Tuesday, March 6, 2012

3 Movies to Avoid

Written by Joe the Revelator




Apropos of nothing, I've devised a list of movies I wish I'd never seen. Partly because I haven't seen anything recently I felt inspired about, nor read anything aside from the Hunger Games trilogy (The Loon pretty much had the same opinions as I) And in part because I might be doing a public service.

Perhaps scientists of the future will dig up this post, and utilizing time travel (circumventing paradoxes) vaporize the scripts before they're delivered to the producers. Along with the kilo(s) of cocaine and briefcases of money I'm sure were necessary to push these into production.


Rocky 5

It's easy to pick on sequels considering how low the budget usually gets dropped for them. But Rocky 5 breaks the mold where terrible, rehashed ideas are concerned. For anyone who doesn't know, Rocky 4 features a knock-down drag-out between Rocky and Super-Russian Ivan Drago (Stallone and Lundgren) after which Rocky stumbles away victorious to give a heartwarming speech about tolerance. Rocky 5 follows on the heels of Balboa's victory, picking up where the last movie left off, with Rocky being punched retarded.

That's right. Rocky suffers from vision problems and brain lapses after Ivan Wunderkind mangles his frontal lobe. Now it's up to Rocky to train his successor; a nobody who calls himself Tommy Gunn, has a blurry gun tattoo on his arm, and pretends he's beating his deadbeat dad every time he steps in the ring.

The movie culminates in a street fight between Rocky, a 'Not-Don King', and Gunn, during a 90's hip-hop remix of Rocky's fight music.



Twilight

I saw this movie a few years ago without any prior knowledge of its existence. I had never heard of Stephanie Meyers or the Twilight series, and when someone suggested we watch it, I commented on the oddity of an author remaking Tuck Everlasting into a vampire story.

Aside from the severe Christian overtones displayed in this movie, I.E.; They can't have sex. Edward is filled with guilt whenever they touch. Their promises to be faithful will literally last forever. Their ultra-white family is hated by the native American tribes...Other than these small points, there's nothing I can say that hasn't been tweeted or blogged about by millions of others. They're vampires that sparkle for the love of god. This is what happens when hipsters get their hands on dark, threatening mythos like Vlad the Impaler and childproof it.



The Seeker

If you've never heard of this movie, you've made my day. I make a point to never walk out on a movie, because it doesn't matter how distasteful the writing, there may be some kernel of wisdom hidden in the last five minutes.

The Seeker is all bad. I walked out twice and still came back to it, and now I'm seeking reparations from the producers for an hour of my life down the tubes. This is a movie for a generation of X-Box 10-year-olds who have nothing to be angsty about.

The plot is about some super-generic evil darkness that's creeping across the land, come to sweep over white suburbia, and of the Chosen One who can stop it if he feels like taking time off from his tantrums. I know I'm not the target audience for this movie, but at least Harry Potter had stones.



Blood and Guts not included.

As a closing note, I've intentionally left off any movies that could be euphemistically dubbed as "Torture Porn", the genre of movie whose only appeal is its body & limb count. (Martyrs, Saw III, Cannibal Holocaust, etc.) I believe anyone who rents too many of these should be flagged, the same way libraries used to keep track of the people reading Mein Kampf. Though contrary to this, I thought Saw and Hostel were unique yet gruesome.

1 comment:

  1. Haha, we watched Twilight with Rifftracks commentary, and you could make a drinking game out of how many times they say "line."

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