Cakebug Tranch

I wish I was a fly on the wall on the day that John Leguizamo read this script and thought, "yes! This is the project for me!" Or the day that the kid from Percy Jackson read his script and said "yes! Referring to ammunition choices as 'gay' is exactly the right phrasing! No need to argue that one." Having read the perspectives of everyone else above, now I'm a little depressed that I quite enjoyed this one.

I'm mostly mad at this movie because I haven't been able to shake 'I've Got You Under My Skin' for a week now. And for some reason my brain just hums the Bono version. I catch myself singing it at all hours. For such a great Cole Porter number, why must I automatically sing the worst version? (and, of course, the mental image is Dancing Dexter)

But.. but... Dancing Dexter! Sigh. Yeah, I have to admit, waffle dipping whale man nearly broke it for me. What will we do without your insight?

This one. Every time. Just thinking about it now. Even in the 'I Was There Too' Episode about it.

I felt exactly the same way. It had so much 'Crank' in it I couldn't hate it. And I could watch Dexter's song and dance puppet scene for hours. What a wonderful mess.

Yes, and I couldn't figure out why the fact that Thomas Jane says 'call me, Jonesy, buddy' from a car nowhere in range of Jonesy/Mr Grey would prompt Memory Warehouse Jonesy to pick up a phone and dial. Dial the gun. There were a few of these weird callbacks throughout: surely there's meaning in seeing the character who had raised the loaded gun to his head to kill himself in minute 2 of the film is now using another (unloaded) gun to have a conversation with someone who isn't there? And what about the matching 'dropping the toothpicks'/'dropping the worm burning matches' moments, both set up as a slow-motion 'nooooo' moment, but with the second one being completely undermined by him finding one that he didn't drop. The fact that they mimicked the shot made me think 'okay, falling pointy things is the equivalent here to The Godfather and oranges', but nope. Not to be.

Finally watched last night, and listened to the podcast on the drive to work this morning. Shout out to my wife for suffering through the movie with me, although we disagreed on which we preferred more, this or 'Vampire Academy' (my vote is for this one). Most of what i had to say has been said because I'm coming in so late, but I wanted to check in regardless. My main beef (amongst all the other beefs) is similar to others already stated: if 'one worm can end the world', then what about all of the COUNTLESS hitchhikers that escape this shoddy quarantine? All those animals gambolling in front of the cabin - including off-hand references to the BEARS that saunter by - are going their separate ways. All of the 'Friends'-loving Amurricans in lockdown in Eyebrows Freeman's concentration camp? No, the three-star general comes by, kicks out the Blue Boys, and presumably lets them all go. And don't forget the ridiculous get out of jail free card Tom Sizemore plays - 'Oh, and some people who get infected turn out to be just fine'. What? When i teach playwriting students a fundamental issue I bring up again and again is don't position two characters who tell each other things they already know, just for the sake of the audience. I feel like this happened again and again - particularly in the 'I forgot about your crazy brain warehouse' scene that was mentioned on the podcast. There was so much needless exposition for so little payoff. The whole alien massacre: how MUCH money did that cost of their budget? And for what? Why not let Mr Grey be the only alien? Killing Mr Grey didn't solve much at all. What about other eggs? Other butt worms? Other Ripley carriers? All I could think of throughout this was "within one year of this, Timothy Olyphant would become Seth Bullock." Based on this performance, that's some Keiser Soze shit. And my favourite bit was Damian Lewis's Mr Grey face. His voice was good too, but that insane smile. Jeebus.

Congrats Bella for a well deserved win for all your detailed input, though I was surprised Tom's poop research missed out on the prize! I don't know Dreamcatcher at all: nice to go into a week with absolutely zero clue of what we're about to watch.

We're starting it tonight! Can't wait!

I preferred to think that the Duckie reference was a shout-out to Zoe Deutch's mother, who was the object of affection in 'Some Kind of Wonderful', another John Hughes script. Obtuse? Of course! It would have been way more blatant if she'd called Mia 'Watts', given their shared haircuts and better link to Mommy. And, of course, Zoe's dad directed SKOW. Surely that's it!

It's questions and answers like this which feel like the entire reason this podcast exists. Bravo.

Here's a few potentials: correct me if I'm wrong. The Last Airbender Battlefield Earth Green Lantern Wild Wild West? After Earth Jupiter Ascending? (incidentally, I was so sad hearing this episode that no one made the link that the title character shared exactly the same name as the main character from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Three Investigators' teen fiction series) Masters of the Universe The Phantom Stealth Vampire Academy A few of these have teasers like 'oh, I'm sure we'll meet again...', while others go out of their way to film extra stuff. I might be wrong on a few, but there's lots of hope invested here.

Especially since they don't sparkle, which is how vampires poop in Twilight. By sparkling.

I felt a bit sad for the actress playing Ms. Karp. I feel like she was sold the opportunity to play a Big Bad in a teen vampire romance series and her big breakout opportunity was in movie two or three. So, bide your time in the first one, really come in guns blazing later. There'll be a sequel, don't worry, this is your big break. Look, we'll even shoot a teaser for the next film showing that you're planning an all-out assault on St Vlad's, and this will be your Battle of Hogwarts... I would love for someone to compile a list of best teasers for sequels that never happened in these awful movies. How many have there been in the HDTGM canon where the end is left open, testament to the optimism of human spirit? Anyone got any thoughts beyond this one and Stealth?

Agreed to all of this. I don't understand where the queen lives. Is she visiting especially to make this announcement, or does she live at the school? I assume the former, but then when a fanfare is played to announce her arrival (which, in my mind right now, sounds exactly like the 'Would You Rather?' theme), everyone says, 'Oh, the queen's here'. Ho hum. And in the very next shot you have the entire student body all perfectly assembled, watching with what can't be described as reverence, but maybe... tolerance? It's essentially just an incredibly well-ordered impromptu student assembly designed to mock the last member of one of these houses everyone's supposed to be ruled by. I guess the other books tell us about the other houses but really, why complicate things so much in this film? Twelve? What happens when the queen dies? Will Lissa be the queen? Or some other member of another royal family? Is Lissa's blood speech enough to get her the job? Stay tuned! Also, when Rose tells Modern Family that she's going shopping, MF jumps and says 'oh please, you know how much I love shopping', or something to that effect. HOW does she know that? She's a shut-in Amish kid who doesn't know about hashtags and licks walls. And when they go to the mall, there's no rumspringa sense of 'what is this place? look at that thing!', it's just, oh yeah, we're teens at a random urban mall that's somehow in striking distance of rural Montana.

Yeah, that's what I figured. But it's so misleading! And pointless! Why go out of their way to distance themselves from the V word then? Just say 'yeah we're vampires, but here's more details that the stories got wrong. And here's our Academy. Etc.'

Dimitry would do anything for Rose's love... but he won't do that*. *

League of Ex Gentlemen?

I endorse this episode especially if we could have Paul F. Tompkins on as guest, playing his John C. Reilly character.

Pro tip for undercover Stragoi hoping to infiltrate Moroi hotspots: sunglasses. They won't know what hit 'em.

Yes! All of this! She says 'it takes five of our best to take down one of their worst', and the one at the beginning she 'freezes' in front of, that appears like a Big Bad but is ultimately just a nameless peon, is the first Stragoi she has ever seen. Like, what? Surely in all her years they've run across a couple from time to time? And is St Vlad's somehow magically protected from Stragoi like Hogwart's is from the Death Eaters (for most of the time), or Camp Halfblood is from Monsters (we really need a decent Percy Jackson reboot)? They are all pretty relaxed for a group under constant threat: and whose enemies live in the cave up the way. Particularly since any malcontent Moroi just needs to suck on a fanboy feedbag for a minute too long and they'll turn into an embedded incendiary device that none of the students are equipped to fight. Even Modern Family was tough to put down, and she's tiny. Gah, this movie.

Late to the Vampire Party but finally got to the movie, then caught the podcast yesterday. Sweet merciful Vlad, that was a mess. There's so much to say and so much of it has already been said above - a few things that really tickled me... - While I was saddened to see Gabriel Byrne in this thing - it took me a few seconds to thankfully realise he hadn't aged that much, it was just makeup - I liked the reminder of the 'benevolent figure who turns out to be a bad guy' twist in The Usual Suspects. Yes, I know Dean Keaton wasn't Keiser Soze but there's a moment where Verbal Kint makes us believe he is, and the reveal in this reminded me of that. I had some memory of Vampire Gabriel wearing a fedora at some point but I can't find an image online. Maybe that was what made me think of it. - Aisling Bea's impersonation of Dimitry's 'learn English by being in a movie' was the highlight of the week for me, although are we agreed that she made a mistake assuming Dimitry (Bobo long-hair Ashton Kutcher to me) was 16,000 years old? Yep. - How about the on-the-nose-ism of the credits track 'Bela Lugosi's dead'? Maybe vampire movies generated feedbag fanboys to bridge between Cameron's Bram Stoker theory and Anne Rice? - The book's called 'Vampire Academy', as is the film. Yet in the movie, Lissa says 'Don't use the V word' (or words to that effect). Usually 'vampire' is thrown around by Rose, in a way that she is either clueless about its offence (not likely) or is trying to be offensive (jerk move). Maybe the title to the first book was a marketing decision, and it just stuck? They make it clear that 'vampires' are fictional creatures; Moroi and Stragoi only resemble vampires in certain ways. SO WHY IS IT CALLED VAMPIRE ACADEMY? - Favourite line (and new post signature): They may call Dimitri a god... but I'm an atheist. An atheist with a big-ass gun." I'm sure there's more, but I have to go teach. Will check back in later. So much to say about this thing. Also: this was the first HDTGM film my wife has watched with me, bemusedly. I'm happy to say, three days later, our marriage appears intact. There were moments during this thing that I truly wondered. And then Rose punched Mia in the face, my wife laughed out loud, and i settled in.

Nudging this one up again, based entirely on the stylised 'LS' logo that they somehow thought was a good idea to generate. Kind of like they did with Independence Day ('ID4'), so they kids could say in the playground: 1 "hey, you wanna play LS?" 2 "yeah!" 1 "I'm Matt LeBlanc" 2 "No fair, you always get to be Matt LeBlanc when we play LS!" 1 "I love LS" 2 "Me too, Timmy. Me too"

Ack! Me too! My wife doesn't know it yet, but Vampire Academy has just moved to the top of the Friday night movie playlist...

Bumping this up after remembering Krull in the pinball thread. I was introduced to this film by a friend who truly, truly loved it, but I made the mistake of watching it alone, rather than having him to guide me. Big mistake. My favourite part: British actress Lysette Anthony got her voice dubbed over to appeal to the American audience (who are apparently so eager to hear something familiar that they'll forgive poor ADR that would give Hercules in New York a run for its money). Apparently Lysette has fallen on hard times now: let's blame the dubbing of Krull.