Monthly Archive for February, 2006

Page 2 of 10

The Wiz

Published on February 22, 2006 in Cheesy Fantasy Realms, Ethnic Stereotypes and Rock!. 0 Comments

Funky Fresh, Munchkin Style
Starring: Diana Ross, Nipsy Russell, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor

This is such an awesome movie; I can’t believe that more people don’t remember it. I have vivid recollections of watching this on Showtime when I was a kid (back then there was a box that sat on the TV, and you had to press a button to get Showtime…) The songs are disturbingly catchy and I can still hum them today. It’s also a blast seeing Michael Jackson with a real nose and everything!

This is a retelling of The Wizard of Oz with an All-Afro-American cast. There’s a buttload of 70′s stars like Diana Ross, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor, and Mabel King. And the greatest surprise of all… this movie was co-written by Cheesemaster Joel Schumacher, responsible for bringing such corny classics as Flatliners, The Lost Boys, Batman Forever, St Elmo’s Fire, and (brace yourself) THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN into the world!!! Unbelievable!

I actually thought this movie was a very clever adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s book. The action takes place in a psychedelic, decaying New York– one that’s full of corruption, drugs, and violence. There are some priceless moments of cheese in this masterpiece, such as:

When Dorothy gets spit into Oz by the cyclone, she crashes through a huge “OZ” neon sign.
The munchkins are actually taggers who get turned into graffiti by the Wicked Witch of the East (Dorothy kills her when the neon sign lands on her.) They do an Alvin Aileyesque street dance number.
When Dorothy & Co. encounter the Cowardly Lion outside the Public Library (he’s one of the two stone lions) the signs in the crosswalk say “DON’T EASE.”
Our heroes go down into the subway, where they’re attacked by man-eating trashcans and a psychotic panhandler.
Evillene, the Wicked Witch of the West, sits atop a giant toilet.
The Wicked Witch of the West’s evil Flying Monkeys are really a tough biker gang.
(I want a giant camera costume like the guy in the Emerald City!)

Our heroes have to “Ease on Down the Road” to the Emerald city, along the way encountering urban perils like drug use, muggers, slavery, and expressionist dance. They also have to endure the Tin Man’s (Nipsy Russell) occasional hysterical outbursts of “Teeny, Teeny!” while projectile tears squirt out of his face. When they eventually make it to the Emerald City, it’s a huge Studio 54-esque discotheque where the partygoers all dress in the same color, changing outfits every time the Great and Powerful Oz decides to change the lights. Every time the lights change, they have to sing a song about how great that color is. Uhm, right! It’s like the band Chic got together with Martha Stewart or something.

Filled with music co-written by Ashford and Simpson, Luther Vandross, and Quincy Jones, this movie is sure to make any self-respecting gen-X-er yearn for his or her childhood. And Diana Ross plays the part of Dorothy to spectacular dramatic effect, have periodic outbursts of face-twisting agony. In the words of my roommate Jed, “That’s why they call her a Diva, darling.” But what’s with that dress? Violet is definitely not her color.

What are you waiting for, a house to fall on you? Ease on down to the video store and rent The Wiz. Do it now! You’ve got to be seen, in Green! You’ve got to be dead, in Red! You’ve got the be rad, in Plaid…

Dolly Dearest

Published on February 22, 2006 in Monster Flicks and Possessed Children. 0 Comments

Haaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Starring: Denise Crosby, Sam Bottoms, Rip Torn, Chris Demetral, Candace Hutson, Ed Gale

Marilyn and Eliot Read (the radiant Denise Crosby and the unfortunately named Sam Bottoms) are two rich American yuppies who move to Mexico with their two adorable offspring to buy a doll factory. This doll factory is going to be Eliot’s ticket to the big time. Unfortunately, Eliot doesn’t think to actually scope out the factory before he signs the title– uh oh! It looks like the factory is built next to a Satanic Indian Burial Mound. No wonder it was so cheap.

Doctor Karl Resnick (the redundantly named Rip Torn) is an archaeologist studying the indigenous people of the area. This particular tribe of ancient Indians worshipped a “Spirit of Evil,” i.e. Satan himself. Through their devout worshipping, they managed to conceive and deliver a child of pure evil, a baby born with the head of a goat. This particular tomb might be the burial place of this child! Of course, Dr Resnick doesn’t actually believe any of this Satanic stuff; he just wants to investigate for purely scientific reasons. He and his boy-toy Luis set off for archaeological adventure.

Soon after moving in, The Read’s daughter Jessica (Candace “Baby Jane” Hutson) starts acting strangely. Why is she spending so much time with her Dolly? Dolly (voiced over by Ed Gale) is Jessica’s only friend, and they’re inseparable. Conveniently enough, there’s a creepy child-size dollhouse in the backyard, where Dolly and Jessica can go to be alone. What are they doing back there? Listening to Ani DiFranco records and exploring their sexuality? Quietly drawing pictures of goat-headed babies in their coloring books? Jessica’s nanny Camilla knows that something is up– she’s a devout Catholic, and she can feel an evil presence in the house…

Meanwhile, Jessica’s big brother Jimmy (the pharmaceutically named Chris Demetral) won’t leave the ancient burial mound alone– he’s convinced there’s something in there. Dr Resnick doesn’t really want him hanging around, but he can’t get rid of him. And after all, Jimmy is skinny enough to crawl through the ancient passageway and unlock the door of the inner tomb…

Soon, Camilla is found dead in the cellar and strange things start to happen. Marilyn is convinced that something is wrong with the child, but no one will believe her. Who could possibly separate such a sweet child from her beloved Dolly? Finally, in desperation, Marilyn goes to Camilla’s sister the nun for advice. Yes, the nun agrees, Jessica is definitely possessed by the spirit of the Great Lord of Darkness aka Baalzebub. But there’s nothing that she can do about it now. “Listen!” screams Marilyn, “I am not losing my daughter to some goddamn nine-hundred-year-old goat head!”

It turns out that Dolly isn’t the only one possessed by Satan around here– in fact, all the dolls in the factory have turned into murderous, evil creatures bent on destruction and terror! They already did a number on Hector, the night watchman, felling him fatally with a single stab wound to the thigh. Hector collapses in a fit of nipple-pinching agony (this part was really, really weird.) Now Eliot and Dr Resnick go to the factory to see what can be done, but the Dollies are waiting for them with murderous intent. They tie Eliot to a bit of clothesline and try to dump him in the plastic-mixing vat. What can possibly save him now? Will a series of cinematic explosions rid the world of this ancient evil?

OK… maybe I’m not evil enough to fully understand the motives of the Dark One, but if you were Satan, and you’d possessed a doll factory, wouldn’t you wait until the dolls were shipped all over the world before commencing your reign of terror? I mean, what good is one little village in Mexico when there are F.A.O. Schwartz stores all over the world? Just a thought.

All in all, though, this was a fine example of slasher-pic cheese. I love the way that Dolly ends all her sentences with a hoarse growl, e.g. “Oh, goody! We’re going for a ride! Harrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” And Denise Crosby’s portrayal of a plucky mom who thinks her child is possessed by Satan is right on the money. Maybe she should consider doing made-for-TV dramas. I can see it now: “Not Without My Crucifix: The True Story of Baby Jessica.” Somebody call Lifetime Television!

The Avengers

Published on February 22, 2006 in Lame Remakes. 0 Comments

And a witty response to you, too, Mr. Steed
Starring: Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes

OK, I actually like Uma Thurman, despite what anyone else says. As ex-supermodels go, she’s a fairly good actress, and manages to bring a little wry humor into most of the roles that she plays. Unfortunately, I thought this movie pretty much sucked! This was yet another Hollywood attempt to take a charmingly lame old show and jazz it up with some snappy computer graphics. However, anyone who actually would be a fan of the original Avengers probably liked that show, in part, for its creative (and usually low-budget) props. I mean, it’s fine to create an “original” movie that does nothing but show off studio magic, but if you’re going to remake a cult phenomenon that’s already thirty years old, you should at least pay a little respect to the original.

OK, enough ranting. Uma and Ralph make a valiant effort to bring back the personalities of the original Steed and Peel, despite the lack of a plot, or any kind of interesting dialogue. In fact, they did a remarkable job considering how little they had to work with, and their rapport was definitely the best part of the film. Sean Connery as The Bad Guy is kind of ill-conceived… but whatever. He’s Sean Connery, so he gets to do whatever he likes, despite the fact that he’s kind of a self-absorbed dork. Patrick McNee (Mr. Steed the Original) makes a cameo appearance, and Eddie Izzard is always fun, too. But I’m giving this film three borings because I saw it on a long airplane flight, and even Mr. Steed and Emma Peel couldn’t keep me from nodding off once or twice.

All in all, I guess I just don’t like big-budget Hollywood effects. There’s something undeniably creepy about old black-and-white film stock and homemade props that you just can’t re-create with computer graphics. I understand that most people probably don’t share my viewpoint on this, but like I said– why remake the film at all, if you’re not going to comment on the original? At least Austin Powers, as much as it is just frat-boy humor, is somewhat of a satire on the old Bond films. And the Brady Bunch remake does nothing but poke fun at the original. Classic Cinema this ain’t, but at least the filmmakers were making some kind of a statement.

Lord of the Flies

Published on February 22, 2006 in Lame Remakes and Stranded!. 0 Comments

No parents. No teachers. No rules… no clothes.
Starring: Balthazar Getty, Chris Furrh

Who could resist Balthazar Getty running around naked covered in ash and pig’s blood? You know you can’t! This movie seemed to be just a big excuse to show us fifteen-year-olds frolicking in their underwear. In fact, I think this movie may have been sponsored in part by NAMBLA.

For anybody who didn’t read Lord of the Flies in tenth grade, I’ll recap. A plane carrying a buttload of military academy brats crashes somewhere in the pacific, conveniently close to a small, yet lush tropical island. All the grownups are killed except one, who is injured and delirious. Left to their own devices, the kids create a pseudo-tribal society based upon teasing the fat kid, and pig hunting. Actually, this version (there was another Lord of the Flies made in 1963, qualifying this as a Lame Remake) stuck pretty closely to the book, so you won’t hear me complaining about that. Except… I don’t think they actually used a single scrap of dialogue from the original! For instance, I don’t remember the twins talking about ALF (Alien Life Form) in Golding’s novel. “I’ll bet it’s eight o’clock right now, and Alf’s causin’ trouble!” Ok, whatever.

I also don’t remember the gratuitous use of glow sticks in the original. In fact, the first two lines of the entire movie are “What is it?” “A glow stick.” Weird product placement. I like how a glow stick causes the untimely death of Simon, however: the crazed pig-slaughtering youths mistake its unearthly green glow for a demonic spirit.

What ever happened to Balthazar Getty, anyway? And Chris Furrh– shouldn’t his name have more vowels in it? I can’t really think of much more to say about this movie. If you want to watch something artistically close to the original book, rent the 1963 version. If you want to watch naked kids run around with glow sticks, rent this.

The Handmaid’s Tale

Published on February 22, 2006 in A Grim Vision of the Future and Religious Zeal. 0 Comments

This is what will happen if you vote for Pat Robertson!
Starring: Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn, Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall

Natasha Richardson stars in this Futuristic Dystopia about the US being taken over by a group of Right-Wing Fundamentalists. In the “recent future,” (?) industrial pollution in the environment has rendered 99% of the female population sterile. The United States, now called The Republic of Gilead, is a religious Oligarchy controlled by a handful of powerful military “Commanders” and their Tipper Gore-esque “Wives.” Since the wives are all infertile, the few remaining women who can still procreate are herded up by the government and forced into slavery as surrogate mothers, in a bizarre reenactment of an Old Testament story.

Kate is one of these “Handmaids” who was captured by the police while trying to cross the border (into Canada? I want to claim political asylum in CANADA!) with her husband and little girl. She’s sent to live with Fred and Serena Joy, and renamed “Offred” (kind of like Off-White, I guess…) Unfortunately, however, Offred fails to become full with the seed of Fred, which probably means that he’s infertile, too. Desperate for a baby, (to eat, probably) Serena Joy sets Offred up with Nick, Fred’s Chauffeur. She gets preggers and has to fight for her unborn baby’s freedom, yadda yadda yadda… I won’t spoil the dramatic climax of this movie!

I never read the Margaret Atwood book that The Handmaid’s Tale is based upon, and it’s probably a good read. However, the movie itself is a schlockfest of Lifetime Television Networks proportion! You can’t help but stare dumbfounded at things like cattle vans full of screaming women, waving frantically through the bars of their cage, as you ask yourself the question, “am I really supposed to take this seriously?” And as much as this movie is supposed to make a deep feminist statement, it pretty much drives home the idea that women are all just helpless martyrs at the hands of men. For instance, Offred doesn’t particularly want to do the nasty with Fred; she’s just trying to stay alive. But when Serena sets her up with Nick, she jumps happily into the sack with him, even though he spent the first half of the movie leering at her nastily and making dirty remarks. So I guess men really can say whatever they like to women, as long as they’re young and hunky.

But you can’t help but cherish moments like a crowd of frenzied Handmaids ripping off the head of an accused murderer, or references to “Baptist Guerillas” and greetings like “Blessed be the Seed!” All in all, this movie was a nice Grim Vision of the Future mixed with a little Religious satire. I just wish the filmmakers had sprung for a box of 100-watt light bulbs! It’s impossible to see what’s going on throughout half of the movie! I like a Dark Portrayal of Things to Come as much as the next guy, but this was taking it a little too far!

The Spring

Published on February 22, 2006 in A Grim Vision of the Future and Cheesy Tearjerkers. 0 Comments

Was the Great Depression really THAT depressing?!
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Alison Eastwood, Aaron Pearl

OK, OK– this movie isn’t set in the future, but I’m still calling it “Futuristic.” So sue me! It didn’t really fit into any of the other categories so well.

This is the story of a small town in the mountains called “Springville.” The people there get all their water from the same spring– a spring with magical healing properties. Sick people who swim in the spring are instantly healed. People who drink the spring’s water can live indefinitely, in a perpetual state of youth and beauty. However, nothing lasts forever, not even in a made-for-TV movie. Long ago, the residents of Springville signed a “covenant” that promised no resident would live to be more than 100 years old. Each citizen, on the morning of his 100th birthday, must “cross the stream,” i.e. drown himself in the fountain, with the aid of his closest friend. They even throw an all-night party and everything! It’s very cute.

Enter Dennis Conway (MacLaughlan) and his son Nick. They were driving through the mountains when they encountered a strange couple in a vintage car, stuck in the ditch. While towing them out, they couldn’t help but notice that their trunk was full of bottled water. After the strange couple takes off, Nick discovers one of their bags still in the ditch. So, they decide to be good Samaritans and return it.

When they reach Springville everyone treats them very strangely. Josh, the mean cop (Pearl,) follows their every move and interrogates them. There’s no motel in town. The mysterious couple aren’t home, and the cops are surveying their house. Dennis gives the backpack to the cops and decides to head out in the morning.

Unfortunately, over breakfast the next morning, a truck carrying tree trunks dumps its load all over his son, Nick– and Sophie, the pretty lady at the diner (Eastwood) turns out to be a doctor. Nick is rushed to the Springville Hospital, where, big surprise, his father and the doctor fall in love. OK, but why is there a hospital with doctors in Springville? Why not just truck all the sickies directly to the Spring?

Meanwhile, Josh is tailing the mysterious couple. When he finally catches up with them at a motel, their skin has taken on the texture of fried chicken, due to lack of Springville water. Josh sneers “Happy Birthday!” before suffocating them with pillows.

Dennis can’t help but wondering about the mysterious couple he pulled out of the ditch, and about why no one in Springville will tell him about them. Soon he’s looking for clues everywhere. He rifles Sophie’s desk and discovers all her snapshots. Like a good little girl, she has little framed pictures on her desk representing all the major decades of the 20th century– Sophie in front of a WWII bomber jet, Sophie at a 50′s cocktail party, Sophie in bellbottoms… Dennis is indignant. “I just want to ask you something! What were the Roaring Twenties like?! And the Great Depression– was it really that depressing?!?!”

Now that Dennis knows the Springville secret, he wants to stay there and live with Sophie. But will the residents of Springville allow him to stay? And what about Gus, the mechanic with whom Dennis is forming a close, homoerotic friendship– will Dennis be able to help him “cross the stream?” And what is Sophie’s dark secret? You’ll just have to stay up late at night watching cable and eating Cracker Jax to find out!

Austin Powers II: The Spy Who Shagged Me

Published on February 22, 2006 in Lame Remakes. 0 Comments

Starring: Mike Meyers, Elizabeth Hurley

I actually liked this movie a lot better than the first Austin Powers flick. The first dwells really heavily on all of Austin’s personal quirks, which weren’t all that funny to begin with, in order to cover up a major absence of plot. Plus, the nineties vs. sixties thing really got on my nerves after awhile. And you can only watch Dr Evil put his pinky up to his mouth so many times. Anyway, I was majorly disappointed, because I’ve long been a fan of 007′s cheesy hijinx, and I thought Austin Powers would be a sort of clever, tongue-in-cheek satire. Oh, well.

Anyway, as I just said, I liked this movie a lot better. If they were to actually erase the original Austin Powers flick from the face of the earth, and make this the new, original Austin Powers movie, I’d be really happy. There’s nothing about the first film you won’t pick up on by the first ten minutes. It’s still not really the witty satire I had hoped it would be, but at least now they pushed the envelope so far that the corny sight gags actually work, rather than being merely irritating. I was laughing out loud in the theater, and I’m usually pretty hardcore when it comes to stuff like that!

Dr Evil somehow escapes being frozen in space (they didn’t really explain this, but whatever) and flies back to Earth in a giant aluminum egg. Meanwhile, Scott Evil, his disappointingly mild son, is making a guest appearance on the Jerry Springer show. Jerry goes backstage and… surprise! It’s your dad, Dr Evil. Big E picks a fight with some audience members and some fake chairs get broken across people’s backs. The Pentagon catches this on their worldwide surveillance system and sounds the alarm.

This time, Dr Evil travels back in time to steal Austin Power’s “mojo” from his frozen body. There’s his henchman, Fat Bastard, who is a major Cheap Laugh (although he has bagpipes which leak nerve gas– cool!) and his dwarfish clone, Mini-Me. The sibling rivalry between Scott and Min-Me is actually pretty amusing at times. There’s also a romantic subplot between Dr Evil and his henchwoman, Frau Farbissina. (Apparently, there’s also a romantic subplot between Dr Evil’s other henchdude, Number Two and Dr Evil’s other henchdude, Number Two– his 1990′s and 1960′s versions– except they cut it out of the major release! Watch for this on video!)

Actually, Dr Evil is a lot more interesting than Austin Himself, and I was totally rooting for him at the end. Dr Evil has more shifts in character, much better dialogue, and is basically much, much cooler. Frau Farbissina is just too cute with her little spit curls, and Mini-Me’s totally deadpan performance saves the character from becoming a lame merchandising gimmick. The Austin character is way too over-hyped to have any kind of subtlety, but the Evil Nemesis archetype is a lot less obvious and Mike Meyers has more room to explore his character. Basically, Evil wins out for me.

Anyway, if you never saw the original film, I would say: don’t bother. Go out and see The Spy Who Shagged Me at the theater; it’s worth it. I still dream of one day making my own Bond-esque spy flick, which would be totally sly and deadpan and feature really bad actors taking themselves very, very seriously, and terrible special effects… anyway, until you see me rubbing elbows with George Lucas at a Planet Hollywood opening, go check out Austin Powers II instead!

The Eternal

Published on February 22, 2006 in Monster Flicks. 0 Comments

Starring: Alison Elliot, Jared Smith, Christopher Walken

Guess what? for once, even though he gets his head chopped off early on in the film, Christopher Walken does not play a bad guy!! At least I don’t think he was all bad. He was kind of creepy and sinister, but not actually bad.

Nora (Elliott) is an alcoholic in poor health living with her young son and Jeff, her similarly alcoholic husband (Smith) in a big city in the USA. She used to be Irish, you can tell because she occasionally lapses into an Irishoid accent. The family doctor tells her that she has to stop drinking, or her health will continue to deteriorate. So, she decided to take the family to Ireland to begin her life of a teetotaler.

Nora’s grandmother and uncle live in Ireland still, in a big ancestral mansion complete with huge portraits on the walls and velvet drapey things around. (I won’t even go into the historical inaccuracy of all this right now). Nora lasts about 2 hours without a drink and subsequently crashes the car on the way to the mansion. The family meets Alice (a traditionally Irish name!), a little girl whom her uncle (Walken) has adopted. Alice is really a good actress! She was one of the highlights of this movie, but unfortunately I can’t remember what her real name was, and I can’t find it anywhere.

Nora’s Uncle takes Nora down to the basement to meet his mummy (that’s mummy as in dead person) soon after their arrival. She’s a “druid witch” who hurled herself into the sea after getting knocked up by some guy who didn’t love her. How he knows this, I’m not sure, since this whole incident took place over 2000 years ago, and she’s been buried in a bog all this time. I guess Nora’s Uncle was just a really good expert archaeologist. Too bad, because the mummy soon comes to life and saws Uncle’s head off with a scalpel.

Anyway, because the mummy is a “druid witch” she’s not completely dead. She’s slowly transferring her soul into Nora’s body. Nora has to die in order for her to complete the transformation. In the meantime, she’s assumed an appearance identical to Nora’s. This gets really confusing if you normally wear glasses, but lose them and watch this movie anyway, like I did.

People get knocked unconscious in just about every scene in this film. Poor Jeff! He gets knocked out in about 5 scenes in a row various people and objects! People also bleed a lot in this movie. There’s also a guy who is in the IRA, who doesn’t figure much into the plot. His main function is to occasionally bleed. We all know that all Irish guys between the ages of 14 and 40 are in the IRA, or drunks, or boxers, (or perhaps all 3) so I guess it’s only right to have one in this film.

All in all, this is one of the cheesiest new releases on Hollywood Video’s shelves. It’s perfect to pick on, yet I thoroughly enjoyed it too. There are Druid prophesies, haunted mansions, the mysterious grandmother kept prisoner… I didn’t really understand a lot of it, but that’s OK. Why were the shelves full of tranquilizers? I don’t really get it. Oh well. Be sure to wear your glasses for the last scene, though. There’s a whole lotta shape-shifting going on, and I was confused.

Mary Poppins

Published on February 22, 2006 in The Supernatural. 0 Comments

Starring: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Karen Dotrice, Matthew Garber

“It’s that Poppins woman again, isn’t it?!” Yes, Mary Poppins is the short-tempered, ugly-hat-wearing, magical nanny that everybody loves. Upon watching this movie for, probably, the twentieth time, I ask myself the question: Is Mary Poppins some sort of supernatural entity, like maybe an Angel or a Fairy, or is she merely an alien? Let’s weigh the evidence:

Mary has all of the physical trappings of a normal human being, although the excessively Victorian way in which she dresses (or I should say, the campy sixties’ version of the Victorian way blah blah blah) would hide any abnormalities around the torso area. Like say, green skin, lack of belly button, stuff like that. Mary also has some sort of anti-gravitational power that allows her to slide up the railings on staircases, which might point to some sort of long-distance space-flight enabling technology. Oh, except she doesn’t have a space ship, merely a magic umbrella (that talks.)

Mary never changes her outfit, which implies that she doesn’t sweat, or get dirty in any other way, and she also has some sort of Jedi-like mind control power which she uses (with smirky delight) on Mr. Banks, the staunch patriarch whom she works for.

Anyway, Mary’s mind power thing obviously works on Matthew Garber (the little boy, who stars alongside Karen Dotrice in all three of her Disney flicks) because he has this goofy, mesmerized look on his face throughout the whole movie. It’s almost, but not quite, as dopey as the look on his face in The Gnome Mobile, except that he basically had no lines in that movie, so there wasn’t a lot for him to do.

Mary’s handbag is also bigger on the inside than on the outside, which is kind of like Dr. Who, and in one scene, she sings to a robotic bird that’s perched on her finger. So she’s definitely in the high-technology realm. Although, Mary’s sidekick Bert (the friendly chimney-sweep) is definitely a bit of a fairy, so it’s likely that there’s some connection there. Maybe I should read the book that this movie was based on. It might give me further insight.

Anyway, I figure just about everyone alive has seen this movie. The plot is fairly predicable, so I won’t go into details here. Mary Shows up one day to rescue to bored kids whose parents have no time for them. Mary guilt-trips the parents into spending time with their kids, and then everyone is happy, blah blah blah. Along the way, there’s lots of singing, dancing, and blue screen.

If you haven’t seen this movie, well you just don’t know from Disney, boy.

This movie has just about every gratuitous Disney trick in the book. There’s dancing cartoon penguins, interminable musical numbers, weird flouncy costumes in irritating colors… the whole nine. I would heartily recommend this film. It’s not the sort of cheese that I could sit around a make fun of, yet is is highly cheesy. I also have the soundtrack to this movie on vinyl, which can really kill the mood at cocktail parties.

Patch Adams

Published on February 22, 2006 in Cheesy Tearjerkers. 0 Comments

Starring: Robin Williams, Monica Potter

This movie has a good intention. I mean, nobody likes to be in the hospital, and suicidal “Patch” Adams sees this. His whole deal is to turn his life around- go from a suicidal depressed person to a doctor who will heal his patients with humor. It’s all very noble, but in order to do this, he must go around making heart-warming speeches all the time.

Plus, he’s Robin Williams. I mean, he’s very good at being Robin Williams, but do we really need to see him be himself in another movie? I mean, we could have just -shudder -rented Mrs. Doubtfire… Ok, scratch that idea. If you like Robin Williams doing what he does best, you’ll probably like this film. My aunt thought this was the greatest movie ever made, and so did a lot of people. Don’t listen to me, I hated Forrest Gump- go read The Bridges of Madison County again.

When Patch is not making speeches, other people are making speeches to counteract his speeches. Ok, ok, we get the idea. Patch is Right. Everyone else is Wrong. Will you stop with the speeches already?

Basically, speeches and all, Patch Adams is scientifically designed to make you cry at every moment. Things get a little sad when the Love Interest (Potter) dies, but come on- why did the happy-go-lucky Patch fall for the bitchiest, most sarcastic and anal-retentive girl in his medical school? And why did she, a pretty, promising young woman fall for an annoying guy who’s twice her age? They get certainly get a prize for Most Unbelievable Couple of the Month. I think this movie was based on a true story, so maybe in real life, the aforesaid anal-retentive med. student did fall for the goofy guy, and vise versa. However, in the movie, this idea was so far fetched it was just silly.

Patch Adams was a totally predictable, totally middle-of-the- road sap fest. For Cheese connoisseurs, it should be watched for the Sceenwriting 101 cheesy dialogue only.

Cube

Published on February 22, 2006 in A Grim Vision of the Future, Disaster Films and Monster Flicks. 0 Comments

Starring: Nicole deBoer, Nicky Guadagni, David Hewlett, Maurice Dean Wint

Our story opens with a guy waking up in a strange room… He opens a hatch and goes into another room just like the one he was in… then he gets sliced up like a hard-boiled egg in one of those wire egg slicers, and in a fit of bad computer graphics turns into a bunch of little chunks. I had a hard time deciding what category to put this film in. It defies category. Or, rather, it’s so vague it can fit into just about any category.

It starts out with your basic disaster film formula. A motley crew of Canadians are dumped without rhyme or reason into a large structure that looks like it could have been built by Rubik after he was assimilated by the Borg. It is a collection of rooms, identical except for they are different colors. I think the main reason the rooms are different colors is so that it looks like the filmmakers didn’t have to built just one set.

Anyway, we have the basic disaster film characters: the whiny girl who panics a lot, the guy who takes charge, the silent cynical one, the pessimistic guy who spreads panic, and the good doctor. Later on we learn, through minimal plot development, that one Canadian is a policeman, another, an escape artist (but he gets his face eaten off by acid early on), one is a mathematician, and another designed the outer shell of the cube. Later on they are joined by whom everyone thinks is your average retard, but he turns out to be an idiot savant who saves the day. Unfortunately, there’s no real disaster to put this movie on the level with, say, The Towering Inferno.

Some of the rooms are booby-trapped, but Math Girl discovers that the rooms are numbered in a certain way. Only the rooms that are labeled with prime numbers are booby trapped. Sounds like a math nightmare, right? It gets worse. The math starts out sounding relatively plausible, but then goes off into concepts my 500-on- the-math-portion-of-the-SAT- achieving brain can’t comprehend. However, I do know that a number that ends in 5 can never be prime (except for 5), a fact that takes Math Girl several seconds of hardcore brain-wracking to figure out.

I was tempted to label this film a futuristic dystopia, but one of the main points is that it’s taking place today. Yes, even today mild-mannered Canadians can be snatched from their beds and dumped into a big cubical math camp. Of course many bumper stickers have reminded me that The Future Is Now, so maybe this could be futuristic dystopia after all.

Cube is not really a ‘monsters- human and otherwise’ film , because there are no real tangible monsters. I gathered that Cube was supposed to be a psychological thriller, owing to the fact that no enemy is visible. The threat is perceived, and the Canadians turn on each other. The scary part of this movie is supposed to be that there is no real threat.. Who built the cube? “Like Scaramanga- from The Man With the Golden Gun, some rich psycho” is one suggestion. Doctor Lady says “Only the government could have built something this ugly…”

But the scary thing is there is no big conspiracy going on. Whoever built this made a big mistake- each part was designed by a different person who didn’t know what anyone else was doing. The result was a big accident, or rather, “It’s a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan.” So why kidnap innocent people and dump them into the big accident in nothing but underwear and army jackets with their names stenciled on the pockets? “Because they had to do something with it.” Was the answer. I didn’t buy it. Whatever.

One of the most annoying things about this movie is that the characters are constantly chewing on the buttons from their jackets. They do this to stimulate their salivary glands so they don’t dehydrate. As a result, they are always chewing, and the buttons make little clicking sounds against their teeth when they talk. This is really distracting. The buttons come in handy, however, when Math Girl has to figure math problems,. She scratches them out with the button against the metal wall. These must be no ordinary plastic buttons! They can scratch metal as if they were as sharp as nails!

This film has plenty of speeches on morality, pep speeches, as well as other speeches (another convincing argument to place it firmly within the Disaster category). However, the dialogue is totally cheesy, the characters undergo rapid personality transplants, and the plot has many little holes in it, thus meriting it many a Swiss cheese. Did I mention the irritating music? It was a loop of a woman whispering over ethereally synthesized music with what sounded like teeth chattering in the background. Basically, stick Enya in a freezer with a Casio and you’ll come out with this soundtrack. But all in all, this was a very nice cheesy low budget flick!

The Matrix

Published on February 22, 2006 in A Grim Vision of the Future. 0 Comments

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne

Cube. The Matrix. Yes, Technology is the new threat. Everyone’s making films these days about people being menaced, or otherwise swallowed by technology. Maybe it’s because of the incredible popularity of Internet porn these days. Or maybe it’s just because of AOL.

This is a movie about computers evolving into a life form which ultimately takes over and enslaves humanity. If you think I’m “spoiling” the movie by telling you this, think again. It’s all spelled out for you within the first half-hour of the film. Then the movie becomes one long action scene, with many un-dramatic plot twists.

Our hero is Keanu Reeves (his name in the film is “Neo,” but let’s just call him Virtual Ted.) Virtual Ted is spending all of his free time in front of his ergonimically designed keyboard, searching for an Entity online known only as “Morphius.” (Larry Fishburne.) Morphius is also searching for Virtual Ted, so it doesn’t take very long for the plot to develop in that respect. VT encounters a variety of action-adventure scenes in which he’s abducted by weird governmental dudes, and a cybernetic jumbo shrimp is implanted in his belly. This part of the film was actually pretty cool, since I had no idea what was going on, and I was still under the impression that I’d have to work hard in order to understand what the film was about.

Unfortunately, not so. Once Virtual Ted hooks up with Morphius, we learn that the entire world is just one big computer simulation, invented by computers to keep us occupied while they use our physical bodies as electrovoltaic cells. You see, there was this big war, and the computers won… now they farm us as a natural resource. We find this out way too soon. You see, the computers need us for power, since we nuked the sky to keep them from getting solar energy. There’s a cute little computer animated shot of a dead urban skyline with black nuked-out clouds roiling over it. It’s all very twee.

Anyway, I started to get irritated with this film, and then I liked it again. Why? Because it became obvious to me that it’s a total cheesefest. When Neo (OK, I got tired of typing “Virtual Ted” all the time) and his friends download themselves into the computer simulated New York, they want to be as inconspicuous as possible. So they dress like pimps and hoes. My favorite character was Trinity, who wears a black vinyl dominatrix outfit replete with tube-top. Neo also gets martial arts downloaded into his brain so that he can fight the evil computer cops. There’s a great scene involving him and Laurence Fishburne in a virtual dojo. I’m actually giving the filmmakers credit here, since I assume they were trying to be campy.

ANYWAY… the other thing about this film is how much it borrows from other futuristic dystopia films. I think just about every film that I like was ripped off by the Matrix. A few of the early scenes are straight out of Brazil, and the entire storyline is completely Twelve Monkeys in effect… (which movie was seriously scary and thought-provoking) there’s also a visual reference to THX 1138… basically, you name it, and The Matrix rips it off. I could go on and on, but you’d better just see the movie yourself to completely understand.

All in all, I had fun at this movie, once I stopped taking it seriously. It wasn’t the seriously scary cyberpunk epic that I thought it would be. If you can deal with watching Keanu Reeves for two hours at a time, and you like action-adventure flix with lots people getting shot, then you’ll probably get a kick out of this one.

Darkman

Published on February 22, 2006 in Monster Flicks. 0 Comments

Starring: Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Larry Drake

I watched this movie and was a bit confused. On the one hand, it was so incredibly cheesy it was amazing. No movie made in the 90s could be this un-self-consciously cheesy! So I thought to myself, “It must be a joke. It’s a parody.” I’m still not sure. The dialogue was just so bad in places. For example, the Bad guy has just revealed himself to Julie, the eponymous character’s girlfriend. She says “Well, if you’re not going to kill me… I have things to do.” And leaves, with a flounce. The last line of the movie was pretty bad too. Unfortunately I was too busy chuckling to remember it.

There were some sequences that were so cheesy, it made me think this was supposed to be in the style of a 1950s sci-fi B movie. For example, When Payton Westlake (Neeson), the protagonist, undergoes a surgical procedure that causes his adrenaline to rush out of control, we see the inside of his brain in flowing bright colors. Images and people flash by. The whole thing is just so cliche� it has to be a joke, right?

Unfortunately, if it were supposed to be tongue in cheek, it was lost. This movie was too unbelievably corny to be a work of great irony. Here’s the basic plot: Payton and Julie are a happy couple. Julie finds a document she’s not supposed to find, exposing corruption in her workplace. She leaves it at Payton’s lab, where he’s working on growing fake skin to use in surgical procedures. Robert Durant, The bad guy (played by Larry Drake who I most remember as Benny the retarded guy on LA Law) and his evil henchmen come to Payton’s studio, dunk his face in acid (laboratories always have big steaming vats of red acid sitting around uncovered), kill his lab tech, and then blow the place up.

Luckily the explosion catapults a flaming Payton into the lake that’s conveniently across the road. He washes up on the shore, is found, and has an experimental surgical procedure. The procedure involves severing some nerves so he can no longer feel any pain at all. Unfortunately, a side effect is that it causes him to growl and grunt monosyllables instead of speak in sentences. It also causes his adrenal glands to go haywire so he has superhuman strength and his emotions are out of control.

Payton sets up a makeshift lab in an abandoned factory building that, luckily, the power company had neglected to shut the power off in, and continues to work on his fake skin project. The big problem is that the fake skin turns to mush after 99 minutes, unless it is in complete darkness. However, this allows Payton 99 minutes of revenge at a time as he makes fake faces of the bad guys and messes up their evil plans by impersonating them.

Watch for the last scene when there is a big showdown on the structure of an unfinished skyscraper. I mean, how hard is it to knock someone off a 6 inch wide steel beam with the wind blowing? It’s also amusing to see the bad guys randomly blowing up the police and innocent bystanders during the big helicopter chase.

Liam Neeson was great, as a always, and he got to let his cheesy side hang out. Frances McDormand is really good too, although she too plays a cheeseball character. Both actors add finesse and elan to their cheese. With actors of this quality, even cheesy movies such as this become Brie, rather than your basic Swiss. Magnifique. However, run screaming if someone suggests you watch “Darkman II: The Return of Durant” or “Darkman III: Die, Darkman, Die.”

What Dreams May Come

Published on February 22, 2006 in Cheesy Tearjerkers and Religious Zeal. 0 Comments

Starring: Robin Williams, Annabella Sciorria, Cuba Gooding Jr.

OK, I’ll admit that watching this movie was nice. The special effects were pretty and the scenes of Hell were really cool. However, besides the effects, there’s not much else. This is yet another movie that’s scientifically formulated to yank as many tears as possible from the innocent moviegoers’ heads. I think it was actually written and released by a group of aliens who feed on human tears. Anyway, I wasn’t moved. I mean, I find it sad when people die. I’m not a completely unfeeling rock. However, when I am repeatedly bombarded with the command to feel sad, It just makes me a little irritated rather than teary.

Besides the effects, there was not much to this film. If you took the swirling colors and painted skies out, the movie was basically kind of meandering and dull. The kids die. The Dad dies, the Mom commits suicide… she goes to Hell, but along comes Dad to bust her out. Then they all live Happily Ever After with their dead dog in Heaven. Isn’t that sweet?

This movie was just another attempt to placate the masses into thinking that everything is going to be OK forever. The afterlife is one big happy place, and love will conquer all etc. etc. Maybe it’s because I’m a cynical Agnostic that I don’t buy into it. Maybe it’s just because seeing little angels all over everything on the K-Mart shelves gets on my nerves. I think Atheists, Agnostics and Born Again Fundamentalist Christians were most annoyed by this film. I’ve never been in the same category as a Christian Fundamentalist before, and this is kind of interesting! A lot of people found this movie to be “life affirming” and comforting. I say, go read a good book and then visit an art museum. You’ll save a lot of money on tissues.

The Shanghai Gesture

Published on February 22, 2006 in Ethnic Stereotypes and Mean Mothers. 1 Comment

The Golden Age of Hairdos
Starring: Ona Munson, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Gene Tierney

What is The Shanghai Gesture? Is that like the Brooklyn Salute? Anyway, this sinful story takes place in Shanghai, the East’s City of Pleasure. Our tale revolves around Mother Gin Sling, an Asiatic Empress of Pleasure (totally played by a white lady, by the way,) who owns Shanghai’s sleaziest, and most decadent casino. In Mother Gin Sling’s casino, fortunes are lost, promises are broken, and damsels are deflowered. Also, hair is done. That is to say, Mother Gin Sling’s hairdo’s are some of the most elaborate known to man. It takes a lot of Yin-Yang to keep Mother supplied with giant curly sparkly things to stick into her hair.

Anyway, Mother Gin Sling’s casino is in peril. A wealthy white businessman wants to buy up all the properties on the block and knock them over. Meanwhile, Mother’s henchman, the playboy Doctor Omar, has picked up Poppy Jones, a mysterious and naive young lady who recently has started frequenting the casino. Soon Poppy is racking up a huge tab at the casino, and her losing streak is unstoppable. But who is she, and where did she get that diamond necklace?

The movie culminates in a dinner party at Mother’s home– thrown in honor of Sir Guy Charteris, the white developer. Sparks fly as Mother fights to save her casino. But what is her mysterious connection to Sir Guy’s past? And what is her even more mysterious connection to Poppy?

A great campy film noir with some gratuitous overacting for good measure.

Noah’s Ark

Published on February 22, 2006 in Disaster Films and Religious Zeal. 0 Comments

Starring: John Voight, Mary Steenburgen

After staring open-mouthed at the TV screen for 2 and a half hours, I finally came to a conclusion as to why it was created. It was actually an insidious plot to get us to read the Bible. Why else would they take the story of Noah’s Ark and totally change it? It causes you to question every detail of the story. Well it worked. I read the Bible section devoted to Noah and his aforementioned boat, and I was amazed at exactly how short it was. I mean, the whole Noah episode takes up exactly 1 and 1/2 pages in my Bible (3 paragraphs in my illustrated children’s Bible). I guess that’s why the filmmakers felt the need to throw in a little Sodom & Gomorrah being destroyed, some townspeople rioting, and plenty of potty-humor.

Ah yes, the potty humor. Shem and Japheth (Noah’s sons) keep mentioning the poop. Who’s going to clean up all of the animals’ poop? Japheth even manages a nice, clean, made-for-TV “shhhhh…” as he slips on the animal poop. Hardy har har!

There’s lots of boozing and lust as well. Noah is quite the lush, always with his bottle of wine. But then, he was a bit of a boozer in the Bible, but not until after the whole ark episode. As for the lust, well…Noah’s sons and their fiancees (in the Bible they were actually married, but this makes for more lewd jokes) throw lots of innuendoes around. Ham is really intent on slipping Ruth, his intended, the sausage, for example! Shem’s girlfriend keeps mentioning how it would be nice to be naked. Another hearty har har har!

There is also the disaster element. In the beginning, Noah is actually a citizen of Gomorrah. God tells Noah of his destructive intentions, and proves it by making some stock footage of Mt. St. Helen’s explode. Noah must then lightly hop over streams of rapidly flowing computer animation, er, lava in order to get home. Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed with another rain of computer animation fire balls from heaven. Even the rats catch on fire and neglect to stop, drop, and roll, as they run around with flaming fur (does PETA know about this?)

Also in the destructive vein, watch the Ark crash into Mt. Ararat with a loud, splintering bang. We watch with anticipation as the Crew of Noah’s Ark prepare to smash to their deaths in a Titanic-esque collision. Never mind the fact that giant animal-laden boats don’t generally drift around at high speeds, a disastrous crash was in order. All in all, this movie merits the highest cheese rating a film can possibly earn! It annoyed both movie connoisseurs and fundamentalist Christians! What more could you want? Oh yeah-you could want the salesman. The other survivor of the flood besides Noah & Co. was a traveling salesman on a funky homemade barge. This allowed Noah and family the opportunity to shop while floating through the sea of God’s destruction. See, God is benevolent after all! He wouldn’t deprive his favorite human of the opportunity to shop, even after He destroyed the greed and avarice-filled human race. Alert the philosophers!

The Thirteenth Floor

Published on February 22, 2006 in A Grim Vision of the Future. 0 Comments

Starring: Craig Bierko, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gretchen Moll

When I was in the video store, I overheard someone say “This makes The Matrix looks like child’s play!” Of course, I thought to myself, “Elmo in Grouchland makes The Matrix looks like child’s play,” but that’s another story. The Thirteenth Floor is another one of those films that takes the old bumper sticker command “Question Reality” way too seriously. However, because of this, much cheese in involved!

The film starts out with Hannon Fuller, a rich old guy (Armin Mueller-Stahl) getting killed. We don’t know who did it, but we’re certain that it’s not our protagonist, Douglas (Craig Bierko,) Hannon’s right-hand man. As things unfold as we learn that the company for which the two men work is developing a virtual reality type game where you can travel back into the Depression era and have sex with hookers (at least that’s what the old guy was up to.) So why was he killed? Did it have something to do with his virtual experiences? Why does Doug keep blacking out for 3 hours at a time? Did he really kill Hannon and not realize it?

Eventually, Doug jumps into the Depression era himself to find out what’s going on. He discovers that one of the characters in his virtual reality has discovered that he’s not really ‘real.’ This brings up an ethical, philosophical and moral dilemma that has been the plot of so many Star Trek the Next Generation episodes. What is real? do we have the right to go around creating humans only to destroy them? I figure Commander Riker already solved this problem for us years ago, let’s move on, OK? Warning: if you don’t want to discover the “surprise” plot twist, stop reading right here. Go make yourself a sandwich and read the paper.

So why does Doug keep blacking out? If it isn’t totally obvious to you now, you need something stronger than a sandwich! It’s because…dum dum! He’s in a virtual world as well! People from the outside word jump into the characters in the virtual world, and someone’s been doing it to him! His body is actually a murderer, although his personality is not! How confusing is that?

Jane, Hannon’s daughter/the girl who works in the supermarket after whom Doug has been lusting is actually the woman who runs his virtual reality show. And to make matters worse, she’s in love with him as well. Ugh. It turns out that “Doug” was a character based on her husband. Jane’s husband used to be a kind and good man, but now, since he’s gotten a taste of the virtual world, he’s become a homicidal maniac, and retreats into his virtual world to slaughter people at random (note: maybe you should take the Doom and Tomb Raider game CD ROMs away from the males in your household.) Since Doug is how Jane’s husband used to be, Jane becomes teary and sentimental, as she spends time with the Man She Fell In Love With (only better.) It causes all sorts of sappy touching scenes as Doug and Jane say stuff like “I feel like I’ve known you for years!” and other things that many people dismiss as cheesy pickup lines. So remember, the next time you’re in a bar and someone says “I feel like we’ve met before!” it might not be just a line to get into your underwear… it could be the voice of your virtual spouse!

Anyway, this movie has a nice cheesy happy ending. It also tries to make you question reality. Am I really living in a virtual world? What is real? But then you think… if someone would go to all the trouble to invent a virtual reality, I’m sure they would have created a more interesting job for me.

The Other Sister

Published on February 22, 2006 in Cheesy Tearjerkers and Mental Disorders. 0 Comments

Starring: Juliette Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi, Diane Keaton, Tom Skerrit

OK, I’ll admit that Juliette Lewis is one of my least favorite actresses on the planet, so this review is a little bit biased. In fact, one of the only things worse then seeing Juliette Lewis in a movie is seeing Juliette Lewis play a retard in a movie. Sigh. This movie was painful for me to watch (it was a family bonding moment with my aunt, who had rented this video).

Juliette, in all of her hesitant, twitchy glory plays a mentally challenged girl whose mother treats her, well, like a retard. That is, her mother is not ready for her to grow up and assume the responsibility of an adult. I can’t figure out why, because, aside from Ms. Lewis’s abnormally slow hesitant monotone that slowly caused me to want to rip my eardrums out of my head, lest I go on hearing it, she didn’t act any different from say, my sister (note: my sister is not mentally challenged, she just acts like it most of the time).

Anyway, we get to see Juliette drawl on a lot and assert herself as she goes to college and gets decent grades, falls in love with another retard (Giovanni Ribisi,) and generally makes a lot of heart warming speeches about how she can do anything. It’s all very sweet. It’s also scientifically formulated to make you (that is people in general, not me) cry a lot. If you’re at all considering becoming a Scientologist, picture yourself locked on this miserable planet for eternity with Juliette Lewis. Maybe then you’ll change your mind.

S.O.S. Titanic

Published on February 22, 2006 in Disaster Films. 0 Comments

Starring: Helen Mirren, Susan St. James, Cloris Leachman

What was life like aboard the Titanic? Well, if you think it was like it was in the movie S.O.S. Titanic, then it was a lot like a very friendly singles’ bar. Yes, this fabled unsinkable ship was basically a big meat market. People spent an awful lot of time falling in love, and we see the development of many different relationships, budding and old, as we jump from romantic sub plot to romantic sub plot.

Aside from all of the people who find each other and fall in love, everyone else is so darn nice! Even as the ship is sinking, people are offering their coveted spaces aboard crowded life boats to old ladies and children. And everything turns out just dandy in the end. The guards who are preventing the steerage class passengers onto the boats, eventually let them break through the gates and into freedom. Even the rich lady ends up bonding with her Irish maid. none of our protagonists die, except for the Irish Guy. But that’s Ok, because he died nobly. All is very hunky dory.

Unfortunately, the fact that they’re all on the Titanic is not really that big a deal. I mean, you could have taken all of these people, given them bikinis and just as easily have put them the Love Boat.

The Rage: Carrie II

Published on February 22, 2006 in Possessed Children and The Supernatural. 0 Comments

Starring: Emily Bergl, Jesse Ryan, Amy Irving

What can I say? I thought the slasher type horror film genre was dead! It’s not, it’s just mutated a little bit. In this film, there was only one gory death scene, and it occurs near the end. It’s worthy of your worst Friday the 13th annoying anxiety dream, though (I won’t say nightmare, because it’s really not that scary). Anyway, this is the story of Carrie’s (you saw that film, right?) half-sister, Rachel (Bergl.) Her mother is in a loony bin, and she’s being raised by a mean foster family who is only in it for the money they get for her upkeep. Rachel is your typical angst-ridden outcast teenager with one exception- she’s telekinetic. That is, she can cause harpoons to fly through glass doors and emasculate boorish high school jocks without even lifting a finger- the stuff most teens just dream about!

Amy Irving returns in this film as Sue Snell, Carrie’s high school peer, all grown up and a guidance counselor now. As Rachel’s counselor, she wants to help her by sending her to a place where she can learn to use her powers for good instead of evil (i.e. trashing her high school prom, which at my high school would have been a public service venture!) She also presents the opportunity to see many flashbacks of the original Carrie movie. She explains it all to Rachel as they visit the ruins of the former Carrie-Ravaged high school. It’s been 23 years since the fateful Carrie I event…you’d think they would have cleaned up the charred mess by now. You’d think.

Meanwhile, Rachel and a high school jock fall in love. It looks like there might be a happy ending after all… but no, this is a “horror” film, so we have to have the Big Chopping Scene in the end where the mean stuck up high school kids spend a great deal of effort to humiliate her, and then everyone dies. Alas, just when we thought perhaps the ending will be happy–maybe the misfortune that plagued Carrie will skip over Rachel! No, that wouldn’t fit the formula. Instead, Rachel wigs out, causing her tattoo of a rose to grow a thorny vine all around her body, in a bizarre cheese-laden symbolic manner. The very end confused me. Is it supposed to be a good thing that Rachel’s ghost is hanging around the former high school jock’s college dorm? Or are we just getting ready for Carrie III: Beyond the Grave?