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Considering the recent news on the passing of Burt Reynolds, we figured we should do something of a tribute episode. Which is why we choose an Uwe Boll movie to jointly review. In the Name of the King[2007] is what happens when someone watches the Lord of the Rings and decides to push their fanfic off as a screenplay.

Jason Statham is the main character who is called Farmer. Not a problem in a universe where other characters have ridiculous names like, say, the Discworld series. Quite a glaring issue within a world where no one else is named after their profession. Ray Liotta is busy trying to capture the ham of Jeremy Irons from Dungeons and Dragons. Burt is busy thinking about the glory days of Gator and Smokey and the Bandit.

Weltall then talks about Sharky’s Machine(1981). It’s about a detective who ends up in a botched drug bust where another cop dies. Disgraced, he gets transferred to vice where he busts a prostitute. She turns out to be part of a high class prostitution ring. This leads him to a crime syndicate who’s using it to blackmail a politician.

Tim then talks about Rent-A-Cop(1987). Burt plays a cop who is part of a drug bust that goes bad and other cops die. Disgraced, he ends up working as a security guard. At least that’s the promise of the synopsis. A prostitute, played by Liza Minnelli, who witnessed the murders tries to enlist him for protection. Things happen and attempts at jokes are made. The only one that lands is that anyone would have paid Liza money for sex in the eighties.

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As we’re getting on in episodes, we must be getting crotchety and senile. Today we’re focused on a film from the seventies when men were men and people drove nothing but muscle cars. Smoking was breathing but for cool people who didn’t do pussy things like save for retirement or plan for their future. People who did such things were clearly communist sympathizers that needed to be shipped to Cuba.

Today’s joint review is The Getaway(1972). It stars Steve McQueen who’s character is imprisoned for something and getting denied parole. The only recourse is to have his wife sleep with someone who has th authority to let him out. Even so, this isn’t enough as he has one more job to do before he’s free. It’s a heist movie that turns into an escape film as in the name.

Weltall then talks about Demolition Man(1993). Because there’s nothing quite as amusing as a future envisioned in the nineties that gets almost everything completely wrong. Wesley Snipes is a bad guy who going to cryo-prison along with the cop who arrests him as Snipes blames the death of the hostages on Stallone. They’re woken up in a future seventies years after the nineties where everything has been sterilized into a semi-utopia to wreak havoc.

Tim, unconsciously keeping in line with the theme of police, talks about Maniac Cop(1988). Who it stars is unclear as Bruce Campbell is credited but doesn’t show up to about a third of the way in. A rogue, tall cop is killing people for no reason which leads detectives to find the nearest guy who’s six foot and put him in cuffs. Naturally this doesn’t stop the killings of a possibly supernatural murder who was a disgraced cop.

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Time to put on your puffy winter vests and hop into your Deloreans as we go back into the eighties and theme the episode around movies that Billy Barty appears in. This time at Weltall’s prompting to look back at Legend(1985). In one of Tom Cruise’s earliest roles directed by Ridley Scott before he decided to butcher the Alien franchise in its crib. If nothing else it should be required viewing for Tim Curry’s performance as basically the devil stealing every second he’s on screen. Tim also adds that while the director’s cut is an excellent watch, you should give the Tangerine Dream score a listen on a streaming site for some exposure to eighties synth.

Tim then talks about Life Stinks(1991). It’s a Mel Brooks film which should put it in for a lock as a hilarious movie. Instead, Mel is attempting to make commentary about homelessness and land development. It’s confusing, lacking in jokes, and makes you long for the hilarity of Silent Movie. At least Billy Barty got a few bucks out of the deal.

Weltall’s contribution is Under the Rainbow(1981). Set around the time of the Wizard of Oz is being filmed, Barty plays a nazi who’s job is to collaborate with a Japanese agent before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Does that sound so hilarious it should be the premise of a comedy movie? If so, please write us and let us know how much cocaine you’ve taken. Just so we can gauge exactly how much may have been passed around the conference table. We’re guessing the conversation when a little like this. “How’s ‘bout a movie with them little people?” “You mean workin’ folks?” “No, da short ones like in Wizard of Oz only if one of them was a nazi?” “fnurrrrrrrrrkkkk! Oh shit yeah! That was great!” “The coke or my idea?” “Both, man. Both.”

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We like to celebrate landmarks in our show sometimes. Especially considering how long it can take to get to any particular number as we alternate. So we decided to do a movie that neither of us have seen before but is infamously bad, widely mocked, and is often seen on a list of terrible super hero movies. We’ll give you a hint, it’s not from the nineties.

We did Catwoman[2004] together and just shortly after the anniversary of the release date. And hey, it’s the ninetieth episode which, when divided by ten, equals how many lives a cat is rumored to have. Nestled right in between the flaming wreckage that was the Shumacher Batman movies and just before the Nolan trillogy was canonized by the online critics we had a DC movie that belonged in neigher.

Halle Berry plays not Selina Kyle who works for an evil make up company. When she dies at the plant, for reasons that don’t make sense, a cat vomits up powers into her dead mouth. This gives her the power of a cat. Unfortunately, like any number of strays, she gets hit by a car and dies a nasty death alone at the side of the road.

Tim talks about The Equalizer 2[2018]. Which he saw in theaters for some reason having never seen the first. It sounds like a mess with tonal shifts that make unmedicated BPD look solid as a rock. One minute Denzel Washington a hard bitten veteran, the next he’s trying to talk some neighborhood kid out of joining a gang. Tim assures us it is a mess but a loveable mess that’s fun to watch at least once.

Weltall then discusses Absolutely Anything[2015], staring Simon Pegg. It’s got a heavy involvement from the old Monty Python crew and has a number of well know British comedy talent. So it’s a shame they decided to remake The Sphere but as a comedy. Aliens give one human unlimited power to do whatever he says as a test of humanity. Ho hum. Was the fact Robin Williams was attached to this as the voice of the dog worth watching? Maybe in the background.

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Let’s say you managed to make a horror movie using a, then, relatively unknown paranormal phenomenon. You’ve managed to recoup your costs and make a tidy profit to the surprise of everyone. A sane person would pick up their chips and head to the cashiers window, turn it in for a check, then head up to their now comped room for a nice rest before celebrating with a nice dinner. Someone with a gambling problem would say to let it ride and be surprised when the roulette wheel doesn’t land on thirty six a second time.

Which is how we got White Noise 2[2007]. Nathon Fillion replaces Keaton as our dad figure. When he wife and son react to their diner breakfast like they had just sampled from the desert bar at Golden Coral, they get shot to death by a passerby who turns the gun on himself. When Nate tries to kill himself and fails, he can now see auras of people who are about to die. What in the grand hell this has to do with EVP is beyond anyone’s guess.

Tim’s movie is Swiss Army Man[2016]. Daniel Radcliffe plays a corpse who befriends Paul Dano. Which makes it sounds like the autobiographical tale of Michael Cera meeting John Mcain. Dano plays a loser who may or may not get lost on an island who escapes because Radcliffe’s corpse saves him and has odd abilities like being able to snap his fingers and start fires. And the boner compass. Can’t forget the boner compass.

Weltall goes back to Youtube and finds something amazing in that it’s completely politically neutral and awesome. Ants Canada is a channel by a man who own ant colonies that put those silly farms to shame. Episodes are done with a focus on topics like trying to protect them from outsiders, finding them proper food. Getting rid of rogue escaped ants. All done with nature channel quality and enough science to keep the nature minded happy.

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We decided on doing something a little unorthodox for us. Instead of settling on a movie that Tim has to scour second hand or that Weltall has just happened to see we picked something in the theaters. And so we choose Upgrade[2018].

Or at least we would have jointly discussed it if Tim had bothered to go and see it. Sure he made some excuse about going on vacation in Tennessee as though they have yet to have received the gift of the motion picture in the south. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the movie was released on June 1st and has vanished from most theaters in just over two weeks. Apparently this movie is Hollywood’s awkward junior high phase and they want to bury it with all of those bad memories. A shame considering that it’s a much better movie than even the trailers make it out to be.

Michael Keaton has had quite an interesting career. Per request, Tim is talking about White Noise[2005]. It’s one of those films that takes a lesser known paranormal phenomenon and has no idea what to do with it. In it, the wife of Keaton dies and starts talking to him through EVP. This leads Keaton to finding a murderer who was also listening to the dead but they were telling him to kill for reasons that no one can even postulate.

Weltall then talks about Death Wish[2018]. One of the few newer movies that Tim has actually seen and was able to comment on. If only he was as prepared when it came to the movie we planned and agreed upon. It features a large measure of restraint from Eli Roth who didn’t turn it into an hour and a half of Bruce Willis practicing street surgery on those anyone within a mile radius of his wife’s death.

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Part of one of those things we normally do during the show is take note of what exactly we are reviewing. This is so we can later write up these incredibly professional descriptions. Which we write as the mighty alphabet company told us we didn’t have enough original content to deserve ads. We still don’t have ads but we’ve made this a habit and we’re not stopping now.

So when Tim falls asleep on the job, claiming something about working or some other excuse like the bitch he is, we’re stuck staring at an episode description the same blank expanse of a sheet of paper daring a writer to be creative. It will come down to Weltall then having to comb through the episode and gambling whether or not he can find the titles of what we talked about without having to listen to the entire episode.

Dual review Cashback[2006]

Tim Welcome to Mooseport[2004]

Weltall Last Knight[2015]

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Is it possible to make this show into a documentation of violations on cruel and unusual punishment? We don’t think so. What film could possibly be on the Hague convention of banned weapons? Oh look, another Uwe Boll movie.

Tim and Weltal discuss Postal[2007]. The edgiest of edgelord games from the early two thousands got a movie adaptation. This is impressive as there is basically no story in either of the games. This should allow Boll to do something interesting and adapt the loose elements into a story. But Boll is a German who has has been bred for efficiency rather than creativity. At least the guy who played Scut Farkus got a paycheck out of the whole thing.

Tim then talks about Overboard(1987). Or at least he talks about how a single hypothesis about the movie and the relationship between the main characters has spread like an infection across the internet. Being the inarticulate bastard he is this comes across as clear as mud. Which is par for the course around here.

Weltalls movie is Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman[2005]. A movie based on the true story of England’s last executioner. As hard as it is to believe, the jolly old land of tea and chavs used to execute the occasional twat who failed to pay their TV license. As with any film based on reality, a lot of details are fudged and dramatized to make a story.

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Looking over the movies we’ve talked about, we have apparently not done a musical. Though Weltall attempted to argue that we could count Spinal Tap. As such we watched Singin’ In The Rain(1952). It’s probably one of the best known movies about the transition from silent films to talkies. There’s a lot of very technically good dancing though some of the musical numbers feel tacked on. In spite of how we had a lot to mock within, we didn’t hate it. Don’t let that take away from the amusement of a robotic Gene Kelly knocking down walls as he is unable to process human imperfection.

Weltall then talks about the film. Dave Made a Maze[2017]. In it a guy named Dave makes a cardboard maze in his apartment that he gets lost in. As such a camera crew and friends go in to rescue him from the maze. It’s reminiscent of Labyrinth in the layout and the childlike atmosphere of cardboard monsters and sets. The lower budget definitely shows at times but well worth a single watch through.

Tim then talks about Cloak and Dagger(1985). Which he describes as one of two films in which Dabney Coleman doesn’t play the antagonist. He plays both the father and the secret agent imaginary friend to the kid from ET. ET kid stumbles into a world of espionage when he gets handed an Atari cartridge that has secret government plans on it, the titular Cloak and Dagger. So it almost serves as a commercial for a game that never quite got released due to the fact that the video game market crashed before the movie came out.

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It’s easy to forget now, in the age where decent and just below average video game adaptations are the norm, what the early two thousands were like. If you saw an advertisement for a video game movie back then, chances were it was a fecal pate served on a cat turd cracker by none other than Uwe Boll. Continue reading Popcorn Pulse 84: Nightly Rampages →