Month: December 2007

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Crossover

I like basketball, and the occasional And1 tournaments are great. But a street ball movie staring Wayne Brady is another story.

Crossover Wayne Brady

Crossover first of all has a no-name cast, and for the sake of humanity pray that it will stay as a no-name cast. Anthony Mackie stars as the stereotypical arrogant baller who wants to get to the NBA right away and skip the education process. The problem is he is not good enough. Wesley Johnathon, who is his best friend in this story, has the talent, but gets a scholarship offer from UCLA. He was the talent to go to the NBA but does not want it. Wayne Brady is the “evil” sports agent who wants to get these kids contracts. The overall theme of this movie is for kids to put education above the sports you play. Good message but terrible execution.

There are many ridiculous parts in this movie. First of all, why the heck is Wayne Brady in this movie? The entire time I was waiting for him to break it down into a song, or for him to start playing charades. The movie portrayed Wayne Brady as this evil sports agent. The movie showed Brady as this greedy agent because he wanted to make money off these kids, but the movie fails to show the fact that Brady, in the meantime, would be making money for the kids. That is called capitalism I think. Second, there is the great script. What the heck man. This movie sucked at getting the point across. The flirt scenes were ridiculous and retarded. Those scenes left you hopeless and awkward, and wishing the freaking movie would just stop.

Lastly, the ultimate what the heck part was when the protagonist (i.e. I am a freaking moronic human wasteland and I eat my own poop) turns down a NBA contract to go to a Motown Community College. Are you freaking kidding me? Are you serious? YES the movie was serious. In the movie’s eyes the decision was noble. Yeah great man. You turned down a Millions of $$$$$$$$ to go to community college. Yeah that is the stupidest character of all time. Yeah, he does not deserve to live.

Overall this movie sucked, sucked, sucked some more. I hate street ball now, I hate Wayne Brady, I hate Detroit, I hate community college, I hate And1, and I hate anything to do with this genre of loadofcrapmovies.org. The movie rotted so bad, it was miserable to watch, and left you crying and begging for mercy. This movie beat us all. This is the worst movie of all time without of doubt. 1/5

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Pathfinder

The Saga of the Greenlanders is one of two medieval Icelandic works detailing Norse expeditions to North America. According to the saga writers, the Vikings sailed west from Iceland and Greenland and may have explored as far south as modern-day Manhattan, starting at least one settlement but eventually abandoning the endeavor. Pathfinder shows us why: man-boobs.

The film stars a cast of virtual uknowns and some up-and-comers who will soon be unknowns again. The protagonist, who is apparently called Ghost once during two hours, is played by Karl Urban, the well-known star of, well–he was blond in Lord of the Rings and shot guns at Jason Bourne, once. The obligatory sex object is Moon Bloodgood, recent nominee for the Most Dipthongs in One Name Oscar. The film also features Russell Means, who got lost on his way to Last of the Mohicans.

Pathfinder‘s Indians live a peaceful existence in a standard-issue grotesque, smoky village with mud streets, until the wicked purveyors of European Imperialism arrive to open a can of ethnic cleansing. Fortunately, the Vikings were still pagans at this time, or we would be treated to King Arthur-esque “Is this the work of your God?” sulks. In a masterfully-concealed racist message, Ghost must save the hapless Native Americans from Viking pillage, rape, and the importation of fire-water.

Pathfinder is the grimmest, most steely-eyed bad movie since Last Man Standing. Since I had neither the time nor the desire to meditate very deeply on Pathfinder‘s problems, I’ve distilled the most salient failures here in hope of doing some kind of justice to this injustice.

Problem 1: It’s derivative
It’s Lord of the 300 Apocalypto Bravehearts. Like Michael Bay’s mediocre The Island before it, Pathfinder’s every scene reminded me of three better scenes in better movies.

Problem 2: Diarrhea of the script
This movie goes on forever. Syd Field’s three-act structure is here altered to something like a seven-act structure, each act building on the badness of its predecessors. The film has no less than four separate climaxes, according to people who have actually managed to pay attention without killing themselves.

Problem 3: RCS
RCS stands for Roaring Critter Syndrome, a common affliction of bad movies. (According to experts, RCS is often simultaneously diagnosed with OhCD, or Overly-hairy Costume Disorder.) Here, no movement of the Vikings goes unaccompanied by lavish grunts and growls, like horned bears with a bowel obstruction.

Problem 4: Man-boobs
For a tribal people living on scant fish and grain, these Indians sure are fat. Except Ghost, of course, who is actually a trim, lithe Northern European thanks to his genetically-favored ab-crunching skills. Otherwise, every one of these pathfinders needs a “bro” and a trenchcoat.

I recommend this movie to Lousy Movie viewers with interests in history, Vikings, warfare, and realism and a desire for all of those interests to be flouted in favor of CG blood, modern Icelandic, murky photography, and sledding. Based on the rancorous and vitriolic audience response after prolonged exposure, I rate Pathfinder a steaming 1/5.

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Stealth

Somewhere, in the grimy recesses of a Hollywood sound stage, there exists a department (if a few script writers and agents living in rat-infested cages can be called a “department”) whose responsibility it is to come up with the worst possible combinations of actors and storylines. There is also a security guard named Vinny whose job is to make sure that these mashups never see the light of day.

Unfortunately, Vinny called in sick the day that Stealth was born.

Stealth Poster
So lousy, even the names on the DVD cover DON’T MATCH UP WITH THE FRIGGIN’ PICTURE.

What was the thought process? Perhaps it went something like this:

Writer 1: I know! Let’s make a movie about elite fighter pilots who have to go deep into enemy territory to save the world!

Writer 2: Already been done. It was called Top Gun.

Writer 1: But what if we had real pilot types playing the lead roles? People like…um…Jessica Biel! And Jamie Foxx! And Josh Lucas!

Everyone else in the department: Josh who?

Writer 3: And EDI! Eddie the Plane! Fresh from my latest children’s book!

If this doesn’t make any sense at all, don’t worry…no one else understood it either. The simple fact is, there is no known storyline that can convincingly cast either Biel or Foxx as fighter pilots, and certainly not as wingmen. The best thing that could happen to Foxx did: he was killed in an epic slow motion crash into the side of a mountain. This scene is well worth watching several times. Also, the explosions do not disappoint.

But, seriously…Jessica Biel? Jamie Foxx? And that horrible “Ooh, we’ve set ourselves up to do a sequel! Ooooh!” moment at the end?

Bottom line: Look elsewhere for intelligent entertainment. But if the thoughts of Jessica Biel flying a super fast plane and stuff blowing up piques your interest, Stealth may be for you.

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Street Fighter

Let’s say you’re a video game fan, specifically a fan of fighting games. Well, if you want to loathe the entire genre and perhaps video games as a whole, have I got the movie for you.

I don't remember Guile wearing a beret in the game.Street Fighter features Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile. Guile is American—even has a tattoo of the American flag on his arm. Van Damme has a thick French accent. And this is only the beginning of our problems. Raul Julia makes his ill-fated final acting appearance as M. Bison, a raging lunatic who bases his world-dominating schemes out of a half-finished movie set and wears a gigantic hat and gigantic pants. Also he can launch himself towards you while suspended from a wire, but he only travels fast enough to bump into those with sloth-like reflexes, such as Guile.

This film probably features the worst ensemble cast in the history of cinema. Well, make that worst-looking. This is not necessarily due to inherent bad looks—I mean, Kylie Minogue is not exactly someone whom I would refuse to go out with to a viewing of Street Fighter followed by a Kylie Minogue concert. It has more to do with costumes that appear to have been made of raw materials from Vinyl Outlet.

Here is some sample dialogue as spoken by Bison: “The temple above us was the wonder of the ancient world. Bisonopolis shall be the wonder of my world. But I think the food court should be larger. All the big franchises will want in.”

Yeah, I’ll go ahead and end this now. Street Fighter gets 2 crumbs out of 5.