Flowers in the Attic

Look at this beautiful art.

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Hello ladies and gents, welcome back to The Tagline. Today I have a real treat for you, that I want you to experience because I was forced to experience it. I'm going to tell you a little story, and that story actually involves a fair amount of incest. In the 80s there was this book, Flowers in the Attic (well it was published in '79 I guess) that became very popular. My girlfriend tells me for some reason all the girls she knew had read it in high school. The book was apparently really popular, it managed to sell something like 4 million copies. This book is about a family living the American dream, until the unexpected death of the father. After that, the mother Corrine (Heather Graham,  takes her four Aryan children back to live at the house of her parents, revealing that though she had been estranged from them they are letting her come home. Also they are apparently very, very rich. Of course, everything isn't well in paradise, and so as soon as the kids and Corrine arrive it's clear that shit is not right. The children are rushed into a spare bedroom in secret where they are told that they must stay "just for a while", but also that no one can know they are there. That strikes as somewhat weird. Also their grandmother is really not the nice kind, and she is really religiously obsessed, and has some very disparaging things to say about how all of Corrine's children are the spawn of Satan and have evil lurking in their hearts. The kids feel about the same way about that as I do, weirded out, but they don't quite get it all the way until a bit later.

Jack Reacher

Gotta kind of wonder what he's looking at.

"The law has limits. He does not."

Hello everyone, welcome back! Today I'm going to be talking about the (relatively) recent film Jack Reacher, a movie based on a character from a series of novels, written by Lee Child. This movie in particular deals with the events of the novel One Shot, where a man is arrested and being charged with the random murder of five people in a park. This is all done from a parking garage across a river, and afterwards the police have little trouble pinpointing that the murders were done by James Barr, a former sniper for the Army, who had previously been exonerated for a similar crime during his tour of duty. Around this time, Jack Reacher sees the news, and then arrives to see Barr, who has been beaten into a coma while in holding. Initially, investigators believe that Reacher has arrived to defend Barr, but in fact he reveals that he has arrived to confirm his guilt and then see to it that he is convicted. Barr is defended by Helen Rodin (played by Rosamund Pike) who is the daughter of the district attorney. As nearly as I could deduce, the movie seemed to indicate that she was doing this to stick it to her dad, who is renowned for never failing to convict, which seems like a really bad policy, as I would presume not everyone who is tried is guilty, because that is literally the whole point of a trial. The law is scary. Anyway as Reacher and Rodin continue to look into the circumstances surrounding the shooting, it becomes clear that there's more at work than a simple case of guy-goes-crazy-and-kills-everyone. The people really responsible are not super excited that Jack Reacher has showed up to scrutinize the situation, and that's when stuff starts to get interesting.

47 Ronin

They fit all the unimportant parts
of the movie onto one poster.

"Seize eternity."

At long last, as promised I will be talking about 47 Ronin today! This film, released on Christmas day, is an extremely fictionalized western take on an already heavily fictionalized series of event that make up one of Japan's most popular stories from the Genroku era, about a group of Ronin (masterless samurai) who seek revenge for the death of their master, who was forced to commit seppuku after attacking an official of the shogunate while in Edo Castle. The ronin planned carefully to slay this official, before then all committing seppuku themselves, as was demanded to satisfy honor. Granted, official records and most versions of the story don't involve witches, dragons, or demons, but the general story is there. This version of the story, like most fan fiction, inserts a totally bad ass OC who is a super fighter who was trained by demons and is all angsty and shit and also has a love story with the daughter of the Ronins' lord. Also this guy is white, because come on HOW COULD HE NOT BE LET'S GET REAL HERE. I'm seriously not kidding though there is a character in this movie that is all of those things and he is played by Keanu Reeves and his name is Kai.

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.

Cherry 2000

Sure is hot in the desert.

“She's blonde, beautiful and forever young.”

Hello and welcome back to The Tagline! I decided that I wanted to continue the new year with a further peek into the distant, misted past, when hairspray was as essential as water, and the future was definitely going to involve some sort of big desert and having sex with robots. Living in an area covered in forest and completely devoid of robots to bang, I don't mind telling you that I am still trying to cope with my bitter disappointment on the matter. I guess I shouldn't get too down, we could still get our deserty sexbot future! It might just be a while, but I suppose patience is a virtue just like they say. ANYWAY today I will be talking about a classic movie about a sexy lady in an american muscle car shooting guys with rockets in a desert while looking for the body of a robotic sex wife. You may or may not have guessed by now that I am talking about Cherry 2000, a cult film originally slated for release in 1985, Orion shelved this film for years basically because they didn't know how to market it, or what to really do with it. Having seen it a number of times, I can certainly understand their confusion and trepidation... I'm not sure how one would classify or explain Cherry 2000, especially in the 80s. The film features a dystopian future US, with a setting somewhere lost between cyberpunk and post-apocalyptic. The year is 2017, and in the wake of a number of economic disasters and civil uprisings, civilization exists in isolated clusters. One man, Sam Treadwell, is a business executive who lives with his limited edition gynoid, (the eponymous Cherry 2000 model) until she short circuits during some very soapy sex, because apparently advanced androids AREN'T WATERPROOF SOMEHOW. That leads to some gross questions about how he has sex with her and keeps her clean, but let's just... not think about that anymore.

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?

Frozen

FROM THE CREATORS OF MICKEY MOUSE.

Hello all, The week is half over and that means it's time for more movies! It's cold as hell here and I figured that would make it an appropriate time to talk about Frozen, a film all about being cold and maybe dying from exposure to extremely low temperatures, and also living in a world devoid of warmth, left out alone in the snow, or locked away where no one can see you. SOUNDS LIKE FUN RIGHT? Well yes and also maybe not so much, but we will get to that in a bit. For starters, Frozen is the latest Disney film that is computer animated and about princesses who live in castles. This particular film concerns sisters Anna and Elsa, one of whom is super outgoing and energetic, and the other of whom has been hidden from the world her whole life because she has icy frost magic. The king and queen of Arendelle die, and so Anna and Elsa are left mutually alone, as Elsa shuts everyone out, to try and protect them from her unholy frost witchcraft, probably gifted to her by the devil (well that's how they treat her anyway). Elsa is eventually to become queen, and on the day of her coronation there's a big hullabaloo and a fancy party. There, Anna (Who is voiced by Kristen Bell, I actually have a really weird and awkward movie with her in it to talk about some other time) meets Hans, who seems like the handsome and kind prince she has been waiting to fall in love with at first sight (As we know, that always works out SO WELL) Anna wants to marry him right there on the dance floor, but Elsa isn't as thrilled as her (Elsa by the by is voiced by Idina Menzel, who previously appeared in Disney's Enchanted) and won't give her blessing. They fight, Elsa gets emotional, and then maybe she shoots some icy magic, is chased out for being a witch, and then accidentally blankets the kingdom in unending winter. Oops.

The Net

SPECIAL DVDITION.

"Her driver's license. Her credit cards. Her bank accounts. Her identity. DELETED."

Hello Tagliners, welcome back, this week I decided that I'd greet this fine new year by taking a look back. But then I couldn't STOP looking back, and I just looked further and further and eventually I was all the way back in 1995 and I had no way of getting back to the present and instead had to watch old cyber thrillers. That's right, today we're going to take a look back at the internet as imagined by the brain trusts of Hollywood in 1995. This crack team of geniuses produced The Net, a film where Sandra Bullock stars as Angela Bennett, a computer programmer who works remotely, and has no friends in the real world. I think that covers most people in the world now, but in 1995 I guess it was a pretty novel concept, anyway Angela stumbles into some kind of conspiracy, because this is the 90s, and then her entire identity is erased and she can't prove who she is and everyone thinks she is a hooker and they want to kill her. I'll explain more but I mean the real great thing here is that Angela Bennett is such a recluse, that there are literally TWO people in the world who even recognize her by her face. Now that is some pretty epic hermit action. I mean granted they didn't have Facebook for her to post selfies to all day long but still, I think most people probably have at least THREE others who would recognize them and be able to vouch for them not being a prostitute who was in Mexico.

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.