I, Frankenstein

I, Frankenfurter.

"In the battle between good and evil, an immortal holds the key."

Hello friends, welcome to Tagline's Terrible Tuesday, the second Tuesday out of the month where without fail I will deliver to you a movie that is a pile of hot garbage. With that end in mind, today I will be talking about I, Frankenstein, possibly one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen, and a true enigma of film making. I, Frankenstein is at its core, several positions displaced from even a mediocre movie. It is a cinematic train wreck, in which there are no survivors, only a twisted amalgam of blood, fire and metal, amidst moody camera filters and a world submerged in an endless night. Starring Aaron Eckhart as the I, Frankenstein (and with a face only marginally less fucked up than the end of The Dark Knight) a monster stitched together from much shorter men than I remember in the book, and not possessing a soul. After being rejected by his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, the monster kills Frankenstein's wife, is pursued by the doctor to the arctic, and watches as the dipshit freezes to death (this is the stuff that happens in the novel). After all this stuff, which is covered in a voiced over montage lasting roughly 30 seconds, the bullshit story of THIS movie starts, leaving behind a book that I think everyone can agree is a better narrative than this steaming heap. Let's go a little bit deeper shall we? Get your shovels folks.

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. 

Maximum Overdrive

What a fantastic poster.

"The day horror went into overdrive."

Hi folks, welcome back to the Tagline, where its Spooktober all month, or at least until I get bored and decide to review something completely unrelated because I tend to do that. Today I am talking about a really scary movie, scary because it was DIRECTED BY STEphEN KIIINGGG WOOOOooOOOo. Sounds pretty chilling right? Well sort of. Have you ever heard of Trucks? It was a short story that Stephen King wrote in the early 70s that is about trucks (and other machines and electronics) coming to life to terrorize and murder people. If that sounds like a serviceable short story idea and not a great movie idea, I'd generally agree with you. Movie producers however did NOT agree, and they made not one but TWO movies based on this kind of absurd premise, the first one being written and directed by King himself, and that's this weird ass movie MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE. What could make a movie like this better than being about killer trucks? I'll fucking tell you what, if it was starring Emilio Estevez, and lo' and behold it does, as a parolee who works at a truck stop that becomes besieged by trucks. There's also some other losers at the truck stop, a kid riding his bike tirelessly for at least a whole day, a really annoying newlywed couple, and some drifter girl who was hitchhiking with a molester who sells bibles. King admitted later to being "coked out of his mind" for essentially the entire production of this film, which actually explains a lot of what happens during the film (this movie was released in 1986 and that was about the height of King's substance abuse problems). Keep that in mind while I talk about the rest of the movie.

Divergent

Roofstander: The Movie.

"What Makes You Different, Makes You Dangerous."

Fortunately there is no chance of anyone or anything becoming dangerous in this movie, as there is nothing unique or different happening. Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Today I'm going to talk about the impossibly long-running film Divergent (it is STILL in theaters for some reason) Starring the always bland and uninteresting Shailene Woodley, who is attempting to assert herself on the big screen after her turn on The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which I assume people must have watched because she is still working. Divergent is the latest in the string of adaptations of young adult novels with stubborn strong willed female protagonists who go against the establishment, in order to change their dystopic future society. If I sound so jaded that it even comes through in text, that's because I feel like we can probably explore some other narrative space at this point. I'm sure likable female protagonists can think of something ELSE to do, other than lead a future revolution. Divergent is the first book in a trilogy (all three of which are being filmed) taking place in a world that was almost totally annihilated. In order to organize the post-apocalyptic civilization, individuals are split into one of five factions. Erudites are the smarties, Dauntless are the soldiers, Amity are the happy fieldworkers, Candor are the lawyers, and Abnegation are the selfless public servants and leaders. Also there is a substantial body of factionless refuse that no one seems troubled about, but I guess it's a hard knock life in the future. Beatrice (Woodley) is about to turn 16, and so will soon take the aptitude test and choose what faction she belongs to. Her parents belong to Abnegation, and they are currently in some sort of cold war with Erudite, who as near as I can tell are a bunch of smug douchebags who think they should own the world. Tris ends up getting three different results when she takes her test, meaning that she is divergent. This is not good, and divergent people tend to get disappeared. Beatrice is warned not to tell anyone.

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.

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!

The Lorax

This is just... creepy to me. I'll explain why below.

"He speaks for the trees."

Hey gang! today as threatened earlier in the week, I will be talking about The Lorax, a full length movie based on the animated Seussian musical of '72/children's book about not killing the environment. This film follows the same basic premise, only with a few changes to the basic premise. Namely, the Once-ler (voiced by Ed Helms) is only half of the story, told in flashback form. The other story is about Ted (Zac Efron, yuck) who wants to romance Audrey, and figures the only way to do it is to get her a real tree (in his city there are no real trees). Audrey by the by is voiced by Taylor Swift, and I'll address that further later in the post. So Ted leaves town and finds the Once-ler, who is supposedly the only person who knows where trees might be. The Once-ler tells the story of how he made some really stupid thing called a Thneed out of Truffula trees against the urgings of the Lorax, who if you didn't know speaks for the trees. He does this in the voice of Danny DeVito, and when I talk about things in this movie I found odd and unsettling, we'll address that too. Long story short, the Once-ler told the Lorax to get bent, and then paved over the Earth to get rich, but at some point became a creepy smelly hermit. Ted vows to use the last Truffula seed to replant a tree, but the short asshole who rules the town's industry wants to stop him, so he can sell bottled air to people. Antics ensue, and also there is some singing.