Blast Hardcheese

I remember seeing the trailer for this movie and thinking that, given it's self-serious tone and CGI'd joylessness, that either the people behind Resident Evil or the Underworld series were behind it. Lo and behold... Honestly, there should be a category for films like this: a hair above B grade, devoid of humor, with blue/black/dank color palettes, and muddled, whisper thin plots held together with nothing expositionary dialog, all wedged between slow motion splatastic action sequences with guns/swords/karate kicks a'blazin'.

"Killian. I'll be back!" "Only in a rerun."

Since June and Paul are expecting, it seems only natural that HDTGM should review an animated movie to subject/indoctrinate their little one to. To this, I recommend the 1987 animated abomination G.I. Joe: The Movie. Let's break it down: • The opening off-Broadway song 'n dance "Coooo-braaaa!" fire fight on the Statue of Liberty. • "Starring" Burgess Meredith, Don Johnson, Sgt. Slaughter, and Chris Latta (a.k.a. the fat, sweaty "Sharing Husband/titty pimp" from Road House) as Cobra Commander. • The introduction of Cobra-La, an ultra-gonzo, fucking bananas army of serpent-themed weirdos who eschew human technology in favor of "organic" weaponry such as plane-like creatures that shoot what looks and sounds like cum-bullets, airships made of giant kidney-shaped worms and bridges and other palace refineries made of giant insects (start prepping your nightmares now, kids!) • Previously insurmountable and impervious freakish new enemies defeated by our heroes in the third act by not altering their game plan or attack strategy one bit. • Killing-off a major character, realizing that didn't go over so well in the animated Transformers movie, and ADR-ing a "He's going to be okay!" at the end. Add to this, G.I. Joe the Movie is really fuckin' entertaining ...as far as bad movies go. Yo Joe! So, besides being a vehicle in order to ramp-up toy sales, how did this movie get made? Knowing is half the battle.

Yes. Yes! A thousand times YES!!! Please do this movie, HDTGM! Also: does Chris Klein look like he could be Jason Lee's twin brother to anyone else?

I apologize Rattrap007. Given your avatar, I have a feeling we like a lot of the same things (G.I. Joe, Transformers, James Bond, etc. ) Don't get me wrong, this opening scene is really spectacular in terms animation, action, tempo (I particularly like how Duke plants the bomb on the Cobra air ship and the explosion cascades through the haul in these extended light ripples). But that song... I was 11 or 12 when this movie came out, and I remember that song giving me embarrassment shivers when the vocals came in. Not as bad as "You Got the Touch," mind you, but still...

In the mid-1990's, everyone seemed to be attempting the Quentin Tarantino thing. Only where Tarantino's movies used hyper violence to punctuate his stories, these opportunistic carbon copies used their so-called stories to punctuate hallow, mind-numbing violence. What resulted were mostly stylisticly superficial films (Love and a .45, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Reindeer Games, etc.) One film in particular, though, was egregiously unctuous in this rip-off regard (and did an extremely piss poor job at pulling it off): Mad Dog Time Taking place a planet in another solar system populated by 1950's-era gangsters for some reason, this movie stars Richard Dreyfuss, Gabriel Byrne, Jeff Goldbum, and a shitload of 90's ol' familiars that really should have known better. REALLY should have known better. Billed as a crime comedy, nearly every scene in this film ends with a character or two being shot to death. Mad Dog Time's conceit being that character after character exiting via violent circumstances is hilarious. Too bad the comedy falls completely flat, thus robbing the screen further of these rich, one-dimensional characters. While not busy boring you with plodding scene after plodding scene (that practically seems the same as the one that came before it), the dialog in Mad Dog Time carries a certain idiotic smugness about it that makes you physically cringe for the actor saying it (especially Jeff Goldblum, who plays it so embarrassingly cool, you just know he's got all the angles dialed in. So, yeah: zero character arc and a tidy no-stakes-lost film's end pay-off). Never has a movie been at once so smug, shrill and broke-ass boring as the trivial mess slowly crawling across the screen. Mad Dog Time isn't just a horrible movie; it's an endurance test caked in layers of maddening failure. How did this get made?

Southland Tales is the very definition of "inexplicible." I watched this in chunks on YouTube, and found the comments defending this psuedo-intellectual dreck as "deep" and "multi-layered" far more entertaining than the film itself (highly caffinated homework brigade types - gotta love 'em). I couldn't tell you what this movie is about, or why you're supposed to care about any of the numberous characters that populate it. This film seems to be going somewhere in the beginning, but loses it's way (or train of thought) midway through. Then, because we haven't suffered through enough cynicism and dystopian "blah," director Richard Kelly simply offs everyone in the end. I remember screaming at my monitor, "WHY THE FUCK DID I WATCH THIS PIECE OF SHIT MOVIE?!?" Donnie Darko, my ass! So yes, please, HDTGM crew; suffer then review Southland Tales.