Foodfight!

Review #1766: Foodfight!

Cast: 

Charlie Sheen (Dex Dogtective), Wayne Brady (Daredevil Dan), Hilary Duff (Sunshine Goodness), Eva Longoria (Lady X / Priscilla), Larry Miller (Vlad Chocool), Christopher Lloyd (Mr. Clipboard), Robert Costanzo (Maximillus Moose), Chris Kattan (Polar Penguin), Ed Asner (Mr. Leonard), Jerry Stiller (General X), Christine Baranski (Hedda Shopper), Lawrence Kasanoff (Cheasel T. Weasel), Harvey Fierstein (Fat Cat Burglar), Cloris Leachman (Brand X Lunch Lady), Haylie Duff (Sweetcakes), Shelley Morrison (Lola Fruitola), and Edie McClurg (Mrs. Butterworth) Directed by Lawrence Kasanoff.

Review:

“We’ve got the movie, we’ve got the property, the place, the equipment, the talent, we’re there. Do we believe our next movie, Foodfight! is going to be a huge hit? Of course we do!”

Why don't we just do a whole review of short sentences that will sum up this film's sad history? I'll start: In development for a decade. Managed to lose the hard drive of assets that resulted in a restart. Directed by a guy who produced movies like Mortal Kombat while responsible for a Live Tour edition...with no other directing projects since. Managed to be sold off by debt collectors for at least $2.5 million after being made for roughly $45-60 million. Released in a theater for exactly one week in the United Kingdom, while everyone else "received" it on DVD or video-on-demand. Meant to aim for a cartoonish animation like the Looney Tunes shorts but ended up requiring motion capture animation (you thought The Polar Express was odd? Try this for ten minutes). A hodgepodge attempt at making a studio like Pixar with a cross between Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) and Toy Story (1995). Kasanoff planned a variety of media to tie-in with the film, including an ice show. Made by a director who was described by his crew as "idiosyncratic" that thought animation is the only part of film production where quality is on the rise while costs are going down. Filled with an assortment of brand names for supporting characters. Manages to have worse (unfinished) animation than Hoodwinked! (2005). Made by Threshold Entertainment, whose next animation venture was Bobbleheads: The Movie (2020). Written by Sean Catherine Derek, Lawrence Kasanoff, Brent Friedman, Rebecca Swanson with a story by Joshua Wexler & Kasanoff (who also co-produced the movie).

Inept. Irritating. Incoherent. Inconceivable. Trainwreck. Embarrassment. Need I go on with one-word sentences? How much can one really say about this movie? The very idea of brand names as lead characters for a film is cynically embarrassing on its own, but the very fact that this is the most embarrassing animated film I have ever seen is the saddest thing about the whole experience. 91 minutes of pain, pure and simple. You can laugh at the animation, true. To an extent, you can also laugh at the inexplicable innuendo and crass attempts at humor presented here. But one just seems downright sad at recognizing the various voices present to be in such a travesty. Sheen being here isn't exactly a surprise, because I can equally believe he would stoop to something for a paycheck regardless if it was the mid 2000s or 2012, mostly because one has to breeze a middling collection of cliches and not clap their hands in anticipation. Brady is obviously better to view on television, as I think anybody who is familiar with the medium will tell you, because heaven help the next person to say that cartoon sidekicks are the best thing ever. Duff doesn't even have to try when she spends half of her time off screen, so there is that. There are no winners in the cast, but at least Longoria seems to have a go at playing sultry and adversary in the same length. The less said about Miller, the better. Lloyd obviously likes to keep busy with roles (because this was the same year as The Oogieloves movie), and since he only has a handful of lines to go with a character that is jerkily animated, it sure makes an amusing sight more than a performance. Pairing Kattan and Sheen for a gag is probably better than eating year-old brand cereal. Asner (rest in peace) has less lines than one would expect, because clearly more time needed to be on the market and not the bare attempts at whatever "Brand X" is supposed to do with "Marketopolis". Kasanoff playing a weasel is a sentence that writes itself. As a whole, you don't need 1,000 words to say that the movie has no fundamental story worth investing in, because you can also look at the movie and hear its crass jokes and puns that confirm what a colossal waste one could have here. This is one of the worst films made with a substantial budget and likely one of the all-time worst animated films ever made. Might be good if you take certain substances or if you want to know what not finishing all of your work looks like.

Overall, I give it 0 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: Once more, because everyone deserves an eighth piece of awfulness. Fateful Findings.

Incidentally, if you ever find this review, check out this video someone made about the making of Foodfight! that provides more insight: ROTTEN: Behind the Foodfight

Bulworth.

Review #1518: Bulworth.

Cast: 
Warren Beatty (Senator Jay Bulworth), Halle Berry (Nina), Oliver Platt (Dennis Murphy), Don Cheadle (L.D.), Paul Sorvino (Graham Crockett), Jack Warden (Eddie Davers), Isaiah Washington (Darnell), Christine Baranski (Constance Bulworth), and Amiri Baraka (Rastaman) Directed by Warren Beatty (#205 - Dick Tracy)

Review: 
"I think it’s crazy to take what aspires to be a work of art and loquaciously expand on what you think about it. Ideally you’d like a movie to speak for itself. It’s like giving subtitles to one, two or three years of work. But nowadays it’s such a mass medium you have to. Especially if you make very few films."

It is hard to state how much responsibility one can really have on a film if they have enough self-confidence and control in oneself to back themselves up. Warren Beatty certainly belongs in that category. By the time the New Hollywood era rolled around in the late 1960s, he had already worked with numerous respected directors while eventually growing an interest in becoming more than just a star in a production, such as producing the hit Bonnie and Clyde (1967). In a film career that started in 1961, he has starred in 23 films (with considerable time spent in other interests such as family), while also serving as producer on ten of them, directing six of them (starting with Heaven Can Wait in 1978) and writing for five (he does all three for this film). He has made his films his own way to his own interests like a good director does that has received quite a deal of attention, such as an Academy Award for Best Director with Reds (1981) and an Irving G. Thalberg Award (meant to honor creative producers such as him) in 1999.

One can only imagine what kind of film can be made on the pitch Beatty had for the film: "A man is depressed, makes a deal for life insurance, takes a hit out on his life, then falls in love with a girl, changes his mind and tries to call the whole thing off.” It only was after he was given the green light to go with it that led to what he wanted beyond that pitch (in other words, a lost idealist finding the words to what he really wants to say to everybody that involve race relations and class disparity). Beatty sought others who helped him in the past with ideas, such as James Toback (writer on Bugsy) and Jeremy Pikser (previously a historical consultant on Reds and credited co-writer on this film with Beatty) while Aaron Sorkin reportedly did a re-write on the script, and the approach of hip-hop came about because of Beatty favoring it as a "great comic contrast." In a way, I had to resist my first instincts when it came to approaching the film. It definitely is a strange film in terms of tone that will either seem really dated or somehow fairly prescient in what it means to society as a message film that verges away from others of its type by going off the rails at certain points with humor. It is an acrid film, one that argues for one to find the spirit in them to rise above market research and go against the grain to speak the straight truth - no matter how it may come out to some in its clash of ideal and compromise. Is it a prescient film about the nature of straight-talking politicians? I don't know if I would go that far (because just saying "It's the film for [current year] politics" is complete hokum), but it definitely has a bit of meaningful sting as a wakeup call of sorts for what matters most: Stick to the issues and just money compromises (whether Democrat or not). It certainly isn't perfect by any means, but I did find myself soon enjoying its attempts at satire that hit more often in striking lines with a beat towards the present without becoming too dated in outlandish histrionics.

One might come to see Beatty have his share of dialogue in rap, but they will generally also stay to see him engage in some straight charisma that will rally some insight alongside some decent timing that never seems too buffoonish, although the romance is debatable. His little jabs at everyone along the way in talking facts (or at least straight-edge ones for 1998, like supporting single-payer healthcare), for better or worse. Berry provides some intrigue, although really they seem more suited as a counteract than anything involving romance mostly because it also just happens to be interlocked with this assassin stuff very disjointedly - she has a good sense of careful charm while playing against a beleaguered (or perhaps strange) Beatty. Platt plays the sniveling type that surely was meant to be an amusing supporting counterpart to management, which he does fine despite not really being that funny (one almost would rather see a criminally underused Warden in that role instead). Cheadle makes fragmented appearances that likely deserves more to really do, which can be reflected with a just as quiet Sorvino in their deep presences within certain interests. On the whole, its first half seems more suited to more interesting moments of farce and perhaps some insight moreso than the stranger (if not still curious) second half that trades in a suit for contemporary clothing and becomes perhaps a bit more hollower than it really believes it should be. I can't say it really kicks in for all of its 108 minutes to be anything more than a passing curiosity of its time, because it really does dwell a bit all over the place, but the rails can go off and still click fine. The ending yearns to inspire a lasting thought about being a ghost with a song to sing for when it comes to saying (and being) what you believe in, and whether the film succeeds in actually generating a push for curiosity about certain aspects of society (race, and I mean more than just asking if you can solve racism by having everybody mix in as one race) is up to how much of it really resonates in the final margin call.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Legal Eagles.

Review #1278: Legal Eagles.

Cast: 
Robert Redford (Tom Logan), Debra Winger (Laura Kelly), Daryl Hannah (Chelsea Deardon), Brian Dennehy (Cavanaugh/Joe Brock), Terence Stamp (Victor Taft), Steven Hill (Bower), Christine Baranski (Carol Freeman), Roscoe Lee Browne (Judge Dawkins), David Clennon (Blanchard), John McMartin (Forrester), Robert Curtis Brown (Roger), Grant Heslov (Usher), Sara Botsford (Barbara), and Jennifer Dundas (Jennifer Logan) Directed by Ivan Reitman (#026 - Ghostbusters, #031 - Ghostbusters II, #243 - Stripes, and #487 - Twins)

Review: 
It doesn't take too much time to think that this film could seem interesting. The original idea was to make a buddy film involving Bill Murray and Dustin Hoffman, but when those plans fell apart, Redford expressed interest in doing a romantic comedy, which inspired changes to a dynamic reminiscent of Katherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy films. The screenplay and story were done by Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr, with Reitman contributing to the latter. In a sense, this film is a romance. Of course it also happens to have a sense of comedy, thriller, and courtroom drama packed into its two hour duration, which turns out to be a most unwieldy combination. It certainly seems too packed in to really make the impact it wants to make, which results in a thoroughly average film. It complicates itself too much without really getting a feel for the simple things that can make a film tick: just having fun. One instead sees something that is bound to certain excesses (namely its budget of $40 million) and not working as great whenever it tries shifting gears between rom-com and thriller. There either seems to be too many characters or not enough that actually seems worthy enough to invest in. At least the performances are fine to watch, with Redford and Winder coming out the best, since they at least seem like they are having some sort of chemistry together, whether when trapped in buddy scenarios like an exploding warehouse or some other odd scenario, like Redford and his character that likes to tap dance when unable to sleep (gee, where do you think they'll go with that quirk). Hannah and her performance artist-turned-accused robber/murderer does okay, giving off a laugh or two, but she seems stretched pretty thin in actually making her presence really count, odd but harmless. When she actually does try to romance Redford and his character, I'm just twiddling my thumbs more than anything. Dennehy does just fine, snide yet worth seeing. The other members of the cast don't have as much to really do, seemingly there just to fill time and plot, which is a shame. How does one make a buddy movie with lawyers seem so awkward? One cannot help but wonder if this film needed more or less re-working to really hit its mark (it most certainly needed a trimming down). Actually, there exists an alternate version in which Hannah's character is found to be guilty of one of the murders. I guess that could've proved interesting, though I wonder if that version had more focus. The film just comes and goes, whether in the courtroom or somewhere else. At least one might get some sort of enjoyment over spectacle for the film, what with a climax involving a burning building and all, but its setup doesn't really leave much to give investment over. Their fates never seem to be hanging too much in the balance, and guessing who the real culprit is gets to be pretty easy when the others start dying off. It just seems like a movie too safe to either be really funny or usefully dramatic, trying to get its hand in many genre jars and getting only crumbs in return. It's a bland movie, but at least one could probably come out of it without groaning too much for two hours. I can't call it a winner, but it could probably work as a lark if faced with nothing else to do.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Bowfinger.

Review #795: Bowfinger.

Cast
Steve Martin (Robert K. Bowfinger), Eddie Murphy (Kit Ramsey / Jiffrenson "Jiff" Ramsey), Heather Graham (Daisy), Christine Baranski (Carol), Terence Stamp (Terry Stricter), Robert Downey, Jr. (Jerry Renfro), Jamie Kennedy (Dave), Adam Alexi-Malle (Afrim), and Kohl Sudduth (Slater) Directed by Frank Oz (#521 - The Muppets Take Manhattan)

Review
Ooh look, another survivor from the Blockbuster vault. Anyway...

Movies about making movies are interesting to watch with regards to watching the craft try to make something out of nothing, which also describes Bowfinger really well. Martin (who also wrote the script) does a wonderful job playing this desperate producer who clearly has a vision to make films but has neither the talent (nor luck) to do it. Murphy does a fine job in a double role, playing each person brilliantly enough that they stand out equally, and it is fun to see him play around with a character as paranoid as Ramsey is. Graham also excels with her charm and enthusiasm, with the rest of the cast also doing a fine job making these interesting characters stand out. Bowfinger is a movie that doesn't take a vicious stab at the Hollywood system, but it sure does rib at it enough with a good amount of fun and with good timing with regards to the lines. The antics of trying to film the movie (including a scene on a freeway) are excellent to watch, and you really get a good feel for these people in their attempts at making a movie. Bowfinger manages to wrap itself nicely in 97 minutes while balancing all of these wonderfully weird characters together to make for an entertaining look into making a film (in the non-conventional sense).

Countdown: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5...

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: The Birdcage.

Review #637: The Birdcage.

Cast
Robin Williams (Armand Goldman), Nathan Lane (Albert), Gene Hackman (Kevin Keeley), Dianne Wiest (Louise Keeley), Dan Futterman (Val Goldman), Calista Flockhart (Barbara Keeley), Hank Azaria (Agador), and Christine Baranski (Katherine Archer) Directed by Mike Nichols (#175 - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and #550 - The Graduate)

Review
What we have is a wild, weird movie full of fun scenes that make a unique experience. The biggest reason this movie works is the cast, they all seem to just mesh together awkwardly, which makes sense given the premise. It really is Hackman's facial expressions that just sum up what kind of world he's in, and any time you can end a movie with him in disguise at a nightclub with he doing the most uncomfortable expressions ever is pure gold. Williams and Lane are just watchable in every scene they share together, I especially like the scene where Williams tries to demonstrate how to dance for a musical scene by channeling dances, such as Madonna. The way that Williams moves and his energy make a strange scene into a great one. Does the movie have its cliches? Yes, but it embraces them, this is a movie on its own terms, with some great music and some good jokes. What we have here is a movie that is flashy, silly fun with a touch of decor for flavor.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Movie Night: How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Review #301: How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

Cast
Jim Carrey (The Grinch), Taylor Momsen (Cindy Lou Who), Frank Welker (Max), Jeffrey Tambor (Augustus May Who), Christine Baranski (Martha May Whovier), Bill Irwin (Lou Lou Who), Molly Shannon (Betty Lou Who), Clint Howard (Whobris), Mindy Sterling (Clarnella), and Anthony Hopkins (Narrator) Directed by Ron Howard.

Review
In my review of The Cat in the Hat (#210), I mentioned the How The Grinch Stole Christmas film in one line of the rhyme (don't ask) Even the Grinch has a better film. 91 reviews later, the being known as irony has come, and so here I am reviewing this. Does it live up to the so called rhyme? It certainly is better The Cat in the Hat, but this can't escape the reaches of the thing known as criticism. To be fair, Jim Carrey (Who is very familiar here: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, Batman Forever, Mr. Popper's Penguins) does a show stealing job, even if sometimes he is a bit grating on the ears. The rest of the aspects varies severly. There are some decent performances by the supporting cast (Let's face it, in any Carrey film (That I've reviewed), he pretty much overshadows the entire cast), but there are some...oddities. Let me get this out of the way, but I loved the 1966 animated special and the 1957 book (By Theodore Geisel [Also known as Dr. Seuss]), but this isn't really in terms of...love. The makeup, while admirable for the effort, isn't really necessary. I do wonder if there is a Doctor in Whoville though. And then there's the main problem that in a way is connected with the other Seuss film adaptation. It's that the characters are radically changed from their original inception. While in the special the Whos were not really characterized other then just citizens who loved the spirit of Christmas, I could at least get their motivation and admire it. Here, the Whos are just...mean spirited. And that even extends to the Grinch's origin (Due to the Who's. Oh hey, that rhymed. But I don't have time.), which feels souless. Perhaps it was meant to be that way, instead of the Who's being happy with what they had, make them the opposite to try and make an interesting story. Then I realize that violates the spirit and soul of Dr. Seuss and his books. The last 20 or so minutes do attempt to be more like the book, but that doesn't help as much. In the end, while their is some sort of dialouge with a bit of comedy, it is hampered by a flawed script that doesn't capture much of the book of the lesson at all. But I will indulge you in a rhyme once again.

The Grinch is indeed better then the Cat,
But it really isn't much better then that.
Jim Carrey does a decent job,
But this still might make you sob.
Not in a good way,
But in a head shaking foray.
The spirit of the book is messed with,
It will give you an absolute fit.
Go watch the special instead,
You won't have the feeling of dread.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.