for at least 15 years. I will let Pac-Man Jones, former NFL player, explain why all the cool dudes use "rebellion" as an adjective:

Pacman Jones Scrip Club 04/03/08 - Jim Rome Audio

Pacman Jones Scrip Club 04/03/08 - Stucknut Takebox - Jim Rome audio archive.

www.stucknut.com

So the kid was being rebellion but as you will see, not for long.

Neeson calls Hans and does indeed talk him off the financial ledge and convinces Hans to leave his money with Neeson and Modine. All is well!

POINT 1 - Remember that, because the screenwriters forgot it and their forgetfulness makes the rest of the movie a ride into stupidity.

Then a phone rings but it's not anyone's phone. Instead, it's a strange phone hidden in the console compartment. Neeson answers and Darth Vader says, "There is a bomb in your car and if you open the door or get out of your seat, KABOOM". Neeson figures this for a joke and hangs up, but the caller is persistent. Neeson answers again and ultimately, to prove this isn't a joke, the caller has Neeson pull up next to one of his partners, who's in his own car with his freaked-out girlfriend. Darth Vader has put a bomb in THEIR car too. The girlfriend throws caution to the wind, opens her door to jump out of the car, and KABOOM. "That was your fault," says Darth Vader "because you didn't believe me. Do you believe me now?"

Neeson does.

He peels out and, as we all know, every square inch of Berlin is covered by CCTV cameras, in multiple angles, so it's not long before Berlin's entire police force is chasing Neeson. But somehow, investment banker Neeson is able to lose all the Berlin cops and go to a rail yard. There, across the tracks in his own cool German car, is Matthew Modine. He's scared to death.

"Why are you doing this to me?" screams Modine. All the while Darth Vader is telling Neeson to pick up the gun in the glove box and kill Modine. But first, Modine is to transfer their secret Dubai investment fund of 200,000,000 Euros. It's a two-step process - Modine has to enter in a code, then Neeson has to enter in a code.

Modine enters in his code but Darth Vader becomes insistent that Neeson shoot and kill Modine - with a pistol. While in a separate car. Sitting about 50 yards away. NO WAY. Well, way - probably. Modine can't get out of his car because there's a bomb in it too, so he's a sitting duck.

POINT 2 - Why doesn't Modine simply drive away? MAYBE Darth Vader can blow his car up remotely, but POSITIVELY Neeson can blow his non-moving head off. No one would just sit there!

It turns out Neeson can't do it, and drops the gun just as a train goes by on the tracks between Neeson and Modine. As soon as the short train passes by, KABOOM. There goes Modine.

Darth Vader now insists Neeson complete the transaction but Neeson - being the master negotiator he is - realizes that without him, Darth Vader ain't getting no dough. So Neeson says, "Nope. Let my kids go and then I'll finish the transfer, but not until then". Darth Vader screams a whole lot but it's true - he can't kill Neeson before getting the transfer done, or all this is for nothing. So Neeson starts driving again.

He tries to call his wife, to tell her that he's not the explosive expert that all the cool Berlin billboard TVs are saying he is, but his wife is not at work. "Where is she?" demands Neeson of his wife's assistant. "She's at a divorce lawyer. You haven't been there for her".

POINT 3 - No one, and I mean NO ONE, would ever relay that kind of news in that manner. Or really, in any kind of manner at all.

Neeson - and I have no idea why but every time I type that, in my mind I say "Nissan" (and now you will, too) - continues driving and getting chased by Berlin's finest. As he drives through a tunnel - oh, wait.

POINT 4 - When Modine's car blew up, the a piece of shrapnel embedded itself in his daughter's thigh. But think about it - his daughter is small. She's sitting behind the driver's seat, so her window is facing toward Modine's car, which is about 100 feet away. To be more precise, the noses of the cars are about 40 feet from each other, and there's a width of about 40 feet between the cars. Got that visualized?

So how is it possible that a piece of shrapnel flying in a straight line at hundreds of miles per hour could enter the back window of Neeson's car, the go almost straight down into the daughter's thigh? That's one piece of Magic Shrapnel!

Back to the story. Or better yet, on to PART TWO!