Thankskilling: something to be thankful for

Thankskilling opens with a fictional reimagining of the pilgrim's inaugural Thanksgiving in America.  The pilgrim in this case is a woman who just so happens to be a porn star in real life, Wanda Lust.  Lust is running through the forrest with her breasts hanging out (yes, this is the second movie with unnecessary nudity; don't judge me).  She trips and falls to the ground as the killer turkey jumps on top of her and stabs her, uttering my new favorite pickup line "Nice tits, b****." 

Speaking of quotable profanity, the films signature line-- "Gobble, gobble, motherf*****!"-- will forever be engraved into my vocabulary.

To all pregnant women or senior citizens reading this who may have a heart condition, be warned.  This movie is dirty. 

Yes, the movie does feature beastiality.  Don't worry though, the aforementioned beast did use protection in the form of a gravy-flavored condom. 

Excuse the profanity

The movie is also hilariously violent.  A dog's intestines are ripped out.  The movie is also disgusting.  Remember the gravy-flavored condom and beastiality?  Well there's also a scene where a man drinks coffee made with actual human feces. 

Magic still exists in movies.

The movie also features the classic high school stereotypes in the same vein as "The Breakfast Club."  There's the jock with muscles of steel, the nerd who admires the jock's "weapons of mass distruction," the school slut, the angsty girl with morals and the fat comic relief. 

Thankskilling is not your typical awful movie.  Sure the acting is bad and so is the plot and dialogue, but the intent of the movie was to be awful.  This leaves me wondering -- does a movie that achieves its goal of being completely god-awful then become the most brilliantly made movie of our current generation.  Citizen Cane aimed for emotional nuance and painted a picture of lost innocence.  Thankskilling aims for sex, gore and above all endless laughter.

Does this make Thankskilling a good movie?

The film is still awful.  Laughter comes from the truly outrageous and ridiculous moments in this movie.  The humor, to say the least, is low-brow.  The acting is terrible, whether intentional or not.  The horrific turkey is clearly a puppet and illicits absolutely no shocks. 

This leads me to the conclusion that Thankskilling is still a bad movie that ranks among the worst of them. 

I will give points to the movie for referencing the Jean Bennet Ramsey case not once, but two times.

Gobble, gobble, Thankskilling. 

2012 or: how I learned to stop worrying and say screw the Mayans

For the level of blockbuster movie that this movie seems to be, this movie has some terrible CGI.  Cracks in the earth and waves rocking a cruise ship are pasted onto the screen, seemingly with Microsoft Paint.  The background looks like it is animated at worst or some kind of video game at best.  Everything about this movie seems fake and lacks any real elements.

The movie stars John Cusack as a slacker, single dad who stumbles across a restricted military area while trying to spend some quality time with his kids.  From there he learns, along with the audience, that the world is ending.

 

The movie features some dramatic irony that would make Shakespeare himself cringe.  "I feel like there is something holding us apart," Cusack's ex-wife's is told by her new husband and then suddenly, the supermarket they are shopping at is split in two by an earthquake.  And guess what happens.  The earthquake literally splits the couple apart. 

That scene alone makes me want to stab whichever high school creative writing teacher gave the screenwriters an "A" and prolonged their unreal aspirations of being the next Faulkner.

Then Cusack's family watches the TV as the best Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator the director could find reiterates that everything will be fine.  And then, bam!  An earthquakes destroys most of the neighborhood, while Cusack rescues his family in his limo as the city crumbles behind him in yet another display of god-awful CGI.

Oh my god!  As Cusack is trying to get away from downtown L.A., his wife's new husband tells him to take the freeway and then the freeway collapses.  The dramatic irony is honestly going to be the death of me.  Boom!  I'm dead...

Some old guys sing something about "it ain't the end of the world" while the world is literally ending, causing me to lose faith in subtlety.

I think the movie tries to make some kind of political and social statement.  It's only the rich who are able to make it on an ark to survive the deteriorating Earth (no, I'm not making that up).  And I guess covering up the fact that the world is ending is a smart move if you don't want to cause mass hysteria, but it won't help you get reelected.

Anyone who tries to spill the beans about the covered-up apocalypse is murdered, in a statement that is not applicable at all to anything in today's politics.

There's definitely an anti-religious statement being made, though.  The U.S. president decides to pray instead of board the ship for safety and then he drowns.  How stupid of him.  And, while the Vatican is being destroyed by earthquakes, a crack separates Adam from God.  Where is God, now? 

The movie is trying to be hopeful and finish with some sort of happy ending, but I don't know how the fact that one family and a few thousand people survives out of the entire rest of the world is good news.  I guess we are just supposed to be satisfied knowing John Cusack is alive.

My best suggestion if you want to enjoy this movie is simply to get as ridiculously drunk as you can because there's no way anyone will enjoy this movie otherwise. 

The Room: You're Tearing Me Apart!

Eight minutes into "The Room" and there is already an unnecessarily graphic sex scene complete with rose petals and plenty of groaning and thrusting.  The main character, Johnny, had bought his fiance, Lisa, a nice red dress and upon seeing her with it on uttered the un-cliched and romantic "I can't wait to take that off of you" phrase.  And with that sleazy phrase, begins the most pornographic five minutes of film I've ever seen. 



The face says it all.



Apparently life is too boring for Lisa so she seduces Johnny's best friend, Mark, saying "I like you a lot, loverboy," and then "I need you to make love to me."  If that doesn't make you want to get sweaty to some Marvin Gaye music, I don't know what would. And then, another sex scene!  Only nine minutes after the first one!

After the one tryst, Lisa tells Johnny's best friend that she is in love with him.  A girl who gets that clingy, that fast is never a good sign.  Lisa is supposed to be some sort of femme fatale, but she only comes off as completely nuts.  One minute she's saying how caring Johnny is, and the next she's lying that Johnny got drunk and hit her and telling Johnny that she's pregnant.  In her words, she's doing what she wants. 

Dialogue comes flying across the screen with absolutely no emotion.  Characters are irrational and built around stereotypes.  Johnny's face displays absolutley no emotion throughout the course of the film.  Don't even get me started on Johnny's accent, it's truly one-of-a-kind.  

The movie also managed to work in a classic fifth-grade insult into the script of a suposedly serious movie.  "XYZ-Examine Your Zipper," I never thought I'd hear that one again. 

The movie took a little too long to get to the dramatic meat of the proverbial chicken leg, instead choosing to gnaw a while on the bone.  Three times in the movie, in almost identical scenes, Lisa sat on the couch with her mom, whining about how she didn't love Johnny.

When the movie finally got to the dramatic revelation of Lisa's affair, the wait was worth it.  In his strongest shouting voice, Johnny yelled at Lisa, "You're tearing me apart," and then challenged Mark saying, "You are just a chicken: chip-chip-chip-chip."  Robert De Niro, take some notes. 

And then, spoiler alert: Johnny shoots himself.  I was devasted, until I saw Johnny's eyes open slightly and my hopes for a sequel ("The Rooms" maybe) were renewed, but you can chalk that up to bad acting.

Despite all of its flaws, I was glued to the TV, afraid I would miss another sex scene.     

Unnecessary Sex Scene Count: 5

Anne B. Real

Some movies are bad in their lack of production values, the terrible writing or the poor quality of the actors.  Some movies are able to turn this into an advantage, but Anne B. Real isn't one of those movies.

If I had to compare this movie to something it would be spam.  Spam tries so hard to be ham, however, what you are inevitably stuck with is just processed mystery meat in a vacuum-sealed can.  No one is happy with spam and they can only stomach it for so long. 

I was unable to stomach all 90 minutes of Anne B. Real and I was only able to make it through the first 20 minutes. 

The movie focuses on the story of Cynthia who has had a rough life growing up in New York.  Cynthia raps by the name of Anne B. Real after being inspired by the story of Anne Frank.

Everything about the movie is trying hard to be a prestigious movie worthy of awards-show buzz.  The thing is, is that nothing in this movie is particularly good.  Every time the camera focuses on Cynthia's face the same sullen expression is present to remind viewers of Cynthia's situation.  I swear I saw that expression at least once every scene.   

What is Cynthia's situation?  She's stuck living in a small apartment with her mom, sister, her sister's child and her crack addicted brother.  Also she feels she isn't pretty enough to garner the romantic attention of a boy in her class.  All of this naturally brings Cynthia to become inspired by the story of Anne Frank who's problems mirrored her own. 

The fact that Anne B. Real is full of stereotypes doesn't help it's credibility.  One of Cynthia's Latino cohorts utters this wonderful line of gibberish after hearing Cynthia rap: "I like that.  Why you stop for."  Further stereotypes in Anne B. Real: Cynthia's crush is a drug dealer, a Latino classmate wears fake nails and a weave and it seems that Cynthia is the only person in the movie who knows how to read.  Sure it lacks all of the subtleties and nuances of some scripts today, but blatant racism is so much more appealing in a movie.

I understand that the movie may be trying to give a real portrayal of a teen struggling on the streets, but there's no way to differentiate between this movie and all of the other movies about the struggles of intercity teens.  And frankly, this movie is just really boring.

I'll stoop to the movie's low for my final thoughts on this movie.  Anne B. Real, you be trippin'.