Johnny Unusual

OK, this does look kind of nuts. BUT it is also a sci-fi original movie. Granted, it was a little before the Mega-Shark craze, but still. I just hope this was the theme song

Yeah, it's a crazy-ass movie. I think it's getting a surge in popularity in recent years since it's so ambitiously nuts. Maybe next Halloween.

I got to say, sight unseen, this looks like a fun candidate. This strikes me as one of those movies where they try to hard to convince viewers that these cats are a threat. Has anyone actually seen this one?

Yeah, I can see someone missing the difference between Crank 2 and Machete since both are intentionally ridiculous action movies, but Crank 2 is a lot more random and lowest common denominator in a way that works. Machete is more like a love letter to dumb action movies and as crazy as it is, its a lot more controlled in it's chaos. It's much easier to make heads or tails of then, say Crank 2. I think there are some intentionally crazy movies that work, but I think they need to have a certain je ne cest quoi that Machete doesn't have.

I don't know about Jennifer's Body, but I agree that they need to discuss Texas Chainsaw Massacre: the Next Generation. Matthew McConaughey''s robot leg (shades of I Know Who Killed Me) and the insane bizarre revelation that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was apparently (and I'm not kidding) funded by the forces of evil. That's right, Leatherface got funding!

Here's where it gets weird. The cards this movie was based on were designed by Pulitzer prize winning comic book creator Art Speigelman, creator of Maus.

Hey, wait for it to come out first. then suggest it.

Wow, someone predicted how this would all play out.

Yeah, this was a good one. Anyone else unsettled by the mysoginistic or at least female-phobic undertones?

Well, this one got an ep. Yeah, it's so weird that the story was lifted from Casablanca.

I'd say no. I rather hate the movie, not only due to racism but the fact that I found it really dull. But it wouldn't work since it is so long and dull. Yeah, I could go into all of the film pioneering stuff and how it (and Battleship Potemkin) invented the language of film but really it's just... long... and largely dull. Really not crazy or weird enough for a good episode.

I've always been curious about this one. Brent Spiner plays a flatulent villain. I wonder if he would be willing to do the episode. I've heard him making light about it before (of course, that's not the same as an entire episode ripping it apart).

Yeah, there's a difference between crazy as a choice and crazy due to a bizarre logic. There are different kinds of movies that work for the show. Bad movies, obviously, but then there's films that are crazy. But those film aren't crazy in thought provoking ways (at least the way the artist intended to provoke thought). It's why the only David Lynch film that might work is Dune (and that is debatable, I think), because it does have a craziness, its more about how the film's weirdness doesn't jive with the film itself (plus it's simply confusing and upsetting). And also, it helps that it has a lot of b-film elements.

I must politely disagree. Joe Johnston has done a lot of work I don't care for, but hack? I don't think so. Keep in mind, I feel "hack" is a misused well. To me, a hack isn't just a bad or incompetent artist, but one who is cynically and artlessly just tries to make something in the lowest common denominator. No sense of self-awareness or awareness of the art as a whole and no real mastery of the art. The podcast Battleship Pretension had a great discussion about Michael Bay, and while they agree he's a bad director they also suggested that he is an auter because he works very hard to make his vision come to light and is able to do what he wants with his films. Unfortunately, he seems to value fetishizing machines in his works and uses them to make awful story. I guess what I'm saying that a hack is a special kind of bad in a way that is ugly and without spcirit and that doesn't describe Joe Johnston to me. Joe has a voice (looking at his movies, he clearly has a fondness for recreating the films of yesteryear) and I think a genuine love for films. I'm not saying he isn't a bad director (I personally feel that he is... just OK), but I feel the term hack belongs to someone who's art is without art, rather than someone who is incompetent about it. Sorry, but I hate seeing the word thrown around. There are directors I don't like, but I try not to dismiss most of them out of hand. (My ire really got up one time I heard David Lynch called a hack. I can understand not liking him or even feeling that he's terrible at his art, but if you call someone like that a hack, then you either don't know what the word hack means or an unpleasantly dismissive person)

It's a crazy movie, to be sure, but it's crazy in all the ways it's supposed to be. There are comedies that work, but Wet Hot American Summer is too right-headed to be one.

It's pretty damned hard to watch though. Still, one of the best MST3k episodes.

I don't think either of them are HDTGM material. I like them both. They have flaws, sure, but I don't think flaws make a movie inherently bad. But even if I didn't care for it, I think that the complaints you have are small common things. It has to be more than just jumping ahead or small stuff, a good HDTGM movie needs something that makes it bad or bizarre at it's core.

I think there's a lot of people who wouldn't want to see this reviewed simply because Uwe Boll feeds on ANY kind of attention, but me and my friends were able to get a lot of mileage out of making fun of this one in the theatre. It is a pretty insane movie with stuff like zombies jumping out with jazz hands as if they were in a local haunted house on Halloween or a woman jumping with a camera spinning around her Matrix style as she FIRES A SHOTGUN. I second this!

Yeah, Mark's been in some weird movies. This is a pretty lame one, but for me the only memorable thing is the awful ending and Paul Giamatti.

Well, I don't care for it, and it has a really weak ending, but I think it's sort of too dull and ponderous to make a good episode. The ending and certain philosophy issues are mock-worthy, but overall, I don't think it's fully rife for an episode. Maybe if they did an episode that was about frustrating finales...

It's not working now. At least, not for me... What does it go to?

Hmm... it is a B-Movie, but I think it's a really good one. Lots of tension, good humour and just plain fun. I don't really think it belongs on this show, even in the way that good crazy movies like Roadhouse do. It's not really crazy enough to justify it in my opinion.

I wouldn't go that far, but it is a really weak movie. It also seems to have some tonal problems in trying to figure out if it's gritty or goofy (that weird-ass seesaw fight). Jennifer Garner is a very forgettable Elektra, Ben Affleck is forgettable as Daredevil, Jon Favreau is rather annoying as Foggy... Michael Clarke Duncan does OK as Kingpin though (a hard role to cast for many reasons) and Colin Ferril is enjoyable to watch as Bull's Eye (though very, very silly). I think it could make a good episode, but I remember it being more boring than crazy. That's just me though and it has been a while since I watched it.

But it did get picked. I haven't seen it myself, but it does sound pretty nuts. It always really depresses me when talented guys like Neil Patrick Harris does stuff like this. The big question for me is if PFT will be back to review the sequel (coming this Summer, I believe). I'd love to see it, but I wouldn't blame them for letting it be.

WAAAY back in Punisher War Zone, Patton Oswalt mistakenly, though understandably, states that comics writer Garth Ennis, who is famous for writing the Punisher and who created the character of the ineffectual Detective Soap, is either British or Scottish. He's actually Irish. Small detail I know, but it does figure into his work quite often. And in the unlikely event this one gets read on the air, I really want to recommend a Garth Ennis' Preacher. If you love violence, dark humour, blasphemy and an epic southern-fried adventure thriller, this is the series for year.