The Black Hole

I think the black hole has an infection.

"You can't escape the most powerful force in the universe."

Except when you can, and everyone literally spends the entire movie doing that, but I guess in this circumstance that's sort of splitting hairs. Anyway welcome to a new week at the Tagline, and today I'll be launching into the deepest, most boring portions of space, to talk about the 1979 Disney film The Black Hole, a movie which actually has very little to do with a black hole, it just sort of takes place near one, and I guess they go into it at some point or whatever. For the most part the black hole serves as backdrop for crazy scientist theater (and not the funny Mystery Science Theater kind). This will hopefully become a monthly tradition here at the Tagline (shitty ass movies on Tuesday) but for now let's just enjoy this really execrable instance of vintage science fiction. Released shortly after Star Wars made a big splash and brought science fiction to the forefront of popularity, the Disney goons decided it was high time to try and get a slice of that pie. This movie is significant (especially in light of Disney's mighty empire today) in that it represented the first Disney production that didn't receive an all ages rating, due to some mild portrayals of death, and some profanity. I find it rather hilarious that now, over 30 years later, Disney actually OWNS Star Wars. Anyway, let's go back in time to when Disney kind of sucked, and talk about this real piece of work. 

Anaconda

Is this The Nightman Cometh?

"When You Can't Breathe You Can't Scream"

Hello everyone, it is that time again! Welcome back to more from The Tagline, where terrible movies I saw that one time are king! Recently (last Thursday actually) there was a live Rifftrax presentation of the fantastically not good snake movie Anaconda. This reminded me that Anaconda was a movie that happened, for better or worse. So today I figured I'd share that recollection with you, and review ANACONDA, the least scary movie involving snakes ever made. Starring Jennifer Lopez as a documentary maker named Terri Florez who is attempting to locate the elusive Shirishamas tribe in the Amazon. This is also a region of the world where enormous, 70 mile long snakes who are all powerfule burst through boats and try to kill Danny Trejo (not before he shoots himself though!). For those wondering, the longest verified Anacondas range around the 25 ft marker, but firsthand reports have reached such outlandish numbers as 145 ft. This movie capitalizes on that absurdity, and so JLo ventures out into the jungle, along with Ice Cube, Owen Wilson, Kari Wuhrer (the queen of B-horror T&A) and that foppish british guy from The Mummy. Oh also there's some other guy but he gets stung by a deadly wasp and is basically not in most of the movie. This crew of mostly incompetents ventures into the Amazon aboard a ship captain by the second most obviously untrustworthy person in this film. After a short trip down the amazon into a massive rainstorm, the group meets the FIRST most untrustworthy person in the movie, Jon Voight's character Paul Serone, a man who is perpetually saying vaguely threatening things and leering at everyone. He may as well be wearing a high collared cape and be cackling while he ties maidens to train tracks. I assume the movie taking place in the jungle is the only reason he was NOT tying people to train tracks.

Aeon Flux

I know I personally keep my gun in that
spot on your back you can never scratch.

"The Perfect World Meets The Perfect Assassin."

Hello everyone, after a brief hiatus welcome back to THE TAGLINE. I'm sure you were all terribly distraught in my absence, but rest assured, I'm back to give you the thrilling movie commentary that you have craved over the long hours of this past week, and to provide the cutting insight that makes your day bearable, because I'm sure my contribution to your afternoon is THAT ESSENTIAL. Unfortunately for you its all garbage in here today, as I threatened last week I'm going to be talking about Aeon Flux, a movie so spectacularly bad in such a specific and peculiar way that it almost defies belief. The movie doesn't really have to do with the original animation at all, or anything that makes sense, but because it bears a passing similarity I will talk about it briefly anyway. Aeon Flux was initially a six part short animation aired on MTV. Later it was given five more short episodes, and eventually in 1995 a full season of 10 half-hour episodes was aired. The show was the product of Peter Chung, whose bizarre art style is immediately recognizable (if you have ever seen Reign: The Conqueror that was also him). Chung, having previously worked on, if you will believe this, Rugrats, was frustrated with that shows character limitations, and so Aeon Flux was his outlet presumably for those impulses. As a result, Aeon Flux focuses on a character of the same name, who is basically a fetish dominatrix scarecrow skeleton, who is also a secret agent in a bizarre future dystopia. There's this whole thing with two cities and her sexy antagonistic relationship with Trevor Goodchild but I won't go into that because LITERALLY NONE OF THAT IS IN THIS MOVIE. It is important also to mention that there's a hyper amount of violence in the original animation, and a healthy dose of fetishy sex stuff. Now that I've established what the original animation was about, let me attempt to elucidate what happened in the movie, and I say attempt because even after seeing it a total of three times I'm still not entirely sure.

Vampire Academy

GET IT?!

"They Suck at School."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline! I've gone months and months, starved for shitty YA movie adaptations, and finally found something to really sink my teeth into. I mean, don't get me wrong, The Mortal Instruments wasn't very good, and Divergent was REALLY not good, but I was looking for a real piece of shit, and it also really needed to be about vampires. Thankfully, the movie industry and YA writers didn't leave me disappointed and empty handed, they gave me Vampire Academy. Released in February of this year, Vampire Academy is just the worst kind of movie I could possibly think of, combining an embarrassment of riches in terms of young adult AND vampire cliches, seemingly in an effort to make me laugh in delighted malice so hard that my head falls off. I saw this described as being Mean Girls meets Twilight, and that's sort of true, but it leaves out all the other things that this movie is ripping off, and that just ISN'T ACCEPTABLE. Vampire Academy is based on the first book in a series of YA novels (of course) about a girl named Rose who is a Dhampir (that's a half vampire) and her BFF Lissa, who is a Moroi (if you're playing the home game a Moroi is the Romanian word for a kind of vampire that isn't immortal, though sometimes they're ghosts go figure). Moroi in this world are apparently all Harry Potter style wizards who can use elemental magic, and they drink blood but otherwise are swell folks or so we are told. They mention that people who are on the receiving end of the vampire biting get something out of it, but we're never told what, so I have to assume it's some sort of sex thing. Anyway the Moroi are protected by the Dhampir, because for some reason even though they can set people on fire with their minds they can't defend themselves. Who are they being defended from? Why the Strigoi of course, who are the scary Nosferatu kind of vampire, all living forever and being crazy and wanting to kill everyone. You know REAL VAMPIRES.

Drive Angry

All the boys love Mandy Lane IN HELL.

"One hell of a ride."

Howdy y'all welcome back to Thursday's thrilling edition of The Tagline. There's a lull in my movie-going schedule, so I needed some garbage to fill it with. Then, While I was flipping through channels I came across the truly lamentable Drive Angry. Those of you who've been following my posts for a while will probably remember me talking briefly about this movie when I reviewed Nick Cage's 5 Worst Films. I was initially content to leave it at that, but then I saw it again and I just felt like "wow this is really spectacular garbage, I should give my readers the benefit of experiencing this." To that end, today I will regale you once again with the tale of a man who escaped from hell, with the sole purpose of killing some guy who was going to use his granddaughter in a satanic ritual. Also in what I'm sure the writer thought was really clever, this guy's name is John Milton. That's not clever scriptwriter, it is shameful. You should feel ashamed, but I know you don't, obviously anyone with a sense of shame could not have made this movie. Anyway Nick stars as John Milton, a man who has returned from hell with the stolen gun of the devil (called Godkiller, it destroys the target's soul apparently) so that he can take bloody vengeance for the murder of his daughter, and also so he can rescue his baby granddaughter as mentioned above. In the process of tracking down the complete nutball coocoo who's planning to do this ritual (his name is Jonah King, and he's portrayed by the world's best mustache dad Billy Burke) Milton runs into Piper (Amber Heard) who works at a diner as a waitress and has a boyfriend who is a scumbag. Fortunately Milton is an undead scumbag, so he fits right in, and sabotages Piper's car so he can then proceed to FIX it, and get a ride. I think maybe stealing a car would have been more expedient if you already are from hell, but that's just me nitpicking I guess.

Chopping Mall

Nothing like this happens. Ever.

"Where shopping can cost you an arm and a leg."

Greetings from the dark underworld of movies, it's time for more Tagline! Today I decided that it was a fine time to explore the wide world of B-movie garbage, and so took to the archive. This brought me into striking range of the dross produced by Roger and Julie Corman, and eventually to Chopping Mall. You might suspect from the name that Chopping Mall is a horror movie about a serial killer or ax murderer in a mall killing people. Maybe you'd think it was about a mall where people are chopped up, in some sort of bizarre dystopic world. You would be wrong in both cases, as this movie is actually about killer robots! Originally released in '86 as Killbots, I guess that wasn't punny enough so they re-released it as Chopping Mall, and it did a bit better afterwards. The premise of the movie is not super complicated. There is a mall. Then there are robots. The robots start killing people in said mall. That's about all there is to it. I mean, I guess I can go into more detail about the highly scientific way that the robots get to this point.

Cyber Seduction

Really took the time to make this legit.

"He's with hundreds of women every night... without ever leaving his computer."

Good morning my friends, and welcome. Normally its all shits and giggles up in here, but today I want to talk about a very serious epidemic that's sweeping the 2005 nation: Boys looking at mostly covered up boobs on the internet. Yes that's right, it's no joke, boys the nation over are giving up otherwise productive lives so they can almost see a boob on the internet, but not quite. They start drinking energy drinks, and will drain your credit card dry, just to pay for an almost glimpse at part of a boob maybe in some leather bikini. It's horrifying to imagine but we can't just turn a blind eye while the terrifying internets suck the souls from the still living penises of teenagers everywhere. Yes I really typed that sentence, looked at it, and thought "yup, let's go with that." That's not the point though. Okay it kind of is the point of today's movie actually, which is the often lauded and truly informative CYBER SEDUCTION: HIS SECRET LIFE, a made for Lifetime movie about a teenage boy who discovers internet pornography, and is then sucked headlong into a world of desperate jacking off, that ultimately destroys him almost.

Mazes and Monsters

This is a really misleading cover.

"Danger lurks between fantasy and reality."

Good morning boys and girls, it's that time again! Time for me to relay to you my latest foray into the danger that lurks between good actors, bad movies, and role-playing games! Well, at least that is what I will be doing today, as I explore the exquisite garbage that is Mazes and Monsters, a 1982 film based on a novel written by Rona Jaffe, during the height of Satanic D&D pandemonium. Am I referring to how Dungeons and Dragons is a tool used to recruit children into covens of Satan worshipers, using non-Christian ideologies and REAL MAGIC INCANTATIONS to twist their minds and souls to do the work of the devil? Why you bet I am! A quick primer for the uninitiated. Back in the 1980s, when liking nerd things didn't have a sitcom about it and basically made people regard you with a mixture of pity, suspicion and fear, a number of groups, particularly religious ones, put forth that D&D, and to a lesser extent all fantasy role-playing games, were tools of occultists and devil worshippers. By getting individuals to play these games, they were introducing them to real satanic rituals, and using the guise of a game to get these impressionable minds tied up in a pursuit of power and riches, making them servants of the beast. Of course no one ever had substantive proof that any of these cults existed, despite claims that their members numbered in the hundreds of thousands AT LEAST, but that didn't stop every hack on the block from blaming D&D for all the wrongs of the youthful world. It also didn't seem to encourage any of these people to actually discover what kind of game D&D WAS, given that none of the things they talk about actually happen in a D&D game or any game ever. There is also of course the very real possibility that these groups were simply full of liars and reprobates, but NO surely that couldn't be possible?

Now You See Me

NOW IM LEAVING.

"Come in close, because the more you think you see, the easier it'll be to fool you."

Happy New Year everyone! I thought I would start off the new year just as I spent the last year. By venting spleen into the internet, spewing a white hot spigot of hatred into the aether, about a movie that was indisputably a steaming pile of horseshit. To that end, I picked a movie to watch that I couldn't even imagine liking in any way, and I was not disappointed. What movie am I talking about? Now You See Me of course, a movie that from the previews I'd seen in theaters looked like the hokiest thing ever, as much as it was trying to act like it was going to be cool and clever. Now You See Me stars Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher and Dave Franco as four magicians/illusionists who are brought together by a mysterious benefactor in order to pull off a series of large magic shows/bank heists. They are pursued by Mark Ruffalo (whose secret is that he's always angry), who is an FBI agent, and Melanie Laurent (who killed a theater full of Nazis in Inglorious Basterds) who is an Interpol agent assigned to the case. The two are caught in a web of stupid deception and dumb set piece ruses, that would likely only trick a very dumb person, or say an audience that only gets information the movie wants to give them.

Troll 2

Troll squared? What are you trying to tell me.

"Be afraid... be TWICE as afraid!"

It's Thursday, and you know what that means, I've returned to haunt you with more movie reviews! Now many of you are probably at least passing familiar with today's movie, as it has been made popular at least in meme form by the internet. In particular there is one clip that frequently surfaced for a while, catching an especially shitty moment. While it is a funny clip, and certainly representative of the movie, I feel that no short length of the film can really encompass in all its grandeur the sheer insane shitty-ness of this movie. From opening credits to close this movie is sucking at 100% capacity like an industrial vacuum cleaning up a basement flooded by a burst septic system. Before I really get into the heart of the matter, I wanted to note a few things about the movie. Firstly, while the company that produced it bought the rights to Troll the first (because it experienced very mild financial success, despite also being dross) this movie has no relation to that one at all. Second, there are no trolls at any point in the movie. There are only goblins. The movie even specifically refers to them AS goblins, so that's important too. Third, the movie was produced and directed by an entirely Italian crew, and none of them spoke English, except for a set or costume designer (I don't remember which) who interpreted. Fourth, the entire cast auditioned for parts as extras, but were then cast in leading roles. Most are incredibly ashamed of this film, so I will refrain from referring to them by anything but their character names. None of them went on to anything much better anyway, so mentioning their names would only serve to further their already considerable public humiliation. Speaking of, let's talk about the movie itself.

Night of The Living Dead Live Rifftrax Special

A million Taglines!

"They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN FLESH!..."

Good morning to everyone, it's the week of Halloween so I thought I would report back about my trip to the live Rifftrax show I went to see on Thursday, where the MST3K gang (That is, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett) were picking apart George Romero's original ‘zombie’ film, Night of the Living Dead. This was the cult hit that spawned what we now consider to be the modern zombie film. Featuring an ensemble cast of unlikeable jagoffs who stupidly board themselves into a rickety old house, Night of the Living Dead is as much as social commentary as it is a horror movie. Really the movie has a lot to say about the era in which it was made (at which time it was a seriously controversial film, I’ll talk a bit more about that later). It’s always interesting to watch a movie from so long ago, and read people’s reactions to it, then weighed against my own reactions, watching it long after its creation. Consider for a minute that when this movie came out, it was considered gruesomely gory and violent. It was considered to be so graphic that it was described by many censors as being 'the pornography of violence'. To a modern audience this is hilarious, the movie is black and white for starters, and the low budget (around 111,000 dollars) meant that even in black and white the effects seem silly to someone in 2013. At the time however, the depictions of people being murdered and of ghoulish, reanimated corpses devouring the remains of their victims was terrifying. Also without a standard rating system, even small children got into the theater to see this movie, and you can imagine about how well that probably went over.

The Bling Ring

Excellent choice of font.

"Living the Dream, One Heist at a Time."

Proving again that dreams can be at LEAST as boring and stupid as real life! Welcome to a new week at The Tagline, as we are rounding out the spookiest month of the year with a movie that was certainly a horrifying experience after a fashion. That is to say, I was horrified that I was watching it, and that a 90 minute run time could feel like and unending prison sentence, which is funny considering the subject matter. Today I'm going to talk about director Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, what is described as a "satirical black comedy crime film" based on true events revolving around a group of teens who burglarized the homes of a number of celebrities including Paris Hilton (They actually robbed her half a dozen times if accounts are to be believed). The movie stars mostly unknown young actors as the members of the eponymous Bling Ring, with the exception of Emma Watson, who trades being brainy Hermione for being maybe the dumbest human being alive, Nicki (Also if you watch American Horror Story Taissa Farmiga, who was the daughter Violet in season 1, is in this movie). The cast is rounded out with cameos of people who were robbed, Leslie Mann who plays Nicki's mother, and Gavin Rossdale (the frontman for Bush) who portrays a scumbag who helps teenage robbers fence Rolex watches. The movie is shot jumping between scenes of the actual crimes and of the burgling teens being interviewed after the fact. Either way.... I wasn't especially impressed.

Cloverfield

Experience the mild motion sickness...OF THE YEAR

"Some Thing Has Found Us."

With an intelligent tagline like that, we HAVE to be in for something good right? Welcome back to THE Tagline everyone, today as promised I will spill all of my negative feelings about Cloverfield a movie about love, a giant monster, and some asshole named Hud. Cloverfield is a film that,is shot in the "found footage from some guy who was there" style, just like the much better Troll Hunter, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. This is a nice place to start, because while they use the same style to film, in one movie that makes sense, and in the other it is a strained, and then later patently ridiculous device that makes absolutely no sense in the context of the movie. This is of course one of many elements of the movie that are either stupid or totally nonsensical. I bet some of you who have had the good fortune of not viewing this movie are wondering what it's all about? Well that's why I'm here. To hurt you that way.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Oh dear god no.

" Mankind's finest achievement. Our nation's proudest moment. A secret hidden for forty years."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline! I normally wouldn't bother to even address how shitty a Transformers movie is, but while watching a Rifftrax of the third Transformers movie, I came to realize that it was maybe one of the single worst movies I'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing. It was so unspeakably shitty, that indeed, it was hard to even watch with the MST3K crew making jokes over it (If you do not know about Mystery Science Theater, then learn you some here. Rifftrax is what Mike Nelson, Kevin Muphy and Bill Corbitt do now). I can also mention that I didn't care for the first Transformers movie either. I can admit that it was an average action movie at least, as opposed to the epic level train wreck that is Dark of the Moon. I'm now going to attempt to summarize the movie, but I expect that's going to be challenging because I'm not 100% sure about any of it. I'm going to open the wiki page about the movie and we can discover the plot together!

Abduction

I'm not even sure what's happening here,
like, is he hanging there like Spider-Man?
This does not happen.

Hey everyone, it's Monday night, soon to be Tuesday, and I decided that I wanted to hurt myself last night, so I did it the best way I knew how, by watching Abduction. For those not familiar, while Taylor Lautner had some free time between Twilight movies, and so thought that he would be in another movie. Taylor had made perhaps the understandable mistake of believing that he was a real actor, what with the money he was doubtless receiving for his just FANTASTIC work as abusive boyfriend numero dos for Bella (If you've somehow evaded all knowledge of Twilight, Taylor Lautner plays Jacob in the Twilight movies). So Abduction was made, a film he stars as Nathan, a sort of bro-ish dope who lives in upper-middle class suburbia, and has a crush on a girl with just...wild eyebrows. Like whoa (more on that later). One day, while doing a project with her, they find a picture on a missing persons site that looks just like him, as a little kid. They contact the person running the site, and then people come to murder his parents. He flees with his almost girlfriend (her name is Karen, she's played by Lily Collins) and tries to figure out why men with guns are chasing him, and also the CIA apparently. While he does that, I try to figure out why I possibly give a shit.

The Host

RADIOACTIVE RADIOACTIVE.

"Love never dies."

Hey everyone, welcome to another spectacular week at The Tagline! Just for you guys, I went to the movies today and watched The Host, the movie adaptation of the only Stephanie Meyer novel yet to receive a movie adaptation. The Host takes place on an Earth that has been conquered by a race of aliens called souls, who are placed into human bodies and subsume their consciousness, taking over their host body, though often retaining memories. Melanie Stryder(portrayed by Saoirse Ronan, who you may have seen either in Hannah or The Lovely Bones) is a girl who is caught by the souls,  and implanted with one called Wanderer. Despite this, she continues to resist her alien parasite, and tricks her into seeking out Melanie's surviving family and her boyfriend Jared. Over time Melanie bonds with Wanderer, and other romantic stuff happens that who really cares about them answer not me. This is Stephanie Meyer at her finest, and now I will elucidate exactly in what ways this movie is just like the Twilight movies (though admittedly there is slightly more of a plot in The Host than in most of the Twilight novels).

Godzilla

The scariest foot movie ever.

"Something Big Is Happening."

Recently I learned something deeply disturbing, that shook my faith in humanity to its very core. I mean really, why would ANYONE undertake such an odious, monstrous errand? There is currently a new Hollywood Godzilla movie in the works (slated for some time in 2014 apparently). When I found that out, I figured it was only proper that I go about reminding the good people of the present just what that got us last time around (by the way the new one is apparently starring Kick-Ass so prepare yourself for that). So let's take a look into the past, going all the way back to 1998, when the LAST Godzilla movie was made. That movie also made some questionable casting choices, and starred Matthew Broderick (you know, Ferris Bueller? Though best seen in The Producers most definitely) as Niko Tatopoulos, a scientist who is roped into helping the government investigate the wreckage of Japanese fishing boat, which appears to have been torn apart by some very large animal. It isn't long before this creature, which they determine to be an unknown species with SCIENCE, makes its way to New York City for some reason (which I think is odd given that it originated in French Polynesia, did it go all the way around South America? DID IT TAKE THE PANAMA CANAL?!! COME ON GUYS) and begins to terrorize the city. The government, Niko, and some French guys led by the only French person America is aware of Jean Reno (Leon the professional etc.) who are trying to cover up the fact that French nuclear testing was responsible for the mutation of this enormous terror lizard.

Red Dawn

Does the blond girl in back look really weird in this picture?
Like a cave person or something? What happened there?

"Welcome to the home of the brave."

Welcome back to The Tagline actually! There are a lot of threats to our nation, and to our personal safety. One of the greatest ones, is a renewed red army, invading our homes and defeating our military by means of a mysterious super weapon. Why are they invading? Because they're communists man, and they hate freedom and beer and Nascars. The things that are really important get it? But have no fear because a group of teenagers with machine guns will turn the tide. Led by US Marine on leave Jed Eckert (Chris Hemsworth, so come on they have Thor, they're all set) and including such illustrious members as his brother Matt (Josh Peck, yes I shit you not, it is Josh as in the Nickelodeon show Drake and Josh, that kid) Also their buddy Robert (Josh Hutcherson, you know, Peeta from the Hunger Games, so in real good shape, he's experienced in survival) Also some girls (Adrienne Palicki, you'll see her in the upcoming GI Joe sequel, and Isabel Lucas, who I think was in a Transformers movie?) and also the son of the collaborator Danny (Edwin Hodge) who I will definitely not notice are the only two African-Americans in the entire movie. Nope I won't notice THAT at all, Racist Dawn.