IHAO on ... Popeye

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 57% ; Audience 38%

Flickchart - 3778 of 28311 i.e. in the top five percent

IMDB - 5.1 rating

Metacritic - 48

Amazon.com - 4.0 stars

Popeye the sailor man *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous forearms of any person or character, and 100% the most famous eating habits to provide him with his heroic powers.  Robin Williams *toot toot* is a particularly famous character, with perhaps the most famous obnoxious comedy career of any person or character, and 100% the most famous changing-funny-characters-in-kids-movies habits provided by his villainous pop culture powers.  Shelley Duval *toot toot* is a particularly famous actress, with perhaps the most famous tall stretched-like-Gumby body of any woman or character, and 100% is the only actress who could have played Olive Oyl.

I'm going to stop doing that.  I'm just wasting time.  I don't care how good the stats up there say this movie is.  Popeye sucks.

Goodnight.  I'm done.

What?  What do you want me to say?  After this whole week, after all the garbage I've had to sit through, you want me to actually give some kind of care in the world about the point-by-point analysis of one of the worst musicals I've ever seen in my life?  Why?  Why do you care?  You knew the movies I was reviewing this week were going to be terrible.  That's why they were suggested.  Why did I even do this to myself at all?

You know what, I got my pride.  I got my dignity.  I got my drive to actually make something of myself in the world through my writing and my critiquing of films suggested to me and that I search out for the entertainment and inform-ment of the masses ... of 30ish people that read this site.  Fine, I'll do it.

First things first, the production design is really cool.  They built a whole city on the cliffs, complete with working ships of fabulous design and all sorts of working parts and interesting, cartoony visuals.  The costuming and hair and make up for everyone is really awesome, too.  They all look like actually living cartoon characters, and when the film does little tiny moments of cartoonism, it works sometimes, mostly on the strength of the designs.  And every now and again, a joke works.  Not every joke.  Not even most jokes.  Some jokes.  But finding those good jokes is like searching for M&Ms in a bowl filled with flour ... with your mouth.

And that's all.  That's the end of the good things in this movie.  I couldn't even make it through the single paragraph in this review dedicated to good things about Popeye without pointing out its blandness and badness.  I ignored the part about how bland and boring all the color schemes are.  Everything is in browns and blues, and it just looks like mud and dirt and water and every now and again somewhere wears red.  It is maddeningly bland.

There is not a story, but a serious of happenings.  Popeye arrives.  Olive Oyl breaks her engagement.  They find a baby.  They go to the tracks.  Popeye wins a boxing match.  They meet Popeye's lost father.  Bluto captures Olive Oyl.  Popeye fights an Octopus.  Nothing segues from one thing to the next.  They just happen, with uninteresting, uninspired, boring and repetitive musical numbers mixed in.  You'd think with the energy and fervor of Popeye cartoons, that some of that would translate.  You'd think with the supposedly amazing group of people working on this film, it would be good.  But its award winning director, cinematographer, writer, and composer all just look like amateurs.  This movie makes it look like they just do not know what they are doing.  AT ALL.

The musical nature of the film is an after thought, which even the movie doesn't care about, so why the hell should I?  Characters constantly talk over the musical numbers, or other things are happening while people are singing and dancing.  Not high tempo singing and dancing though.  This movie must think it is in a backwards musical variation of Speed: if the tempo of a song goes above 60 bpm (beats per minute) then everyone in the audience will die in an explosion.  I wish I had.

Actually, can I be the guy on the motorcycle?  Also, this movie?  Gonna get a review soon.  It's nuts.

Ok, that isn't true.  I don't wish death on myself.  Or really on anyone in the movie.  The actors don't do a bad job of embodying the characters, and all have little bits and quirks to make them be more cartoony.  But the film itself doesn't care about that.  There's no focus given to any of it.  Everything is played basically straight, which brings everything down.  It takes all the vim and vinegar, all the lock, stock, and barrel, all the song and dance, all the FUN out of the movie.  This film is mirthless, and unenjoyable.  I don't hate it as much as I've hated other films ... but I certainly do hate it.  And it is absolutely terrible.

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)  Grade: B+
• June 8^th – Popeye (from Drew Turner)  Grade: F--
• June 9^th – SURPRISE JESSEL'S ALMOST-MOST HATED MOVIE!!

And look at that, tomorrow we get to the surprise review.  I hope you are excited, because I bet I'll be making a bunch of you angry!!  See ya tomorrow!

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!!

IHAO on ... Lenny the Wonder Dog

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics -- ; Audience 39%

Flickchart - n/a

IMDB - 3.5 rating

Metacritic - n/a

Amazon.com - 3.0 stars (with only two reviews, one a 1 star, and one a joke review at 5 stars)

Those stats are not very good.  Let's see if I cannot find something else to help out before we jump in.  Ahh, here we go, a clip of Craig Ferguson, actor and villain of the film, talking about it:

Note to self: Get Boat Trip

If that isn't the best little interview and reason to watch this movie, I don't know what is.  Not only that, but this one was donation fodder!  That's right, I was PAID to watch this movie and add it to my collection.  So you know its gotta be bad.  And it is.  It very very much is.

The story here is that a scientist made a chip that makes dogs smart, put it in his dog so a more evil scientist can't steal it, and the dog, Lenny, runs off and finds an androgynous child and then they stop the evil scientist, Craig Ferguson.  Also, this movie exists in a world where cartoons are a drug and many people go to rehab for it.  Oh, and Michael Winslow plays a cop again.

This movie is awful.  Purely and terribly awful.  The music is ridiculous video game out-of-place songs, all of it too loud and mixed terribly so watching it makes it almost impossible to hear the dialogue when the music is playing.  The film "looks good" because when shot on a nicer camera, of course it looks good.  But it isn't shot well at all, with a bunch of terrible angles or just pointless ones.  The lighting is mostly garbage, and there are a lot of lighting gags.  But it is garbage because it is inconsistent, and noticeable.  You want those little things to be stuff the regular, non-critic viewing audience doesn't notice.  The plot and characters are nonsensical at best and just absolutely ridiculous and terrible at worst.  

Well don't be THAT harsh, gif!

To say something nice, there are a LOT of jokes thrown at you here ... and a pretty good amount of them are actually funny.  Way more of them are unintentionally funny, as is most of the movie.  But there are some jokes that, while they don't make any sense logically, are truly hilarious, like Hanky and Panky, the two "identical twin" henchmen, one of them has a terrible lisp (in that his performance is awful) and is a recovering cartoon addict, and the other is so tall and muscular his head is never in the shot.  See, the head-never-in-the-shot gag, that's a funny gag.  But their names, the terrible lisp, their awful costuming ... nothing else works correctly.  There's a difference between a joke working and the audience laughing.  And this movie straddles that line ... then falls off onto the "utter garbage" side of filmmaking.  They even skip an entire cut scene with a terrible cartoon comic-book-style storyboard of the fight.

This movie is perfect, is what I'm trying to say.  Perfect to watch and make fun of, perfectly terrible but earnest in its attempt to make a good family film, perfect to even watch it fail at its Capri-Sun product placement.  Filled with jokes that don't work because of the execution and filmmaking, filled with over-acting, filled with the WORST speed up chase scenes I've seen in a film in a very long time.  And I enjoyed every minute of it.  This is that kind of perfect bad, that good bad, the Nanar I've talked about in the past.  I was not expecting to get a nanar film on my torturous watching spree, but man am I glad I did.  I definitely say give this movie a shot if you find it somewhere and want to laugh.  But don't expect anything good.  This is the worst made film of the week so far, but the one I like the most, too.

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)
• 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!!

IHAO on ... Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

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Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 13% ; Audience 35%

Flickchart - 12394 of 28311 i.e. in the top half

IMDB - 4.5 rating

Metacritic - 33

Amazon.com - 3.0 stars

This already on paper looks better than Gigli.  Well, let's go, no time to waste.

[88 minutes later]

Hoo boy.  Well then ... plot first I suppose.

Lindsay Lohan -- NO WAIT, don't leave yet, that's not enough to write this one off -- plays a teenage drama queen, i.e. a girl who wants to be a professional actress, and one that strives on lying to be cool.  She also is super quirky, only wears ridiculous outfits no one ever owns, and is a jerk and liar at all times.  The film itself is a hyper-reality movie, which helps, but also really hurts the movie.  Anyway, she makes friends immediately after moving away from New York to her new home in New Jersey with the girl from the Newsroom because they both wear pins for the same band, Sidarthur.  Lola (Lohan's character) is madly in love with the band's lead, Stu Wolf.  Also, Megan Fox is the evil mean girl rich character.

The story revolves around two things: first, the upcoming party and concert of Sidarthur, which Lola lies about getting tickets to, and second, the upcoming performance of Liza Rocks, the drama teacher's updated version of Pygmalion, which Lola is the lead.  The biggest insult to the story is that all of the problems within the story are completely contrived and created by Lola, who is a liar or a unrepentant jerk, such as refusing free tickets to the concert and party she wanted to go to because of public perception of whatever.

STUPID!  Man, I just realized the only good movies I'm going to be able to watch all week are the little gifs of good movies I can use as reactions.  *sigh*

I don't want to talk about the plot anymore.  It is awful.  And not because of the central conceit.  This is based off a book, and it is actually a pretty interesting idea.  It took me awhile to figure it out, but this is a modernization of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."  See, the band's front man's name is Wolf!  And she lies all the time, so everyone thinks she's lying about meeting him!  There is actually something a little clever there.

But the movie does everything it can to ruin that.  Terrible acting, terrible montages, terrible songs-just-to-sell-the-soundtrack, terrible shots, terrible directing, just terrible everything.  There are so many shots that are absolutely pointless, or even worse, juvenilely done, such as a lot of TERRIBLE attempts at a shared focus shot, where you focus on the foreground and the background by compositing two shots.  It is ... ugh.

This movie isn't quite a failure.  I suspect that what its true purpose is, to share some good values about lying and to sell a soundtrack, and waste some time for some pre-teens, all that is fine and works.  It is ALMOST a failure, but ultimately, you have to reach higher than this movie aims to actually fail.

Grade: D--

• 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)
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)
• 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!!

IHAO on ... Gigli

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And so the torture begins.  I thought it'd be interesting to see the scores of each of these films, and compare them all with my own grades, just to see how everything fares.  And why not start with what some consider the worst film of all time ...

Rotten Tomatoes - Critics 6% ; Audience 13%

Flickchart - 28311 of 28311 i.e. the worst ranked film

IMDB - 2.3 rating

Metacritic - 18

Amazon.com - 2.4 stars

Here's the plot: Batman is a leg-breaker for the mob is sent to kidnap a guy's mentally handicapped brother to help with prosecution.  His boss doesn't trust him, so he sends a Jennifer Lopez sized lesbian to help for some reason.  And then ... they talk to each other forever.  There's the plot.  Oh, and the sideplot is finding Baywatch, the real place and going there.  Some kind of symbolism, though I cannot put my finger on it.  It is mindboggling.  It all gets tied into his love of an Australian accent too.  I just do not get it.

Affleck is surprisingly pretty great in this.  He is interesting, engaging, funny, endearing, and sympathetic.  On the other hand, J-Lo is a terrible actress with these huge long monologues.  Just absolutely terrible.  She sounds like she is saying the words for the first time at all, like she has never heard the words before.  Not only that, she is un-relatable, too perfect, and just generally not only irritating, but boring.  She absolutely ruins the first hour of screen time she has.  The movie is fun and kind of interesting for the first 13 minutes and twenty seconds ... then she gets on screen ... and this gets terrible.  Absolutely absolutely terrible.

Music is atrocious and on the nose, or non-existant, or really REALLY out of place.  And a lot of the editing is absolutely terrible.  The lighting is useless and TV at best, and the cinematography is nothing.  Just shots of their faces as they talk.  And all they do is talk.  Talk talk talk talk.  Nothing HAPPENS for SOOOOO long.  It is a slog to sit through.  The script is not good, with a lot of really terrible bits, including three or four huge long monologues for Lopez, who did I mention before does terribly?

The above is the exact OPPOSITE of what I was feeling at any moment.  Also, I wanted to include a gif of a funnier bad movie.

Also, what's the purpose?  Why does this movie exist?  You gotta ask yourself that, because a lot of films exist for many different reasons.  And this one, written and directed by the same man, he obviously had some purpose.  But I could not tell you as I watch this what it possibly could be.  Is it just to make a drama?  Was it to chase down an Oscar?  I'm absolutely baffled about the message this film is trying to get across and its purpose as I'm watching it.

Around the halfway point, though, it started to touch on some interesting things.  It started to touch on masculinity and femininity, not gender, but how one acts.  The very masculine female Ricky and the just now realizing more feminine male Gigli have a pretty profound and interesting conversation, and the film's purpose finally starts to peek its head around.  I was really digging it, and their sex scene was really hot.  It's like it was from a different movie.  The plot starts kicking in, with a really great performance from Al Pacino.

But eventually, we start slogging back into the talky-talky boring garbage and contrived romance tying everything up in tight bow, with no consequences for anyone that we are supposed to "like." *sigh*  But for a short while it was really turning into something worth watching!  It is so unfortunately how much it isn't worth watching it became again.  That's the best way to put it, this film is just not WORTH watching.  It isn't anywhere near bad enough to be hilariously bad and enjoyable.  It is nowhere near good enough to be engaging and enjoyable.  There are bits that are pretty good, and one entire scene driven by the Pacino that is excellent, but ultimately, it wasn't worth seeing.  The first hour was torturous boredom, and while it got better, the glaring technical missteps are just not enough to elevate this movie.  It sits right in the middle for me: mostly boring, and mostly boringly made.

Grade: C

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)  Grade: C
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)
• 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!!

IHAO on ... WWE Payback 2014

No gifs, this time.  On a time crunch to get this out.

After the AMAZING Wrestlemania 30, the pretty good Extreme Rules 2014, and last Thursday's AMAZING NXT Takeover, I was in pretty high hopes.  I wasn't very interested in the card, not really, but I was grooving with what the WWE was feeling ... kinda.  Ok, I really wanted to, basically.  I really wanted to groove along.  To be cool with Cesaro and Barrett both still being heels, even though they had just played face and the crowd WANTS to cheer for them.  To be cool with Paige, who is awesome, being booked against someone who literally spent more time post-match than she did in match as her number one contender.  To be cool with seeing two feuds that should have been over by now continue.  To be cool with no tag title match, even though it seemed like the tag titles were going to get some focus again.  To be cool with a storyline that made Daniel Bryan look afraid ... and then unfortunately be injured so he could not wrestle.  I really wanted to groove along and be cool with all of that, to remain optimistic.  The guy who runs NXT is working on the main product as well (that guy is HHH).  Sure, there's an old guard that's still running things, too.  But surely they won't screw it all.  Right?

Preshow: El Torito beat Hornswaggle in a Mask v. Hair match

Hmph.  Ok, so I like WeeLC.  I found it entertaining,  I was interested in seeing more actual matches with these two, perhaps seeing the very talented El Torito do more matches at all.  Yeah, I'm done.  This was garbage.  Absolute garbage.  Sure, there were moves that were performed perfectly fine, but ultimately, it was just another rehash of what they did, and have done ever week since WeeLC, minus the weapons.  Yeah, Hornswaggle got his head shaved, woohoo.  This was a huge waste of time.  Even worse was the commentary.

I'm going to go ahead and say this now instead of during every match: the WWE commentary is hands down the worst commentary I've ever heard.  They say stupid internet quip things like "This has a BIG MATCH feeling" or even worse just sit there and make terrible jokes without pretending like anything in the ring matters.  You cannot get anyone over like that!  You cannot entertain anyone like that!  You are ruining the broadcast with your god awful talk about nothing.  You are burying the talent by not talking about them, or calling them stupid, or trying to force down our throats how AMAZING THIS MATCH IS when it isn't.  It isn't.  And you know that.  That's why you are pretending it is.  A good match doesn't need you prattling on about how amazing this match is before the DAMNED BELL RINGS.  A good match will succeed on its own.  I was tempted to mute the television multiple times during this PPV.  This is worse than Taz and Tenay in TNA.  Fire Lawler.  Fire JBL.  Fire Cole.  Get rid of them.  Bring up people who care, like Josh Matthews, Renee Young, Byron Saxton, William Regal, Alex Riley, or Scott Stanford.  UGH.

Verdict - It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't worth watching

Sheamus retained the United States Championship against Cesaro

These two had a great showing in the Elimination Chamber.  They have had a lot of great tv matches.  So give them a big ole match to just slam into each other?  All right.

This match wasn't amazing.  They worked hard, but there really wasn't too much to this feud, and with SO many matches in the past on television, it didn't really go any higher than we had seen in the past.  They worked their butts off, and put on a good show, but it was missing that little extra.  Fans want to cheer Cesaro so bad it makes it hard for him to get heat.  When he slapped Sheamus, kicking Sheamus into overdrive, people barely reacted.

The finish was interesting, though weak, with a roll-up.  There was not a definitive winner, not really.  Sheamus was crafty to win with the roll-up after he took a big ole Cesaro Swing, but it felt anti-climactic.

Verdict - Perfectly fine, but ultimately left me wanting something more

Rybaxel defeated the Brotherhood

Yeah, so this happened.  I like seeing a tag team storyline that isn't about the belts.  And that is what this was.  It wasn't a great match, nothing to write home about, but it was interesting, and the follow-up with a dejected Cody, who has been on a losing streak and messing up recently, very tearfully tells his brother that he needs a better partner, then leaves.  No entrance themes to break up the mood, no weird lighting effects, just some acting as a storyline continues to develop.  I like that.  Plus, Goldust's make up looked like a sad clown, which only helped.

Verdict - Match was fine, storyline is much more interesting, the fact a non-tag title tag match was on PPV was even better.

Rusev wasted Big E's time and won a match

Hey, you know what doesn't work any more in our more globally connected society?  Heels whose only gimmicks are that they aren't from America!  Rusev is a talented guy.  He is straddled with a terrible gimmick, and is currently squashing a bunch of black guys on TV.  Xavier Woods, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth ... he's just kind of racist.  And out comes Big E.  They make a big deal about how he is bigger and stronger and blah blah blah, but ultimately, even though it was almost a real match, it still ended in the same squashy way.  We did see Big E do the leap through the ropes tackle thing.

By the way, why is that the move everyone does now?  I know that certain moves just kind of fill the gaps of wrestlers skill sets during different times, but it is so crazy to me that THAT move, basically just a shove through the middle ropes diving out, that's the one everyone is doing.  Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Luke Harper, Big E, I'm sure I could name more if I actually wanted to think about it.  It's like how everyone was doing powerbombs all the time in WCW, or how everyone did bulldogs in 2001-2002 WWF.  Anyway.

Verdict - Blah blah blah

Bo Dallas helps Kofi Kingston bo-lieve after Kane ruins their match

Bo Dallas is a guy who didn't QUITE work for me in NXT.  I thought there was something there, but it just wasn't QUITE working.  But once he came up, he cinched it all together, and now, I'm a bo-liever.  This match isn't a match.  It is a "let's make sure Kane still has heel heat, and let's keep making a star out of Dallas/"  And it worked.  Not a match, really weird in the long run, but I get it.  Would have preferred a match, but it is all good.

Verdict - I saw Bo's face, now I'm a Bo-liever!

Bad News Barrett retains the Intercontinental Championship against RVD

This match, thank god, did what I wanted.  It took a standard tv match, and slowly upped the ante.  RVD is a good opponent for Barrett, who is a scrapper and brawler, and despite his size, is not a "throw you around" kind of wrestler.  He and RVD worked hard and cranked it up, and put on a good match.  Barrett worked crazy hard, bumping around, selling injuries, making things look good, and I'm pretty sure being the ring general too.  RVD hit his spots, did nothing else, and Barrett was the real star here.  And ain't bad news.

Verdict - I got some GOOD NEWS for ya, this match was real good.  Best so far.

John Cena buried Bray Wyatt in a Last Man Standing Match

Before I get into talking about this match, let me begin by talking about the nature of the gimmick match.  The gimmick match is a way to take a feud where we have seen these two wrestle, and add some important stakes raiser.  It is about furthering storyline.  Or, it should be.  You see, John Cena has never had a good, pertinent, and necessary gimmick match in his life.  He has merely had gimmick matches to sell more tickets.  It doesn't make a lick of sense from any storyline, and sure they give a promo why he needs to be the LAST MAN STANDING in this feud ... but why the cage match?  To keep the Wyatt Family away?  Shouldn't that still be a problem, especially in a match which by definition has no rules beyond just standing up?

I point to the Rock/Mankind title feud, which used gimmick matches perfectly.  Rock turns heel on Mankind at the end of a tournament to win the WWF title.  The next PPV, Rock Bottom, Mankind beat the rock with a submission move in a regular rematch, but it was ruled that the Rock didn't actually tap out, so he shouldn't lose the title.  Ok, regular match didn't work, now we escalate.  They had another regular match, which Mankind won through interference.  Because of that, their next match was an "I Quit" match to have a definitive winner, but the Rock only won because a recording of Mankind saying the words were played as Mankind didn't say it.  So they have a knockdown drag out hardcore empty arena match, where no one can screw with the tapes, and Mankind wins this time, pinning the Rock (with the help of a forklift).  But that was screwy as well, so they had a Last Man Standing match (this is why I bring this feud up in particular) to finally say "ok, no rules, no ref, no interference, no having to say anything, you just have to be the last one standing".  But that ended with a draw, as both men couldn't stand.  So they ended up taking it another step, with a ladder match.  Now you don't even need a referee.  Just the first person to hold onto the daggum title belt, that's the winner.  Each gimmick match built and built, creating an amazing sequence and storytelling.

Let's compare to John Cena and Bray Wyatt.  At the 2014 Royal Rumble, Wyatt attacks Cena, making him lose his championship match.  He then attacked again Cena, but this put Cena in the Elimination Chamber ... which they then attacked him in the Elimination Chamber.  So they finally have their match at Mania, and it was great, and I still hold true to my interpretation that while Cena won the match, Wyatt won the war.  But nope, WWE didn't agree.  But they still had to feud, using the fans singing along with Wyatt as proof that Cena was losing.  So they have a ... cage match.  Because ... well, best guess is like I said above, because the Wyatt family kept interfering ... which they did anyway.  Well now its on, as Wyatt got the upper hand because of a little kid singing allowing him to exit the cage.  So they are now having a ... Last Man Standing ... because ... because.  Oh, right, so that Cena can literally bury Bray.

This match was a spot-fest filled with terrible TERRIBLE storytelling.  A Sister Abigal finisher in the middle of the ring makes Cena almost lost, only getting to his feet at the count of 8 in the early goings!  A Sister Abigal finisher on the OUTSIDE of the ring makes Cena almost lose, only getting to his feet at the count of ... 6 ... after he already took a lot more damage.  What?!  I've complained about Cena, and it just continues to shock me how much worse he gets.  Even worse, after he buries Bray to win the match in one of those stupid contrived spots they love to do with Cena in matches like this, he slowly gets that smile on his face, starts hocking his headbands and merchandise, puts that stupid smile on his face, and EVEN WORSE, the commentary applauds him with "John Cena always seems to pull out the win in those big matches."

YEAH YOU THINK!?  IT IS BECAUSE HE IS THE MOST PROTECTED WRESTLER IN THE PAST TEN YEARS OF THE COMPANY!  HE IS NOT AN UNDERDOG, DAMN IT!  HE WINS CONSTANTLY AND ALWAYS LOOKS STRONG!  HE BURIES PEOPLES CAREERS JUST BY HAVING FEUDS WITH THEM.  ARG!!!

Verdict - Utter garbage

At some point earlier, there was a sequence where Daniel Bryan did not give up his titles, Brie did not get fired, and Stephanie was evil.  She had the best line of the night, calling out CM Punk for quitting.  It was ... anti-climactic.  It didn't build anywhere, there was no spark of anything interesting happening.  Bryan just said "I'm not giving up my titles," and Brie saying "you can't fire me, I quit," then Stephanie gets slapped and she runs off.  I've seen her take a Pedigree and not act as hurt as she did from this slap.  Whatever.

Paige retains the Divas Championship versus Alicia Fox

Paige is working her ass off to bring up the quality of Divas matches.  They are not just piss breaks.  And with the past three PPVs, we have seen this.  Paige works hard to be respected, to do good, and to be great.  And she does all those things.

Alicia Fox's gimmick is she is ... being a heinous bitch.  Forgive my language, but there's no other word for it.  She throws tantrums, chokes people out, pours out people's soda, yells at people, destroys the announce tables, stuffs paper down people's throats ... she's just a bitch.  Whatever gets you heat.

The fans still aren't ready for this kind of match, and Fox wasn't ready to pace herself for a real match instead of the style of Divas match that has been drilled into her head by terrible agents that don't care for the past 8 years.  But Paige knew what she was doing.  She threw herself all over the place, had a believable comeback, got the fans into it at the end (mostly), and sold like a Ziggler for Fox.

Verdict - Better than it had any right to be, and a good sign of things getting EVEN BETTER

Speaking of, the fact that one of the most talented workers in the company, Dolph Ziggler, was NOWHERE to be seen this PPV, not even on the Pre-show panel, is utter insanity.  He deserves better than this.  He deserves better than having to sit at home to watch two REHASHED storylines deliver more matches that are utter garbage.  Did I say utter garbage?  Yeah, I did.  Might as well segue to ...

The Shield beat the Evolution in a "the rules don't matter a lick" elimination match

I hated this.  Terrible brawling everywhere, the camera was never on any of the action, it was a no rules match that for some reason pretended to have rules for awhile and then went back to no rules at the end.  I wanted to turn off the PPV.  Batista gets pinned first (really sad for you, bro, you came back to wrestling finally because we wanted you to, you were gonna promote your movie, and you got booed because of the company making bad decisions and turned into the weakest of the group because you were leaving), then Orton, then HHH.  Shield wins.  So the Shield wins the feud with Evolution, huzzah ... except they won't.  There just won't be matches anymore because we have to shift focus.  This whole storyline is padding padding padding, and this match was just padding padding padding.  I've watched the Shield have amazing 3-man tag matches.  I watched some great stuff from them.  I've seen HHH and Batista have great matches, and Orton ... well, I never liked him, and think he is the weakest link in the entire company as a main event person that isn't named Cena.  But this was dreadful.

Even worse, I bet a bunch of people loved it.  Because they loved the "brutality" and the moves and whatever other garbage.  If you can get over the fact that a No Holds Barred Elimination Tag Match where you pretend like you need to tag in and you don't just constantly cheat makes sense, then that's fine.  If you can get over the fact that during the three-man brawls, the camera was split so terribly that you quite literally never saw a single worthwhile thing, always cutting to an angle AFTER the move happened, and only had Cole, JBL, and Lawler of all damned people to tell you what you just DIDN'T watch, fine.  If you like MOVEZ over storytelling and ring psychology, fine.

For me, if I had bought this PPV before getting the WWE Network, and watched this match and the Cena match, I would have gotten a refund.

Verdict - Also Utter Garbage, but some how slightly MORE garbage than a John Cena match

And there we go.  The WWE much have known that I was doing torture-Jessel-a-thon starting tomorrow, because they started it a day early for me!  Awesome.  Speaking of ...

/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\

June 3rd through June 9th

And so it begins!  I told you all I'd have the schedule ready for you, and man oh man did you folks deliver the goods.  With a little bit of donated cash, as well as a few donated films to borrow and review, and Netflix, I've created the single worst viewing experience I will ever have.  Stay tuned for the next week to be filled with cats, dogs, bad acting, terrible effects, and the worst voices I've ever heard.  Here we go!

• June 3^rd – Gigli (from Rachel Runion)
• June 4^th – Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (from Joel Gould)
• June 5^th – Lenny the Wonder Dog (from Jason Schmidt)
• June 6^th – The Cat in the Hat (from Josh Hendricks)
• 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!!!

This has been a cool success in getting you readers to help out, and I hope I do not disappoint for your amusement.  See you tomorrow with Gigli!

IHAO on ... Insomnia + Depression PLUS Announcement

It is hard to start talking about any of your own deficiencies or flaws, especially mental or physical ones, on the internet because of a lack of context.  I could tell you "I have insomnia and depression" and that doesn't really mean anything.  Yes, those words have meanings, and people who have those sometimes quite debilitating illnesses/problems certainly may suffer.  But in the magic of internet land, the only things that actually exists are words, and people's perceptions of those words.  I could tell everyone/anyone reading this "I have a purple cat named Checkers" and you either read that and say "sure, I believe that" or "whatever, probably a lie, that doesn't particularly matter."  But you take it to a more personal level, telling people "my uncle just died" and the natural skeptic comes out.  You may still say "sure, I believe that", but there are plenty who go "whatever, probably a lie, that doesn't particularly matter."

So when you get to folks who have legitimate problems, such as the Frogman over on tumblr (a great dude who puts out some great content, if you for some reason are brand new to the internet and didn't take the Introductory Class that puts him onto your radar for semi-daily content viewing) or to a lesser extent myself, it is hard to completely grasp or even care what they have going on outside of the content they put out.  I suffer from insomnia, an illness that ultimately makes it difficult for me to achieve successful and restful sleep, and depression, which I really don't feel like talking about.  Wikipedia exists if you want info on it.

I say this because every now and again, one or the other of the two flares up.  Maybe I get a thought stuck in my head that makes it hard to motivate and accomplish anything.  Maybe I go 5 days with a total of 6 hours of sleep.  While those things are sucky, they generally are not worth talking about.  When both stack on top of each other ... well, then I a week without doing any work and get stuck continuing to not do any work for this site.

So what's the point of bringing this up?

Good question ... I think?

Yeah, I dunno, it isn't really to enlighten or inform.  Really just to ... start talking again.  To get back to the screen and start talking.  The hardest thing about wanting to be a writer professionally, whether it be fiction, comedy, or critique, is that you gotta flippin' do it!  You gotta start putting words down.  Good, bad, doesn't matter, you gotta do it every day.  And I did not.  But I'm working on it.  And I'm sure sometimes I'll go another week without putting anything up again.  That'll suck, but I'll come back and continue to do what I need to do.

So yeah, thank you, ultimately is where I'm going.  I do not generate a lot of views, but I love every single one!  I love every share and comment, and I appreciate them all.  So I want to show you my appreciation.  I try to do a Reader Request every week, and I have one that will be going up in the next few days (once the holiday hijinks gets over with and I can sit down and finish watching it).  I also make sure to cover any big wrestling events that happen, and two are coming in the next seven days.  So I want to do something special for you folks that read me every day after and beyond.  Especially the ones that make it down here to the bottom of this mostly boring little article.

From June 3rd to the 8th, I want to have TORTURE-JESSEL-A-THON!  I am going to put myself through the worst films and most hated films that all you guys can think of.  I'm going to collect them all over the next week, and debut the schedule on Monday, the 2nd.  Then for a whole week, you will get to see me go through pain for all your pleasure, ending with a very special, very controversial IHAO that was supposed to be filmed years ago but I never had the guts to actually shoot, featuring a movie that makes me fuming at the mouth angry, and might be my most hated film.

So, send comments, shares, do it on facebook, send them over email, put them in the donation box with a little cash attached (that'll make it MUCH more likely to get done coughcoughhinthintaskingformoneybutnotseriouslyenoughtonottrytocoveritupwithabadjokecoughcough), put them on post-it notes and sneak them into my pants pockets when you see me out and about buying groceries, whatever!  You got one week to give me the most horrible daggum things you can think of to watch and torture me with for a full week of reviews.

And again, thank you for your patience, support, comments, and most importantly, your attention every now and again.

/\// tOrtUrE-jEssEl-A-thOn \\/\

June 3rd through June 9th