IHAO on ... Olive, the Other Reindeer

Nostalgia and Christmas go hand in hand.  I am perfectly happy to admit it, there are specials and movies from Christmas and my childhood that I love but are really not that good.  Chipmunk Adventure, how you spurn me with your sometimes great animation, awesome music, and mostly really terrible-ness.  And it is always crazy to me to find new nostalgia.  You know, kids films from when I was a teenager that never did anything for me, but for some people is what Christmas was for them.  Olive the Other Reindeer absolutely is that.

I totally get why this may be a loved special.  It is quirky, sometimes funny, very simple, very interesting, starring a cute dog.  Olive is a dog, but when things go poorly because of an evil mailman and Blitzen getting hurt, Santa cancels Christmas.  Olive misunderstands the radio when it talks about "all of the other reindeer" and thinks it is saying her name!  So she heads to the north pole with a penguin con artist to save Christmas.  And ... this special is ... wow, ok ... uh ...

I'm ... I'm just going to get on with it.

First, this thing is ugly.  Ugly character designs, really weird animation that baffles me.  They could have gone with cheaper flash animation or actual real animation, considering Matt Groening produced it.  It is based on a popular kids book, so that's good, but ... man, did I really not like this.  There are just some kinds of quirk that do not do well with me.  And while I like hidden adult humor in kids stuff, it really does need to be hidden, which isn't how this special treats it.

There is some crazy voice talent in this, including Drew Barrymore, Dan Castellaneta, Jos Pantoliano, Billy West, Jay Mohr, Ed Asner, Tim Meadows, Diedrich Bader, Tress MacNeille ... it is a nice long list of actors doing this one.  And they all stick out like a soar thumb.  Castellaneta has some amazing characters, but he also tends to recycle voices quite often, and the mail man is Robot Satan from Futurama which is ... actually pretty hilarious.  But not in the right way.

I dunno, this special isn't very good.  But it is also perfectly fine and enjoy incredibly enjoyable for some people.  My roommate got it for me last year, because it holds a special place for him and his childhood.  And that's kind of special.  I understand it.  I pull out Rankin and Bass' Twas the Night Before Christmas every year, and that movie is just as strange and oddly animated and ... ok, not AS oddly animated or nearly as strange ... and the music is way better ... ok so bad example, but what I'm trying to say is that while I didn't care for the special, and certainly don't think it is very good, I loved sharing a memory with him.  And THAT is why you buy movies for your collection, to share those memories and thoughts and opinions with others.  And Olive absolutely succeeded there.

Grade: D

IHAO on ... Penguins of Madagascar

Dreamworks animation has never really done it for me.  Either it is trying to hard to have cute slick Pixar-style characters but they never move correctly, like Shark Tale or the Madagascar films, or they have slightly weird off-putting characters but the motion and visuals created are perfect, like the Croods.  Penguins is much like any of the other Dreamworks films, in that the characters are sometimes cute, sometimes ugly, sometimes move really well and sometimes move really weird.  But to combat all of that, they wrote a script that works with the cute/ugly stuff and the cartoony movements versus the more Disney-styled real movement of the penguins.  It is a weird bag.  A good, weird bag.

What's the story?  You learn the origins of the Penguin characters from the Madagascar films, then you skyrocket (not joke) into the story as they do a heist, are captured by an evil Grinch-mouthed John Malkovich-ian octopus that has some kind of large evil plan for the penguins.  Then they meet with the North Wind, another spy agency except they are a real one!  Personalities clash, plots are schemed, morals are learned, action is had!

This movie would be perfect if Terry Crews was in it.  As a human.  Non-CGI.  

Terry Crews is perfect and I wanted an excuse to use this happy dance gif, is what I'm saying.

This film is very pulpy and cartoony, which is fun.  I love a good pulp adventure and I like my spy stuff to be treated more fun and silly, cutting some of the talky talk mumbo jumbo politics stuff and getting to the James Bond action and such.  The characters of the Penguins are completely realized, full fledged characters, as should be expected from their 4th film and a television show under their belt.  Malkovich is funny and over the top, which are two things I never thought I'd say about him.  The actual morals of the film are kind of standard kids faire ... but they are done in a very interesting, subversive way to begin with and then it becomes a literal plot point instead of a symbolic one for our heroes to deal with.  The plot twists and turns and has great fun.

I feel like I need to say something negative about this movie.  I feel like it doesn't quite stack up ... but it totally does stack up in every way.  Hilarious lines and jokes, great emotions, a clever plot, great morals, Penguins is a really good movie.  Check it out.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... a bunch of movies!! - 26 Reviews

Hello everyone! 

Time is an enemy to everyone who is trying to do anything important.  Or at least time-sensitive.   I love being able to write reviews for everyone about everything, current, old, wrestling, television, just on everything, as well as writing all the sillier or more intricate reviews, like the Arbitrary Numbers and the Fantasy Bookings.  But that leaves very little time for me to be able to actually cover everything.  I can’t put out two reviews a day, because that is too much to ask you folks to read.  And I only put out 5 a week, but every week there is probably on average one new film or wrestling event to writing about, and that takes a slot.  Then there are weeks with many films, like I’ve had recently and will be moving into with Oscar season continuing.

So I came up with an idea.  I asked my facebook to give me a list of movies that they did not think I had seen.  I absorb entertainment and media like a sponge, and have watched a LOT of movies.  This way I can give shorter reviews on a bunch of things people might not think I’ve seen, as well as have a fun bank of things to come back to when I need inspiration.  In the nice long list of films, I probably saw a fifth of them, which is a great number.  So I’m going to review all 26 of the movies that were suggested that I have seen.  This will be a rapid fire barrage of reviews.  Let’s get going!

 Dinosaurs! – Nicole Clockel
An edu-tainment Claymation-y fun short about dinosaur life.  I remember specifically sitting with my best friend at the time, Karl, when we were 7 or 8 at his house, and between playing TMNT SNES games or with figures or running around outside, we watched this little video.  I’ve seen it since then as well, but it is a silly thing to talk about.  It is purposefully silly, and all kinds of weird, but really enjoyable.  It is on youtube, and I’ll linky it here.  I definitely think it is worth your time, because of nostalgia for some of you and just for fun in general.  It isn’t great by any means, but it is fun.
Grade: C+



Rat Race – Lenton Lees 
The semi-rebooting, more “another version” of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Rat Race features an incredible cast, and is a big ole chase/race comedy.  It is hilarious, has some heart, and some awesome music.  It is probably one of the best comedies to introduce people to a bunch of great comedians all at once, including Mr. Bean, Seth Green, Whoopi Goldberg, John Cleese, Breckin Mayer, Amy Smart, and Jon Lovitz.  Really enjoyable, though it doesn’t quite shoot that extra mile.  It sits in a nice comfortable zone that most good comedies do, where it is real good, but the actual film never tries to be any greater than that.  Highly recommend.
Grade: B++

The Longest Yard – Lenton Lees
Wrestlers!  Sandler the last time he was funny!  Except there’s sequences of it totally not being funny, too, because Sandler has to always ALWAYS write his characters as having enormous penises or getting the hottest women in the world.  But that’s fine, because that has very little actual impact on the movie.  This is probably one of my favorite sports films I’ve seen.  It actually goes that extra mile in film quality and technique, as well as just having incredible actors in Burt Reynolds, William Fichtner, Terry Crews, and a slew of awesome wrestler … not “cameos” as everyone’s screentime and character weight is larger than that.  It is an incredibly fun sports movie with a moving story, it is really funny, and even though it blatantly steals an entire scene from the British remake of the Longest Yard, Mean Machine, it is still a really fun movie that is also really good.  Probably my favorite Sandler film, and easily the one I think that is his best film.
Grade: A++

Ernest Saves Christmas – Lenton Lees
Here’s the thing about Ernest: you either love Jim Varney’s shenanigans, or you just don’t get it or see a point.  I personally find Ernest endearing.  In fact, this is the first Ernest film I saw, which is good, because it is also easily his highest budgeted, best looking, best acted, best directed, BEST Ernest film.  It tells a great story, has fun comedy, and is a Christmas classic in the Jessel household.  On top of that, I do believe it has my absolute favorite Santa Claus in film, played by the same dude who is the Sultan and Jasmine’s father in Aladdin!  He is perfect as Santa, and adds some amazing gravitas to what could have just been a frivolous and silly kids movie.  It isn’t one of the best movies ever made, and the effects are absolutely dated, but it is a wonderful movie.
Grade: B++

South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut – Lenton Lees
Trey Parker and Matt Stone have made all of two things I like: South Park and Book of Mormon.  I do not like BASEketball, I don’t like Cannibal: the Musical, I don’t like Orgazmo.  But this movie is excellent.  It is an amazingly well made musical parody of just about every single style of musical, from Les Mis to Disney to Sound of Music.  The story itself has a purpose to exist as a film because it is about censorship, parental choices, and really nice satire of the “crusade” against cursing.  I really think this movie does everything right.  And its unique animation style makes it in a sense timeless, which is great!  Great movie.
Grade: A+

Much Ado About Nothing (Whedon version) – Lenton Lees
Not every movie that is a good movie I like.  Wes Anderson movies prove that.  As does this one.  One of the best things about Shakespeare is that every adaptation is 100% the director’s intention.  And some of Joss’ choices are awesome.  And some are not.  I think Whedon was able to really elevate the parts of Claudio and Don Pedro fantastically, making both parts have a lot more weight and interest than most versions of the show.  He also made some very good comedic choices early in the film.  But very quickly, the comedy of this comedy goes away.  And that’s … just … wrong.  Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy, pure and simple.  And Whedon treated it as a drama.  And that is a disservice to a lot of the characters, a lot of the language, and a lot of other choices.  Dogberry wasn’t particularly funny, even though he’s written to be.  Don Jon isn’t very menacing because everything is treated so seriously so he isn’t a foil.  Benedict and Beatrice don’t have a banter-filled romance because the banter is more catty and snide than humorous and joyful.  There are some bits I really enjoyed, generally whenever he had the actors get more physical, because otherwise they just pontificate into the wind at each other.  In the end, Whedon focused on the “Much Ado” while forgetting the point that it is all about “Nothing.”
Grade: B-

Oversexed Rugsuckers From Mars! – Jason Abraham
I’ve been saving this one for a Nanarsday review, but I’m MORE than happy to talk about this HORRIBLE MOVIE now!  It is a gloriously terrible movie about a man who has sex with an alien vacuum cleaner, and it becomes a rapist and rapes a woman, who gives birth to a human-vacuum hybrid baby.  It is gross, and hilarious, and terrible.  One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen and I LOVE IT!  I found it randomly years ago, and it is a pride of my collection of films because of its ridiculous-ness.  Really, if anyone ever wanted to watch it, FIND ME and we’ll watch it that second.
Grade: F+

Chasing Amy – Jason Abraham
I have a love/hate relationship with Kevin Smith.  I either love his films and buy into them completely, or hate them and find them worthless.  Chasing Amy falls in the worthless category.  The script is preachy, the situation is so narrow that no one can relate to it, making the characters unlikable and just complainers.  Smith doesn’t direct Affleck very well here, which is crazy considering how great Affleck is in other Smith films.  It just … I just hate this movie.  Give me Dogma, Mallrats, or Clerks II any day.
Grade: C--


Dawn of the Dead; Day of the Dead; Land of the Dead – Tony Daniel
I love this little bit.  I may have never seen Night of the Living Dead, but I have absolutely seen and own all of the Romero trilogy of Dead films.  Comes with being married to a zombie lover.  Let’s touch on all of these:

Dawn of the Dead – This film is perfect.  Acting, tension, shots, characters, story, everything.  This may just be my favorite zombie movie, period.  I was blown away because what I THOUGHT this movie was and what it actually is are two VERY different things.  The effects are real old and not very good looking, but I like to see them like a time capsule of effects, and completely buy into them.  I say it all the time, but dated-ness is not a real negative, and these may not be the best effects, but they are great effects for what they are.  I cannot recommend this film more highly.  Grade: A++

Day of the Dead – I thought this would be my favorite, and I do really like it.  It is much more of what I thought it would be.  And it easily has one of the best villains a zombie film has ever had in it.  It also explores the zombie mythos more, which is very cool, and Romero continues to push the envelope with his characters.  It has better effects and is really interesting … but just not as good as Dawn.  I don’t know if I can put my finger really on why, but I think it is something to do with our protagonist, who while being interesting just isn’t as good of an actress, and the pacing of the film itself is a little off, leading to some boring stretches.  But the effects, and the other characters, are all well worth price of admission here.  Grade: B+

Land of the Dead – So Dawn of the Dead got a remake, and Romero was all “I can make a ‘modern’ zombie film better than that.”  So he continued the story of his world of zombies.  And man, I love it.  It isn’t as good as the last few, but it has some GREAT characters, some awesome world building, and while the plot is less interesting, the overall effect leaves me very happy.  I love this movie, even if it began the decline in quality of Romero’s writing.  Grade: B++

The Man Who Knew Too Little – Beth Lyons
This comedy was actually suggested to me by Beth probably a year or so ago, so I bought it, and I watched it.  I wish I had been writing reviews then, because then I wouldn’t have to think about this movie again.  Oh, yeah, that should make it obvious, I don’t like the movie.  I don’t think it is bad, I just didn’t find most of its comedy very good.  The entire idea is fine, and some of the scenes are fine, but the whole product just leaves me cold, as our protagonist has to be continually stupider and stupider to allow the very thin premise of “believes all the spy stuff is fake, accidentally gets caught in real spy stuff” to continue.  The climax of the film is just long and tedious with the whole Russian dance sequence and the bomb and … ugh.  I just did not care for the film, and really do not think it is very good, and mostly forgettable.
Grade: C--

The Bank Job – Jason Schmidt
Good ole Jason Statham.  Action star, good actor, British.  Ok, so Bank Job isn’t a GREAT movie.  It’s a real good one, though.  Based on a real heist, with some good actors and some great camera work, the film works.  I’ve seen a lot less memorable Statham films, though this one only barely jumps above that pack.  It isn’t great, but it is fun.  And if you are a history person or a heist person, this one may do even more for you.  For me, it was just a good movie.
Grade: B

Jackie Brown – Jason Schmidt
Jackie Brown is a neat little movie.  That actually sounds more belittling than I mean it to.  It has a slow first act, but not a BAD first act, just a slow one, that builds really well to an amazingly well made finish.  Lots of great actors all throughout the film, including the wonderful Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson playing the character that we all actually attribute to him in the modern zeitgeist, and Robert De Niro who may have … 8 lines in the whole movie?  But it is still one of his best roles.  I really like this movie.  It isn’t the easiest sit because of that long first act that really needed an editor, and Robert Foster is good but doesn’t quite keep me as interested for those long sections as Tarantino has found Christoph Waltz can.  But it is still a very good, very ambitious movie.
Grade: B+

State and Main – Jason Schmidt
David Mamet is a playwright, director, and a screenwriter and director.  He is known for things like Glengarry Glen Ross and American Buffalo, but he’s done a lot of other stuff.  State and Main is one of those other stuffs.  It … isn’t particularly good.  There are bits and pieces I really like in there, but there is also some stunt casting that does nothing for me and some of the comedy beats come across VERY Mamet, in that every character rushes through their dialogue as fast as they can.  The actual movie is about the filming of a movie in a little town because they like a stained glass window, and all the turmoil it causes everyone.  I don’t really think it is worth a watch, but for some people, all that fast-talking is actually a turn-on.  If you are a Aaron Sorkin fan, this may just be up your alley.
Grade: C-

Devil’s Advocate – Jason Schmidt
I love talking about good Keanu Reeves films.  Mostly because I think he is an underrated actor.  As an actor myself, I can see the actual “craft” in what he is doing, and I get why for some he doesn’t come across like he acts.  He is very stoic faced a lot of the time, and his voice is generally calm no matter the emotion.  But what Keanu does really well is expression of emotion through his eyes and his body.  There are very few actors who can pull of supreme confidence just by standing there saying nothing like Keanu can.  And there are very few that can show the deterioration of a soul like Keanu can, that slow wearing down that was necessary for this film.  Devil’s Advocate is a GREAT movie.  It is a morality play in a time period when morality was pretty gauche to begin with.  Al Pacino is fantastic in the movie as well.  It is a great film.  One I used to own, and I need to buy again.  I recommend.
Grade: A+

Man on the Moon – Jason Schmidt
The biopic on Andy Kaufman, made by dear friends of Andy Kaufman, paying homage to the man, played by the only person anyone that knew Kaufman thought could play him.  This is a great biopic.  It has great music.  It has great acting.  It has a compelling, albeit very movie-fied as admitted by the prologue of the film, story of the real life of this enigmatic actor.  I own the soundtrack.  I own the film.  I love both.  It is a shame that Jim Carrey did not get the Oscar for this performance, but of course he should have since 1999 was the year of terrible Oscar decisions and Shakespeare in Love sweeping through almost everything.  Man on the Moon was called by some the best picture of 1999, and others just didn’t get it.  Which is kind of perfect when it comes to talking about Andy Kaufman.  I highly recommend to anyone that loves comedy and the history of comedy.
Grade: A++

Mars Attacks! – Jason Schmidt
My dad took me to see this movie.  My mom didn’t like that he did.  It is a weird, silly, off-putting, crazy kind of film.  Definitely not for everyone.  It is absolutely unique, and everything I want from a Tim Burton film.  It also holds the honor of being the only live-action film based on a trading card series, which is a mindboggling piece of information by itself.  A tongue-in-cheek homage to 50s sci-fi horror films, and filled with just … craziness.  Man, I just … this is a weird movie kids.  Too weird to be good, too weird to be bad, it is its own brand of quality.
Grade: W (for weird … I actually give it a C)

The Departed – Jason Schmidt
Hey, wanna know a great movie?  The Departed.  Done.  Go watch a great movie.  What you need more?  How about its pedigree of actors and directors and cinematographers?  I’ll wait while you imdb it.  I know right?  How about the incredible filmmaking just in general?  Or the tight script?  Or the intriguing characters?  Or the amazing conceit?  Or the original that is ALSO good, but this remakes for western audiences in an old school mafia way that transcends the original?  This movie is great.  Period.  Watch it.
Grade: A+

Black Swan – Jason Schmidt
Darren Aronofsky is so so good.  And Black Swan is amazing.  Tense, thrilling, psychological, amazing acting from Natalie Portman (got an Oscar for it, well deserved), this movie is phenomenal.  The music is of course going to be great because it is Swan Lake.  But really, this movie is amazing.  It should have gotten at least a cinematography and a best director nod.  It got neither.  These kind of psychological thinky thrillers tend to not do well in the Oscars.  Aronofsky deserves awards.  And this film is one of his best, written as if tailored to his style specifically even though it wasn’t.  Watch this very very intense film some time.
Grade: A++

Waterworld – Jason Schmidt
Waterworld is one of the biggest financial flops in history.  Doesn’t make it a bad movie, though.  It makes it a great punchline, but as a fantasy movie, it is actually all kinds of AWESOME.  The setting is all practical and all amazing.  The acting is great from Dennis Hopper and even Kevin Costner.  The script is a great story filled with little nods and secrets to the what happened in the world.  The action is awesome.  I love the movie, and really don’t understand why others don’t.  Maybe because they only know the joke and never actually watched the thing.  Give it a chance.
Grade: A++

12 Monkeys – Jason Schmidt
Time travel movies are difficult, and sometimes their plots just don’t quite add up.  Other times they are too simple.  12 Monkeys is both.  Confusing and simple.  I don’t think it is a bad movie, it has some real interesting parts to it and some good acting.  But I ultimately found it boring.
Grade: B-

Four Rooms – Jason Schmidt
Four very different vignettes from four pretty different directors all based around rooms in a hotel.  Uh … I guess I’ll say this: Tim Roth is great.  Each individual sequence is so incredibly different I’ll just grade each one.
Part 1: D
Part 2: C-
Part 3: A+
Part 4: B+
So when I watch it, I just skip to the middle.  Yup.

Deathproof – Jason Schmidt
Man, I do not know how to talk about this one ... ok, lemme list the things that are good. The direction is fantastic. The movie looks and FEELS good, from a filmmaking and thematic standpoint. Kurt Russel is AMAZING as Stuntman Mike. The action and car sequences are really amazing and frenetic. A lot of the things that I love from Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained are here and this is the prototype for him directing like that. This movie is a bridge from his old style (which I generally don't care for) and his new style. There is a lot to like. But this movie SERIOUSLY needed an editor. A stronger edit would have helped this movie incredibly. And another sequence of Stuntman Mike doing what he does would have been perfect. Trim down all the standard Tarantino talky talk that didn't really do very much and give us another Stuntman Mike sequence. Tarantino learned to trim himself for Basterds and Django, making much stronger, engaging films. And that's the problem, I suppose. I really wanted to be engaged the whole time, and was really only engaged when Kurt Russel was onscreen and for the basics of the chicks. The genre subversion at the end was interesting, but for me, abrupt, and right at the end, I actually found myself rooting for Stuntman Mike because I knew more about him and understood him better, and he had less dialog than the chicks that I was supposed to be rooting for. Showing, not telling, made him a stronger, more engaging character. And they just left Mary Elizabeth Winestead with the crazy redneck! What the heck!? This movie is hard to grade. I can see myself wanting to watch it again, and I LOVED everything with Kurt Russel, but I dunno if I wanna slog through the rest.Grade: B-

High Fidelity – Jason Schmidt
One of the first “serious” comedies I’ve ever seen, it made a huge impact on me.  I am a collector and sponge for media much like John Cusack is in the film, though my own life and his represented in the film has nothing in common, and I don’t actually relate to him, but that doesn’t actually matter.  He resonates.  And his relationship struggles opened my eyes.  The film is unique, which is a huge plus.  It is a really well written and well acted film, so that’s real cool.  Honestly, though, it just didn’t stick with me like I thought it would, and I don’t care to see it again.  I don’t hate it.  I just don’t like it.  I remember how good it was, but that’s the extent of it.
Grade: A

Harvey – Cindy Carrin
The only Jimmy Stewart film I’ve seen and loved.  It is a great play, a great old movie, and just awesome all around.  A classic.  You absolutely should watch it.  Everyone.  Do it.
Grade: A+






And there we have it!  A LOT of films reviewed in a handy dandy quick way with beautiful pictures that took me way too long to format.  Thanks everyone, and I am positive I will do an exercise like this again!  Until tomorrow, where we have some newer films, a Wes Anderson film, some wrestling, and probably other stuff!

IHAO on ... A Monster in Paris

My wife loves all things French.  Food, decor, film, music, the whole she-bang.  One of my roommates loves animation, in just about every form.  I love gothic storytelling.  So this movie hit all our buttons, in different ways, and we all walked away feeling good about this movie, though some a little more good than others.

A Monster in Paris is a French animated film.  The story is that the Seine has flooded most of the low portions of Paris, and the people are looking for a new leader.  At the same time, two young men are looking for love.  After curiosity strikes and they accidentally create an enormous singing flea monster, the monster finds his way to burlesque (basically) where the main singer and star names him Francoeur.  It soon becomes a big monster hunt as our bad guy tries to make Francoeur out to be a monster, and our protagonists all look for love and music in their lives.

The film is very beautifully animated, and very fast paced.  A little too fast paced for me, actually, as I wanted much more of Francoeur and much more singing.  The film is not quite a musical, as there really are not enough musical moments for that to be the case, so it comes across as this really nice semi-gothic, Phantom of the Opera meets Jules Verne adventure movie.  It is absolutely a family friendly film.  It is clever, inventive, beautiful, and very well made.  I wish there was more music moments, and more of the beautiful beautiful Sean Lennon (yes, that Lennon, he's Yoko and John's son) singing.  I cannot give this film less than an A, but I am conflicted on how much I like the film.  In the end, I'll never forget it, and talk about with many people, and really, there isn't a better way to say you like something.

Watch this movie.  It'll will be worth your while.

Grade: A+

IHAO on ... Big Hero 6

This may just be the hardest review I've ever had to write.  Why?  Because my subjective opinion makes me really really look down on this perfectly fine and fun kids action movie.  Let me make that perfectly clear, because you will see me using more words talking about how much I don't like it: I like this movie, and it is a very fun and good kids movie.  It is not a great movie.  But it is a good movie for kids.

Why am I having such a hard time with this?  Because I love Big Hero 6, the comic book.  And as an adaptation, this movie is utter trash.  The only thing that even remotely resembles the comic book is the characters names and Go Go Tomago.  That's it.  The setup, the setting, the backgrounds of the characters, the characters powers, the character's costumes, the themes, the bad guys, the style of superhero story.  Every single other thing is so utterly different that there is no point in this even being an adaptation.  Any of those things I listed are fine to change in an adaptation - in fact, they should be changed.  Some.  Not completely.  Not to be 100% unrecognizable to the people who you are trying to draw in off the recognition of the name, because that name doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things unless you know the source material, which doesn't factor into the movie at all!!  In fact, if it wasn't called Big Hero 6, if it had different character names, and if Go Go's powers were replaced with some other powers, this movie I would have liked more.

I'm going to explain myself better, jeez.  I told you this one was hard to write!

Ok, the good things: it is beautiful.  This film has some location shots that I cannot fathom were not real locations, they are so beautifully put together.  The camerawork and direction of this film is fantastic.  The acting is ... well, it isn't great, but the more I think about it, the more some characters really stood out: Scott Adsit's Baymax easily, but also Daniel Henney as Tadashi.  Maya Rudolph and T.J. Miller were a little distractingly ad lib sounding, and Genesis Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr. were both a little distracting in general, overall the voice cast did a good job.  And to be fair, I am being really nitpicky.

The real problem, for me as a film critic and not just a lover of the source material (as bastardized as this movie is from it), is the script.  Beyond the adaptation, which I could talk about for another couple thousands words I'm sure, this script is very very strangely written.  It is not a team movie like you would think a movie that is titled after the name of the team in the movie should be.  No, it is about Hiro, a genius teenage robotics whiz-kid, and his relationship with his brother, Tadashi, and his brother's robot, Baymax.  That is what the movie is about.  All the other characters probably have ... a fourth the screentime that these three do.  The dialogue is hackneyed, the callbacks are plentiful and lame, and the story is very small feeling, which is unfortunate.  There area total of 6 people who worked on the script, not to mention the original character creators from the comics.  That is a lot of voices to have to juggle in one script, and doesn't even begin to mention all the producers' voices and the directors'.  The product of all these voices is a very marketable, very cliche, very ... watchable film.  The story twists aren't twisty at all, the characters are two-dimensional at best, the pacing is very very segmented, there is even a tie-in Fall Out Boy-sung montage section, the emotional beats are humdrum ...

But then I look back at my wife, who sat next to me at the movies.  And for her, these characters were all real, and enjoyable.  The story, while cliche and been-there-done-that-nothing-new-or-even-different territory, still hit home, and the emotions she felt for these characters, especially Baymax, were very genuine.

Like I said, this isn't a bad movie.  Nowhere near one.  It is a good movie.  It is a good movie, not a great one, that just happens to fail in ways that irk me much MUCH stronger than most viewers, I bet.  This is a film I will own, because I know my kids will enjoy it.  And I will sit down with them, and watch it.  This isn't Guardians of the Galaxy, which was a great superhero team movie that was able to balance humor, action, emotion, character, and be smart and clever in its writing, but it is a good place to start.  This is a hard one to grade.  But I feel good, because I have at least presented an honest critique, and my honest opinion.  And that's what you come here for, at least, every Monday through Friday at 10 AM.  I think.  Ok, now I'm the bad writer.  Let's ... just ... end this ... now.

See ya Monday.

Bye.

Grade: B+-

IHAO on ... TMNT - READER REQUEST

Requested by Lenton Lees

I haven't done a request in awhile.  Probably because of being busy and dealing with all sorts of other real world things, it is much easier to review things I have already put on tap to review or just rely on my slowly dwindling bank of reviews.  I plan to make it up to you all very soon.  But that's neither here nor there.  Let's talk about a CGI action movie sequel to a live action kung fu kids franchise, made 14 years after the last film in the franchise.

TMNT is a direct sequel to the 90s live action franchise.  The 90s film franchise, by the way, is so incredibly varied on skill and how good each film is.  Eesh.  That's neither here nor there, though, as we are talking about the fourth film in the storyline.  Yes, the fourth film, despite being 14 years removed, having a plot that is incredibly different, and taking a small leap forward in the timeline, and being a different film medium as animated instead of live action, is indeed a sequel.  Do you need to have seen the other four to know that?  Nope, in fact most people didn't know it while watching.  Many probably didn't after watching.

Ok, so plot.  Enormous war in the past, time travel, immortality, monsters, all of that is around.  But the real story is about brotherhood.  The turtles, after the events of the third movie, have all gone their own ways, doing their own thing: Leo has left the country to meditate and become a better leader, Donny is focusing on his technology and more interestingly a career, Mikey is trying to find something to do, and Raph is going out solo, refusing to take a back seat.  Much as the first film is mostly about Raph, the second mostly about Donny, and the third mostly about Mikey, this fourth film really emphasizes on Leo and what it means to be the "leader" and how that is different from being a "brother."  Leo tends to be good at leadership, but bad at remembering to be a brother.

That's kind of deep, kids movie.  I wish you had focused on it more, but still, nice for doing it at least some.

The pacing is fun, the animation is really good looking (for the non-humans), and the entire film is enjoyable.  Since time is limited in film, we do have some gaffs in storytelling that lead to skipping things that would have been more interesting to watch and watching things I wish we had just skipped, as well as focusing a little too much on Raph than the other turtles.  It isn't a perfect film, but hey, the other three aren't either.  I think it fits in perfectly fine with the others in its franchise, and in fact makes a pretty fun closer.  Not great, but definitely underrated.

Grade: B

IHAO on ... The Nut Job

The Nut Job is a rare thing in film: an intelligent, intricate, genre savvy, interesting kids film that has handicapped heroes, no love story, and a protagonist who is not a clear-cut good person and does not become one at the end.  It is also a film that is almost completely ruined by a single aspect of the recipe that IS film.  Before I dissect the children's film like a frog in seventh grade biology, let's talk about the plot and characters first.

The Nut Job is very much a complicated heist film with all sorts of cartoon woodland critters as our protagonists instead of a bunch of eclectic thieves or down-on-their-luck workers or OCD fellas who are just trying to get their pills.  This very much is Over the Hedge meets Flypaper.  Our protagonist is a surly squirrel (named Surly) who doesn't quite get along with the rest of the park animals, especially Raccoon, who is the leader of the community.  Through a series of circumstances, he ends up kicked from the community and stumbles upon a human bank heist that is using a nut store as their front.  So he works on a heist of the nuts as the humans work on a heist of a nearby bank.

The plot is complicated in a wonderful way.  Every important prop is always shown but never explicitly so that the audience can put the puzzle pieces together.  Every character turn is highlighted perfectly so that they all make sense.  Small moments pay off later in the film for the observant watcher, but are not necessary to understand any character's motivations or goals.

The animation studio did incredibly well.  Every animal looks great, and MOVES great.  It is shocking just how often the animals move like animals.  It reminds me of Disney films like the Aristocats and the Jungle Book that worked so hard to have their animals (for the most part) move like real animals.  The animation is crisp, and all the visuals work.  There are plenty of visual only jokes, and all of them hit perfectly.

The characters are all vivid and interesting, with the only real offender being Katherine Heigl's Andie but even she has more going on than just "love interest," which is a nice change of pace.  The "romance" of the film is a deep friendship between Surly and Buddy, his only buddy, a mute rat that he truly cares for, even if he isn't always kind to him.  It is a touching friendship, and just another great thing within the storytelling of the film.

But ...

So, let's talk about the thing that almost ruins the film: the sound and score.  Every. single. piece. of. music. feels out of place.  The best songs in the score are merely adequate and still don't quite hit the mark.  And everything else is off the wall bonkers and doesn't make any sense.  Then, on top of that, every now and again, you get an off the wall sound effect, ala Looney Tunes, that doesn't actually work in the film's reality.  Looney Tunes exists in a "cartoon logic" world.  Most films try to ground things more, with just a little bit of "cartoon physics" but ultimately they hold tight to their reality to create a stronger cohesion of story.  So imagine how odd it is when a pretty well grounded film with the great animation I mentioned before has a rat get thrown into an alley, and you hear him bump around into the trash cans ... and then you hear a cat yowl.  It is a pretty standard sound effect joke for cartoons.  But in an animated film that is more grounded like this one, it just ... doesn't make any sense.  Was there a cat?  Did it eat the animal?  When the main characters are squirrels and rats and moles and dogs ... hearing a cat just makes you wonder "is that cat joining the film's story?"

Oh, and one other thing.  The dialogue is... bad is too strong.  But it certainly isn't great.  Will Arnet does the best he can, as does Brenden Fraser, but mostly the dialogue is kind of stock or ultimately just perfunctory.

Even with those very very bad elements, the storytelling and plotting of this film, and the overall acting makes this film, that could be a forgotten piece of garbage.  But instead we have a ... forgotten piece of pretty good movie, but not great.  But I definitely think it is worth the watch.  I bet you'll be shocked by how well crafted the film is ... except for its terrible terrible sound.  Oh, and get ready for a lot of Gangnam Style.

Grade: B+

OH!  And there is an amazingly poignant after credits scene that is sad, touching, and one of the best final scenes I've ever seen.  It pulls no punches and is ... I just don't know how to describe it without spoiling so many elements of the film.  Stick through the credits.  It is 100% worth it.

IHAO on ... Bee Movie

Jerry Seinfeld is an anthropomorphic insect who is Jewish, from New York, funny, and the world is slightly off-kilter to make a stronger point of the themes within his written and produced ethic-ality comedy.  Ethic-ality, by the way, is a sideways take on morality.  Like, morality stories are about right and wrong in a sense of natural human rights.  Don't murder, be good to other people, so on so on.  Ethic-ality are about the right and wrong of societal rights.  Don't litter, be an observant citizen, so on so on.  It is a weird thing to think about, because it is not the stuff that films are generally made of.  And it is one of the things that makes this movie great!

Oh yeah, did I not say that?  Did I lead you on in some weird way?  Well I didn't mean to.  Because this movie is the bee's knees, and all that and a bag of chips.  It is hilarious.  It is a laugh riot, and I mean that!  That phrase gets thrown around a lot, but think about a riot.  Just a nonstop barrage of laughs, yelling because their hockey team lost, ripping up lampposts, stealing televisions, and lighting cars on fire.  Except all those things are jokes.  The first 3 minutes are filled with so many puns, jokes, nonsequiturs, and wonderfully hilarious curiosities that I was dumbfounded.  My brain had been overloaded by the laugh riot.

Hot Rod is super funny, you guys.

I'm saying the movie is funny.

Not only that, it is interesting.  It just goes in directions that I could not predict.  It is wholly and completely ... unique.  Unprecedented.  And really excellent.  Great voice acting all around.  Hilarious characterizations.  Jokes that will stick with me for a long time, without a doubt.  It is touching and curious and hilarious.  It is beautiful and super well animated.  It takes chances that PG family movies do not take any longer.  And its the reason I love Dreamworks films.  Pixar is fine, but when Dreamworks does it great, it is just fantastic.

Oh plot.  A bee is finally going to get his job, which all bees do for the rest of their lives.  And that sits a little odd with him.  So he finds a way out of the hive, meets a human, breaks the bee rules and talks to the human, learns about the honey industry, and sues them.

And you should probably know what my grade is going to bee ...

Grade: B

...

Ok, it's an A+, but the joke is too good.

IHAO on ... Free Birds

Thank goodness.  Torture-Jessel-A-Thon was a rousing ... well, I dunno, I enjoyed it.  I found two films that were generally worth having and sharing, and got to vent about a bunch of terrible ones.  But now it is time to show the other side of the past week.  That's right, I do not just watch the things I am about to write about and then write about them.  I also do other things, mostly because as an insomniac and a lazy sod, I have a lot of time on my hands.  So this week I'm going to go over the things I did to save myself from the horrors of last week's torture.  A few IHAFs will be coming down the pipeline, I'm sure of it.  So stay tuned.  Now, on to a new movie to review!

Netflix, you bring me such wonderful toys.  I get to just set my sights on things and decide "yes I'll watch them" and then I tell you how much I hate them or love them, and then you bring me more things which I can absorb, chew up intellectually and spit out or swallow, and the cycle continues.  Of course, you aren't a perfect system.  And sometimes, gross bits of bones and gristley bits get thrown in with what should be good.  If you are not understanding what I mean by this, Free Birds sucks.

*sigh* I thought the torture would be over, but no.  In my own respite, I just ended up torturing myself, all alone, in the middle of the night, as I tried to write a review about Popeye.  Imagine the pain, the agony ... ok, well, you are imagining too much.  I suppose I shouldn't have worded it like that.  Let's stop with all this frivolous extra fluffy bits and get right to the crunchy review.

Free Birds is a 3D children's adventure film about turkeys, time travel, and saving Thanksgiving.  A few things to keep in mind.  1) This was intended for children, not to entertain adults the whole time, and certainly not to engage anyone in the politicals of Thanksgiving times.  Don't get hung up on the fact that time travel is not used on a better purpose, like saving the Indians from their years of abuse because of expansionist Soverign doctrine of the state, or stopping the Holocaust, or making sure Justin Bieber never found youtube.  This was all contrived on its simple pitch: turkeys travel to the first thanksgiving and save all turkeys.  2) Children's movies also should be good, with high quality, good scripts, excellent film making, and everything else you judge and critique films on.  Just being a genre made for the young doesn't mean you are allowed to make crappy work.  There are great children's films just like there are bad ones.  Free Birds is a bad one.

Plot.  Cowardly, quirky, nerdy turkey is screwed by everyone he knows, then rewarded.  He then gets forced to do a thing he doesn't want to do, and gets rewarded.  He then allows a mistake to happen, blames himself even though it isn't his fault, runs away from his problems, and gets rewarded.  Then he brings pilgrims pizza with blatant Chuck E. Cheese advertising, and changes time forever, except not enough that he alters the future so that none of it happens.  End with an implied rape joke.

I can't decide if I want to use this as just an "implied rape" wave or a broader "inappropriate joke" wave.  Either way, Tosh would have improved this movie.

This movie isn't good.  And even worse, its morals, the thing that makes a kids film worth watching, are atrocious.  Not only that, the film is shoddy.  The animation is awful.  Like, Shrek 1 awful.  Truly terrible designs and horrifyingly bad skin on all the humans, who are in a not small part of this film.  It is crazy to me that the movie came out last year and looks like this.

Even worse than that, the comedy is just not.  It isn't comedy.  It is failed attempts at making jokes.  It is sad, really.  Even the one good joke they used in the trailer they ruin with a 30 second laughing montage with everyone laughing at their own jokes.  Characters are generally terrible or at best, dumb.  And not in a good Rocky way, either.  In a "I forgot what I was doing three seconds ago" "I'm a goldfish" kind of way.  And not a single voice actor seems like they are trying in the least ... except for Keith David, who can no wrong.

I will give the movie this.  There is a sequence that is pretty great where Woody Harrelson's turkey escapes the factory he is from, trying to save all the turkey eggs given to him as their last hope, but he just can't do it, and the film genuinely treats this moment with some weight.  Harrelson doesn't care enough to act any more than the minimum, so there isn't any emotional weight for the character, but it is nice that it is there.  Also, unlike Happy Feet, this movie doesn't choke you in its environmental message.  It knows it has one, but wants to stay true to its silly premise more than doing that.  And I can get behind that.  Oh, and it never once played Freebird.  Way to go not falling to peer pressure.

Yup, sounds about right.  I am really not into southern rock.

But yeah, this movie is bad.  What a way to start my week off of torture.  See you soon with some more.

Grade: F

IHAO on ... The Cat From Outer Space

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics n/a ; Audience 59%

Flickchart - 5265 of 28311 i.e. in the top ten percent

IMDB - 5.9 rating

Metacritic - n/a

Amazon.com - 4.6 stars

Another cat film.  So soon.  Oy vey.  I dunno if I can handle it.  But I have to.  The reviews must go on!  Let's stick this puppy ... kitty in and get going.  The stats are at least better than the last few.  Actually ... they are way better.  What's the big idea?  Is this going to not be torturous?!  Dare I have an actual good movie to watch this week to break up the crash and burn to the bottom of the film trash heap?  I'm excited!

The Cat From Outer Space is a family science fiction-ish film made by Disney in 1978.  And it is filled with a lot of amazing actors from the time, many I was surprised to recognize.  Thank goodness for The Muppet Show.  The schtick is that a spaceship lands and needs repairs, and the alien is a cat.  But the military are on the scene immediately, and take the ship.  They then gather scientists to figure it out, which leads to three scientists helping the cat, affectionately named Jake, to send him off, but some secret bad guy group wants his power!  Everything is good by the end, we are reaffirmed that America is indeed great, and we go home happy.

The special effects are what you expect from a late 70s film ... actually, that's not fair.  That leads that I think the effects are bad.  And they aren't, most of them are really great.  Sure, I can see the composites easily, and in HD I can spot all the wires, but that doesn't really make them bad.  Merely ... authentic, more time capsule and enjoyable than a mistake.  And the effects that works are superb.  There is a surprising amount of stunt work, and all of it is awesome.  I was on the edge of my seat for the finale for the most part.

The acting is all earnest, and the actors all inhabit their characters and do a great job.  They were all believable and funny, serious when need be, but mostly just having a good time, and that's great.  The cat was an incredible actor, too.  Not often do you see such a good acting animal in film.  The music is pretty awesome too.  It hit all the right notes, musically and tonally, and almost always helped drive the action and the scenes forward.  The script was also very tight.  It told a story with a bunch of competent characters, being competent, trying to solve problems.  The characters were written well, the dialogue made sense, the jokes were right on point.  Really great.

So why don't I love this movie?

But ... but, you said all the good things ... I don't understand.

A few reasons I can think of, I suppose.  The film clocks in at 104 minutes.  That isn't too long, now that we've had Jacksonian "epics" shoved down our throats for years.  But for this film, even with the plotting being so tight, it lead to ... space.  Each scene had a little bit of just extra ... space in it.  It's like every scene was bloated, every action and series of shots need some trimming.  So the movie starts to drag.  And the very climactic finale, with amazing plane and helicopter stunts and a daring rescue ... all starts falling flat after you keep watching the same thing for 3 minutes.

This film was suggested with the conceit that it may actually be good, but it put that reader to sleep when they watched it.  And I get that.  The tension, while being there, is never really cranked up.  The music doesn't stand out or get my heart going.  Every obstacle is overcome with a smile and a laugh, and in act 3 many of them are just bypassed entirely, like entering the base, or in Act 1 when escaping the base and how easy that turns out to be.  The movie never really cranks itself up into that next gear, and that plus the fatted scenes make it just kind of waddle along.  Enjoyably waddle, but nonetheless it takes awhile.

Also, there is a whole subplot/theme of Red Scare in here.  We even have a spy working for an evil organization ... a non-Communist, non-Russian organization run by a Mugatu look alike.  He isn't menacing, and in fact, the spy becomes merely comic relief, which was unnecessary with all the smiling and joking our heroes are doing and the comic relief already present in the military.  The whole thing came across as unnecessary, and then you have the cat Jake sworn into citizenship at the end.

I feel like you are giving me mixed signals.

I dunno.  The movie is really good.  And I know I liked it.  But I don't know if I'd ever really feel like watching it again.  I could certainly have it on in the background, that'd be fine.  And I know owning it so it can be shared with others will be fun.  But for all the really good in it ... there's some really unfortunate setbacks that keep me from really loving it, as well as keeping it from being a truly great movie.  It aims to be a good one, and it succeeds there.

Grade: B+

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)  Grade: C
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)  Grade: D--
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)  Grade: F+
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)  Grade: F---
• June 7^th – The Cat from Outer Space (from Nicole Clockel)  Grade: B+
• June 8^th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)
• June 9^th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!

IHAO on ... Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 10% ; Audience 30%

Flickchart - 21936 of 28311 i.e. in the bottom quarter

IMDB - 3.7 rating

Metacritic - 19

Amazon.com - 3.2 stars

Dr. Seuss just doesn't translate to film, so it seems.  I mean, for some reason, people want to tear at the seams and take the good stuff and rip it apart, really twist it and break it and tear out its heart until it becomes some new somethingmajigger, thinking it has to be DIFFERENT and BIGGER.  The Lorax and Horton, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, all of it garbage and they just ask forgiveness for ruining all our beloved Seuss books with environmentalism, consumerism, some new age plot hooks.  I don't want to be mad, I don't want to be upset; I'm just tired of really crap movies made for how much money they'll get.

The Cat in the Hat *cough cough* sorry, something took me over.  This movie, the Cat in the Hat, is awful.  Plain and simple.  It fails in every regard.  It is poorly made in every regard.  The worst stuff ... ok, I'm gonna save the worst stuff.  Let's talk about plot.  Of the movie, to be clear, not the book.

A woman has one absolutely terrible son and a pretty good, if bossy, daughter.  She doesn't discipline them well ... because their father is dead? Gone? Nonexistent? Doesn't matter, the movie never ever brings it up, not a single time.  She is a dating a terrible person, who is truly dreadful, but it doesn't matter because his evil plan is to send the terrible son to military school, which he 100% SHOULD be sent to.  Anyway, woman tells the kids "do not go in the living room."  Then the Cat shows up, and ruins everything all to make some half-assed point about "responsible fun" ... kinda ... and destroys the house, and then they stop the boyfriend from telling the mom that YES IN FACT the kids had destroyed the house, which they did with the Cat ... and then they get everything cleaned without any true difficulty and the bad boyfriend, who was totally in the right the whole movie despite his evilness, and no one suffers any consequences for their actions at all, and no one learns any real lessons, just some half-assed "loosen up sometimes, but also don't be too loose, and have fun" garbage.

That's just the PLOT.  And characterizations.  And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are terrible sound effects all the time, way more than are necessary, and mostly are confusing and out of place.  The editing is really bad, especially in a spacial reasoning way.  People will look out windows and see things that they just logically cannot.  People park their cars, then the car disappears as we get an insert of them walking.  The house's size and shape constantly alters its shape and layout.  Fast things look slow, slow things look fast.  And they do the terrible terrible "speed things up because that makes it more funny" thing that Lenny the Wonder Dog did ... but Lenny the Wonder Dog had the courtesy to at least amp it up and be obvious about it, instead of kinda of pretending to not do it.

And the jokes.  Oh god, the jokes.  And Mike Myers!  OH GOD, MIKE MYERS!  Mike Myers is incredibly miscast in this film.  This film wants to treat the Cat in the Hat as a Robin Williams Genie-styled character.  And Myers' skill set and acting range is just not that vast.  That is not what he is good at.  But Shrek was doing well, and he's played multiple characters before, so sure, let's try it.  And it is just so so awful.  He is constantly making jokes that no kid would understand or care about, and even worse, laugh at EVER. SINGLE. JOKE. HE. SAYS.  The movie straight up laughs at its own jokes CONSTANTLY.  It tries to force you to laugh along with it.  Look, I actually went and learned how to make gifs using the internet to do it easily with no difficulty to make a gif of this movie.  This gif sums up the entire film in one two second clip repeated over and over again for all eternity.

PLEASE LAUGH!!!

This movie is painful.  I was constantly pausing and yelling and getting up my nerve to go back and keep watching.  Even the production design, which is semi-interesting, is hollow and missing that charm of a Seuss book.  This movie doesn't CARE about being a Seuss book.  It cares about trying to bank on your memories and on an intellectual cash cow of a property.  You know what the plot of the original Cat in the Hat is?  Here, I'll tell you:

Two kids are bored at home because it is raining.  A magical cat shows up, offering to do some tricks, but ends up making a big mess.  Eventually he pulls in Thing 1 and Thing 2, and they make a bigger mess.  But he cleans it all up just in time for the mother to get home, where she asks the kids what they did, and we are prompted to wonder "What would you tell your mother in this situation?" Basically.

Yeah, I know, it is just whimsy and fun and a simple concept of being responsible when bored and trying to find something to do.  The Cat represents the kids imagination of doing something, ANYTHING, and their fish represents the "angel" on their shoulder, reminding them to be responsible.  And when everything is fine just as their mom gets home, we have to wonder if it is worth telling her "we messed everything up, but we cleaned it up before you got here" or not.  That is something simple, but surprisingly deep, and something that is profoundly kid-oriented.  But ... this ... GOD AWFUL ... TERRIBLE ... CURSE WORD SPEWING OUT OF MY MOUTH THOUGH I AM NOT TYPING THEM MOVIE ... it loses ALL of that in an attempt to make it about ... evil boyfriends and military school and trusting your kids? and not having to own up to any mistakes? and being conradictory to force others to fix things for you? and playing with creepy men that just show up in your house?! and signing contracts for NO REASON IT IS ABSOLUTELY MIND-NUMBINGLY RANCOROUS VILE EXCRIMENT OF CREATIVITY TO MAKE THIS WHOLE TERRIBLE MOVIE!

This hits the bottom of my barrel.  So far, very few films have made me feel the way this one does.  And most people disagree with me on those.  So for some, this might be the absolute bottom.  For me ... I'm not sure I can rank the bottom movies well enough for me to be comfortable saying it.  But I can say that the surprise review at the end of this torturous Torture-Jessel-A-Thon makes me as mad as this movie, and has just as many technical problems and miscasting problems and god awful terrible EVERYTHINGS makes me rip off my clothes and cover myself in ash as I scream to the heavens in anger, frustration, and sadness.  Stay tuned.

Grade: F---

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)  Grade: C
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)  Grade: D--
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)  Grade: F+
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)  Grade: F---
• June 7^th – The Cat from Outer Space (from Nicole Clockel)
• June 8^th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)
• June 9^th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!