extracted

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1757746

there are far more bad movies than there are ways i can think of to say they are bad.  this is particularly true when the badness is itself not very good.  the badness itself does not even have the common courtesy to be bad enough to say anything about.

therefore, i outsourced this review to a mysterious and shadowy correspondant known only as "the cheerleader," who had this to say:

Extracted is the movie Inception would have been if it had been made as a bad movie.  I was told that my time spent sitting around and waiting to be picked up for dinner was better spent sitting around and waiting to be picked up for dinner rather than watching this movie.

I think this movie does a have a few praises that deserve singing. It managed to hit that sweet middle-ground "bad" that's worse than not-so-bad, but not as bad as super bad. Since it was the movie of the night, Extracted made its way into the after dinner conversation quite frequently. The increased frequency with which it entered the conversation was facilitated by 1) the short period of time over which the movie was discussed during each incident of discussion, and 2) the high rate at which the focus of the conversation would change to movies that were either better, worse, or better because they were worse. Extracted is a good topic to start a conversation with if you do not want the conversation to be about the topic you started with. 

If you become bored with whatever it is you are doing, say, cleaning the bathroom floor, or watching paint dry, I would suggest watching Extraction. My data suggests you will appreciate the beige tiling and/or the shiny, mustard yellow overcoat much more after watching this 2012 example of how not to use special effects.

eerily accurate, for someone who did not actually watch the movie.

cop land

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118887

a lot of people do not like sylvester stallone on account of rambo and rocky, both characters with names that start with the letter 'r', being five letters long, and, arguably, fitting a consonant-vowel-consonant-consonant-vowel pattern.  i have always like those characters, though, despite the muscle-bound badass aspect.  for whatever reason, i usually identify with the aspects of the characters that are not the muscle-bound badass part.  i had plenty to identify with in cop land, where stallone plays an overweight, half deaf, not-so-bright sheriff.  i would have enjoyed it much more if this character had not stumbled along while the story happened around him.  i got the impression that the script writers meant for his actions to be driving the city cops, but it came out a lot more like the city cops were motivated by what they thought he might do, maybe.

cop land gets three stuffed turtles.

out of reach

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377100

out of reach is another steven seagal vehicle, and you either already know what those are like or you are a very lucky person.  i think this chat log says it all:


 me:  watching old steven seagal movie
out of reach
 Jessica:  What?
 me:  from 2004
 Jessica:  I still haven't seen any
 me:  it is AMAZINGLY CHEESY
 Jessica:  I love cheesy...
 me:  i am 3 minutes in
 Jessica:  ALL FLAVORS

 me:  and so far
HE SAVED A BIRD
HE WRITES LETTERS TO AN ORPHAN GIRL IN POLAND
THEY EXCHANGE CIPHERS
HE SENT ONE THAT SAYS FRIENDS 4EVER
 Jessica:  lolol
 me:  SHE IS TURNING 16
SISTER ONIDAS HAS "BIG PLANS" FOR HER
WHAT WILL HAPPEN
I WONDER
 me:  15 minutes in
seagal is already in poland
the girl is alrady int he hands of the bad guys
the orphanage director is of course part of it
the best friend has been "made an example of"
and we have figured out how to validate the value pointed to by a pointer argument

 me:  so far seagal has beaten up a room full of cops and a couple thugs

 Sent at 7:58 PM on Saturday

 Jessica:  Was she raped?

Is that what happened?

  me:  who?

lol

seagal guesses detective's password on first try

he gave her a piercing gaze before he did it

he must be a keen observer of human nature

 Jessica:  So today us Saturday

Or caturday as the internet calls it

 me:  its caturday, someboyd post some fuckin' cats

 Sent at 8:03 PM on Saturday

 Jessica:  Lolol

 Sent at 8:06 PM on Saturday

 me:  what is happening

 Jessica:  ?

 me:  he is also an electronics expert

"this is a simple problem of digital versus signal transfer"

what does that even mean

 Sent at 8:09 PM on Saturday

 me:  the girl plays chess

NO SURPRISE

 Sent at 8:10 PM on Saturday

 me:  they renamed irana to "lola"

hmm

he is walking into a big open room

must be time for a fight

oops, no fight

for some reason this huge room has phones mounted on the walls

nobody answers them

but a robot does or something?

 Jessica:  Sounds like a drug trip

 me:  WILL SEAGAL ROMANCE THE YOUNG BLONDE POLICE DETECTIVE?

 Sent at 8:16 PM on Saturday

  me:  OR WILL THEY MERELY BE COLLEAGUES

HE WILL HAVE TO SAVE HER EITHER WAY, OF COURSE

there we go

shooter hit the cop, missed the seagal

 Jessica:  Nice

Sharp shooter

 me:  he is doing surgery on her in the kitchen

 Jessica:  Lolol

 me:  why is he even doing this

SHE IS A COP

JUST GO TO THE HOSPITAL

 Sent at 8:19 PM on Saturday

 me:  she should totally sue him for malpactice

fucking surgery with a butterknife

if you do surgery on me with a butterknife when there is a perfectly good hospital down the road, i will drop you like a bad habit

 Sent at 8:22 PM on Saturday

 me: the cops who were after seagal in america are in poland now

connecting with teh bad guy

"we have a shared interesting...in putting an old dog out of his misery"

lulz

the bad guy drugged the girl to beat her at chess

 Jessica:  What the ef

 me:  i know, right

ogmomgomg

she encoded a message to seagal in the hors de ourvers

 Sent at 8:27 PM on Saturday

 me:  huh oh

things getting dangerous

seagal sends the cop and kid out of town

 Sent at 8:29 PM on Saturday

 me:  jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

i am swimming in plot pointers here

 Sent at 8:30 PM on Saturday

 me:  er

what

seagal is suddenly in a whorehouse

he was just at the embassy a second ago

i must have missed something

 Jessica:  How?

 me:  ?

 Jessica:  I think you're making this up

 me:  HE JUST RENTED A GIRL

I AM SO LOST

 Sent at 8:37 PM on Saturday

 me:  ok i am back

thank goodness there is only about 20 minutes left to this train wreck

the cop and the kid are driving

SURPRISE

THEY ARE GOIG TO TURN AROUND AND GO BACK

 Sent at 8:49 PM on Saturday

 me:  aw

touching reunion

 Sent at 8:51 PM on Saturday

 me:  i feel like my brain is being gang raped

lulz

"how many men can you give me?"

"five should be enough"

FOR STEVEN SEAGAL?

HA!

 Sent at 8:53 PM on Saturday

 me:  SHOOTOUT IN THE WHOREHOUSE

i am nto sure what happened there

four or five of the bad buys went down

but there are still five of the seven left

oh noes

the cop got a bar tipped over on top of her

  Sent at 8:58 PM on Saturday

  me:  luckily steven seagal was able to kill everything that moves

alright

time to go save the girl

finally

XD

they are going to settle it outside "like men"

TREATCHERY

BAD GUY GRABBED A SWORD

WE SAW HIM PRACTICING AND BEING BLOODTHIRSTY AND AWESOME AT IT EARLIER

 Sent at 9:01 PM on Saturday

 me:  this is some of the worst choreography i have ever seen

 Sent at 9:03 PM on Saturday

 me:  i bet you are wondering who won

i will not tell you

i do not want to ruin the movie for you

 Sent at 9:05 PM on Saturday

 me:  hello?

 Jessica:  Hullo!

 Sent at 9:08 PM on Saturday

 me:  i think i am going to use the chat log as the movie review

i am going to give it one rose

king kelly

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2062966

this is pretty much the worst movie that has ever existed?  the dog was the least annoying character?  i do not really like dogs?

king kelly gets one duckface?

ps do not watch this at work, you will probably get fired?

maximum conviction

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2119474

maximum conviction is about 15 minutes of exposition, 70 minutes of shooting, and 15 minutes of decomposition.  there was no pacing, acting, or character development.  nobody learned anything.  just shooting.  bonus: stone cold steve austin does one-liners now!

maximum conviction gets two charges of attempted entertainment.

boy wonder

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1456060

boy wonder is helped immensely by having low expectations.  you should not take that to mean that i thought it was bad.  in fact, i thought just about everything about it was quite reasonable, and the overall package is outright pleasing.

the main thing i want to complain about is the heavy reuse of this screechy background sound in some of the outdoor scenes.  it was just enough in the background that i could not quite tell whether it was background in the movie or something happening outside my window.  this lead to a comedic series of pause/unpause events where i attempted to determine where the sound was coming from, just in case there was a fire and i needed to evacuate the building or something.  some people say you do not *really* need to evacuate unless you can smell smoke, but i am more of an exit-in-an-orderly-manner-long-before-it-is-emergency-time kind of guy.

by the way, hot tip: if you are a vigilante, maybe consider not hanging around the police station too much.  you know who is at the police station?  the police.  idiot.  i am not holding it against the movie because the character in question was only 16 or so, which makes this mistake more realistic than stupid.  i am only calling it out in case there are any vigilantes reading this review who have not figured that one out yet.  schmolli has your back.

boy wonder gets four obscure poison/chemicals.

the crow: wicked prayer

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0353324

since i watched the third crow movie, i figured i might as well watch the fourth crow movie.  i really need to hire somebody to follow me around and slap me silly when i get a stupid idea like that.

i thought there might be trouble when i saw that david boreanaz was the headliner in this movie.  however, it was not until the opening credits, when i saw that both tara reid and dennis hopper also starred, that i realized just how bad it was going to be.  and then, when i discovered that danny trejo was also in it, i realized it was going to be truly abysmal.  unfortunately, this pile of crap fully lived up to my expectations.

i like danny trejo, i really do.  he usually plays awesome characters--this movie was an exception to that rule--but he also usually appears in terrible movies.  for the other three, i do not like them and they always appear in terrible movies.

anyway, the point is that i give it one horseman.  there are so many things i could say, but i feel that the most merciful option is to leave it at that.

the crow: salvation

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132910

i loved the first crow movie, and i must have watched it thirty times.  i vaguely remember being especially impressed that the "good guy" was not a particularly good guy.  also, i was really into the cure at the time.

i saw the second crow movie only once.  i was not sleeping much in those days, so all i really remember about it was that the bad guy drank the crow's blood or something like that to become immortal.  i have no idea whether my memory corresponds in any way to what actually happened in that one, but anyway, i intensely disliked it.

this is the third crow movie.  given the second one, it could only get better, but it was stil not that good. it seemed to me that they recycled too many of the scenes from the first one, or possibly they were trying to do some kind of homage thing.  as usual, the bad guy was a shadowy figure who was not directly responsible for the crow guy's death.  as usual, the bad guy has a weird sister.  as usual, the bad guy and his sister come up with a plan to take away the crow guy's super powers for the big showdown.  as usual, the crow guy wins anyway.  surprise!

the third crow movie gets two bloody tears.

identity

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0309698

identity was not formulaic, but it was only mildly suspenseful, and the characters were not that interesting.  the ending was fairly obvious well before it arrived, though it seemed to me that the killer could have been anybody, including one of the people who had already died.  it was that kind of movie.

i give this one two identities.  GUESS WHICH ONE IS THE KILLER.

kill 'em all

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1928335

kill 'em all is just about the worst martial arts movie ever made.  it is part saw, part battle royale, part buddy cop movie, part the tournament,  part cube, part eden log, and part portal.  the first hour of it was, anyway.  i stopped trying to keep track after a while.

there was very little to like about this movie.  the fighting was lame and relied primarily on the acrobatics of a few of the actors.  the scenery was clearly an abandoned building or something that they were squatting in.  the extras all wore masks so you could not tell it was the same 10 guys over and over.  the characters were paper thin.  there was so little substance to this movie that after the bad guy got deaded, they quite literally rolled credits immediately.  because there was absolutely nothing else to do.

it did raise an interesting question, however.  suppose you were knocked out, and when you woke up, you were trapped in a room--without your smartphone--and forced to battle to the death with the other people in the room.  would you favor submission techniques, spend half your energy on yelling, and give your opponents plenty of time to stand back up and gather their wits after you knock them down?  well.  maybe you would go into it having that plan, but i bet you would either change your plan during the first fight or not win.

kill 'em all gets one assassin.  not a very good assassin.  more like a guy who claimed he could do the job for twelve thousand dollars, except actually, he had never killed anybody before and he not only bungled it completely, but then he led the police straight to you when they caught him.