Morbid Curiosity Files: Never Been Kissed

As I’ve noted before, I’m far from the target audience for romantic comedies, so normally I would never give Never Been Kissed a second glance. But I’m also something of a completist by nature. The movie was one of ten digital downloads I received free from VUDU (the service’s choice of movies, not mine, obviously), and I can’t stand to have a film in my collection remain unwatched indefinitely. I own it, I can’t get rid of it, I might as well watch it at least once.

Of course, I went into this with no small amount of skepticism. The premise of the film is fairly ridiculous. Drew Barrymore, as a would-be journalist in her mid-20s, is sent back to high school to do some undercover investigative journalism. It didn’t sound like an idea with promise, especially for a rom-com; it might conceivably have worked for a straight-up comedy had it been written with that in mind. But as it turned out, the film was even more pitifully absurd than I had anticipated.

Morbid Curiosity Files: Valentine’s Day

Today, if you’ve somehow avoided the annual advertising blitz, is Valentine’s Day. Throughout the day, hundreds of thousands of people, from grade schoolers to loving couples, will be giving each other gifts. At least some of those gifts are bound to be unwanted. I have my own unwanted gift to deal with, in the form of one of several free digital movies given me by VUDU: Garry Marshall’s 2010 romantic comedy, Valentine’s Day. I’d never seek this film out to watch it on my own initiative; even at a casual glance, it exhibits six of my Top 10 Warning Signs of a Bad Romantic Comedy. But I hate having an unwatched film in my collection, even if it isn’t one I selected for myself. And if nothing else, it’s certainly a film which is appropriate to review today.

The film is as difficult to stomach as I had feared. I find most rom-coms to be a bit saccharine anyway, but I suspect that even the most devoted fan of the genre would find Valentine’s Day to be excessively syrupy. With seven or eight criss-crossing storylines that all demonstrate the triumph of love against all odds, there’s the potential for an uplifting message, and Marshall clearly believes he’s delivered. But there’s no meat to it, no flavor. It’s the cinematic equivalent of fondant; it’s vaguely sweet, and it looks pretty, but it should not under any circumstances be construed as sustenance.

Camelot: The Legend

Oh, how Hulu loves to dig up obscurities. And just once in a while those obscurities ought to remain buried. I enjoy animated features, and I’m a big fan of Arthurian legend. So when I saw Camelot: The Legend in Hulu’s listings, I thought there was a good chance that it would prove reasonably entertaining. It is likely I should have done a little more research into it first.

The film was released in 1998, apparently direct-to-video. When I was younger and would visit the animation sections of video stores, I would often notice shoddy-looking knock-offs of current film properties. I remember seeing The Jungle King on shelves as The Lion King hit theatres, and companies putting out their own takes on public-domain fairy tales such as The Little Mermaid. I suspect that in the case of Camelot: The Legend director-producer William R. Kowalchuk Jr. was attempting to ride the coat-tails of Quest For Camelot, released the same year. Of course, while I haven’t seen that film, I’m aware that it wasn’t a huge success, which makes the notion of riding its coat-tails rather hilarious in hindsight. That may be the funniest thing about this film, which is a sad thing as it tries to be a musical comedy.

Morbid Curiosity Files: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Note: Due to time constraints and a spotty internet connection, I wasn’t able to get a new review written today. So I dug up a review I wrote in 2009 on another site. I apologize for the recycled content, but as less than 1% of my regular readers have seen it before, I figure it’s better than missing an update. It doesn’t feel as “polished” as my current reviews, which considering I’m aware I still have room for improvement makes it a little strange for me to read. Nevertheless, aside from a few minor corrections, I have left the text unaltered.

Strangely, this film is not quite as gloriously bad as it sounds. Oh, it’s bad all right. But you won’t see Santa Claus strapping on an AK-47 and laying waste to Martian phalanxes. The conquering is, sadly, more metaphorical than that.

Made in 1964, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is obviously meant more for kids than for adults. It opens and closes with a song, “Hooray for Santa Claus”, which spells out Santa Claus’s name, emphasizes that this is the proper spelling, and then consistently fails to call him anything but “Santy Claus” throughout the whole song. And it’s not just my ears hearing it a particular way, as the closing credits show the words so you can warble along, and it’s definitely “Santy Claus” everywhere except where the song tells you how it’s spelled.

Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie

I very nearly didn’t watch this movie. I was channel surfing, saw it was coming up on the Movie Channel, and saw it was a film released this year. I’d heard the name once or twice but couldn’t remember seeing any reviews on it. It was a comedy, from the description, and sounded like it might be vaguely amusing. So I changed the channel, and was immediately subjected to a promo for the movie, and the promo was sufficiently bad that I turned the TV off. But I reconsidered. I am well aware that TV station promos for comedies, especially cult comedies, are often poorly done, even on a relatively prestigious channel. And it was, after all, a film from this year, and I do enjoy the ability to be halfway topical on occasion. And worse come to worse, I figured that even if it was stupid, it’s still a comedy, there’s probably still some enjoyment in it.

I’ve written before about how one of the saddest things about watching movies is when they disappoint you. This is still true even when you don’t have high expectations for a film. But there’s another form of disappointment as well, the kind of disappointment where you think you’ve already gone through the worst of things. I had thought, when I watched Not Another Not Another Movie back in June, that I had seen the worst movie I would see all year. I was mistaken in that impression. Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie isn’t just the worst movie I’ve seen that was made in 2012, it’s the worst movie I’ve seen during 2012 as well — and as this is December, it doesn’t have a shortage of competition. It’s worse than the other new movies I’ve seen, it’s worse than all of the old movies I’ve seen. Yes, it’s even worse than Not Another Not Another Movie, and I have no idea how my life has gone so wrong that I’m able to say that.

I should have taken that promo at face value. That’s probably part of it.

Morbid Curiosity Files: Scared to Death

Late night movie shows can be fun to watch as much for the host as for the show, at least in some cases. I was a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as a kid, and I’ve occasionally caught other programs. Recently I decided to check out the show hosted by the Mistress of the Dark herself, Elvira’s Movie Macabre. The show was first aired in the 1980s, and was brought back a couple years ago with new episodes. Hulu has a few of them available, which I felt was convenient as I’m not entirely sure what station airs them. My viewing selection was Bela Lugosi’s only starring role in a color film, 1947′s Scared to Death.

I was aware that, like MST3K and other programs of its ilk, Elvira isn’t exactly known for choosing A-grade movies. So I went into it with the expectations that this was a film for the Morbid Curiosity Files, and I was not disappointed in that front. Lugosi is both underutilized and poorly utilized in this film… it’s honestly a bit of an embarrassment for the veteran horror actor. Now, one might think that having Elvira periodically interject some quips in the film and having her comedy segments at the regular intervals for commercial breaks might distract a bit from the movie, and that’s a fair assessment. But after about 10 minutes of the film, I think most viewers will be looking for a distraction.

Paranormal Activity

The fourth Paranormal Activity film is coming out this weekend, and since it’s a franchise that clearly has some traction with the movie-going public, I thought I would take advantage of an opportunity to watch the first film, as I was unfamiliar with the series. Released in 2007, it was the first film by writer, producer, and director Oren Peli, and also for stars Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. Featherston and Sloat play a young couple with the same first names as the stars; apparently much of the dialogue was unscripted, and the stars weren’t informed whenever something scary would happen so as to get natural reactions. Keeping the character names the same was probably helpful in ensuring that they didn’t yell out the wrong name under the circumstances. The technique works as far as it goes; Katie especially seems genuinely terrified throughout most of the picture.

Unfortunately, this is about all the film has to recommend it. I found the movie to be terminally dull.

Mystery Team

Mystery Team, released in 2009, is the first feature film from the Derrick Comedy group. I’m unfamiliar with the group, but it’s pretty obvious this film was a personal project for the members, as of the five writers on the story, one directs, and the others all act in the picture (though Meggie McFadden’s role must have been fairly small, as I don’t remember her character Cathy. I do remember director Dan Eckman’s cameo as the bread squeezer, though.)

The Mystery Team in the title is a trio of young adults who, as children, were local “heroes” for solving minor mysteries for other children and the occasional adult. On the verge of graduating high school, they’re still at it, and still charging a dime to track down a missing toy or find out who vandalized a pie. And then one day a little girl (Daphne Ciccarelle) pays them a dime to find out who killed her parents.

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn

I suppose on some level I should have known better. An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn is a mockumentary about a terrible film. The risk that it was itself a terrible film should have been apparent, especially after I’d watched the horrendous Not Another Not Another Movie, which has a similar root premise and format. And its reception on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes certainly wasn’t setting the world on fire. But I thought it might still be worth watching. After all, it could simply have been too avant garde for most people; hey, it’s possible, and it’s certainly not a mainstream premise, after all. And it starred Eric Idle, who I’ve usually liked in films. And unlike Not Another Not Another Movie it wasn’t lying about its stars; it really does star Eric Idle in the title role as Alan Smithee. The potential was there. But, alas, it seems that movies about bad movies are themselves bad movies.

Morbid Curiosity Files: Pay It Forward

Once again, Flixster has graced me with a free movie, and once again I could tell right from the beginning it was a case for the Morbid Curiosity Files. Pay It Forward is, in some sense, about karma, and receiving it as a free movie (randomly again) certainly had me thinking about karma. Specifically, what on Earth I could have done to warrant this. Or, if karma is real, just what Flixster’s recompense would be for saddling me with this, 17 Again and Austin Powers while still taunting me with my inability to watch Dog Day Afternoon. Not that I’m really ungrateful, it’s a nice idea and certainly helpful for the blog, but the track record of the movies so far has been more of a torture session than a gift (though they did give me The Iron Giant, so they’ve got that in their favor).

The movie poster highlights the stars of the film, Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment, and their respective critical accolades. It’s rather shameless in its attempt to position itself as a big, important, dramatic Oscar-worthy film. It’s not really any of those things, unless you count self-important and melodramatic.