RECENT VIEWINGS (Bad Movie Thread!)

[Dr. Whom]

2.5/5
There is no one I recognize or have heard of in any of the big roles, and mostly is directed indifferently. But occasionally there's some of the deadpan charm of Godard's early "comedies" and in one cool tracking shot the bachelor makes like a Hal Hartley protagonist and casually decks every jerk he passes. Good for a chuckle if no shivers.

I checked and the main character is Guy Bedos, who would go on to fame as an actor and comedian in the 70s and 80s, notably with 'Un éléphant, ça trompe énormément'

[M.10rda]

  Well cheers to Guy! I still haven't heard of him or of the ELEPHANT movie but good for him for making a career of it.

[LilCerberus]

Tonight's Stinker
Monster Force Zero(2019)
https://youtu.be/fbgzBKuAK8U?si=YpFmcfvvrv-rDrPh

Shot on video...
At a comicon, a group of cosplayers are trying unsuccessfully hock a new comic book... At first, they run into a group of bully cosplayers who look like they're in their thirties, who challenge them to a fight at an after-party.....
It turns out, the fight is organized by aliens, who give both teams super powers & test each team to see who's best.....
And, that's pretty much the first half, followed by a real mission, with a cameo by Garrett Wang of Star Trek: Voyager fame....

The first half is slow, & even as the pace picks up, the acting remains stiff, and most of the jokes fall flat....

[M.10rda]

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (2025):
Madame 10rda picked two winners last week so I can't hold this one against her. It's written and directed by a woman, co-written by another woman, and shot and edited by another two women, and I commend them for getting paid. Together they've made a slasher film that is sort of generally female-positive (in some rather cringey ways) while also being every bit as asinine and insultingly dumb as it would've been had any usual bunch of cis-het men made it. 

This is not a reboot (despite the title) but a sequel to the original films. Almost every scene is howlingly stoopid, in painful and mortifying ways rather than fun/entertaining ways. I'll only bother to single out one example (SPOILER): near the climax, the first of two killers is revealed as the only sympathetic character in the film, prompting me to cheer them on to murder the remaining cast members. (They don't.)

The three female leads (heretofore unknown to me) are Sarah Pidgeon (decent actor saddled with impossible silly role), Madelyn Cline (utterly bland in every way), and an okay actor with a weird-looking spray tan and the absurd name "Chase Sui Wonders". The supporting cast includes some interchangeable himbos; returning series Final Girl Jennifer Love Hewitt, who looks pretty good for 46; Freddie Prinze Jr, who at age 49 looks similar to but worse than Jeff Goldblum (who is 72); and an improbable appearance by Sarah Michelle Gellar, the best thing about the original movie, who at 48 looks better than she looked in 1997. I hate to suggest she's AI-generated but anything's possible but maybe she and Prinze just have a "Dorian Gray" kinda' marriage where he gets older and she gets younger.

I'm ashamed to spend the majority of this review focusing mostly on the physical appearances of the cast. However I assure you the level of this discourse is still higher than the level of discourse within the appalling dialogue.

1/5
Brandy Norwood aka "Brandy" aka "Moesha" also appears in a mid-credits coda and teases a sequel reuniting her and JLH for more slasher-y adventures. Hard pass!

[zombie no.one]

ugh, there was so much more untapped potential with 'amusing' variations on that title, and they just went with the original title again, really? 

it's like tribute bands now, who instead of naming themselves with a clever pun based on the band they're tributing, just call themselves '>insert actual band name< (tribute)'...

we are imploding as a species!

I've seen the first 3 '...SUMMER's and only liked the 2nd one, in a guilty pleasure-y way. can't even remember a thing about the 3rd one tbh

[Dr. Whom]

Well cheers to Guy! I still haven't heard of him or of the ELEPHANT movie but good for him for making a career of it.

'Un éléphant' is an absolute comedy classic in the French-speaking world. If you were around in the late seventies (in the francophone sphere) you have seen it. It launched a minor comedy genre, le 'film à potes' about a group of (usually male) friends. Remade in 1984 by Gene Wilder as the Woman in Red.

I follow Sarah Michelle Gellar on social media (of course I do), and unless she carefully doctors each and every photo, she has aged very well.

[M.10rda]

I like Sarah Michelle and am glad to hear that. I don't think I've seen her in a movie (I mean a real movie, not this crap) in a long long time.

I thought there were three films previously but was unsure. I remember Jack Black and Jeffrey Combs were in the second one, though in insufficient quantities!

They could have called this one I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TWENTY-SEVEN SUMMERS AGO. That would have been one clever/intentionally amusing thing about it.

Doctor, I did see WOMAN IN RED on HBO in about 1985 or so, when every new "release" on that platform was a huge event (because they tended to play 4 movies on rotation around the clock). Knowing that it was based on a French comedy is helpful context indeed. Doesn't it end with (or roll credits on) the main character falling out of a high window?  Freeze frame on his death, cue Stevie Wonder theme song!