Tag: Guilty Pleasure

I am on my Couch, yet I feel Lost: Pinkie Watches Labyrinth

Hear Ye Hear Ye, Princess Pinkie is here with a new Movie and Shows Post!

Greetings my Loyal Guests and Subjects! It may not be a surpise to you that I really dig the strange and unique and seek out these movies , games and anime on regular basis. One weird product in the movie industry had eluded me for the longest time.. but today I finally managed to get that film under my belt. In this movie David Bowie plays the Goblin King, a baby stealing , delusion of a man who creates several musical intermezzos in this oddball of a fantasy movie.  Today I shall tell you of that time I watched Labyrinth.

The Wizard of Wonderland…with Puppets

In 1986  Jennifer Connelly starred in her breakout role in the movie Labyrinth, a Jim Henson movie that pits the ,then still a child, star against a pop singer. Which usually isn’t such a great idea. Child actors are known for their hokey acting.. and how poor children are written in movies, and singers…. well… just name a well acted movie starring Justin Timberlake… It is a movie that has the audience and the critics sharply divided on Metacritic , scoring only a 5 out of 10 from critics and an amazing 8.4 out of the audience. So  such a bit difference is already weird… What’s weirder is.. I kinda agree.. with both sides. In their own way each is a very fair way to look at the movie. The first thing you need to ask yourself is, do I like Jim Henson’s work?!  Jim Henson , should you not know the name is the big name behind the Muppets and Sesame Street, he is the master of puppets and his creatures are recognised all across the world, and while these creatures may not be anywhere near as Iconic as some other Jim Henson products, you can tell this movie is his. Which I find a huge boon! 

The plot follows character Sarah who is rehearsing for a play about the Goblin King, however she has fairly recently gotten a stepbrother, her stepmother being over protective over little Toby forces Sarah to take care of this little brother much to her chagrin, she feels like the forgotten child, remembering a rhyme from her play she wishes that Goblins come and take her little half brother away, That they do!  Immediately Sarah regrets her actions and tells the Goblins to give her brother back, the Goblin King , Jareth played by David Bowie floats to her window and tells her he can not undo the wish. She has 13 hours to travel trough an amazing fantasy land that is one giant Labyrinth to go to Jared’s castle and reclaim her little brother before he is turned into a goblin himself and stays with Jareth forever.

The movie clearly targets a young audience, with little consequences and stuff like death or injury being replaced by less harsh, but way more looney consequences.  Like falling into the bog of Eternal Stench.. an event that will cause you to stink for the rest of your life.   Amnesia or turning into a Goblin replace death as well, and the risk of injuries is often being played for jokes, such as creatures who can rip of their own head and toss it , put it on another creature and just have fun with it.  When someone is crushed by a rock they just fly off like a bowling pin, and more like that. It makes the movie quite whimsical and delightfully lighthearted. However the dialogue has been written to appeal to a younger audience as well, which can at times feel a bit unnatural, like you are watching a high school play. Since the movie kind of sets this in a twisted version of a high school play though, I am not sure if it is an actual downside. It just is presented in a rather unnatural way.

The movie has a lot of similarities with the Wizard of Oz, in the sense with that there is a path to follow.. more or less but events constantly throw the journey off, and it even has more in common with Alice in Wonderland, with characters being extremely strange and the riddles and puzzles that have to be overcome are tackled in a manner that Alice oftenly would.  The characters that join the main character however  do really resemble the party format of Oz again.. with an ugly treacherous gnome/dwarf that finds friendship along the way, a ogre like creature that becomes braver as they go, and a dog knight that learns some humility and that fighting is not ALWAYS the answer.  Very cute, and pretty well executed. The biggest trouble is that it kind of falls short when compared to it’s greatest inspirations, but those are pretty much masterpieces so I don’t really hold it to that standard. I can see why a critic would conclude it’s an inferior product though..because it is… however there isn’t that much in the genre anyway and as general entertainment I could not help but be slightly enamoured with this flick.

Twists and Turns

The moral of the story is where the “problem” of this movie lies. I will explain why I write “problem” in quotation marks a bit later on.  The moral of this story and that the main character has to learn is “Life can be unfair sometimes, we just have to deal with it when that happens” .. or something like that. It is indeed unfair if a parent favours one child over the other, but it happens especially if one child is newborn and the other is in their teens. It is unfair that some pappa’s and mamma’s don’t stay together and you have to allow another person in your life. These are troubles Sarah has to face before the movie even starts.. but throughout the journey this theme is forced in pretty hard. The Labyrinth cheats!  If she is smart enough to mark the route, little creatures will change it.   A worm.. which by the way is the most adorable thing EVER .. tells her that sometimes she can walk through a solid wall!  Sometimes solving a riddle and clearing an obstacle will immediately resolve in a new punishment. For a movie about making progress that can feel a bit lackluster.. and make progress feel more like a Deus Ex Machina than earned.

For example at one time Sarah is solving lots of mysteries in a row, some hubris sets in and she tells him, this is super easy. He then fast forwards time to give her 4 hours left instead of 8.. or something. Why not fast forward it all the way so you win?!  Why  give her a chance?  Why come up with a riddle segment and have Sarah solve it.. if you give her the punishment for failing it anyway.. on a fundamental level it feels wrong.  The movie isn’t satisfactory in that regard. Stuff happens because it happens, and normally I would HATE a movie for that. I hate a lot of anime who do that.. but this one gives clear hints on what is going on, you just have to assume something, something most people really do not like to assume these days. To enjoy this movie you have to watch it .. as an analogy rather than an adventure.. because while the events are fun, the actions taken end up being inconsequential due to the chosen theme. 

I did not end up minding it all that much in retrospect when I saw the big picture but there where times I felt very frustrated.  The character of Sarah is a big offender in this as well.. for the first half of the movie she is extremely whiny. She complains how unfair the maze is and how everything works against her. She vents this to characters who do not deserve it and the whole idea of wishing her brother away because she is studying a play and hates his crying noises already makes her feel quite bratty. An argument can be made that Jareth, the Goblin King is more appreciative of the baby than Sarah is and he’s the better choice. The movie fixes that later on but at several points in the movie I found myself rooting against Sarah! If you close your mind off because of that before the midway point, this movie might indeed suck. I don’t like children and Sarag began to annoy me just as a child would .. and then I realised… she is annoying but most children who would not be crippled by crying would react like this.. I as a child would have probably reacted like this.

The movie makes the odd choice to leave a lot of responsibility at the mature viewer, you have to poke through some things, if you take everything face value and “as seen on screen”  this movie might not satisfy you. Like a fairy tale, we seem to walk across a beaten path with a cookie cutter morality and a clear sign of who will be the victor at the end. However if you poke a little deeper there  a lot there. Do these events really happen? Or is it Sarah’s mind trying to cope with how unfair life is and allowing her to grow enough to learn a lesson. Do we sometimes need to let go of reality and it’s unfair to escape.. so we can later on face that unfairness.. that to me is what this movie is really about. What we see MIGHT have happened… but if she imagined it.. all those silly things that did not make sense before make sense.. after all she is creating the scenario and it also all feels very much like the mindset of a child, every single event even how the story sometimes derails into something so fantastical that it does not make sense… maybe Sarah ‘s true labyrinth is that of the feelings in her own mind. Kids get a cute little adventure, yet there is something for a mature audience as well. You just have to work your grey matter and imagination a bit to find it.

And then there’s Jim

The creatures we encounter on this adventure are so fun! I especially enjoyed Ludo the ogre , stone summoner and the worm! Oh I loved the worm so much!  It had like 3 lines of text but it was great.  It just tells Sarah there are doors that she can sometimes not see and she can move through some wall!  But he also keeps inviting her over for dinner! Inviting her to come inside.. there is no clear indication of what he means inside, nor what’s for dinner. There is just a worm… in blue with a scarf that tells her you can go to a wall or come for dinner. I do not know why I love it so much but I absolutely adored it. Then there is a wise dwarf, with a talking hat who bestows wisdom on passersby. The hat looked a lot like the minish cap from zelda, even speaking in the same sarcastic tone. Two door knockers, gargoyle like by design one with the knocker in his ears the other in his mouth. One can’t hear one can’t speak! Find out which door is correct.  I love this kind of stuff. Sir Didymus being a dog riding on a dog was great as well, especially since one is a puppet and the steed an actual dog! It is also quirky and even all the goblins felt unique! 

This movie, while an original story feels very much like a fairytale.. but also like a hodgepodge of fairy tale tropes.. like a kid or young girl trying to write her own story, including moments where the story derails… a great example of this is when Sarah loses Ludo as her guardian, he just falls trough the floor for no reason, nor is a reason ever given after reuniting with him.. he just comes out of a tunnel… but while alone Sarah comes across creatures that look a lot like Kowakian Monkey Lizards from Star wars..but bigger.. in pink and yellow and orange fur. They sing a song and toss their heads around to tell Sarah they want her to play as well and will rip of her head. It feels so extreme for this story, very Alice in Wonderland.. and very much like I used to write when I was young.

There is an encounter with Jareth on some MC Escher like stairs, where trough camera choices I got absolutely confused which was the point and it felt great. For a movie about a Labyrinth I truly felt lost, Henson made most of his characters so insanely quirky that they become self aware of their quirk. Like the guardians with one always speaking the truth and one always lying, by all the questions they have been asked in the past and all the mystery they forgot who is who themselves.. and aren’t even sure if they should lie or tell the truth thus if Sarah goes trough the door and falls trough a hole we aren’t sure.. did the creatures accidentally flip roles, is the hole actually progress, you can feel lost if you allow yourself too and if you immerse yourself.. and a lot of it is due to the wonderful cinematography, amazing creatures and fun effects.

Some events have this level of theater effect to them.. like a stone coming in rolling very slow based or a pebble clearly on a wire being moved towards the main character. It feels like one of those old stage plays, like the Muppets is supposed to be I guess.  It feels intentional yet hokey, it takes you out of the movie enough to give it a proper thought.. but also allows you to enjoy the wonderful creatures more. Like the hooded goblins with numbered helmets.. we see them several times but never see why their helmets are numbered.. not until way later where they end up being bowling pins to Ludo’s special attack!  A super simple joke but long before that they were on my mind as to what the secret of thiose numbers could!  It is all some great work and because it’s so hokey and forced at times.. it doesn’t age as poorly some effects feel like they were intended to feel wooden and forced.. so even the puppeteering that aged worse.. can be seen as semi intentional! Great work Mr Henson!

We are all mad here

If you asked me if I enjoyed this movie I would say yes! If you ask me if I had a good time while watching it, I’d be a bit more reluctant to say yes.  The second half of the movie is a great ride so would a rewatch of the first half.. but the first time you watch this… or the first time in a long while … eeeeh…. Sarah is a brat and that ends up being great as we really go on a journey with her towards a better version of herself..but she comes across very abrasive from the start and only when she accepts the maze ins unfair, she becomes a remotely likeable character That is relatively late in the movie to start liking a main character. That’s the whole thing I think.. if you hold it to normal movie standards this is odd! Maybe to odd  It doesn’t fit the normal criticising format. So if you review it as just a movie.. maybe it is bad. Reviewing by your normal, story, music, acting etc standards you can easily rate this a 5/10! Sure there is plenty of things wrong with this movie.. at least in the sense with how one normally reviews movies.

If you see it as a quirky visual fairy tale made by Jim Henson… that is a childs day dream about coming to term with the fact that she has a new family now and has to accept her new little brother as well as him getting more a spotlight than her you are in for a great time! This is NOT a movie that you measure by the normal standards, it can’t… well it can but in doing so you’d already be missing the essence of this flick! It doesn’t fit the standard bill. For once I do not really have a weird analogy for you this time because this thing is really unique! Labyrinth is not just a movie… Labyrinth is Labyrinth. If you can watch it with the goal of understanding or experiencing this wonderful product, rather than “put on a movie” a great time awaits you, that you will remember long into your happily ever after. The Bowie songs though will fade away rather quickly.

Did you see Labyrinth?! What did you think? Who is your favourite character? Let’s get lost in the comments but be sure to bring your Bedroll in case we really get lost! Because remember folks!
Friendship is magic but dreams are even more wonderful!
Oyasumi!

Raul Julia Goes With Everything: Street Fighter (1994) Review

Hello again my dear island guest!  While you may very vividly remember the day my content graced your life for the first time… for me it was wednesday. That’s right I have crowned myself General of my own island so I can wear capes and stuff!  I am still attempting to review all Video game movies ever made.. and what made me experience this change is none other than the amazing Street Fighter 1994!

Actually it’s based on Super Street Fighter 2 The New Challengers..but also not much!

Double Lariat to the Lore!

Street Fighter (1994) is a movie written and directed by Steven E Souza. It stars Raul Julia, Jean Claude van Damme, Ming-Na and Kylie Minogue as it’s most well known actors.  It holds a score of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 10% critic approval rating and a 20% fan approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Which is waaaay too low! Considering that Postal gets a 60% approval on RT this  is so much better. Don’t get me wrong.. it’s not good.. but we are talking video game movies here! This is easily top 10. In this movie Guile is sent to deal with Bison in a..let’s call it non canonical approach to this story we are treated to what almost feels more like an 80’s set action movie than a martial arts movie. It reminded me of a buddy cop movie more than anything with an all american hero! The only problem is.. this all American hero can not speak American all that well. In a strange mishmash of scenes we get a very interesting cheesy movie that is much more fun to watch than it has any right to be. Nothing really works together and in a way that is what makes it so amazing. While the legend of Chun-Li (which I will unfortunately review soon)  takes it’s lore fairly loosely… this one.. feels like it has been written by just having a few words written on a paper sheet with a picture of  a handful of characters. 

Guile arrives in a place called Shadaloo which now is a country instead of an evil organisation run by Bison. Here Bison wants to build the great nation of Bisononia and it’s main capital, Bisonopolis. For this he has a bunch of evil plans which for now involves capturing the innocent people of Shadaloo and asking for a 20 billion dollar ransom. Poster boy of the Allied Nations Guile arrives there to stop him. When his best friend Charlie Nash… I mean Charlie/Carlos Blanka gets captured by Bison and slowly turned into a green skinned war machine, by the likes of Dr Dhalsim, the stakes are on. Meanwhile reporter Chun Li Zhang with her camera man. E Honda and her sound guy Balrog have a hidden vendetta against the tyrant as well. Which puts them right in the middle between the Allied Nations forces and Bison. Then there is Sagat, who is the mob boss of Shadaloo! After he gets scammed by con artists Ryu and Ken he ends up in jail with them along with his priced cage fighter Vega. Guile discovers who Ryu and Ken are and decides to enlist their con artists’ skills to win Sagats trust. Sagat will be an arms dealer to Bison leading into his hidden base location.  Then they can all get their revenge and free the hostages including Charlie.  Cammy and T.Hawk are also there! Oh and Deejay is the second in command for Bison!

So as you can see there are a few slight changes to the story! The only thing this has in common with Street Fighter is a few names, some looks here and there and an easter egg like a movie looking..sort of similar to something people use in games. There are no super powers though. Bison can wield the power of Electromagnetism trough having Electromagnets in his gear but other than that we just get punches or pocket knives. No Hadoken, no Sonic Boom. It feels more like Beverly Hills cop on steroids with the balance of comedy and action swapped. This movie walks a bit of a comedy to action balance from the 00’s marvel movies. With a character occasionally spouting a funny line. Mostly Zangief! Who in this movie is sooo dumb that he causes a few chuckles because he doesn’t fit in this universe at all. It reminded me of Brendan Frasiers Mummy movies a bit. The tone of the world is so disjointed it feels as if we got several directors and no one really knows how the Street Fighter characters work. For example Chun Li turns into a Ninja at one point and Bison uses aquatic mines by playing on a Street Fighter Arcade Control Stick! It’s not Street Fighter but it sure is fascinating!

Sure you can’t …act

The most glaring flaw in this movie is that nobody seems to be able to act. There is promise in a few of them but no one seems to play in the same movie. Ming-Na plays a very gloomy serious Chun-Li that is your average 2000’s broody super hero. E. Honda and Balrog and Ken and Ryu play almost buddy cop like pairs including the classic motivations of one being more righteous than the others. Cammy seems to just be there to look pretty and as a pairing for Guile.. but there is no romance there and in the end he might date Chun Li?!  Guile is your standard 90’s action movie. With one-liners in the line of the greats. Stalone , Arnie, and of course JCvD himself. Zangief seems to come straight out of a slapstick comedy as if he is like a Scooby Doo character. Sagat and Vega meanwhile go a bit with the Jojo’s Bizarre adventure menacing style with a bit more 90’s cheese. Basically they are Bond-Villains. Dhalsim and Blanka go for the morally grey tormented style and play this movie a bit “Power Ranger” esque mixed with some classic Mary Shelly Frankenstein type acting. Then we have Raul Julia.. who plays Bison..who leans so heavily into overacting that he seems like a comic book character or maybe even anime. I can see this Bison having Tea Parties with Dio.

Bison steals this movie! He is by FAR my favourite character and it gives this movie so much flavour. He is not playing the Bison from Video games but rather his own thing. In fact M. Bison is not the real name of the Shadoloo commander anyway.  In Japan M. Bison is known as Vega and Vega is known as Balrog. Balrog the boxer is there called M. Bison as a pun on M Tyson. Yet the western world thought that would give problems in the legal department so they swapped the names around. Why they did not just change the name of the boxer I do not know but something similar happens with M Bison in this movie. On paper Julia portrays all aspects of Bison’s behaviour, as the ruthless, megalomaniac insane ruler he is. However these words get swapped around. Where game Bison is mostly Ruthless, movie Bison is more of a madman. Then his ruthlessness takes second place but being very different in its depiction as game Bison was well. This Bison is a showman!  Setting up a whole thing where Chun Li tells her story and then scoffing. “For you the day Bison graced your village, with an unforgettable event, for me it was tuesday! That is cruel indeed.. but other Bison would just snap your neck for looking at him funny! We got a character that looks the same, and has the same name.. but it’s a different beast all together.. A much more flavoursome and awesome beast than that in the games! I wish this Bison was cannon! He is much more intimidating. I truly see a madman on my screen!

Unfortunately the same can not be said about Jean Claude van Damme’s depiction of Guile. His acting is very bad and barely understandable. The movie does well to steer into comedy as it plays into many actors’ strengths.  It fits the goofy tone of the movie.  Cammy and Guile however do not really have comedic timing as actors. Minogue has a cute line in the end and little enough dialogue for it to not be too abrasive but when it comes to Jean.. he does not have the talent or at least the timing for comedy.  As a result  he doesn’t come off as strong. When Guile defies the Allied Nations and their call to pay Bison.. he gives this inspirational speech about being heroes.. but it somehow feels like it is also meant to be funny.. with that guy watching. Guile isn’t funny!  When he threatens a group of Bison soldiers with a tiny knife, he gives his blade this look as if he did something great but he can’t really do it right. 
He has a few one liners but they happen too late! When the victim is already dead or during a loud explosion in the background. They aren’t even that memorable! So he can’t fully help it maybe! There might be direction involved here but he is by far the worst character in the movie! He really brings it down a few notches.. unfortunately he is the main character so he gets a lot of screentime. He makes the least amount of sense as a character as well.. Why would the army hype up a single soldier who fights along on the front?! 

Putting the Haha in Hadoken

I really enjoy this movie, I watched it once I was really sick as a kid and I found it pretty horrible but ever since I started to appreciate the “so bad that it’s good”  thing .. I love this movie. It isn’t THAT bad even it is just so camp and B-movie level that it is so good to watch. Physics in fights makes no sense. Someone flies straight back from a Roundhouse kick for example or a punch makes someone spin around so they have to resort to a move that sort of looks like that in the video game. It all seems so incredibly funny to me. For example Bison gassed his own bedroom, he has a panic room built in his weapons display to keep him safe.. but the windows of that quarter are open.. as in.. it’s one of those gridwork doors so all the air and thus the gas would flow out. Everyone blindry runs into that small little room as well. No one standing guard or going ahead to find an exit or whatever.. everything is so scripted by movie logic that it becomes a delightful guilty pleasure to watch.

Raul Julia, rest in peace,  as Bison causes so much of that guilty pleasure. The way he goes crazy on those Street Fighter controls .. while we only see four mines explode is already super funny, as in he pressed the button 30 times but only four explosions happen. Yet the fact that we see a lot more mines than buttons make it so much funnier. There is no way this real and the suspense of disbelief is completely gone!  Yet you see a man getting consumed by this part having fun and going absolutely nuts with it. I laughed when Dr Dhalsim got bald for no reason whatsoever but just so they can end with a bald indian and a fire ball.There is so much wrong with this movie but that is what makes it so amazing at the same time. Had we gotten the classical Bison this movie would have been utter trash but it’s not! Julia saves this movie by bending it’s tone  almost single handedly to something that makes this work.  You could be pissed that Ryu is a con artist.. but  then this Bison is like.. “Look at me.. we are  an exaggerated cartoon and your like.. I guess that is pretty funny, and this too.. oh and the fact that they mixed Charlie Nash and Blanka ha! Way to get Guile involved with lore but also with the actual Street Fighter roster.

Zangief had me chuckling out loud for the dumbest jokes. For example there is a scene where he sees something bad happening on the security screen and he says “quickly , change the channel” . It’s a classic joke but it felt so out of place and not in line with what happened before that I just laughed out loud. The chaotic tone for this movie is so great for that. That moment Chun Li turns into a ninja in a really lame set up.. where the camera causes the idea of stealth but a normal person would have had the perception! I had way too much fun for that. It does so many things wrong. E Honda gets tortured at one point and he acts like it doesn’t hurt but then it is revealed that actually it did.. by showing the rounds and they look so tiny and badlu framed that once again I laughed out loud. That happens a lot in this movie, the gun scene at Sagats hideout is another great one that had me snickering. Their stealth boat had me in stitches! So heck.. this movie sucks.. but in such a good way!

Solid Boom

Now I could easily mark it down and say the fighting sucks, guile sucks, there is no rhyme or reason to the logic of this world.  There is no consistent tone, not all comedy lands and so much more. If I objectively would count the good things I might indeed end with a score like most people give it on Rotten Tomatoes, but in the end I was entertained. I had fun.. not in the way the movie was going but I had fun all the same. I can’t say I had that much fun with Bloodrayne.. I had fun writing about it.. and thinking of bad things to  say.. but this movie just kept me entertained. I don’t care that things aren’t right because they are entertaining. We often make to much assumptions expecting something to be “like the video game”  or “ should not contain plot holes”  but if it is fun to watch who cares?  I can see some actors having fun, I can see silliness and a chaos that is not in a lot of movies and because of that I qualify my viewing experience in the good half. 

But where to put it?! It lacks the total lack of the rules that Mario did, it also lacks a good soundtrack and it lacks a captivating lead. It has an amazing antagonist.. but so was Dennis Hopper. Bison is better than king Koopa but not by that much! However where you to take King Koopa out of Mario I think you could still have a fun movie but if you take Raul Julia’s Bison away from this movie it would fall flat quite fast.  Where I’d call Mario’s viewing experience very good, this one is still a bit below that so it’s time to pull out your Pina Colada again because this movie sure packs some kick! I had a good time with it and would watch it again.. so to me this movie is ranked:

Some of the action scenes in this movie were legitimately funny! I liked the E Honda versus Zangief Fight, Chun Li versus Bison had me laugh out loud and somehow I was happy everyone except for like three?! Characters survived. For some reason the only warrior that doesn’t appear in the movie at all is Fei Long! Instead we get Captain Sawada played by Kenya Sawada as Capcom tried to push him as their mascotte! Fabio was considered for the role of Vega! Have you ever seen this movie?! Did you recognise the characters? Let me know in the comments?!

Pinkie’s Guilty Pleasures: Birdemic Shock and Terror

Hello Island Guests,  what originally began as a spotlight for movies which do not get not enough love has since turned in me discussing the weirdest shows, campiest movies and discussing some notoriously bad movies! The content-cocktail of today features the latter. Join me on a wonderful trip as we discuss. Birdemic Shock and Terror.

This post has lots of YouTube Clips so it is best viewed on the site instead of WordPress-Reader.

In 1963 Alfred Hitchcock made the movies “The Birds” a claustrophobic horror movie about killer birds. We haven’t seen a lot of that since.. of course there was a sequel but the scenario of evil avians has otherwise gone relatively unexplored. However in 2010 James Nguyen thought, what Alfred can do so can I! That old movie did not feature aggressive enough birds! What about if we give them acid spit! Let them explode on impact and give them airplane sound effects?! What if this is a movie about ecological changes, with heavy themes on how we mess up nature.. and big forests fires,beach scenes and of course this only should happen in the second half of the movie! The first half.. we’ll just do some random dating and social life stuff for our characters.

This movie is absolutely bonkers and I love it! This movie is SO bad.. that it’s on YouTube in its entirety. Several Times! It has been so for years as well. The oldest version I found stems from 2013. So for the very first time ever you can watch the entire movie on Pinkie’s Paradise if you wish.. at the end of this post! While I will also show you some amazing scenes from the movie! So if you want to be surprised and want to spend 90 minutes in shock and terror, although for the wrong reasons! Go below first and then come back to me! Now that the spoiler warning has been given it is time cringe!

This movie was clearly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s great film and it happily pays tribute to it. Alan Bagh plays Rod (he has no last name) the main character of this movie. A guy that walks so stiff he might be a terminator. Rod  though  is also the name of the male lead actor Rod Taylor who played Mitch Brenner in The Birds.  The best friend character in Hitchcock flick is played by a woman named Suzanne and in this movie the female friend character is named Susan. The music on the title crawl seems like something from Hitchcock’s time rather than a 2010 movie and of course Tippi Hedren is in both movies. She plays the lead in the 1963 movie and in this movie, archive footage of her is used on a tv while female character Nat is getting naked.  That same Nat is being portrayed by  Whitney Moore, who will voice Navi in something called “The Zelda Project: The Final Battle”. She also played Jeanette Voerman.. the sexiest female voice I ever heard say the word duckling! And she is in this .. piece of trash!

The voice who plays Jeanette and Tippi Hedren on the screen! Miss Tippi Hedren people!

Now this movie basically IS The Birds.. but a modern retelling of it, done by a mad man, who may be a genius! It mimics the classic, pays tribute and even uses some names involved in the original, yet it never escapes the level of college student film and that is at it’s best moments. It is as if you read Moby Dick and we now hear it trough the bird. Instead of Call Me Ishmael we get “WARK!”  Ishmael! Yes wark! All parrots are classic Chocobo. The beauty of this movie though is that we get that sensation as well “Hitchcock through the eyes of a madman”. I wouldn’t call James insane.. but this is hitchcock fan fiction turned into a movie.

The movie starts with some Oboe or Clarinet music. We see a car drive on a road while the credits scroll by. Aside from the actors James Nguyen did just about everything else. Which is always a good sign when you are looking for a bad movie. After just about forever we see the first character shot. Rod is walking on the streets like he just duked his dungarees before he enters a diner. A blond girl says Hi to him.. and at this time (4:40 in) we know that this movie is nothing like we have seen before. The audio quality of this opening scene is WORSE than who Killed Captain Alex. The girl has been dubbed over in post without adding room tone or background noice and she spikes the mic as well as it had to be turned up because we hear an enormous amount of static. Rod talks back to her in the original audio roll though so suddenly the background noise drops.  In a barely audible accents she hands him the menu and tells him she will be right with him.. yet everything seems off in this scene.Everything! Do not believe me?! Well here’s the scene!

Rod sees Natalie in the diner and apparently he knows her from being in highschool together with her and he falls in love seeing how pretty she has become. After some extremely weird dialogue where they don’t exchange names and don’t really seem to remember each other anyway.. they tell each other where they are from..which makes little sense since they were in school together? They talk about what they do now..and apparently Nathalie is a model.. and to be fair she is pretty. She has a job though so they exchange business cards as they leave.  Rod does the poo walk again watching some tv where clearly the sound is coming from another location as it talks about dead birds and sea ice melting killing the polar bears. Eight minutes in the first foreshadowing of birds happen and only 36 minutes left to the first action scene.



This first half really meanders on with Rod and Nathalie going about their daily lives. Rod plays basketball where at random intervals there is street noise and sometimes there is not. Nathalie models which in the same scene sometimes is a montage and sometimes it is not.  They go eat in a restaurant with a scene that is so painfully overlit from one angle and so studio lit on the other that it feels as if it’s a green screen and directions make no sense. Even though at times we see it shot at location.. it feels very fake.. which is quite amazing.  Rod has great character traits such as liking football and working out. Nathalie is deep.. liking movies and going to the club with her friends. Oh and both are great at their jobs! Not long after they stroll the street together and we get to see how the birds in this movie will look like.

I think they are parots.. the green things!

These are the BEST looking birds you will encounter in the movie  the others look worse. Also sorry for the bad screenshot this was my best take out of 8 . There is something very uncapturable about it.  After this though there is 25 more minutes of dating left before this movie gets anywhere. They go see an Inconvenient Truth in the theather and  all decide to go eco friendly. Now so much seems wrong with this. First the movie is set in 2008 or 2009 I think .. so the movie would not run in theaters and why would you take your date to that movie! A friend of Nathalie who runs a company whose logo is just Inner Peace.. printed on a sheet of A4 paper and her shirt gets turned on by the movie and wants to uncage another form of bird. All again with the horrible audio of background noise fading in and out of dialogue.  When Rod talks you might here the road in the background. When Nathalie talks there is nothing, sound spiking all the time.. and then when we finally reach the 45 minute mark after some very tame scenes and weird audio it all gets a lot worse.

After the sex scene between Rod and Nathalie suddenly we get a completely different movie.  With the sound of fighting planes birds begin to kamikaze attack humans. Some are big enough to explodify an entire neighborhood, others are tiny birds who just set the metal of a fuel pump on fire. No gas explodes.. just a part of the metal while that catches fire. The pair fresh from their lovely night together and sleeping in a motel for no real reason it seems, decide to barricade themselves in because suddenly the birds can no longer explode and they just make a sound that sounds like a seagull swallowed a chew-toy. They have gained the power to aimlessly flutter like a helicopter now.. as they menacingly screech on. Magically Rod and Nathalie get dressed while their bed is still shielding explosive birds ..that won’t explode from entering to their front door. Obviously they would not bother with the other windows etc.

The pair wonders why the birds attacked and why they stopped attacking, a metaphor for this elusive and deep plot! Why does it happen?!  Why does it stop? There are no answers in live so there are no answers in this movie. The pair flees from their confines to randomly knock on only one door.. the one door that holds other people! Rod lost his car keys.. for no reason! Did the birds take it? No they weren’t there when all the sex began.. did he just lose them?! He had an expensive looking car.. maybe it got stolen? No he says he just lost the keys?! Oh well!  They meet Becky and Ramsey a couple that also spend the night there.. they have a minivan the group has to reach but the birds can be back any minute.. so they need to take some weapons along.  Some flimsey coathangers will have to do.. and while they race to the minivan and get attacked we get to see the BEST scene of this movie.

Horrible Cinematography, overly lit, poorly mixed audio, bad dialogue, weird sound effects, atrocious cgi.. it is all here in its full glory! This is Birdemic. This is so poorly done it must have been done intentionally so.  Even I can genuinely do  a better job than this and my filmmaking knowledge is very limited. Yet somehow there’s something so sincere in this seen. It’s not the acting .. but it’s as if the actors are trying to sell this stuff.  There are no.. “oh Arceus why did I sign up for this” faces they do give it their all… sure they are more bland than Jeremy Irons Cereal but they do their job without complaint as a result this scene is just mesmerizing. An eternal enigma.. how could this come to be.

It only gets weirder as apparently once inside the van Ramsey and Becky have a pistol and an assault rifle laying in there. With near infinite ammo to boot! Rod is fine with that and takes a gun without complaining. I know they are being attacked by eagles and all but one would wonder why would leave somebody leave a fully loaded assault rifle under their front seat and are they good people?! Well like anything in this movie it seems unlikely. Of course they find some children surviving .. crying for their mommy for about 12 seconds before playing on a PSP and complaining they are hungry. These children are the WORST child actors I have ever seen so that results into something amazing.

I am not sure these even are childeren.. they might be aliens!

What follows is a slew of hilariously bad moments as now this movie is catching steam. Becky dies while taking a poop, a bird flies into her and within two seconds she is dead. Ramsey saves a bunch of people on a English tourbus before he gets covered in some kind of acid these birds can throw up. The camera shows his dead body in three separate positions while already dead and unmoved. There is even a show where we focus on a woman’s corpse.. which is paused footage by the way because obviously they could not hold their breath with their mouth opens and eyes opened for 3 seconds.. which shows the camera man’s feet in the shot. Epic!

They then decide to Picnic at the beach because the  children are hungry…. before talking to a science guy who frowns upon human ecological behavior. The whole world is empty or supposed to be.. hiding in fear of the birds but we can see people walking their dog of flying a kite in the background. This also happens several times when they are on the road.. we see cars pass by regularly as they fight for their lives and birds allegedly killed everything! Top Tier Immersion!

Stores are open hmmm I could go for a dog with let’s risk our lives for one!

The political messages in this movie are also hilarious. Apparently Ramsey was just a good guy.. he was a veteran in Iraq who just wanted peace more so he quite.. that’s why he has the rifle… They get robbed by a Texan man in a gas guzzling pick up truck, who gets his comeuppance a mere minute after his crime and we see a hippie living safely in a forest until it catches fire for no reason at all. This basically feels like an elementary-schooler’s take on nature and pollution. It is so in your face and vexing that it would be a hilarious drinking game. Each time they can descent you or are all super mega eco-friendly.. take a shot.. you’ll be vomiting acid before this movie is over. Each time you see a continuity error take a sip.. you might be hospitalized because there honestly are more shots which have something wrong with them than not. 

Somehow even the hippie looks fake

The best part is the ending… there is non… well they get their happily ever after until part two but for no reason at all the birds just leave. There is no big trigger there is no resolve. They just go to another beach, which is the exact same beach of course, and they see the birds fly away. The movie ends because it wants to end. There is no end of the journey, no lesson learned and no strong new bonds formed. Nathalie and Rod now just stand on a beach after hearing a lot of eco babble with their freshly adopted kids. Who make Rod’s poo walk seem like a cool trait. The Danger Will Robinson robot or Betty White would have been able to play more believable children than these two soulless abominations.

Even Rod’s neck looks fake..and those kids like maniacs

There is not a single good thing in this movie.. but it is tremendously fun to make your own stories. Ramsey and Becky are actually serial killers. The boy was found in a trunk so he was actually a kidnapping victim. The girl is possessed by a satanic force that’s why she sounds so weird. No matter what you imagine it will make this movie better! And that makes this such a hilarious mess to watch! Now if you haven’t had enough or skipped ahead to avoid spoilers I shall present you with the entire movie! You can thank me in the comments! If this post gets enough likes I might review the sequel as well. As for me I will go take a walk in the woods! But with animals becoming more bold while we hid away I better take a coathanger!

Final Score

Pinkie’s Guilty Movie Pleasures: Face/Off

Overacting is a cinema sin that is one of the most beloved movie mishaps out there.  There is something fascinating by grown up man and women that we can see as actual people, acting like cartoon characters. Nicolas “Not the Bees” Cage is one well known for his zany madman acting. John “Battlefield Earth” Travolta is another one of those actors who plays his characters as if they are anime characters. When you take their face *flourish and dramatic pause*  off and put it on each others.. we get some seriously delicious ham.

Woo are you

Some movies are all about great dialogue, clever , insightful, thought provoking. Movies like those made by Quentin Tarantino.  Some are all about a great story, some about great characters. The Ang Lee’s and Steven Spielbergs amongst us. Others hope to just entertain us trough great songs,  cute stuff or badass action. However it’s rare when a movies main selling point is the actors, being their utter and complete self. We have the Expandables and possibly Machette can be marked for this one, but no movie has been completely like this.. this feels next level.

John Woo made this 1997 movie in such a way it could not have been made for anyone else. It feels like this movie was made for Cage and Travolta..also in their specific parts. It feels as if they are cast for their oddities rather than their acting prowess and in doing so.. it becomes something truly unique.

John Woo has an excellent eye for action cinematography.. even though he really loves to use birds in them, as some weird signature, that again blends so well with these actors and this cheesy story. It feels like the combiner robot made of the most incompatible parts that somehow come together in a mecha that can kick Burning Gundam and Gurren Lagann’s ass. John Woo is an alchemist who turned lead into gold… golden cheese. That kind of his his thing.

Bulletproof Monk, Mission Impossible 2, Hard Target and Broken Arrow are some of the other movies in his repertoire and all these movies show that same signature. If you’d review them you’d give them a poor score but when your watching them you are just having a dopey grin on your face. An alchemist I’ll tell you.

Face Swap

So long before we had apps to swap faces John Woo decided he was hungry for some cheese again and all he had was a mediocre script. His lead! A movie about a cop named Sean Archer who loses his son to the terrorist Castor Troy. He turns into the stereotypical 90’s badass action cop who lost it all and now can only think of revenge. How do you make this interesting?  Well let the terrorist be played by Nicolas Cage, who hides a bomb some sort of convention center thing of sorts. How about we open up with him dressing up like a priest to make sure he can walk around without too much suspicion while a choir is singing Hallelujah! Let’s let him totally rock out to that music, while smoking and let him off key sing along while he gropes a nun while he makes his eyes pop out of his head!

Is that interesting enough for you yet? No! How about a plot where John Travolta gets Nicolas Cage face.. because only Castor’s brother Pollux and Castor himself know where the bomb is?! Because Castor is totally in a Coma… but he wakes up early.. and then forces the medical staff to put John Travolta’s face on him?! Good I thought that would get you.
So now we get Nicolas Cage’s overacting on steroids because he plays overacting actor John Travolta, playing overacting actor Nicolas Cage. I know these characters has names..but this feels more like some odd and delightful social experiment that is about overacting three times over and my Arceus do I love it.

But look at me getting all ahead of myself skipping over some important plot. After seeing Nicolas Cage rock out to songs of the lord we see him boarding a plane before his nuke thingy goes off. He has a private jet for some reason including some floozy who he makes a makes a lot of butt allegories to. It turns out she is an undercover agent working for Sean Archer as Sean and his team invade the airfield to make  the arrest. Castor kills the lady and shrugs with a face that somehow looks as if it was drawn onto him.. during that fifth episode of Dragon Ball Super… inhumane. Sean chases Castor’s plane with a helicopter..causing to drive into a hanger.. including more fireworks than an american fourth of July. 

With a scene that feels as if it was the grand finale of the movie already.. in how over the top it is. Castor gets knocked into a fence by a plane engine and slips into a coma. Only after that Sean discovers Castor has left a bomb..and now the only person who is awake to know.. won’t cooperate…so time to slice Castors Face *Flourish and dramatic pause* off… and put it on Sean.. so he can convince his henchmen to give up the location.

No Face, No Limits

This is just the Set-up for the movie and we aren’t even done with that yet. During the airplane scene Nicolas Cage acts so insane…I genuinely feel we are looking at a madman here! Asking to be executed, singing.. while also acting like he is scared… all at the SAME time. At this time he is still playing just Castor.. so playing himself in a way.  Of course the top medical research facility that does these kind of prints.. has no security at all next to a comatose terrorist that is one of the most dangerous men of all time.. so it is easy for him to get the surgery done to him?! How?! Because there is an open phone line in his unguarded room he calls some henchmen with. So once again this movie shows us it’s not about the journey.. it’s about how cool anything looks and how hammy you can make it.

Seriously there is more ham in this movie then there is in Germany during Oktoberfest. Normally you have a director telling you to tone it down a little.. those words were NEVER stated during this movie.  Nicolas Cage .. now Sean, gets send to some sort of sci fi prison with magnet boots and cattle prods , advance tracking systems and what not. Here we get the most briljant scene of all. Nicolas Cage pretending to smile as his crazy zelf. Standing Ovation Right there! John Travolta is possibly even more fun. You see Nicolas cage has to pretend being nicolas cage.. John Travolta is in a position where he can both pretend to be him…OR Nicolas Cage. It’s like watching two chinese people play pingpong! It flips so forth so fast you lose track..but it sure looks fascinating

After that point the movie takes some ridiculous plot twists that leave Sean to fend for himself and Castor getting a bomb again. More helicopters, gunfights explosions.. and possibly the best sequence in the movie, Nicolas Cage, playing a Drugged up Sean Archer, pretending to be Castor Troy.. talking about capturing fake Archer and taking his face *flourish and dramatic pause* off. There has been a reason I have been writing it like this. This scene is amazing!

If people remember that family guy episode where Peter loves when a movie title is said in the movie.. than this would be a joyride. It’s so insanely overacted so in your face/off out there that you can’t help to chuckle. I wouldn’t even call it acting anymore… this is something else like the Super Saiyan 3 of acting. We shall call it Cavolta’ing ..or maybe Travolcaging.

Face it, it’s awesome!

Now of course just overacting alone would not be enough! The same tone is taken to the action scenes, from the epic conclusion scene in the first minutes to the epic conclusion in the end .. all the action movies feel completely over the top. The Scarface Mansion shootout wasn’t over the top enough.. so let’s try to do that in full slowmo .. while a children’s lullaby is playing as Sean tries to save Castor’s son from being killed by Travolta and his Swat Team that somehow try to shoot a kid… even though they are cops.

How about an extremely explosive shootout in a church while white doves fly about.. to symbolise Castor’s god complex. Shooting scene where both have to shoot their reflection in a mirror which also symbolises their foes. Or a high speed chase with speedboats.. going through other boats which violently explode on contact. It’s all there!

When I say symbolism I mean it is about as deep as that children’s toy where you have to  clean your toys in a bin by putting the ball through the ball shaped hole and the triangle through the triangle shaped hole.. and the square. in the square.. but there definitely is symbolism. It might be cheesier than a swiss fondue but it fits the movie so well yet again.
Start to finish, scene by scene, it feels like everyone on the set was over-compensating in their field. Pyrotechnics.. over the top.. analogies ..over the top… Travolcaging…WOW! It might not be a good movie when we look at it objectively..but when it comes to enjoyment .. this is a hard one to face *flourish and dramatic pause*  off against.

XO
Pinkie

Pinkie’s Guilty Movie Pleasures: The Room

Usually I have this column for movies that are great, but are never talked about in favor of those Oscar bait pretentious ones we pretend to love. Our secret favorites.. because they would be to “pulpy” otherwise. However you could look as my guilty pleasures also as bad movies I love. One of these, I have mentioned plenty of times on my blog , I crossplayed as the main guy, we went to special viewings, I haven’t sent mail to the director.. who never sent anything back unfort… and It’s tearing me apart!

Now.. to keep this blog life for five years!

A spoonful of horribleness

The Room is a movie directed by the infamous and mysterious  Tommy Wiseau and saw a theater release..for three days or so.. in 2003. It is described to be the best worst movie ever and rightfully so. In this movie we follow protagonist Johny (who never gets a last name) who sees his wife  Lisa slip into the arms of his best friend Mark after being denied a promotion at the bank. We see a positive and dog loving man, change into a tortured shell of his former self. Trapped in despair…. or at least that is what it seems this movie is about. In actuality I think this is a dramatic retelling of the old TV-Show “Third Rock from the Sun” about aliens visiting earth, because the characters in The Room are far from human. From casually saying they have breast cancer to having sex on your friends couch for no reason at all. All emotions in this movie are crooked and wrong. From moving into a serious talk towards a casual “anyway how is your sexlife” to tossing a football in costume at a very inappropriate event. I think it’s aliens!…Vampire Aliens to be exact.

Clearly..Aliens

During the opening credits we see the name Tommy Wiseau pop up a lot. He written, directed, produced and starred in this movie..among other things. The deuteragonist being played by his (former) best friend Greg Sestero. Juliette Danielle playing the female lead and Philip Haldiman complete the main cast. It’s almost completely set in one or two homes , Greg’s  and Tommy’s with a few scenes like a park and a flower shop. Yet this movie costed a whopping 6 million dollars to make. Which you never see in this movie. This movie was almost entirely self funded by Tommy and where the money comes from is a big mystery. When you see this movie, you will also wonder where that budget went. This does not look like a six million dollar movie. It looks bad, it sounds bad and the green screen doesnt look ever look right. It’s written horrible, it’s acted atrociously bad and now it also looks and sounds horrible?! How can this movie be good than? Well this is not just a movie.. this is a phenomenon.

Overacting 101

A spoonful of mystery

Strictly as a movie, this movie already definitely falls under the “so bad it’s good “ category. Yet to watch The Room like that ..almost feels like a shame. Because there is so much more to it.  The best way to watch this movie is to either watch the movie “the disaster artist” soon after, or read Greg Sestero book that movie was based on. It gives this movie a “mystical” quality. How did this ever see the light of day? Two reasons why you can really see Tommy was in over his head are also important reasons why this movie cost so much. Each scene was shot in two camera formats for example. Because Tommy did not comprehend the difference between camera’s he just got both main types and had them running at the same time. Instead of renting these camera’s as is customary in Hollywood he just bought them.
He also rented a billboard to promote his movie..which he ended up keeping for five years..even though movie was not running anywhere during regular  screenings. How could he make a movie like that?

His actors frequently wondered how he could as well.

The plot thickens when Tommy Wiseau tries to be mysterious about his age and origin. He’s probably polish but he might be from space as well. In this movie we get to take a peek in his mind. How does he see people?!  Philip Haldiman who plays Denny for example never knew his character had a mental disability.. while Tommy Wiseau says he written him as that. Suddenly a few scenes begin to make much more sense.. yet his drug abuse scenes suddenly make less sense. Tommy also wanted to reveal his character is a vampire at the end…”He would do this by adding in an effect that Johny’s car would lift into the sky and fly over the San Francisco skyline .. as a closing shot. This action would reveal Johnny’s true nature as a vampire?!…How does flying car say vampire?! Yet somehow I love it. When you see The Room, knowing this .. you pick up little hints to maybe allude to this yet “not really”.You get into his head-space for a bit.. taking you on somebody else’s LSD trip sort of speak.It’s like looking at a molten jigsaw puzzle.. it  sorta fits together.. but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

How about we play football instead of making puzzle?! Ahaaha!

A spoonful of hidden wisdom?

What does The Room mean?  Clearly Johnny and Tommy are the same person, just watch any interview, their mindset is nearly one on one. Tommy Wiseau even talks extensively how fun tossing a football.. a thing Johnny and his fellows do A LOT in this movie. Most of the times it doesn’t make sense. For example in one talk Johnny  and his best friend go to the park to talk and toss the football? Like who does that?! That sounds like some 50’s styled utopia..alla fallout minus the nuke. Is there a deeper meaning to the football? Or is it just Tommy bleeding over into Johny?! The alledgeded polack is clearly clever enough to get six million somewhere, so could he really be so alien in this? On set his 400! crew and cast members gossiped about the woman which had scored Tommy to make him write this story…but I do think his Mistress is of another kind. I think his cruel mistress is Hollywood.

She kinda looks like a vampire

Johnny is a man of honest intention, a hard worker who tries his best as is passionate and cheerful. Clearly Tommy sees himself as that person. Lisa tears Johnny apart by feeling he is not good enough for her! She wants someone who can do better.. who has that promotion.. or just something new.  I think , Tommy’s Lisa is Hollywood. In the Disaster Artist movie, we see Tommy get rejected by everyone in Hollywood, he could not find a job. Eventually he decided to do it himself. He got fed up with not being good enough for others so he took his faith in his own hand. Just as Johnny wil never be good enough for Lisa .. so will Tommy always be laughed at by Hollywood. Tommy has old values.. so Mark.. are Tommies peers, the younger generation he met in acting class who now outdo him to those jobs.  Now I just need to figure out how a mentally disabled drug abusing neighbour boy who wants to join you in the bedroom, and a mother in law who is casual about her breast cancer fit in. To me this movie is about taking control of your own destiny creating your own path and setting yourself free from those who old you back…….that is if I really try to think from Tommy’s perspective though.. when you just look at the movie itself… there is no way that wisdom will show.. nor might it ever have been intended.

At least they do the drunk japanese headband thing! 10/10 movie!

A spoonful of charm

As someone who watches bad movies for fun with some friends, this one has something many others don’t. While I clearly laugh at this movie and think it’s ridiculous, there is also something pure and adorable with it.  The scene in the flower shop for example… this is actually a flower shop and the woman behind the counter is an actual florist, which is why her line delivery is so bad. The “Oh Hi Doggie” scene never was scripted.. Tommy walked in the store and saw the dog sitting in the back, unnoticed by the rest of his crew because of how silent it was. Fascinated and endeared by the little creature.. to why it was so silent (it was very old) Tommy wanted to put it in his movie. Such an iconic scene from this movie just because of a man taking a liking to a dog at random. There is a sincerity to it.. which does NOT stem from the acting. There is a love for the craft.. and it’s all Tommy. Well him and the role of Claudette, Lisa’s mother. When she tells Lisa about how good of a husband Johnny is and talks about his qualities I can hear Tommy from behind the typewriter going  “Hey Hollywood can’t you see this! I am a good person! Love me”! I find that thought immensely endearing. 

It is a pretty adorable dog ! Hi Doggie indeed!

Seeing how Johnny needed 38 takes from his “I did not Hit her… I did naawwwwt, O Hi Mark” scene in the Disaster Artist makes the scene that much better. “This is as good as it is going to get” feels like the attitude in this movie.  This doesn’t feel like a bodged Hollywood project such as Nine Lives or Cats , this is a passion project come to life because a sense of grandeur and the idea that being sincere and yourself would be good enough to enter Hollywood. Never felt I closer to a writer/director putting himself on the plate. 

Hehehe! Yar Funny Hehehe!

A spoonful of warmth

This is not just a movie about  infidelity.. this movie is like Tommy’s hilariously bad resume. It’s like reading a resume in Comic Sans  and there it shows “guild leader in Neopets” as leadership experience. Under skills they mention they can recognise tractors by engine sound (while they apply for a grocery store or something). It’s hilariously awful but when you read that resume you know it was made by such a sweet honest person.. that unfortunately is not fit for you. So you laugh and put it at the rejected pile…but that night when your job finishes you go back to home and think about that one resume again.. hoping that person will be off well.. you wish them the best.

The room is the equivalent of watching your own children perform a school musical. The Acting sucks , the sets are cheap, everything is off key, jokes are dumbed down and the writing is stupid and nonsensical. Still when you see your kid.. dressed up as that flower run up on that stage and blurt out their lines all wooden by nerves you still can’t be helped but to feel super charmed by it all. Except for me since I hate kids but meh. The Room is like this. All the stories make Tommy our little baby boy..and there he is on stage… being the best tree he can be with his skills. Somehow he managed to cast himself in every other role as well. It makes the play even worse… but all the more charming. Like the most adorable trainwreck ever.

That’s not adorable!

Pinkie’s Guilty Movie Pleasures: Galaxy Quest

When Ross asked Chandler, Rachel claims this is her favorite movie, Chandler answered Dangerous Liaisons. When Ross asked what her actually favorite movie was Joey answered Weekend at Bernies. It was a great scene from Friends that does show truth. We all claim “Spirited Away” or The King’s Speech or some at least well acknowledged movie is our favorite movie while there are plenty movies that might give us more joy. Movies that make you laugh each time and we can’t help but to secretly adore. Yesterday one of mine was on local television and so it is time to start my captain’s log and confess about those movies I love but never talk about! Mission 1… Galaxy Quest

(such great box art)

Glory Days

The movie came out in the Netherlands in august of 2000, very lowkey it flew under the radar for me until I  finally rented it someday it might actually be really fun. In a way it can be seen as the Star Trek counterpart for Spaceballs which spoofed mostly Star Wars. Where the way more famous latter movie had characters actually set in the sci-fi world but being able to break through the fourth wall plenty of times, this movie is basically the exact counterpart of it.  In this movie the crew of an old sci-fi show gets called into space to deal with an evil tyrant named Sarris. However since they are only actors they don’t really know what they are doing. Everything is based on a lie and they are in over their heads. It doesn’t seem like a very original plot but it has the heart in the right place and has some very nice messages about fandoms throughout.

(The Thermians are actually Squids this is just how they see us)

Jason Nesmith , played by Tim Allan,  used to play suave captain Peter Quincy Taggart on the tv show Galaxy Quest. Along with his fellow actors Gwen DeMarco , portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, the elitist Alexander Dane, brilliantly depicted by sir Alan Rickman, the always cheerful Fred Kwan, played by Tony Shalhoub and grown up childhood star Tommy Webber, Darryl Mitchell, all he has left now is a handful of gigs to relive their glory days.These gigs vary from constant fan conventions to opening electronic stores. Galaxy Quest is clearly inspired by Star Trek and is focussing on the world of the Trekkie rather than the world of Star Trek itself. The actors in the movie can not find other gigs because they are to connected to their respective roles, an issue that still feels quite relatable.. looking at some careers.Their magical days of succes are over now. The movie deals with what is left for these actors when the golden days are over, what becomes of star trek ..or galaxy quest past it’s runtime which is where the movie really shines for me. 

(You can just smell the Gorn being close by)

Conventional

Jason is the only one about his crew that is super excited to visit these conventions. He loves how people look up to him, think he is a real Starship Captain, he takes on any gig he can find to be with his fans. Much to his crew’s dismay. He treats them like lesser elements of the show and they hate him for it. They hate him for taking this so seriously while they are tired of gig. Alan Rickman’s character is so fed up from using his catchphrase he has a little panic attack every time he has  to go on stage. At first the show seems to depict fans as your typical geek depiction of movies. Cosplayed, unhealthy looking way to shy and insanely obsessed with even the tiniest of details. Think Stewart of the Big Bang Theory.

(Justin Long plays “the geek”)

When a group of actual Aliens show up at a convention of course Jason thinks they are just another bunch of weirdo’s taking things way to serious like that one kid who ask them about how computers of level 2 could operate something, while seventeen episodes earlier it was clearly show those computers do not have that function. It’s a funny and sort of credible scenario, between the cosplayers it’s something hard to distinguish what is real and what is not.

(I can get why he thinks the ship is a set.. but that haircut!)

When Jason visits the bathroom though he hears some convention goers talk doodoo about him and he realises how much everything is a charade. He now knows the crew hates him and how he is a terrible person for allowing people to believe he is a real captain..just so he can feel cool.  Now at the same low his colleagues are.. The hurt captain has a falling out and resorts to drinking The next day he wakes up to four crazy fans at his house.. telling him he has to help them stop an alien warlord. Thinking this is some crazy larping gig he will get payed for Jason agrees.. only to quickly find out ..now things are real. Again the premises doesn’t feel original at all yet on an emotional side this one connects to me so much more. It’s the standard “in over your head” plot.. but the build up for this one is perfect.

(Is it weird that I feel hungry for Takoyaki right now?)

A Fake Reality

It takes a while for Jason to realise what he is doing is real.. after all he has been desensitized to all the sci-fi stuff by doing these sorts of gigs for 18 years. Yet when he finds out this is real.. something changes. He finds a drive to finally do something real.. he can make a true difference, it pushes him to take risks he normally would not have taken. He needed to realise his world was fake ..to realise this was real, to be able to step up to the plate and take on the challenge the movie presents. When he can get his crew involved he becomes super excited. Finally they can be the heroes they really are. The next few scenes have them revered as heroes.

(The galaxy is filled with dangers, like edgelords, frogbabies and piglizards)

After all the alien race they are helping led by Mathesar have found their footage, they saw their historic tellings and think this is the greatest crew of space adventurers that ever lived. Their race does not have a concept similar to acting. Everything they film is true.. so by their logic so was this. To get the crew to help them they reconstructed the ship to every minute detail. Tommy can fly the ship  just like he would in the show. Alexander gets the food of the race he played and Gwen…has to say what the computer says because that was her job on the show.

(She kinda looks like Claire from Modern Family)

No matter how hard the crew tries however, it doesn’t take long for cracks to appear  in this reality. Gwen’s role of repeating the computer, isn’t very practical or even useful, it’s just how female sci-fi roles were written in that time. She doesn’t know what else to do. Tommy over 18 years forgot  what he used to do on set to control the spaceship, even then he was just busy with acting not actively thinking on how to steer a ship. Things did not happen because of his piloting skills, things happened because of plot. So when he steers into a minefield this time.. things go bad very fast.

(Why are missles always more effective than lasers anyway?)

Fred was just saying lines on the job he has no real idea how a beryllium engine sphere works, so his reports to the captain are filled with doubt. Jason doesn’t realise he is not actually Peter Taggart.. and expects they have plot armor..but this movie tells them .. you don’t…. well of course they don’t die which would have been the most likely outcome..but still they suffer a big loss. I really like that they don’t actually have the skills and acting out the part is not always enough.

(1/10 Villian not Edgie Enough add more SKULSS PLOX)

A Real Lie

The third act of the movie is focussed on the actors fessing up to their lies and coming to a realisation that they are not the actually heroes of Galaxy Quest. They are not what keeps it alive. In truth it is the fandom. The show is over.. so it’s not the writing or their acting that keeps them having their job. It’s people who love their adventures.. much like these aliens they were trying to help. It’s those crazy sweaty guys that cue up for you and ask you stupid questions about terminal 125B-Q, it is those people who see you as a real captain.

(I would open a hairsalon on Themaria)

Galaxy Quest is not made by the actors who love being praised.. it is made by the people who praise it. These aliens made their ship.. and trough communication with some hardcore fans on earth the group is able to get stuff done. We see them come to terms with thinking as a fan.. treating this like it was real.. like the characters are real.. because in the hearts who made this ship.. they are real. At a certain point Rickman has to say his catchphrase to a dying Thermian..who just wants to here “By Grabthar’s Hammer You Shall be Avenged” .. because it means so much to him. Thus for the first time the phrase really gets meaning! It became real! Such a nice scene!

To me Galaxy Quest is not just about the jokes and the dry humor. It’s not about it’s predictable plot.. it’s the motivations that drive this movie. It’s not about the fight against some generic alien. Sarris is pretty generically designed.. if you think evil alien. you probably have one or two features of Sarris included in there. He is green, Lizardlike, Has warpaint, evil looking armor.. he speaks exactly like you imagine him to to do etc. Galaxy Quest is in essence NOT a movie about a Actor getting in over his head, even if that is the plot.  It’s about how fans can make something made by others greater. How they can understand it better and elevate it to another level. It’s about how an adventure did not have to actually have happened for it to be real. It’s a message to never stop loving!

(If you stop loving what you love Saris will kill you!)

I really love and watching this movie always makes me happy to be a geek. Loving a show isn’t a bad thing.. even if a story is fake it can inspire us. Maybe one day a Trekkie will actually discover warp speed based on the show, maybe one day aliens will read my blogs and use technology to give me anime powers.. because I inspired them.. who knows! Fiction can touch us in different ways and respecting it’s fandom is key. We as fans do not create shows.. or movies.. or have a say in what type of game we get. It’s our duty as fans to keep alive what we love!

Which Popcorn flick is your Guilty Pleasure? What movies are you overly positive about? Let me know in the comments and spread some love!