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Muppets Most Wanted
InGood, Movie Reviews

Muppets Most Wanted (Review)

March 21, 2014By

Muppets Most Wanted

Muppets Most Wanted
2014
Written by James Bobin and Nicholas Stoller
Directed by James Bobin
Muppets Most Wanted
The Muppets return again with a new adventure that feels strangely familiar. While it is great to see the Muppets actually being the stars of their movies again, Muppets Most Wanted lacks the emotional depth of some of the prior films to focus instead on a heist caper that features an evil twin and Muppets running wild under no supervision. The center core is buried a bit deeper, showing the Muppets can’t really survive on their own as they need Kermit’s guidance to keep them from drowning in their own excess.

In Muppets Most Wanted a new manager – Dominic Badguy – signs with the group and gets them to go on a world tour that suspiciously is happening in towns needed to get pieces for a jewel heist. More importantly, Constantine, the world’s most dangerous frog, has escaped from his Russian gulag and managed to switch places with Kermit, who finds himself incarcerated while Constantine takes the place of our main frog. Hijinks then ensue.
Muppets Most Wanted
Muppets Most Wanted shines when it’s doing meta-commentary and breaking the never-present fourth wall. It continues literally from the final seconds of The Muppets, complete with Muppet confusion on what to do next. The opening song will go on to be touted as a manifesto for the film itself, and I particularly like the song Constantine sings as an apology to Miss Piggy, because it summarizes his entire allure to the group and why no one seems to notice anything is wrong. Constantine becomes a Satan character, promising the Muppets whatever they want to keep them happy while he and Dominic Badguy plot to steal the crown jewels of England. The various characters take this to extremes, resulting in increasingly bizarre and disastrous acts. Both Constantine and Dominic use unbridled freedom as a weapon and a distraction, but it soon becomes apparent just why oversight and control is needed. At times Muppets Most Wanted turns into Muppets Needful Things, but luckily things get solved for they start getting Stephen King disturbing.
Muppets Most Wanted

Kermit the Frog (Steve Whitmire) – Kermit is the leader of the Muppets and totally is not a dangerous criminal mastermind with a mole.
Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobson) – The fabulous Miss Piggy may have finally convinced Kermit to marry her. But why does she feel weird about it?
Fozzie Bear (Eric Jacobson) – No he’s a-not, he’s a-wearin’ a neck tie!
Constantine (Matt Vogel) – The world’s most dangerous frog has escaped from Siberia and has a plan to go down in history as a master criminal. And it involves the Muppets! Posing as Kermit, Constantine lets the Muppets do whatever they want to distract them from the truth.
Walter (Peter Linz) – Walter is back and on tour with his new family, the Muppets. Only something is wrong….
Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais) – The French-named new manager of the Muppets who leads them on the world tour that’s just an excuse to get the items needed for a heist.
Nadya (Tina Fey) – Runs the Siberian gulag that Constantine escaped from and Kermit is now held at. Like everyone there, they know Kermit isn’t Constantine but does nothing because she’s obsessed with Kermit and won’t let him go.

Muppets Most Wanted

Super Mario Bros. Rifftrax
InRiffTrax

Super Mario Bros. – New RiffTrax VOD!

March 21, 2014By

From your voting finger to your VOD comes the newest RiffTrax VOD, the infamously terrible Super Mario Bros. movie! Even though I like this film because it’s so shamelessly insane, it is still awful and packed with all sorts of absurd things that just cry out to be riffed. And Super Mario Bros. was one of the highest rated films requested to be riffed in the new feedback feature on RiffTrax.com. Yes, even I voted for it. So chow down on some magic mushrooms (and pray you didn’t eat the mushrooms that will kill you!) and enjoy this funktacular RiffTrax experience!

Finally Super Mario Bros. gets the RiffTrax parody treatment!

The world, characters, music, even the sound effects of the Mario video games are among the most iconic entertainment creations of the 20th century. So naturally if you made a Mario movie, you’d want to abandon everything that people liked and recognized about them, and then just in case people were still willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, throw in The Happening star John Leguizamo.

Let’s say you went to the cinema hoping to see your favorite character from Mario 3, the red carnivorous fish Big Bertha. Ignoring the fact that you are a moron for your favorite character not being the King of Ice World when he’s been transformed into a seal, you might be disappointed to to learn that in the movie, Big Bertha is instead a large, violent woman with prodigious cleavage who wears S & M-esque garb. (Or maybe you’re into that. In that case, you’re probably not welcome in many of the theaters that were showing Super Mario Bros.)

So Big Bertha isn’t a fish, the goombas aren’t tiny, stompable, sentient mushrooms, and there’s nary a Tanooki suit to be found. No big deal, as long as the Mario Brothers are still brothers, right? What’s that? For no apparent reason Luigi is the adopted ward of Mario? Well, maybe it could still work as long as the movie isn’t an incoherent, hideous mess full of shouting and chaos and cheap sets and… Why are you shaking your head sadly?

Strap on your Kuribo’s shoes and join Mike, Kevin, and Bill up on Jugem’s Cloud for riffing on the best live action Mario property that doesn’t contain Captain Lou Albano.

Super Mario Bros. Rifftrax

Aventuras al centro de la tierra Adventure at the Center of the Earth
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Aventura al Centro de la Tierra (Review)

March 21, 2014By

Aventura al Centro de la Tierra

aka Adventure at the Center of the Earth
Aventuras al centro de la tierra Adventure at the Center of the Earth
1965
Written by José María Fernández Unsáin (as J.M. Fernandez U.)
Directed by Alfredo B. Crevenna

Hug time!

The mysterious center of the planet Earth has been a tantalizing source of speculative fiction for decades, until a bunch of eggheads determined it’s all magma and rocks. But screw those eggheads, because we’re still about journeying to mysterious underground civilizations. The concept is so universal that even Mexico has an entry, which not only brings to mind the many dryly boring 1950s adventure romps, but even uses stock footage from some of them. Aventura al Centro de la Tierra (Adventure at the Center of the Earth) even has its own boring old professor guys who are twenty years and twenty pounds to late to be trekking around to parts unknown. Luckily they bring guns and all sorts of modern violence on this quest, because it’s full of monsters.

Aventuras al centro de la tierra Adventure at the Center of the Earth

Hey, I’m a lizard with crap glued to my head! And you think you have a bad job…


First, let’s give Aventura al Centro de la Tierra a giant “FUCK YOU!” for the terrible real animal cruelty in one scene. A pit of snakes have a bucket of gasoline thrown on them and are set alight. I’m no big snake fan, but I’m definitely not a big fan of killing animals for a dumb film about a bat creature that wants to score with a hot babe. They also include that classic clip of the crocodile with a fin on its back battling the gila monster that’s in like four or five other films. BOOOOOOOOO!! to that as well. They even sort of reference it with iguanas with horns and crap glued to them that can be seen in the cave.

The real reason to watch Aventura al Centro de la Tierra isn’t all the terrible stuff I’ve been mentioning, but the creature costumes. There is a rather well constructed manbat creature, complete with giant wings and sort of human intelligence and lusts. Despite going on a murder spree, he realizes Kitty de Hoyos is far too attractive to just rip her neck open, and takes her back to his lair to try to woo with bat guts and live rats. The ManBat was joined by a Cyclops, who is also responsible for some of the bodycount in the film, but he’s gunned down rather spectacularly (efforts to drug him end with an impaled Cyclops!)

On the way, the film borrows from classic horror films. Underwater sequences bring to mind similar underwater scenes in Creature of the Black Lagoon. The entire going to the center of the Earth thing is borrowed from so many pulp novels, Jules Verne being the most famous. The ManBat acts like many monsters with crushes by trying to impress the lady he kidnaps (and carries in the required monster carried a lady pose!) Alfredo B. Crevenna would go on to direct Gigantes Planetarios, El Planeta de las Mujeres Invasoras, and Santo Contra la Invasion de los Marcianos

Aventuras al centro de la tierra Adventure at the Center of the Earth

Ladies and blacks, get out!


Professor Díaz (José Elías Moreno) – Lead professor guy who drags everyone into the caves and speaks all grand pronouncements while doing nothing except shooting and destroying everything he finds. Science!
Hilda Ramírez (Kitty de Hoyos) – An assistant professor who gets brought on the expidetion despite being left at camp almost all the time thanks to Professor Díaz. Likes to take pictures of the dark, which comes in handy when the pictures show eyes watching her. Is kidnapped by ManBat.
Dr. Peña (Carlos Cortés as Carlos Cortez) – A doctor brought along in case people are hurt. Becomes the love interest of Hilda despite being the least developed of the main characters.
Jaime Rocha (David Reynoso), Dr. Laura Ponce (Columba Domínguez), and Dr. Manuel Ruiz (Javier Solís) – Jaime Rocha is a big game hunter brought in to shoot whatever monster is rumored to be killing people in the cave. Dr. Laura Ponce is a geologist needed because caves are made of rocks. Dr. Ruiz is a writer who gets added to the group because they needed another guy with an advanced degree. Dr. Ruiz and Dr. Ponce like each other, but Ponce becomes greedy upon finding diamonds, while Ruiz wants to inform the government. Rocha overhears and kills Ruiz to cash in on the wealth, but Ponce says she’s going to inform the government anyway in deference to her late friend. Unfortunately both she and Rocha get killed by the ManBat before anyone knows what is going on, resolving this plot conflict with blood and bodies.
The Black Servant of Dr. Peña (???) – Because we need a cook in the center of the Earth! He never gets a name despite being a major character! Also there are cave guides brought along for monster fodder, all of which gets names. But not this guy! We salute you, Black Servant of Dr. Peña. Yes, he dies.
Cyclops (???) – Cyclops attacks the party randomly. They shoot it with a drug bullet, but the cyclops lands on a stalagmite as it falls and is somehow impaled like 3 feet through the chest. Cyclopses must have a low calcium diet that makes their chest bones basically jelly or something. This is why you should have proper nutrition, people! This cyclops costume has a tail, and I am unsure if it is the same costume from La Nave de los Monstruos and Santo el Enmascarado de Plata y Blue Demon Contra los Monstruos
ManBat (???) – I have to call him ManBat because the only alternative is BatMan. Falls in love with Hilda and stalks her all through the movie. Has an expressive makeup face in closeups, but is obviously a mask in long shots. Is intelligent and tough, but not immune to being shot with many many bullets.
Aventuras al centro de la tierra Adventure at the Center of the Earth

Someone saw the missing King Kong spider pit sequence!

Jem and the Holograms the Misfits
InMovie News

Jem and the Holograms keytar their way to a movie!

March 20, 2014By

Jem and the Holograms the Misfits

Buffered up by a huge fanbase and 80s nostalgia, Jem and the Holograms is finally, finally getting a feature film. I am proud to admit I watched this show like crazy as a small child because I was awesome.

Jem and the Holograms is like a precursor to Hannah Montana, where instead of a wig disguising Miley Cyrus’s identity, Jerrica Benton has a complicated holographic projection system called Synergy that allows her to disguise her identity as Jem, thus becoming a rock superstar. Various plots involve Jem and the Holograms battling against their rival band, The Misfits, who were managed by embittered former label executive Eric Raymond, who used to control the record label that Jerrica took over. Jem and the Holograms also had a pack of orphans dubbed the Starlight Girls, because that meant they could make many more dolls (though I’m not sure if any of the orphans did have dolls! It was also a way to pump the cast full of diverse characters while keeping the main doll line white enough for good toy sales….) Let us never forget Stormer, the good member of the Misfits, and the only one who played the keytar (there was no keytar player in The Holograms, but I like the post title regardless.) Eventually the second rival band The Stingers popped up, and The Misfits often found themselves being forced to team up with Jem to take The Stingers down.

The biggest drama is the love triangle between Jerrica, Jem, and Rio Pacheco. Rio is sort of a jerk chasing after both women (unaware they are the same woman!) There were occasionally people trying to steal the Synergy system to do bad things, and Jem and the Holograms characters would occasionally cameo on GI Joe or Transformers because they were all animated by the same companies and reusing animation models is cheap!

This new version will be live action and produced by Jason Blum, Scooter Braun, and Jon M. Chu. They’ve released a video seeking fan ideas and inspiration and it looks like they are fully embracing social media engagement. I do notice that everyone involved so far is a dude. Maybe get a female director, guys? Because that would be truly outrageous.

UPDATE: Like right after I wrote this Variety came out with more info, Jon M. Chu IS directing, and the plot is:

Project will reimagine Jem for a hyperlinked social media age, the producers say, and revolve around an orphaned teenage girl who becomes an online recording sensation, she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt –- one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father.

As Scooter Braun is the guy who snagged Justin Bieber from YouTube fame, this sort of makes sense, but hopefully it comes together into something cooler than it sounds.

via THR

Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax
InMovie Reviews, Ugly

Obsession (Review)

March 20, 2014By

Obsession

Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax
2013
Written by Tina Hawthorne
Directed by Kent Sawyer

Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax

Possibility. Possibility.


Mainline Releasing Group (aka MRG Entertainment) gives us a softcore take on 50 Shades of Grey in what might be a preview of the style of the film version of same that will hit theaters in 2014. A super rich arrogant guy suddenly is extremely attracted to a freelance writer who did an interview with him and called him out on his crap. As no one has ever done that to Mr. Rich Guy, you can say he had an…..Obsession!

Because that’s the title, yo!

Obsession is at its best when its dissecting what a woman wants in a relationship, and at its worst when things are happening. Kiara Diane just wasn’t up to task to handle some of the emotional scenes, while Jason Sarcinelli is playing the same evil dick character we’ve seen a few times in Mainline Releasing films. He really only breaks out of that mold in his last scene, too bad it took so long to get there. I was totally not surprised to see this was a Tina Hawthorne script. Beyond her being the only writer for MRG, she’s also producing scripts that deal a lot with relationships and how people interact within them in addition to the required sex scenes. Needless to say, I’m a fan, even if she’s hit or miss.

As the Sophie Hammond character is already dating a guy who is a jerk, when she meets hyperjerk Max Berens it is on like Donkey Kong, if Donkey Kong was a softcore movie (probably called Donkey Dong, at least until Nintendo’s army of lawyers drowned everyone involved in cease and desists!)

Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax

No one interrupts me when I’m playing Candy Crush Saga!

Obsession features another person with a million dollar home while she’s just a freelancer and her boyfriend is a college student who doesn’t even pay his own tuition. I know a lot of writers due to writing my own site for so long, and none of them could afford anything close to that without something else going on. It also lessons the supposed wealth of Max Berens when Sophie’s expensive house looks more fancy than the billionaire’s office. And as Max seems less wealthy, his supposed power and influence go down, decreasing his charm and making him just seem more like a jerk.

Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax

So I was all like “Who needs an $80,000 job when I can play X-Box for free!”


Then I wondered why I thought he seemed less appealing because he seemed to have less money. Was I willing to give him excuses on being a jerk if he had a fat wad of cash? And if so, am I no better than women/men who date people for wealth? Why is it that rich idiots like our current crop of pop stars can waste tons of money and run around like idiots with no consequence, while the masses never get a break? Wealth just provides so much freedom in society it is obscene. It’s even permeated the subconscious mind, rich people can get away with whatever they want and you just assume it will be so, but the excuses you give to them do not transfer to someone who seems less than wealthy. I’m not saying we should kill the rich and tear down the system to reboot the planet. I’m sure there are one or two rich people who aren’t terrible. But Obession plays on this lifestyle of wealth with Max Berens’ character, while at the same time exposing its fraud by not emphasizing the wealth like it should. In that regards, Obsession fails as a film, and succeeds only in being a delivery method for naked chicks on late night Cinemax. On that hand, Obsession delivers!

Sophie Hammond (Kiara Diane) – A journalist for a local paper whose interview with Max Berens opens a new chapter in her life that involves an affair with said Max Berens.
Max Berens (Jason Sarcinelli) – A famous billionaire who is very obsessive and gets interested in girls who stand up to him. Which seems to have happened only once ever with Sophie. Jason Sarcinelli is also in Sex Tapes and Sexy Assassins.
Jake (Rocco Reed) – Jake is on year 6 of college and doesn’t want to grow up. Which really annoys his girlfriend Sophie. He doesn’t get her hints that she’s unhappy, until she dumps him for a mysterious billionaire. Rocco Reed is also in Dark Fantasies.
Lia (Michelle Lay) – Max’s secretary who has a thing for Max. Thus she hates Sophie. Michelle Lay is also in Cougar School, Bikini Girls from the Lost Planet, and Ghost in a Teeny Bikini
Monique (Tasha Reign) – A random woman trying to impress Max with her selling techniques. If she sells jets like she was selling herself to Max, then expect Max to be arrested soon for being a pimp.
Obsession Mainline Releasing softcore cinemax

Well, more pizza for me then!

National Geographic Channel NatGeo logo
InRiffTrax

RiffTrax blasts its way to television with Total Riff Off!

March 19, 2014By

National Geographic Channel NatGeo logo

If you are one of those people who is always talking about how RiffTrax should be on television and making fun of weird and disgusting animals, then your ship has come in and you should play the lottery or something! Dubbed Total Riff Off, Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy will be on your tv screens making fun of our furry friends on National Geographic Channel (or NatGeo if you are one of the cool kids like us! Be a cool kid..or else!)

The three episodes premiere April 1st and are called Demon Bat, Badass Dion Bird, and Pig Love. Prepare your VCRs/DVRs/Google Glass Recording Programs!

No word yet on if the shows will be available on RiffTrax.com or if they are the trial run of a full series (or just an April Fools Day prank!)

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