Playing Catch-up: Yoga Hosers (dir by Kevin Smith)

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that the main reason I watched Yoga Hosers is because I’m currently in the process of making out my “worst of 2016” list and everyone that I’ve talked to has insisted that Yoga Hosers happens to belong on that list.

Well, for once, I actually happen to agree with other people. At the risk of losing my contrarian reputation, Yoga Hosers definitely belongs on any list of the worst films of 2016.

I mean … Look, I get it.

I know that making crappy-looking films with juvenile humor has, in the past, worked out very well for Kevin Smith. It’s made him an icon. It’s won him legions of fans. Some of my best friends love Kevin Smith and his movies. I, personally, appreciate that he’s a fan of Degrassi.

And I know that there are literally thousands of interviews with Kevin Smith where he talks about the fact that he’s not the world’s greatest visual stylist. He always pokes fun at the fact that he rarely moves the camera. He’s open about the fact that he’s better at writing dialogue than filming it. And I also know that he has regularly encouraged people not to take anything that he does too seriously.

I get all of that.

But here’s the thing … Yoga Hosers is really, really bad. And Kevin Smith openly admitting that he’s not a very good director doesn’t make Yoga Hosers any less painful to sit through.

It’s actually kind of sad that Yoga Hosers isn’t better. The film deals with two 15 year-old Canadian convenience store workers. They’re both named Colleen and they’re best friends. They’re also very well-played, by Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp. In fact, they both give such likable performances that it actually makes the film just a little more bearable than it otherwise would have been. And, hey — Kevin specifically made Yoga Hosers so that his daughter could have a starring role. That’s more than my Dad ever for me when I was fifteen!

But, God, the movie is just so bad.

And by bad, I mean boring. It’s not even so bad that it’s good. It’s just a boring, bad movie.

Of course, If you just heard a rough outline of the film’s plot, you would probably think that Yoga Hosers was destined for cult immortality. The Colleens are forced to spend a Friday night working at the store and they end up having to fight off a bunch of Nazi bratwursts, all of whom seeking to continue the hateful legacy of a Canadian Nazi played, in painfully unfunny flashbacks, by poor Haley Joel Osment. Johnny Depp shows up as Guy LaPointe, a “man-hunter” who has a huge mustache and who speaks with a thick accent that’s obviously supposed to be hilarious.

But seriously, it takes forever for those little Nazis to show up. First, you have to deal with about an hour of the Colleens obsessing over their phones and saying “aboot” a lot. This is one of the slowest films that I’ve ever seen and Kevin Smith is not the type of director to make a joke and then move on after he gets a laugh. No, instead, he’s going to make a joke and then make it a second time and then keep pounding you over the head with it. Watching Yoga Hosers is the equivalent of having Kevin Smith in your face for 90 minutes, screaming, “This is funny, right!? RIGHT!?”

For instance, do you think it’s funny that Canadians say “aboot” and “oot?” If you do, Yoga Hosers might be for you. Or it still might not be, because how many times can you laugh at the Colleens saying “aboot?” After the 10th time, you’ve gotten the joke but rest assured, you’re going to hear it a hundred more times. Do Canadians ever get tired of Americans demanding that they say “aboot?” I think I would. I’m from Texas and I know I get sick of people from up north going crazy whenever I say “y’all.”

I think the main problem with Yoga Hosers is that Kevin Smith apparently didn’t trust his audience to pick up on all of the film’s comedic details. Hence, the film never makes a joke without then beating us over the head to make sure that we understand that we’ve just heard or seen a joke. For instance, it’s clever that, in Yoga Hosers, Canadian cereal is called “Pucky Charms.” I saw one of the Colleens walking around with an open box of Pucky Charms and I smiled and I thought it was a clever little joke. But it becomes less clever once Smith starts to have other characters specifically point out that Canadian cereal is called “Pucky Charms.” Then it becomes just another mildly funny joke that quickly gets old.

I love Canada! And I’m pretty sure Kevin Smith is a nice guy too. But seriously, Yoga Hosers is the worst.

Back to School Part II #40: Crossroads (dir by Tamra Davis)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last year, I started a new blog called Lisa Marie’s Song of the Day. It’s nothing big. It’s just a place where, on a daily basis, I share music that I happen to like. Ever since I started the site, certain people have been giving me a hard time over the fact that they have discovered that I am a total Britney Spears fangirl.

Well, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I love Britney Spears. I always have. Even when I was going through my whole “wearing black and writing dark poetry” phase, I still loved Britney. Her songs are great to dance to and they’re even more fun to sing off-key and at the top of your lungs when you’re taking a shower or driving to or from work. Even better is when you have a family member in the car and she has no choice but to listen as you sing Work Bitch in your thickest rural accent.

(Whenever I sing, I unleash my inner country girl.)

Of course, it’s never just been Britney’s music to which I’ve paid attention. I was jealous of her when she dated Justin Timberlake. I was worried for her when she married Kevin Federline. I was scared for her when she went through her period of public instability. When she shaved her head, lost custody of her children, and was placed under the conservatorship of her father and attorney, it angered me to watch as the media treated her pain as entertainment. When she was diagnosed as being bipolar, I related to her because I knew exactly what she was going through. I even still use the #FreeBritney hashtag on twitter.

So, in short, I’m definitely a fan. But I have to admit that I prefer Later Britney, the one who uses bitch as a term of empowerment, to Early Britney, the one who used to lie about being a virgin.

The 2002 film Crossroads is definitely all about Early Britney.

Crossroads was Britney’s feature film debut and it was also pretty much her exit. The film did well at the box office (and I’ll admit that I paid money to see it … well, actually, I got someone else to pay for me to see it but you get the point…) but the critics absolutely hated it and it still regularly appears on lists of the worst films ever made. For the record, I do not think that Crossroads is one of the worst films ever made. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not exactly a good film but it’s definitely something of a guilty pleasure. Whenever I watch it, I go on a nostalgia trip and that’s always a little bit fun.

In Crossroads, Britney plays Lucy. Lucy has just graduated from high school. Lucy is supersmart and, the film is quick to tell us, a super virgin as well. (There’s something rather icky about how much media emphasis was put on Britney’s claimed virginity. Especially since even her biggest fans suspected there was no way she was still a virgin if she was dating Justin Timerblake…) Lucy was her school’s valedictorian and now her father is looking forward to Lucy going to medical school and becoming a doctor. Lucy’s father is played by Dan Aykroyd. Though Aykroyd is playing a Georgia auto mechanic, he makes no attempt to hide his thick Canadian accent. Good for you, Dan!

Anyway, Lucy is preparing to do what her father wants but then she gets an opportunity to drive across the country with two childhood friends and a complete stranger. In high school, Lucy had little to do with snobby Kit (Zoe Saldana) and pregnant Mimi (Taryn Manning) but, when they were all 10 years-old, they were all BFFs. In fact, they were so close that they even buried a time capsule. Digging up the capsule inspires these three frenemies to hop into a car with Ben (Anson Mount) and hit the road!

Ben, it turns out, has just gotten out of prison but he’s hot and he’s musically talented. The girls are a little bit scared because they think Ben might have been in prison for murder but seriously, Ben is way too cute to be a murderer. Plus, when he reads Lucy’s poetry, he sets it to music.

AND SERIOUSLY, HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THAT!? I mean, c’mon — every girl who has ever written a poem has, at some point, fantasized about a boy who would put that poem to music and tell her that her words were almost as beautiful as she was.

I mean, there’s a lot of negative things that could be said about Crossroads. I’m not a fan of the way Mimi was portrayed and, towards the end of the film, it almost feels as if the movie is suggesting that she’s being karmically punished for getting pregnant without being married. The film’s emphasis on Lucy’s (and, by implication, Britney’s) chastity feels dangerously reactionary. And, while Britney doesn’t really give a bad performance, she’s still not quite believable as someone who was so busy studying that she didn’t even go to one single party during high school.

But ultimately, this will always be the film where a hot guy took a girl’s poem and spontaneously set it to music.

There’s something to be said for that!

#FreeBritney

Is It Too Late To Hate On Movie 43?

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, I wasn’t planning on ever seeing Movie 43.

Remember Movie 43? That’s the comedy with the huge ensemble cast that came out in January and stayed in theaters for about a week. The trailers looked terrible, the commercials looked terrible, and finally, the reviews were terrible. In fact, the reviews were so terrible (Richard Roeper called it the Citizen Kane of bad movies) that, at first, I was perfectly content never to see it.

However, as time passed, I continually heard Movie 43 referred to as being one of the worst films ever made. Every 12 months, I post my picks for the 26 worst films of the year and I knew that Movie 43 was one of those films that would either appear on that list or, if it didn’t, I would have to be willing to defend the title’s absence.

I realized that before I could either defend or condemn, I would have to sit through the movie. After all, I figured, it’s only 90 minutes of my life.

90 minutes that I’ll never get back, I might add.

Movie 43 is an anthology film in which 13 separate comedic sketches are loosely linked together by one overarching story. For the most part, this is a film that was presumably made both for adolescent boys and for men who still think like adolescent boys. Most of the humor is derived from bodily functions and there’s a real strain of misogyny running through the entire film. However, the film’s problem is not that it’s crude and misogynistic but that it manages to be so dull about being crude and misogynistic. If you think its hilarious when Meg is insulted on Family Guy or when Seth McFarlane smirks after making an anti-Semitic comment, you might enjoy Movie 43 but the rest of us are going to find far less to enjoy.

Oddly enough, there are actually two different versions of Movie 43 in circulation. In the version that was released in U.S. theaters, the various vignettes are tied together by a story in which an insane director (Dennis Quaid) pitches scene after scene to a callous movie executive (Greg Kinnear). In the version that was released in the UK, they’re linked together by a story about 3 teenagers searching for the most offensive film ever made. To be honest, both versions are pretty stupid but I prefer the one about the 3 teenagers, if just because that way I can pretend that neither Dennis Quaid nor Greg Kinnear had anything to do with this movie.

As for the sketches themselves, there’s 13 of them and they are a mixed bag as far as both humor and quality are concerned:

1) The Catch (dir by Peter Farrelly)

Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman go on a blind date. Jackman has testicles hanging from his neck and only Winslet thinks this is an odd thing. This skit goes on forever.

2) Homeschooled (dir by Will Graham)

Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts explain how they’re making sure that their teenage son is getting the full high school experience despite the fact that he’s being homeschooled. They do this through a combination of hazing and incest. This skit worked pretty well, mostly because of the dedication that Schreiber and Watts brought to their absurd roles.

3) The Proposition (dir by Steve Carr)

Uhmm…yeah. So, this is the skit that opens with Anna Faris asking Chris Pratt to defecate on her. I skipped over it because, quite frankly, life is too short.

4) Veronica (dir by Griffin Dunne)

Neil (Kieran Culkin) is working the night shift at a depressing grocery store when his ex-girlfriend Veronica (Emma Stone) comes in. They argue about who infected who with an STD. Little do they realize that Neil has accidentally turned on the intercom and everyone in the store can hear them. I actually kind of liked this short skit. Culkin and Stone had a lot of chemistry and it was well-directed by Griffin Dunne. Plus, it only lasted 2 minutes and, therefore, ended before the joke got old.

5) iBabe (dir by Stephen Brill)

The iBabe is an MP3 player that happens to look like a life-size nude woman. Unfortunately, a fan was built into the iBabe’s vagina and now, teenage boys are being dismembered while fingering and fucking iBabe. Richard Gere plays the President of the company that makes iBabe. I’ve never thought of Richard Gere as being a comedic actor and his performance here does nothing to change that.

6) Superhero Speed Dating (directed by James Duffy)

Robin (Justin Long) goes speed dating and Batman (Jason Sudekis) tries to mess things up for him. This skit – which also features (and wastes) Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell, and Bobby Cannavale – is so incredibly bad that I don’t even know where to begin. Between this film and his appearance in last year’s The Conspirator, I’m having to rethink my slight crush on Justin Long.

7) Machine Kids (directed by Jonathan Von Tulleken)

This commercial parody asks us to consider the children who work inside copiers and vending machines and how they are effected when we criticize those machines for not accepting our dollar. This was actually so weird that I couldn’t help but love it.

8) Middleschool Date (dir by Elizabeth Banks)

7^th grader Amanda (Chloe Moretz) is having her first “middle school” date with Nathan (Jimmy Bennett) when she starts her first period. In response, Nathan and his older brother (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) panic. Believe it or not, this was actually one of the better parts of Movie 43, if just because the scene’s humor comes not from Amanda getting her period but instead from how every male around her descends into histrionics as a result. It helps that this was the only part of Movie 43 that was both written and directed by women. It also helps that director Elizabeth Banks is so clearly on Amanda’s side. The end result is one of the few moments in Movie 43 that doesn’t feel misogynistic.

9) Tampax (dir by Patrik Forsberg)

This is another fake commercial. Two girls are at the beach. One uses tampax tampons and the other doesn’t. Guess which one gets eaten by a shark? As opposed to the previous skit, this bit of menstrual humor was obviously written and directed by a man (and the message, not surprisingly, is “Ewww! Girls are scary and dangerous!”) but I’m going to have to admit that this one made me laugh if just because, like Middleschool Date, it reminded me of some of the period horror stories that I used to hear (and believe) back when I was younger. (Though I was raised to be more concerned about bears than sharks…)

10) Happy Birthday (dir by that noted comedian, Brett Ratner)

Pete (Johnny Knoxville) kidnaps an angry leprechaun (Gerard Butler) and gives it to Brian (Seann William Scott). The leprechaun’s equally angry brother (also played by Gerard Butler) shows up and violence ensues. Watching this skit was like being told a joke by someone who has no sense of humor.

11) Truth or Dare (dir by Peter Farelly and Patrik Forsberg)

Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant are on a first date and Merchant has testicles on his neck…oh wait. Sorry, that was Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet’s skit. In this skit, Berry challenges Merchant to game of truth or dare. It escalates as the dares get continually more and more outrageous. Whoops? Did I say outrageous? I meant to say stupid and oddly dull. Watching this skit was like listening to a someone who has no sense of humor continue to tell a joke even though everyone else has already guessed the punchline.

12) Victory’s Glory (dir by Rusty Cundieff)

In this parody of “inspirational” sports movies, Coach Jackson (Terrence Howard) speaks to his basketball team before they play their first game against an all-white team. The gist of the speech is that Jackson’s team is going to win because they’re black and the other team is white. This skit started out strong but, like a lot of Movie 43, it ran on for a bit too long.

13) Beezel (dir by James Gunn)

This was actually my favorite part of Movie 43. Unfortunately, since Beezel shows up in the middle of the end credits, I get the feeling that a lot of disappointed audience members had probably already walked out of the theater before it even began. Beezel is a cartoon cat who has an unhealthy obsession with his owner (Josh Duhamel). When Duhamel’s girlfriend (played by Elizabeth Banks) catches Beezel masturbating to pictures of Duhamel in a swimsuit, Beezel responds by plotting her demise. Beezel was actually the only part of Movie 43 that truly felt edgy and unpredictable. This is largely because this segment was directed by James Gunn, one of the few truly transgressive artists currently working in mainstream film.

So, here’s the question: is Movie 43 the worst film of 2013 as so many critics have claimed? A few isolated moments aside, Movie 43 is pretty bad. Even the parts of the film that do work can’t hope to compete with the pure horrifying incompetence of that parts that don’t. However, thanks largely to James Gunn and Elizabeth Banks, it’s still a smidgen or so better than Tyler Perry’s Temptation. (For all of its failings, Movie 43 never suggests that AIDS is God’s way of punishing wives who stray. Nope, for that message, you have to go to Tyler Perry.)

Movie 43 is not the worst film of 2013.

It just seems like it.

Lisa Marie Conspires Against The Conspirator (dir. by Robert Redford)

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Robert Redford’s new historical drama The Conspirator is the first prestige picture of 2011 and it’s also (arguably) the worst film of the year so far.

Oh, I hear you out there: “Really? Worse than even Season of the Witch and Your Highness?”

Yes. Way worse. Season of the Witch and Your Highness might have been bad films but they knew they were bad. They never truly aspired to be anything other than bad. The problem with The Conspirator is that it’s obviously meant to be a great and important film. It’s meant to shape public debate. We’re supposed to feel like better people for having sat through it and the filmmakers are supposed to be better people just for having made it. There’s a smugness to these type of self-styled “prestige pictures” that elevates their badness beyond anything to be found in Your Highness. Indeed, if the makers of Your Highness appeared to be getting high off of herb than the people behind The Conspirator are high off of their own good intentions and that makes them for more annoying.

The Conspirator is based on the trial of Mary Surratt, the only woman to be arrested, tried, and subsequently executed as a result of the conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln. The execution of Mary Surratt was controversial because 1) she was a civilian tried by a military tribunal, 2) the evidence against her was largely circumstantial (she owned the boarding house where the conspirators — including her son John Surratt — supposedly met), and 3) she was a woman.

Now, I have to confess that I’m secretly kind of a big history nerd and — unlike most of this film’s audience — I was already familiar with the story of Mary Surratt before I sat down in the theater. The story of the Lincoln Conspiracy and the aftermath of the assassination is a really interesting one that is full of all sorts of weird twists and turns and odd characters all conspiring together and being mysterious. It has all the makings of a great grindhouse film.

However, director Robert Redford is too good to make a grindhouse movie. No, he has something important to say and, as a result, The Conspirator becomes yet another one of those tedious films where every line of dialogue and every image is supposed to make us go, “Hey, they might be talking about post-Civil War America but, by golly, this is relevent to our post-911 lives! OH MY GOD!” So, we get Tom Wilkinson showing up randomly to give speeches about why military tribunals are the work of the devil. Wilkinson is playing a historical figure Reverdy Johnson but they might as well have just renamed him “Prestige Actor Cast As Mouthpiece.” And then Kevin Kline (as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, though they should have just called him Dick Cheney) is there to go, “The whole world has changed.” Meanwhile, the camera lingers over the conspirators being held in their dirty cells with bags over their heads (“OH MY GOD, HONEY!” we’re supposed to shout at our loved ones, “THAT’S JUST LIKE GUANTANAMO BAY! WOW!”) and then we’re constantly reminded that Mary Surratt was a devout Catholic and that America in 1865 viewed Catholicism in much the same way that America views Islam in 2011.

And, yeah, we get it and I’m not saying that director Redford is incorrect in his message or his beliefs. However, a boring, heavy-handed film is just as boring and heavy-handed regardless of where its heart may lie. The Conspirator is so busy being good for us that it forgets that it needs to entertain as well. It preaches at us but it never bothers to engage us.

Mary Surratt is played by Robin Wright and she gives a good performance but because of the way the film is structured, Mary is never allowed to become anything more than a convenient symbol. Instead, most of the film’s screen time is given to James McAvoy who plays the young lawyer who reluctantly defends her at trial. Now, I love James McAvoy. I’ve loved him ever since Atonement and that’s why it’s kinda heart breaking to see what a bad performance he gives here. He’s good for the first ten minutes or so of the film but then he’s assigned to defend Ms. Surratt and I swear to God, he doesn’t stop yelling for the rest of the movie. It’s not totally McAvoy’s fault. As written, his character doesn’t really have much to do other than get mad. As an actor, McAvoy can do anger quite well (again, check out Atonement) but here his anger just seems to spring out of nowhere. At first, he is unconcerned about Mary Surratt and resentful that he has to defend her. Then suddenly, he’s going all late style Al Pacino on everyone.

Justin Long shows up as McAvoy’s best friend and seriously, if you’re making a historical drama, you don’t cast a guy who automatically makes you think, “He’s a PC and I’m a Mac.” It’s not Long’s fault. He’s a likable actor and he’s likable here even if his character doesn’t have any reason for being in the movie. It’s just that typecasting is a bitch. Alexis Bedel gets the thankless role of “rich snob who loses faith in her boyfriend” while Evan Rachel Wood, playing Mary Surratt’s daughter, is the only member of the cast who actually seems to truly connect with the material.

Regardless of the film’s historical accuracy, everything about The Conspirator feels false. I don’t know if it was just the copy that I happened to see but the entire movie just looks like crap, a combination of soft-focus blurriness and respectfully muted colors. This is another one of those films where the interior scenes are lit so that it appears that sunlight is just flooding in through the windows, making any white article of clothing just appear to throb with radiation. Seriously, I had a headache after watching 30 minutes of this film.

As I said previously, there’s a great grindhouse movie waiting to be made out of this material. For instance, did you know that Boston Corbett — the man who shot John Wilkes Booth — was also a religious fanatic who years earlier, in order to resist being tempted by a prostitute, castrated himself with scissors? Also, did you know that Henry Rathbone — the army major who was sitting with Lincoln at the time of the assassination — was years later named Ambassador to Germany and, while in Germany, suffered a sudden nervous breakdown that led to him chopping off his wife’s head? Also, one of the men who was arrested (though eventually released and never charged) for taking part in the conspiracy was Frances Tumblety who later moved to England where he would later become one of the many men suspected of being Jack the Ripper?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

However, The Conspirator is too busy being important to bother with being interesting. While a grindhouse version of the story would have been both interesting and thought-provoking, The Conspirator is just a smug film that is never manages to live up to its own rather high opinion of itself.

Quickie Review: Dodgeball – A True Underdog Story (dir. by Rawson Marshall Thurber)

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Arleigh

What is there to say about Dodgeball – A True Underdog Story other than it’s a no-brainer of a hilarious movie that doesn’t aspire to lofty heights. What it does do is come out firing with some of the funniest physical comedy and one-liners since The Farrelly Brothers’ Something About Mary. First time director Rawson Marshall Thurber does a good enough job to keep the laughs coming one right after the another to keep Dodgeball from becoming too repetitive.

The movie is a riff from the stock underdog sports genre with a Peter La Fleur (played by Vince Vaughn with his usual sardonic wit) having to find a way to save his Average Joe’s Gym from being foreclosed by his bank and turned by a rival hi-tech gym next door into a parking lot. Who else would be the perfect foil for Vince Vaughn’s Peter La Fleur but none other than Ben Stiller as the former-fatty turned workout fitness Nazi, White Goodman. Goodman’s Globo Gym is a state-of-the art, sterile and BALCO-like gym where insults and making its members feel ugly, fat and useless is the way to clean health and the perfect bod.

Already, within the first fifteen minutes, we know who to root for and who to boo. In one corner we have the Average Joe’s guys played with comedic timing by Justin Long, Stephen Root, Chris Williams, Alan Tudyk and Joel Moore. Stiller’s Goodman and his consigliere Me’Shell (Jamal Duff channeling Barry White) with a hand-picked ringer of a dodgeball team he calls the Purple Cobras. With the two sides set the dodgeball carnage begins as Average Joe’s must win the Las Vegas Dodgeball Invitational to earn the $50,000 needed to save the gym. To round out the Average Joe’s team will be the bank accountant who ends up sympathizing with the Joe’s, Kate Veatch (played by Stiller’s real-life wife, Christine Taylor) and Patches O’Houlihan (Rip Torn in a scene-stealing role).

Rip Torn is hilarious as the acerbic and insane former dodgeball great Patches O’Houlihan. He pretty much gets all the best one-liners in the movie the moment he appears on the screen. He coaches the Average Joe’s team by browbeating them, insulting them and, failing that, throwing wrenches at them to help them in learning the 5 D’s of dodgeball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive, dodge. In fact, I would say that if it wasn’t for Rip Torn’s character dominating the middle part of the movie, I think Dodgeball‘s constant ball to the groin shots would’ve gotten old. Instead Patches O’Houlihan constantly gave people watching a reason to laugh out loud.

Dodgeball – A True Underdog Story is a movie that the Academy voters will not go about showering with praises and awards, but I’m sure most of them will be watching it and laughing out loud like the rest of the general public. Dodgeball is one hilarious, one-liner after one-liner ball to the nuts funny and it doesn’t aspire to be anything else but that. This movie will never get old with each viewing and will continue to make people laugh out loud.