TFB Podcast Episode 07: This Time It’s Personal Pt II

Courtesy of the skilled and Emmy Nominated Hands of Meagan and Golden Voices of Mark and Stefan comes Episode 07 – now available at these fine links, or wherever Podcasts are Downloaded.
Desktop iTunes   Mobile Devices   mp3 Direct Download

In this episode:

Stefan regales us with the world of video rental, having worked at both Blockbuster and a smaller regional chain.

Mark tells us about running the public access horror host show Saturday Fright Special and it’s related semi annual live event – The Spooktacular.

Meagan spins the tale of her night at the Emmys (the ‘creative arts awards’) and how she managed to avoid every celebrity she saw.

Tim & Tom are MIA

Links to Things Mentioned in This Show

Video Headquarters Keene NH
Site Facebook

Saturday Fright Special
Site Facebook

Scarecrow Video Seattle WA

This Episode’s Staff Picks

Stefan
Barfi (2012)
Wikipedia IMDb

Mark
Superfuzz (1980)
Wikipedia IMDb

Meagan
Beneath the Valley of The Ultra-Vixons (1979)
Wikipedia IMDb

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That’s My Boy (2012)

Look, I'm not above this.

Look, I’m not above this.

This review contains spoilers.

A few weeks ago, Bryant, Stefan and I decided to forego human interaction and assist in the destruction of The Video Store by hitting up the Red Box for a couple movies. We rented Argo, which was fantastic, of course— you don’t need me to tell you that. But Stefan remembered the “DVD NIGHT” code which would net us a free DVD. We already had Argo in our cart on blu-ray, so what would our DVD be? Why not go to the total opposite end of the film spectrum and rent That’s My Boy?

I can feel Mark hating me from here.

I can feel Mark hating me from here.

Bry and I had seen the trailer a while back on the Apple TV. Bry liked the sight gag of a stretched-out New Kids on the Block tattoo, and I’m a sucker for party scenes cut to LMFAO songs. So why not?

Adam Sandler is Donny, an 80s has-been whose claim to fame was knocking up his hot teacher, Ms. McGarricle (Eva Amurri Martino), when he was thirteen. The only person in the film (aside from the viewer) who seems remotely horrified by this relationship is the judge who sentences her. The film itself chooses to play the statutory rape in the unfortunate “it’s cool if you’re a dude and she was hot” way, complete with Donny and Ms. McGarricle getting caught in the act by a full auditorium that erupts into applause.

After spending the first 15 minutes or so squirming in our seats, we blessedly flash forward to present day. Older, washed up Donny parties with strippers, still gets recognized on the streets as the kid who banged his teacher (really?), and still visits his sweetheart, Ms. McGarricle, in prison. I would love to say that the film is suggesting that Donny was damaged by his relationship with his teacher and has had trouble growing up, but it doesn’t seem that deep.

Despite my disgust at the entire premise behind the character, the casting for Ms. McGarricle is fantastic. In the present day, middle-aged teacher is played by Martino’s real life mother, Susan Sarandon.

MILF personified.

I’m not sure being hot in prison makes you that happy.

But while Donny was living the good life, he apparently forgot to keep up with his taxes. His lawyer, Jets coach Rex Ryan (who has so much Patriots memorabilia around his office that I had to look him up to see why that was a joke. Answer: because New York and Boston), tells him he’s got a week to come up with forty grand for Uncle Sam.

Enter the titular “my boy”. The offspring of thirteen year old Donny and the incarcerated Ms. McGarricle, Todd (né Han Solo, played by Andy Samberg), is now a successful businessman who has done everything he can to distance himself from his unfortunate beginning. Donny has a plan to cash in on his celebrity to pay off his taxes— trick Todd into a reunion show with him and his mother on a sleazy talk show. Of course, since this is a pretty paint-by-numbers movie, Todd is about to get married to some pretty, young, “really, she’s with you?” woman (Jamie, played by Leighton Meester) from a nice family with a requisite saucy grandmother. Donny just won’t fit into the picture.

When Donny crashes in on Todd, Todd tells his future in-laws that he’s is an old friend who once saved his life. Jamie’s family, of course, takes to Donny right away, and Todd continues to feel like a fish out of water. Donny begins to suspect that Jamie is cheating on Todd, and enlists 80s pal Vanilla Ice (because why not) to help him investigate.

I feel like you probably know where it goes from here. Well, mostly. There is one surprise in the film, involving Jamie’s brother, Chad (Milo Ventimiglia), that makes the statutory at the beginning merely stomach-churning by comparison.

Along the way, James Caan shows up as a Satantic Irish-Catholic priest, for some reason, and punches Andy Samberg around. Nick Swardson plays (I think?) a mentally challenged stip club goer, Colin Quinn is barely there as the strip club DJ (but hey, it was nice to see him), and Ciara is the strip club’s inexplicably gorgeous bartender.

Gross-out humor abounds. There’s an excruciatingly prolonged scene of Sandler masturbating to both old and recent photos of the aforementioned saucy grandmother. Donny throws Todd a debauched bachelor party which is two parts fun and one part blech. There’s an old, heavyset stripper who shoots a tennis ball from under her skirt with the accompanying *pop* sound effect (get it? It’s usually a ping pong ball but not this lady!) . But there’s some heartfelt father-son bonding along the way, until Todd discovers the real reason for Donny’s sudden reappearance in his life.

They fight, Todd wants Donny out of his life, Donny leaves and finds out Jamie is a truly disgusting person, wins Todd’s affection with this knowledge, Todd re-becomes Han Solo, Han Solo realizes Ciara is cute, and Donny wins a bet on a fat guy in a race to solve his $40,000 tax problem. Tah dah!

I like Adam Sandler. I wouldn’t call myself a fan, and I certainly don’t seek out his movies, but he reminds me a little of one of my uncles and seeing him on the screen soothes me. The sheer way he pronounced two words in the film got the biggest laughs from Bryant, Stefan and I, so much so that we rewound it repeatedly and actually quote it to each other, even though those words are just “fat guy”.

I was talking with my friend Shannon recently about some other terrible movie, and she described it as a “group movie”, meaning that it really wasn’t going to be funny unless you were watching it with a bunch of people. That’s My Boy is definitely one of those movies. It’s not good. It’s somehow almost two hours long. It tackles a lot of complicated social taboos with zero finesse or sensitivity. But I didn’t hate it. Like Todd, I feel forced to accept that yes, maybe I find Adam Sandler funny and charming, and that maybe I’m not as sophisticated as I thought I was.

I give it like a C- or a D, but like a watchable C- or D.

I’ve learned something about myself.

 

photos from imdb.

Posted in Home Video, Review | Leave a comment

One Sentence Review: Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 ***1/2 Shane Black’s continued examination of the male psyche packaged in an incredibly entertaining Super Hero Action movie.

Posted in Columns, One Sentence Review, Theatrical | Leave a comment

One Sentence Review: Oblivion

Oblivion ***1/2 Spectacular eye candy inspired by at least six other Sci-Fi classics that plays like a movie equivalent of an 80′s Power Ballad.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

FAQs About Time Travel

FAQs About Time Travel

Dir. Gareth Carrivick

Writer Jamie Mathieson

There are many ways to do a time travel movie, but the most fun to watch for me are the small, intimate types, without the big budget effects and bluster; where the time travel elements are subtle.

FAQs About Time Travel falls into this category. It’s basically a bottle movie, where most of the action takes place in the same pub— just at various points in time.

The film starts with Ray (Chris O’Dowd) getting fired from his job at a theme park as the operator on Star Ride. He got too into character and frightened the kids on his ride. He rallies his buddies Pete (Dean Lennox Kelly) and Toby (Marc Wootton), and they decide to decompress at the pub over some beers.

Chris O’Down, Marc Wootton in a scarf I don’t care for, and Dean Lennox Kelly.

Ray is a sci-fi nerd (or an “S-F” nerd. Let us not forget speculative fiction). When Pete and Toby ask him what his dream job is, “timelord” is the first thing out of his mouth. But Toby isn’t any more grounded. He’s got a notebook full of movie ideas, one of which he is sure will be a hit, and will make them famous in the future.

And actually, it totally will. It will make all three of them very significant figures in the future, which is where the trouble starts.

After a few pints, Ray heads to the bathroom, and meets Cassie (Anna Faris) on the way.  She tells him she’s from the future, at the pub to repair a time leak. Ray laughs it off, assuming his friends are winding him up. But Cassie goes on to warn him of other time travelers— “editors” —that are up to no good, targeting important figures by going back in time and killing them at their moment of triumph. Ray doesn’t see the relevance and heads back to the table.

Toby and Pete deny being behind the time traveler, and Pete heads to the bathroom, where he becomes the first to experience the time leak that Cassie mentioned. When he exits the bathroom, he exits into a pub filled with dead bodies— including his own. He rushes back into the bathroom, and when he dares to come back out again, everything is back to normal. Ray and Toby follow him back into the toilets and try to recreate Pete’s time jump, in one of the funnier scenes in the film.

From here on, it’s pretty wacky. Plenty of time jumping in the bathrooms, hiding in closets from their past selves, and crashing a theme night at the pub centered around them.

Anna Faris and Chris O'Dowd.

Anna Faris and Chris O’Dowd.

When the editor-villain finally arrives toward act three, the boys are forced to decide between dying right then but living on in history, or continuing their lives as nobodies while losing their shot at fame. The villain herself, Millie (Meredith MacNeill), feels like a plot device and nothing else. There’s no reason given as to why she wants to stamp out whatever it was Toby, Ray and Pete had come up with, or they themselves. Maybe she just gets off on killing visionaries at their finest moment— fine —but it isn’t particularly compelling.

Generally, I find Anna Faris likable and funny, but she doesn’t do a lot for me in this film. The role itself is hollow. Cassie is pretty incompetent; she keeps thinking she’s solved the time leak when she hasn’t. The way the filmmakers chose to show that time is passing for Cassie is by changing her outfit and hair color and style every time she appears (which is sort of goofy, lazy filmmaking, but it also paints her as a bit flighty). She is an airhead and it’s hard to accept her as a voice of authority or a heroic figure. Which I suppose could be said of our three leads, as well, but I expected more from a time agent from the future. But there’s one in every office, amirite?

Chris O’ Dowd, of IT Crowd fame (or not? That’s not even listed on his “known for” on IMDB. Jeez), is adorable, of course. Ray is Roy, and he plays it well. Wootton and Kelly are both delightful, as well. I keep wanting to use the word “charming” to describe everyone in this film because they are, and the film itself is, too. It’s a group of underdogs up against death, lost fame, and the unknown. While Ray won’t go down in history, he does (spoiler?) get the girl and get to live a little slice of sci-fi. It’s a nice happy ending to a pretty tight little time travel movie.

 

photos from imdb.

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TFB Podcast Episode 006 – Time Travel: Smuggled in a Coconut

Show Links

Desktop
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-film-basement/id554031987?mt=2

Mobile
http://thefilmbasement.libsyn.com/rss

MP3 Download
http://thefilmbasement.libsyn.com/episode-7-time-travel-movies-smuggled-in-a-coconut-mp3

Monsterama
dvddrive-in.com

Time Travel Movies Recommendations

Meagan
Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
Hot Tub Time Machine

Tim
Summer Time Machine Blues
Cashback
Iceman

Mark
Somewhere in Time
Spirit of ’76

Stefan
Donnie Darko

Tom
Clockstoppers
The Girl, The Gold Watch & Everything
The Navigator

Others
Timecrimes, Primer, The Final Countdown, The Philadelphia Experiment, Time After Time, Black Knight, Bill and Ted Excellent Adventure, Groundhog Day

Avoid
Timeline

Weekly Recommendations/Recent Views
Stefan
Beyond the Black Rainbow

Tim
HP Lovecraft Fear of the Unknown
Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Tom
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Mark
Kenny and Company

Meagan
Wonder Boys

Posted in Music/Audio, Podcasts | Leave a comment

One Sentence Review: Searching For Sugar Man

Searching For Sugar Man **** Instant classic that tells the incredible story of a lost genius that’s as inspirational as it is unbelievable.

Posted in Columns, One Sentence Review, Theatrical | Leave a comment

One Sentence Review: Oz The Great and Powerful

Oz The Great and Powerful *** Impressive looking but sometimes slow, sets up and pays appropriate respects to the 1939 beloved classic.

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One Sentence Review: Wreck-It-Ralph

Wreck-It-Ralph *** Love letter to the 80s that meanders midway through but regains footing at the end.

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One Sentence Review: The Hobbit

The Hobbit 3D ***3/4 Appropriately epic retelling that feels at home with yet stands on it’s own from Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptations.

Posted in Columns, One Sentence Review, Theatrical | Leave a comment