EPISODE 4 DUAL REVIEW: Blood and Chocolate

Blood and Chocolate - 2007

Director: Katja von Garnier

Starring: Agnes Bruckner, Hugh Dancy, Oliver Martinez

Joey's Review:

How would you like to be a basic American bitch caught in a steamy romance triangle with hot European men with accents who like to take their shirts off or drawwwwww? Well, have I got another piece of YA bullshit for you! Blood and Chocolate comes roaring in with its own supernatural unbelievable love-vomit that was probably slated as a release on the CW, but immediately rejected for having too high of a white people ratio.

A cookie-cutter “forbidden romance” story, we follow the journey of Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), a cardboard box with someone’s face drawn on it, as she meets Aiden (Hugh Dancy), a graphic novelist who trespassed on a church appreciated by werewolves. As a werewolf herself, Vivian is, at first, cautious, but he is clean shaven, and uses Faber-Castell markers, so there must be something, and the two cavort around town showing off their parkour skills and get to know each other’s inner most desires and secrets…except for the most important one in that she has fur.

Vivian and Aiden practicing
their "Disney Channel
peek around a corner" move
assuming that's where this
movie would air.

Off in the distance, more chiseled men with accents worry, as Vivian is part of an arranged marriage with the werewolf pack leader, Gabriel, who wants Vivian because…I don’t know…she’s literally the only American one? Vivian is a bit of an ass to the tribe and this romance with the “muggle” could lead to secrets of the pack getting exposed and next thing you know, we have another Blade: Trinity on our hands and NOBODY wants that. So alas, grrr, argh, battle, rabble rabble, love conquers all, it’s YA, it follows a pretty standard formula.

So standard in fact, that it’s really a challenge to enjoy it. I get that movies like this aren’t made for me, but if you’re going to treat your audience like the most bland, shallow viewers imaginable, it’s not really difficult to crack your code even if you’re not the main demographic. Building completely around a stereotype has never made a good film and the practice has become the butt of plenty of jokes; it’s why these movies are often panned and go straight to DVD.

Blood and Chocolate wasn’t a BAD execution of the “how to reach the 11-16 year-old female market” Powerpoint slide, it was just a really dull, pointless one that hit all of the bullet points but literally nothing else. My nausea didn’t come from some ridiculous twist or drawn out narrative more than it did the obvious attempt to check off boxes. Even the title sounds steamy and mysterious…but Vivian works in a chocolate shoppe. There ya go, mystery solved. Is there going to be a reveal moment for Aiden to learn about the werewolves? Of course there is. Is it going to matter? Of course it won’t. Is there going to be a werewolf fight? You bet there will! Will everyone have their shirts off? Get that pause button ready, baby!

Swoon-tastic Gabriel posing for his
imaginary promotional fragrance ad.

Again, not for me, so I can only really grade this from my jaded perspective and TRY to be sympathetic to the target viewer. So, to my future daughter, if you find yourself wanting to watch a movie where you can swoon and imagine yourself in a steamy, gothy, underworld as the fiery damsel who just wants to be her own woman…there are a billion better movies out there. If you are jonesing for a werewolf movie, well you’re pretty screwed no matter what you see. If you have to watch the two together, it’s this or Twilight, and I’ll microwave that piece of crap if I see it in the house so I guess it’s Blood and Chocolate for you. For me, it’ll stay on the shelf until that moment with 4 dustbusters to keep it company.

Samantha's Review:

As a former teenage girl who was attracted to many types of romantic garbage, I won't pretend that Blood and Chocolate isn't just that. If you ever liked Twilight, you will probably like this movie as well. Hell, if you liked 50 Shades of Misogyny, you might like this movie.

The movie starts off with the introduction of a teenage girl who has the emotional depth of Kristen Stewart...but she's blonde. She's an American girl who has a secret....SHOCKER. She will fall in love with an artist...because of course she will. But oh...there's more...she's betrothed to her aunt's ex-husband. I know....it's odd.

See, her secret is that she's part of an ancient people that for some reason have an issue with the concept of long term relationships and it's the same dude just going out and "marrying" all the young girls he's known since they were children. Think of it like community grooming. So, naturally....this artist is an issue, as if the issue wasn't this creepy dude attempting to bang his niece.

So the girl is a werewolf...in love with a human....betrothed to her uncle, and part of a secret werewolf cult. She proceeds to endanger her beloved boyfriend and infuriate her fiance-uncle because what else does young love do? So now her boyfriend is on everyone's shit-list and her fiance-uncle wants him dead, so they try to kill him. Because murder is how to seduce young girls. She saves him but not at the expense of her own well being. Since this is a cliche werewolf movie, let's have a moment to realize what werewolf kryptonite is....silver. Yeah, while boyfriend was on the menu for murder, he snuck in a silver steak knife in an attempt to defend himself against of pack of wolves, and instead of slicing open an enemy, he sliced open his wolfy girlfriend.

Passed this point is a bunch of very foreseeable circumstances such as a magic silver cure, an anticlimactic fight scene, and a happy ending.

I'll be honest, the only reason this movie is fun for me is because the little teenager in my brain, who read the books, and loved Twilight-eque stories at one point, likes it. It's a guilty pleasure. And that guilty pleasure gets a 5/10.

EPISODE 3 DUAL REVIEW: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl - 2008

Director: Justin Chadwick

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Eric Bana

Joey's Review:

Movies about British history make me think of a network lineup commercial telling them “tonight, we uncover shocking details surrounding the murder of five small children…but first, giggles abound on a classic episode of Friends!” Either we get the “oh my gosh scandal” of politics and rulers and wars and all of that or we get “bitches be cray cray.” That’s pretty much it and tonight, we got the latter.

On pulling The Other Boleyn Girl, I jokingly called it "The Other White Meat." What I thought I was doing was tapping into that pre-pubescent idiot humor that still laughs at the word “balls,” but turns out I was basically describing the plot of the movie.

Hunky King Eric Bana! No padding
on those shoulders either! Beeeefcake!
Just kidding, he's a piece of shit.

Driven by their father’s pipe dreams, the Boleyn sisters get thrust into the radar of King Henry VIII, a king whose worth is portrayed as nothing more than “he’s hunky.” Yeah, sure, he’s a king which is why daddy cares, but the lady viewers this was obviously made for will take note of the many shots of his glorious…ly awful demeanor. Swooooon. Being persuaded to seduce the king, Anne Boleyn finds that, to her surprise, the king has fallen for her sister! When the sister becomes pregnant, Anne sees this as an opportunity to move in on the king herself in an act of devilish betrayal. But first, giggles abound on a classic episode of Friends!

Boleyn Girl is technically historical fiction, based loosely off the story of Henry VIII leading to the birth of Elizabeth I, which the film tries to shock you with as if you watched it giving two shits about accuracy. Given the creative licensing, if you were to write the steps of this plot down on paper, it’s actually not too bad. Girl goes after king, king falls for sister, sister gets pregnant, girl seduces king ‘cause king is really focused on heir, sister births girl, king rethinks his life decisions, so on and so forth. I’m ok with this if the execution weren’t so damn miserable here.

Movie trivia: That window is actually a TV
and their faces were stuck that
way for the rest of the film.

I get that the value of a woman back then was in the “Latina woman at an anti-abortion rally” range, but if you’re going to try to reel the audience in with an honest-to-God romance story, maybe…I don’t know…have romance? Love? Emotion? The main part of this movie is a fight for hunky king’s love and so often I was met with scenes where I had to step back and say “but why do you want it exactly? He’s a womanizing dick.” More and more it just felt like “because he was there” which turns this away from Shakespearean brilliance and more towards “The Real Housewives of the Reformation.” If we called this "The Other Boleyn Chump," I probably could have saved the two hours.

Then again, this movie is also in the realm of tragedy, and if that was the point…why focus on the pale love story instead of try to earn the fall that you were aiming for? Not a single thing was convincing here and as a result, I just didn’t feel anything or care, really. Better screenwriting and better performances definitely could have saved this. Throwing Eric Bana in king’s clothing and saying “look at the shiny man” may work in some Magic Mike styled, Snow White dimwitted bullshit, but it’s a little difficult to be sympathetic and excited about the character’s “love” while at the same time having “here’s a story about women who had it comin’” shoved in my face.

Go watch Ever After or…hell, the damn Princess Diaries if you want that royalty love story fix. This was just a bit too deadpan and stale for something that was really hoping to be dark an edgy.

Though the film itself took a bit to figure it out, I’m very willing to call The Other Boleyn Girl a tragedy, but anxiously await the sequel to be premiered as a made-for-TV movie like this should have been. I’ll have my popcorn ready and 6 dustbusters to clean it up with. …But first, giggles abound on a classic episode of Friends!

Samantha's Review:

I feel like sibling rivalry is a very common ordeal in any household with more than one child, however this is usually over something as silly as toys and who’s better at cartwheels. However, The Other Boleyn Girl is the ultimate version of sister vs. sister rivalry.

The movie is, of course, about King Henry VIII, and I’m sure we are all fully aware of the little rhyme of:
“Divorced, beheaded, died.
Divorced, beheaded, survived.”

Oh yeah, Benedict Cumberbatch and
Jim Sturgess are in this too.
Obviously having fun.

Now, clearly this is a story about Anne Boleyn but...there is another Boleyn girl. In this story Anne Boleyn has a younger sister, Mary, that is married off very early in the movie, while Anne is being encouraged to bed King Henry during a hunting trip the Boleyn family is hosting to distract him from his most recent loss of a stillborn son birthed by his first wife. Well...plans don’t go accordingly and Henry finds interest in well....not Anne.

Overall this movie is a big game of one guy, two sisters, and a fight for a thrown. I wouldn’t say it’s a family movie. However, because it’s not a family movie...there are some nice visuals, I must confess. But it’s also fun to watch the politics of this time come to light. Again, not everything was textbook true but there are some aspects that are realistic. I guess it can all be expressed in the quote of “What is treason? Whatever the king and his lawyers says it is.”

The Other Boleyn Girl is a fun watch. It’s an interesting take on the life and tragic end of Henry’s second wife. It also brings light to Anne Boleyn, who I found was a real person, with similarities to how she is portrayed in the film. But the story of how two sisters are in competition with each other for a man and how they intend to have the best of him. Yet it also portrays how both will come together, despite their differences, to protect each other. You just never really know who to trust.

Overall, The Other Boleyn Girl is a good watch, with great visuals, fun BS to watch and call out, and it’s always fun to see how much effort is put into a man that is just....a womanizer with a title of king. 7/10 for The Other Boleyn Girl from me.

Also...Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman...so.... :)

EPISODE 2 DUAL REVIEW: Zack and Miri Make A Porno

Zack and Miri Make A Porno - 2008

Director: Kevin Smith...and not Judd Apatow

Starring: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks

Joey's Review:

Oh, where do I begin? I’m willing to claim personal preference bias on this one, but I struggle with movies that are nothing more than stand-up comedy sets filmed with some bullshit way to tie them altogether and that’s basically what I feel Zack and Miri Make a Porno is. I find this complaint especially ironic in a movie that is about making a movie.

I had hopes with Kevin Smith at the helm, but that’s my fault for desperately hoping for the glory days of Dogma, Clerks, and Mallrats and ignoring that all his career has been for the last 15 years is self-glorification and clinging on to Jay and Silent Bob with the same “save me, save me” look that Rob Schneider gives to Adam Sandler. But hey, he found a model that created a following! It’s Judd Apatow’s model, but it works!

Does it have hockey represented?
Yes. Ok, it's a Kevin Smith movie.

Here’s the cute premise of Zack and Miri: Two roommates, desperate for cash, embark on an insane journey to create a “sure-fire-hit” porno while discovering that, amidst all the frivolous sex, what they have together might have a little more meaning than they thought. The issue that I had is what was delivered was “PORNO?! I heard porno! I have like 100 sex jokes for you that would totally be funny to film! Yay porno!” Riveting.

Movies like these throw jokes at you from all directions and so little of it is delivered with that real comedic finesse that it gives me same the problems that Judd Apatow movies often give me; it’s funnier when requoting it later (said this two weeks ago about Buckaroo Banzai...good to know the box can still listen and be ironic). Maybe it’s Judd, maybe it’s Seth Rogen, I don’t know but thinking about dialogue like “How come everybody doesn’t do it?” “Because other people have options and dignity, which we do not have…” is funnier in my head after watching it fall flat on screen. I laughed at some of it, yeah, but unlike cleverer comedy, the humor isn’t in anything more than the words and that point…I might as well just check out the highlights on the IMDB quotes page.

There's a point where I realized
Seth Rogen's acting direction was
"just be yourself." It was here. It was awkward.

For that crime, the rest of it just kind of…is there. It aimed for a sweet spot, trying to build a romance that kind of pissed me off the same way Celeste and Jesse Forever did, where both parties were basically dangling each other by a long thread for no reason other than a plot point, but even that felt like “you two work because you feed lines to each other well.”

I felt cheated out of a good story because “damn it, that joke was really good and we need to fit it in there” and it never really settled down to remind us that there was a reason we were watching this. Its entire reason for being was pretty much gone after the first hour and we’re left with a flash forward sequence that should have started with a screen that said “oh right, the movie part. Yeah, something works out. Forgot what it was, but…here you go.”

Zack and Miri makes sense as a cult classic, but as I witnessed a few weeks ago, that doesn’t make it good. Do I understand why it’s loved by people? Sure. It’s funnier the more I look back on it. Do I look down on those people for it? Nah, we all enjoy movies differently and the non-stop jokemobile with some story in there to glue it together is not something that really resonates with me. 100 Girls had the same problem and where I felt that was just a sad reading of a Wikipedia page search of “solid jokes for first-time stand up comics,” I have to respect better work by better comedians. I was just hoping for a little bit more than a bit rehearsal in film form so Zack and Miri, please take these 6 dustbusters and clean up the mess you made with this movie.

Samantha's Review:

Zack And Miri Make A Porno is a movie I have already seen, but one that I always enjoy. The movie is the story of two friends, that have always been just friends, that live together and are just BROKE. They really haven’t gone far in life and compared to other people they went to high school with aren’t doing very well. Well, eventually broke turns into no power, water, or heat in their apartment and no money to pay their rent. Now, this is the part where a conversation that I’m sure every broke as hell individual has had about being broke. This conversation always follows one of three options of how to make a lot of money really fast. 1) Hooker, 2) Making Porn, and 3) Be a Stripper. Even I have looked many people in the face and said that I’m gonna have to start stripping for money while terribly shaking my butt. However, in this film, instead of just joking about making porn for money, THEY ACTUALLY OPT TO DO IT!

Now, this is where I start to die. I’m not well versed in the ways of pornography, but apparently it’s all fantasy and I’m some cases even using pop culture. I mean...Rule 34 of the Internet, right? “If it exists there is porn of it. No exceptions.” Followed by Rule 35, “If there is no porn of it, it shall be made. No exceptions.” In this case...Star Wars.

The cast and wait?! Silent Bob? Snoogins!

This movie is fun. It’s not award winning fun, but it’s raunchy and full of one liners like “Give me two popsicle sticks and a rubber band, and I’ll find a way to fuck it.” It also gives some reality to that poverty point of desperation for money that I personally can relate to, in the sense that I definitely thought about it. But it’s funny, probably because some of it is true. Sex sells, shit happens, and sometimes sex is sex, sometimes sex is money, and sometimes sex is more than either. But for the vulgar humor, raunchy behavior, and nudity for days...I give this movie a 7 out of 10. It’s not an award winner but damn it’s great if you need a good laugh...and some boobs. Because boobs.

EPISODE 1 DUAL REVIEW: Buckaroo Banzai

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension - 1984

Director: Michael Arick

Starring: Peter Weller, John Lithgow

Welcome to the 2018 BackLOG Reviews, new box, and new reviewer to the mix! Da girlfriend :) So this is a dual review, one from me, one from her down below! This will happen from time to time, love to hear your thoughts! Anyway, off we go:

Joey's Review:

Jeff Goldblum, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, and Peter Weller must have had a hell of a night as the only reason I can fathom someone participating in a movie like Buckaroo Banzai is if they got arrested and had to do community service at the local film school. Now, don’t confuse this for pure dislike here. I enjoyed this movie, but I’ve always felt that if you’re going venture down that realm of ludicrous, silly, low-budget parody, it’s really best to go full retard.

Buckaroo Banzai (or The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension) is one of those films that you’ll watch and immediately start recognizing how future sci-fi was influenced by it. Back to the Future, Men in Black, Star Trek: TNG, there’s a lot of themes here, perhaps because they all looked back and said “I really think we can do this a whole lot better.”

Buckaroo Banzai and the
Hong Kong Cavaliers. Whitewashing
was a thing in the 80s too, kids.

We pick up the journey with Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers, a quintessentially 80’s rock band comprised of a bunch of white guys who are also scientists trying to find a pass through solid matter. Succeeding in these efforts, they accidentally pass through the 8th Dimension, which freaks out the “to-the-point-of-racist” black alien residents who are suddenly concerned that some other crazy cracker is going to invade their turf. I mean…to be fair…it’s a pretty legit fear. War is threatened and our white-washed heroes have to stop the evil madman before the black guys just decide to burn this whole mutha’ down.

It’d be unfair to say it was more subtle than that, but this was during an age in film where, if you were black, you were either speaking in Ebonics or trying to ride on Richard Pryor’s coattails. I’ll blame sign of the times. We’re such tight-asses nowadays that movies like this or Airplane, shown to the Social Justice Warrior community, would get picked apart for such nuances like “why is he speaking in a Jamaican accent,” but alas, it’s hard to just say “maybe they just wanted the distinction REALLY damn clear.”

80's movie mandated sex symbol and
some broad hogging the shot.

Buckaroo Banzai makes a solid attempt at being good, campy fun, but falls a bit short to me because it just feels too dry. “Wouldn’t it be funny if a girl about to blow her brains out gets stopped by the scientist rock band members, each of whom is wielding their own gun in the middle of a performance for some reason?” I mean…maybe when recalled over beers two days later, but in execution, it just didn’t play out too humorous. The movie was full of these moments of “I see how that could be funny later…” For the record, I have the same feeling about most Judd Apatow movies. Maybe I’m just bad at this.

I don’t know, I’m happy I watched this…but there’s just nothing memorable except the damn name. Campy cult classics usually give you something to hold on to, but this didn’t. It’s was tolerable to the point of…eh. I can bring it up with hardcore movie and sci-fi nerds and we’ll go “yeah, Buckaroo Banzai!” and then…nothing will happen after that.

Like I said, lots of influences that I can see in things that came after it, but that’s not always a good thing. If you’ve followed the BackLOG, you’ll know I have a quarter jar for this: but it had a lot of promise, but just didn’t live up to it. I don’t think I’m the only one who felt that way though so thanks Buckaroo for the ideas, but let others handle the execution and enjoy 6 dustbusters out of 10 for your trouble.

Samantha's Review:

You know how people say things like “I’m too old for this shit?” Well…I’m too young for this shit. When it comes to a movie titled Buckaroo Banzai, while I can fully appreciate why some people love this film, I…just…can’t….

First, while watching this movie, Joey is having the time of this life seeing bits and pieces of things that may or may not have influenced or been influenced by other things…they are things I’ve never even seen. I don’t remember the 80s. My mom does and she hated the 80s. It’s safe to say that certain things I didn’t understand. I appreciated the homage from Back To The Future with the fast car speeding around but…that’s about it on that aspect. After that is where I get lost.

The racial overtones couldn't
have been more prevalent if their
spaceship was a large powered donut.

I couldn’t tell you if I was confused at the Rockstar Scientists…yes…ROCKSTAR SCIENTISTS….because that’s real life. Having a PhD in Physics and a PhD in Bass Guitar and being able to be a physicist and be on tour with your tubular rockband…totally realistic. I may have also been confused by the fact that EVERYONE in this film HAS A GUN. No joke. Every human being is packing. This is a pretty consistent thing that happens through the film. All of a sudden everyone has a gun. Even the, like, 8 year old kid is sporting a mini spray and pray. This is where I completely stop paying attention. Not intentionally, mind you. I don’t think my brain could understand what the holy hell was happening between Rockstar Scientists, carrying at least a shotgun in their back pocket, and tons of old scifi references that I didn’t understand because I wasn’t even a fetus yet…my understandings of this movie really consist of me asking Joey every 15 minutes what was happening even when I had my eyes on the television instead of Facebook.

To be fair to the film, Joey pulled it from the box and when he read the title of “Buckaroo Banzai” I immediately knew I was going to not give a shit. He did inform me that this is a cult classic, and I like some cult classic flicks. I also completely get why this movie has a cult following. It’s in the same realm as The Room. A film that’s so awful it’s good. I know that Joey did enjoy aspects of this movie but…this is where my age shows. I just don’t get it. I don’t understand the wardrobe, or the references (apparently there were Star Trek things…I’ve never seen Star Trek), or even the humor. I’m just…too young for this shit.

Overall, I give this film a 3 out of 10. I can’t relate, I don’t get it, I couldn’t even pay attention, BUT I did laugh AT HOLY SHIT EVERYONE HAS A GUN AGAIN moments.

The BackLOG Reviews - Episode 8

Merry Christmas Everyone! Holiday cheer all around and it's a special cause for celebration as I hit at 10,000 views on this page! YESSSS!!! last I checked I only had 17 more views to go so help out! Share this around if you can, it would be awesome sauce! In the meantime though, enjoy the holiday! I'm going to enjoy a little Woody Allen and let you know what I think!

EPISODE 7 REVIEW: The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells - 2009

Director: Tomm Moore

Starring: Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson

When watching a movie, I always enjoy the fun challenge of trying to guess where exactly is it trying to take me. Usually you get a pretty linear plot: you start with a problem, you work towards a solution and you drudge through the credits. Sometimes you get a little twist, a shocker, an unexpected moment, things not being what they seems and the whole film takes on a new meaning. And in rare cases you get a movie like The Secret of Kells which has random fits of “but you really don’t have to give a shit about all that stuff you just watched.”

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed The Secret of Kells. I just felt like it was three television pilots of three different series smashed into one movie that…sorta worked…I guess. On one pilot you have the adventures of Brendan, a spry, curious young boy reacting to the sudden discovery of the world outside the walls of his city. On another, you have you a gripping drama about dancing around the line where safety and security can go too far as the city of Kells prepares for an inevitable barbarian invasion. And on the last you have a religious propaganda piece on the creation of The Book of Kells, a very real book based on the four gospels of the New Testament if they were created by people practicing their psychedelic religious wallpaper designs at the same time.

Aisling, who you also really don't
have to give a shit about. But she's
a badass demi-god...who sings
to animals. Because duh.

The Secret of Kells is an absolutely beautiful movie. It took me back to the days of Don Bluth where parts of the frame that were not pivotal to what was going on it where allowed to shine because of the attention to detail paid to them. Visuals were stunning and the Celtic feel oozed through the watercolor backdrops highlighted with patterns and swirls and designs you usually see in those expensive books in the museum that you’re not allowed to touch. In a feat rarely seen in this age of digital animation (which this film mostly was), it was clear that there was an artistic direction that miraculously stayed true to itself through every scene. Director Tomm Moore has a style that is clearly his with the same kind of command seen from Studio Ghibli works.

The Secret of Kells is a kids film, though I only feel that is what we can call it because there are elements in it that kids would enjoy. The protagonist is a young boy and he has a band of silly misfit friends. He meets a magical creature as he ventures off into the woods. It’s animated. There’s a cat. We’ve pretty much met the standard here. But it didn’t feel like it committed to anything else other than making this an enjoyable viewing experience (of which it is a GORGEOUS one).

I don’t want to say “this movie is about…” because it changes focus a few times. We start in the village of Kells with Brendan who’s just being a young whippersnapper helping out a group of scribes getting materials to continue the writing of their texts. We care about this because the village is a few commercial breaks away from getting ransacked by a group of barbarians and the abbot feels the time and manpower would be better spent on building a wall. Trying, poorly, to fight the fight of “knowledge gives people hope,” the village is surprised with arrival of the great scribe Aidan who recruits Brendan to help fight the fight of “knowledge gives people hope.” This fight sends Brendan outside of the walls of Kells and into the forests beyond in your typical “this journey will probably turn you into a man” tale filled with metaphors and overcoming impossible obstacles in ways that only mythology can really make sense of.

Town builds a wall. Impending
doom takes the stairs. Classic.

So I’m going to stop there because at this point I have to accept this film for what it is, a beautiful telling of the origin of The Book of Kells. Most of that stuff above eventually qualifies for the “things you don’t have to give a shit about” because you aren’t supposed to care about Brendan, you’re supposed to care about the journey he took for the book. The “knowledge gives people hope” theme is what the message needs to be despite that we always have this fear of impending doom looming overhead and we’re focused on Brendan’s magical adventure. I admit I felt a little blindsided by that after committing so much time to what was quite a good personal story. I assume this is why the Bible skips 18 years of Jesus’s life too. Last thing a religion wants to do is confuse you into thinking you should be caring about people.

Ultimately this is where my reservation lies. It’s hard to appreciate this film completely because it doesn’t feel structured enough to really judge. It’s more like a bedtime story that you rush through a bit when you notice your kid is starting to doze off and won’t be asking “why” every damn sentence. I got hit with a sudden “aaaaand it’s over” and though I couldn’t really think of many lingering things I felt were necessary for the story, I felt a little cheated and unsatisfied when it was all said and done.

So yeah, I’m conflicted here. Though ya know? I was dazzled enough and not really frustrated per se… Would I watch this again? Eh…I might actually. I don’t know what kind of mood I would need to be in, but I can’t help but feel like there’s one out there. So in The Book of BackLOG, that’s at least worth 7 dustbusters.

The BackLOG Reviews - Episode 7

After 7 reviews that were just ridiculous failures, it seems the box is giving me a break from this live action nonsense that's been so damn disappointing. So to the animated films it is! With a movie that I was only interested in because of the box art...and I still don't actually know what the hell this movie is about. I haven't even read a brief synopsis so The Secret of Kells is a secret to me! Looking forward to it! Have a safe Halloween everyone!

SPECIAL EPISODE REVIEW! The Human Centipede Part 3: Final Sequence

The Human Centipede Part 3: Final Sequence - 2015

Director: Tom Six

Starring: You don't care. You really don't.

You know those long meetings you have where half way through you realize that the whole thing could have been done in an email? That would be pretty much what I felt with The Human Centipede 3. On hitting the play button, Netflix should have just sent an email from director Tom Six saying “So yeah, the first movie totally could have happened. I checked.” There you go. I saved you an hour and 42 minutes. You’re welcome. Go watch something else.

I watched Human Centipede 3 because I’m a completionist and the idea is so twisted that I’m curious of the directions it can be taken in. If you want to see what I thought of the previous one, go here. This one is hailed as the “Final Sequence” so I had to say “after how crazy and ridiculous the second one was, where could they take this last one?” #ThatsHowTheyGetYou  I’m struggling because I’m not sure what this was supposed to be. I don’t know if it was supposed to be scary…or…sick…or…funny…or…released. It had all the makings of a porn parody about the movies (without any porn), and I still feel that porn writers would have been a little truer to the genre. This just made no sense and seemed to only exist as another way to pretend that movie characters are real!

I swear there is a resemblance here.

On the plus side, I can be thankful that not a single part of this film is going to stick with me. The first movie was just a twisted premise. The second movie was a disturbing and grotesque glorification of that twisted premise. The third movie just seemed like a desperate reminder that Tom Six…the great Tom Six…was the guy behind that twisted premise you all freaked about years ago, like a Family Guy “Like that time when…” flashback but the joke took an entire fucking movie to get through. M. Night Shyamalan is the only other director that dickish but he at least commits to his damn stories. I remember why I fucking hated The Village. There's nothing to remember here.

Human Centipede 3 takes place inside the walls of a big state prison where an insane warden (played by the villain from the first film) and his bumbling accountant (played by the villain from the second film) are in the midst of a budget crisis. I think (budget never actually seems to be a problem as guards and hospital staff pop up like video game sprites). Or they pissed off the Governor. Or…I don’t actually know. There’s a prison with dudes there. All-American-German-Nazi warden William Boss hates his job…or people…or the heat or…he hates something and has a knack for taking it out on the fresh air by screaming into it constantly. Disrespected by the prison inmates, he keeps trying to find demented ways to force that respect but finally gives up after he discovers that castration isn’t doing the job and that was as sick as he could go. Maybe he should watch the Human Centipede movie like they did in Human Centipede 2. 

Ha. Bet you didn't see this one coming...

Enter bumbling account who breaks the 4th wall and says “we should totally model our solution to our problem by building a human centipede like we saw in those movies that Tom Six, the great Tom Six, directed.” The movie goes so far as to have Tom Six (the great Tom Six…) have a cameo to explain to the warden that yes…it’s a 100% medically accurate procedure…he checked with some guy in Amsterdam. He brought pictures. They looked right. And Tom Six (the great Tom Six…) is so excited to be able to show the world and his skeptics that this is totally doable. Could somebody just fucking believe him so we can move on?

See? It works. HumanCentipedia.com said so.

Breaking the 4^th wall is tricky, but can be done well (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amelie, Spaceballs, American Psycho, etc.). I actually thought Human Centipede 2 was quite clever in breaking the 4^th wall in using the first movie to justify the second one. But to do it AGAIN using the second movie also is basically crying wolf and turns the entire series into an ACTUAL joke instead of the one we called it when it was really trying. I wouldn’t be surprised 10 years down the road to see Human Centipede 4: Milking It Sequence when a bunch of kids desperately trying to get their hands on a (now, surely rare OOP) copy of the first film are forced to recreate the human centipede themselves because damn it, they’re just jonesin’ for that sweet, sweet plot line and this is the only way to satisfy that craving.

I can’t begin to describe how much of a waste this was. This movie was filled with unintelligible dialogue (it literally was half the movie screaming at nothing. Not out of fear, but just out of…hope that some sound might resemble English), C-list actors who I think were just desperate to be a part of something again, lazy cinematography like all they brought on set was the 50-200mm lens and figured that’d be fine, and absolutely no care to make things scary or gross as if Tom Six expected that “punchline” from 2009 to hold up just as well now ("What's scarier than a 3-person centipede?""I don't know. What?" "A 140-person centipede! Wakka wakka wakka!"). Human Centipede 3 isn’t just an embarrassment on its own, it embarrasses an entire series that at least had some notoriety attached to it, despite for a rather pathetic reason.

Spoiled the movie. I'm really not sorry.

However, all this bullshit aside, it has one good thing going for it. It’s really easy to rate a movie that basically tossed itself in the microwave. Don’t even be curious about this one guys.  I’ll spoil it for you. You get a human centipede. Just assume it works. Just be ok with that.

1 microwave out of 1 and once again, I encourage Tom Six (the great Tom Six…) to live by THIS movie’s example to get locked up in a desert prison, chop his balls off, swallow a jar of clits, eat shit and THEN die.