Stinker Madness - The Podcast for Bad Movie Lovers

Violent Night - Santa ain’t got time for your heist

Planning on holding hostages over the holidays? Better think again, because Santa will straight mess you up in so, so, so many ways.
In the late 70's and 80's there was a string of terrible "Christmas" movies that featured Santa or a Santa facsimile going on a murderous rampage (Santa's Slay, Santa Claws, Silent Night, Deadly Night 1-3, et al.). It could be an easy mistake to confuse this movie with that band of sellout cash grabs. Violent Night is far from any of those films.
While it does pay a little homage to that group along with other Xmas classic films (Die Hard and Home Alone being the biggest and most obvious), Violent Night is a true Christmas movie. Ok, well maybe not one that you watch with the kiddies and bitchy old Aunt Linda (she hates everything anyways) but one that could easily become an annual tradition in the right circles. Think Machette Kills but with Santa going berserker (spoiler: see what I did there?) on a group of heisting baddies, with the true spirit of Christmas being found by the end of the ride.
David Harbour's Santa is without a doubt the most likable Santa ever captured on film. All those other guys with their holly jolly that is without flaw and immune to the realities of the world (just gonna laugh and drink cocoa the rest of the year while millions die from disease and war, huh Santa? Jerk.) isn't what Harbour's Saint Nick is about. He's crushed by the way he's seen the world play out over the last century. He's tired of greed and people losing touch with caring for each other. He's a broken man and one whom audiences identify with. His disgruntling isn't just for laughs like cliché driven films are. There is a point to it all, just like everything else in this very well written film. The rest of the cast is also great with some top tier villainy and Grinchin' from John Leguizamo (Johnny Legs as he's affectionately monikered on Stinker Madness) and some real old rich bitching from Beverly D' Angelo.
We can't say enough about Violent Night (our podcast took almost 2 hours because there's just so much to say) and we think its one of the best Christmas movies of all time (I'm serious). It shouldn't have worked and could have easily been a 2 star movie but the production group knew what they were doing (the minds that also brought us Nobody and Bullet Train) and didn't get sidetracked from the concept. Execution is at a 10 (in a few ways *wink*) and we don't see enough of that in film.
Go see it. Thank us later. Actually thank the people who made this instead by seeing it twice.

Any Given Sunday Part 2 - Ghost of Football Awesome

Over-editing, bad actors and continuity problems plague not just the film but the Miami Sharks as well in Oliver Stone's complete mess of a tale about football (maybe).
Let me just start out by saying, I despise this movie. I didn't want to do it for the podcast. I still wish we hadn't. Its an insufferable mess that is 2 and 1/2 hours of my time wasted. I'm not a big sports movie guy and I'm especially not a big football movie guy (name a good one and don't say Brian's Song. That's not about football but this one isn't either, I guess) so going into this had some baggage that I was dragging into it. Maybe if I liked these types of movies, I'd have gone for it? 
Probably not. See the problem isn't the sports here. There's actually some really great photography done and execution of action is top notch. My problem is that it is completely devoid of a plot/point. No character comes out in any different shape then when the film started. Nothing transpires that make me feel something. The script is ridiculous. Reality was not something considered. The rules of the game are ignored. And the editing....oh my god the editing. Its so over done that frequently throughout the film, characters end up getting, what I'm calling, "Oli-Vision" in which whatever nonsense was rolling around in Oliver Stone's brain manifests itself in visions to them. It could be nerves or injury or the desire to win that causes Oli-Vision, the cause isn't clear. I hope I don't get it though as watching someone else's Oli-Vision is enough for a lifetime.
I find this thing odious, tedious, superfluous, and ostentatious. I'm sure I could find more ious words but then I run the risk of giving you Justi-Vision, which would make me a dick.
Don't waste your time here. But do waste your time listening to us talking about it.

Any Given Sunday Part 1 - Bring your gator to work day

This week we split up the way too long and way to many cuts, Oliver Stone hates the NFL movie with Al Pacino. Expect Sam and Justin to weakly impersonate Al and go on diatribes about football inaccuracies and Jackie talks penis. More to come next week!

Old - Nobody brought adult diapers!!!!!

Go to a beach resort and find yourself craving Worther's and looking for the Ben Gay. M. Knight is back on the podcast for another chapter in his nonsensical filmography.
So if you saw any trailer for this movie (see above) you already know the hook and most of the plot. You might expect some big twist considering the director and there is one but its very small and doesn't really change much so we're going to not worry about it very much here. What we are going to worry about is the incredibly stupid and nonsensical plot of being trapped somewhere that makes you age rapidly (50 years in 24 hours to be precise). Let me start by saying that there are plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. Some of that is physics based, some of that is "well we can't put that in a movie", but the biggie is that it breaks its own rules, which is a staple for M. Night Shyamalan.
At one point a character (a hemophiliac who has a nose bleed for unknown reasons) gets cut on the cheek only to have it heal immediately. Ok fine. Rules of the movie is that you get Wolverine's healing factor along with speed ageing. But just a few scenes later the same character is stabbed and doesn't heal. He dies. Ok, well maybe the stab wounds are too deep? No as evidenced by emergency surgery performed that has such quick healing they have to pull the flesh apart so that it can't heal before the operation is done. So this guy ain't dead. Later a man dies by tetanus - except tetanus is a bacteria. Fine, except nothing lives on this island because it can't reproduce fast enough. The rusty knife would have just been that - an oxidized iron covered blade that would have the same rules as the other healing. Then there's the mass problem that they barely try to fix inside the film with dialogue. The children grow to adulthood. Say that they put on 100 pounds on the low end in 24 hours. Well they eat alot, I guess (seems like they were busy doing other stuff to eat but whatever) In order to put on that 100 pounds they don't just have to eat 100 pounds of food - the body isn't that efficient. We do something everyday that is a source of great comedy for this podcast - pooping. We only absorb a fraction of our food and the rest goes out the backend. So they'd have to bring about 500 pounds of food per child (they don't) and then you've got a huge waste problem..... like 400 pounds of crap huge. Then there's periods, menopause, teeth, nails and hair (movie's explaination doesn't work here) and decomposition (no bacteria or ooey gooeys to eat your bod, right?). And there's probably quite a few we missed.
BUT that's not the only problem here - the acting is pretty terrible. The dialogue is atrocious. And some of the "horror" comes off as ridiculously funny.
Despite all this, it may be Shyamalan's best made movie. If you're into plot holes then its a do for you, but the masses should probably skip it.

Knock Off - WHOSE PANTS ARE THESE?

The Russian mafia hatches a plan to blackmail America with the threat of Greek Fire microchip bombs delivered via Chinese counterfeit Levi's. The only thing standing in their way is CIA agent and his mark, a pants seller. Whatta bombshell plot!
So its the film that kept JCVD out of movie theaters all the way until The Expendables. And there is a pretty good reason for that. Its either a) confusing, b) vague, c) nonsense, and/or d) completely stupid. Which I guess, makes its more confusing than anything. The biggest problem is the editing. This suffers from that terrible time in the late 90's and early 00's of over editing and slo-mo in scenes that don't call for it. There was also 20 minutes of action sequences cut out of the film and instead all the Rob Schneider stuff is left in. Nice.
BUT what does make it in the film is one of the dumbest plots in an action movie and that's saying something. Its all about the pants. The CIA has three independent teams working on counterfeit pants....for years. These are deep operatives embedded in the Hong Kong industry of knock-off pants. Huh. Then the plot to blow up America with tiny bombs sent overseas by cargo freighters is such a unholy terrible plan. I don't think its gonna work out, Russian mafia. 
There's a lot of good and fun shenanigans abound but sadly it just suffers from too many moving parts and very unclear editing. Which still makes it a "do" but its not a guarantee that you're going to like it.

Snoop Dogg’s Hood of Horror - Blood and Beer Volcano!

Snoop takes us on a horror ride in an anthology shaped Cadillac as he collects to souls of the damned to be his neighbors as he rules the subdivision, The Hood of Horrors, in hell. Get ready for a grotesque block party!
So go into this knowing that it only cost $5 million in 2006. That's not a ton of money. With that knowledge in mind, this is an very tight efficient little package. You've got animation (not cheap) and a cavalcade of guest starts (not cheap either) and some seriously clever makeup and effects (also not cheap). Director Stacy Title did a very good job of keeping this thing on track and seamless.
Sure, it can be a little much at times (there might be a little too much attitude) but there's far more fun to help you get past too much butthole talk. Arguably it has one of the Top Ten on screen comedy deaths of all time. The rest of them also go pretty swimmingly as well with one managing to sneak in excessive comedy farts which I'm just never going to get sick of. 
Its just a fun little anthology that really isn't any lower quality than any of the other Halloweeny anthology that you put on a higher shelf, like Freakshow and Tales from the Crypt. Its not going to be in anyone's favorites list but its a good time and fun enough for Spooktober.

Uninvited - CAT JUSTICE!!!!

A poisonous cat climbs into the body of another cat, escapes onto a crime yacht with some sexy coeds and proceeds to commit its own vigilantism. Its full on cat justice!
So let's get to the point - Uninvited is sheer ridiculousness. Its a GREAT bad movie. Every aspect of this thing is exactly what you're signing up for, especially if you like baffling and non-frightening movie monsters. Plus you've stacked all that with Stinker hall of famers Greydon Clark, George Kennedy and Clu Galager. Supplementing the cast is a very hot and totally 80's fashioned Clare Carey that went on to be the wife of Coach. Damn you Craig T. Nelson!!!!
So the cat - its very unclear on what the cat is. Best we can piece together is that there is a cat with a chip on its shoulder from being medically experimented on, gains some super powers, finds another cat and crawls inside it to disguise itself as just a precious little housecat so that it can get the Meow Mix. It's just a total misunderstanding that the cat is a monster - it's just out there enacting cat justice against some really bad people. Leave the experiment kittie alone! It just wants a nice home like we all do, dammit!
Instead, 3 Garys find a couple bang ladies who have access to a yacht owned by an embezzling (?) villain and his man mountain henchmen/business partner. On the way to the Caymans, the cat breaks the boat (loud noises pisses cats off) and so they get picked off one by one for just being horrible people (except Clare Carey - she gets a pass for being too hot). Once the climax begins, buckle in because its one of the most ridiculous and hilarious endings in bad movie history.
This isn't just a do, its a mega do.

Rock of Ages - Butt Rock in more ways than one

Lets put a terrible cast with no professional singing experience around a terrible script all while performing some of the worst music ever recorded. Time for Stinker Madness to step on some hair metal feelers.
Now don't go storming the capital, but the late 80's hair metal/butt rock genre is a bunch of garbage. Which is fine. But this movie isn't. It's garbage. Nothing can be forgiven here, such as a time and place that the Sunset Blvd rock scene was all about in the late 80's. This is just nostalgia for a time when being a terrible person was celebrated. And it sucks.
Its way too long. Has too many songs in it. Too many sub-plots. Too much "general audiences" editing. And too much people feeling sorry for themselves. 
The performances are horrible. No one here (with the exception of Mary J. Blige whom you just feel bad for) has any vocal talent showcased by the lead Julianne Hough with her faux Britney Spears nasal whine. I will give everyone a little credit because Baldwin, Brand, Cruise and Ackerman have no business being in a musical and it's clear they did their very best. No one muddles through. Ok maybe Baldwin who clearly didn't want to be there. 
Go see a Baz Luhrmann movie and then nail your head to the floor instead.

Perfect - Maybe the 80’s weren’t that good

Air humping in leg warmers meets journalistic malfeasance and everyone's lives are ruined. But hey! Jaime Lee is hot, so I guess that's ok.
Hailed as the film that ended Travolta's career (briefly, lets be honest) and set Jamie Lee back a few years, Perfect is anything but. Its way too long for such a paper thin plot and is stuffed with repeated unnecessary and irrelevant scenes that keep it dragging you into the depths of your sofa. Pedantic would be an understatement.  But poorly acted is not how we would describe it. At worst, the acting is "meh", "whatevs" levels aside from Jaime Lee who is pretty darn good here. Even Travolta who we love to bash on did just fine. It's not the actors who are at fault here.
What IS wild about this is how heavily involved Rolling Stones magazine is, while also managing to paint the rag in a very bad light. Its somehow screaming out to us in 1985 "WE DON'T ACTUALLY DO GOOD JOURNALISM! DON'T TRUST US!". At no point, would I have wanted to place a subscription after watching this so...good job?
The plot is baffling and falls into the nonsensical realm of stinkers. Its border-line idiot plot, but also manages to make zero sense and is clear that no one involved knew anything about either federal espionage law, the FISA act, or subpoenas. Yes I know that maybe the majority of Americans don't but we aren't writing movies about that material either. A lot of the film's dumbness could have been avoided with just a single call to an attorney. 
Lastly, the film manages to step on its own John Thomas. In the climax of their relationship, Jamie Lee's Jesse Wilson deletes the article that Travolta's Adam Lawrence was writing (poorly) about gym life and how his main focus is a sexually liberated Linda who uses the gym as a place to meet dudes, in her endless pursuit of perfection. Jesse declares it will ruin her life just like a reporter once ruined her own - EXCEPT Jesse has never even met Linda from what we know AND Linda wanted the article to be exactly about that part of her life. The whole thing could have been a statement article on the decade and changed Linda's life for the better but instead Jesse destroys the whole thing (except she never saved the file on the 1985 word processor - oops) and everyone's future along with it and we're supposed to appreciate her position?!?! No she had the power to change LA and thus America's viewpoint of women and what a woman should be, likely allowing Harvey Weinstein 30 years in the business. #metoo could have happened 20 years earlier (saving a lot of people a lot of pain) if stupid Jesse had just kept her grubby little mitts off Adams work. But then Adam does something equally terrible - he rewrites the story as a fluff piece just to get back in Jesse's drawers. He should know better than Jesse about what the repercussions of that original article would have done but instead trashes the whole thing so he could get some gym rat ass. And that's worse that Jesse's actions - she's just a gym instructor. He's a crummy Ben Fong-Torres. Save America? Nah, sweet sweet leotard's crumpled by the bed for Adam!
The movie sucks. Skip it.

Morbius - Just be bat-men, guys

A lack of the scientific method causes a medical failure that could still be cleared up with just a simple conversation. Yes, the MCU has their own idiot plot now.So basically, Michael Morbius has a rare, but vaguely proclaimed, bone/muscle disease that gives him and his bestie "Milo" (played by Matt Smith) a ticking clock of death that requires him to create a remedy that he alone can test on himself. I think I've heard of that before. Maybe from Robert Louise Stevenson. Anyways, he takes the potion and becomes a vampire-bat-man. Not a vampire. A man who is also a vampire bat. Milo sees his powers and decides to join him, but eats too many people so they have to fight.Morbius is a DEEPLY flawed movie. As mentioned above, the whole thing could have been avoided with the use of the scientific method. Which could have worked if Morbius was an outsider, alleyway style doctor. But he's not. He's supremely famous and has saved so many lives that he's awarded the Nobel Prize. Pretty sure he knows about the scientific method. Secondly, to skirt the law to make his cure, he takes his lab into international waters - and then staffs the ship with mercenaries who have guns. Why did you hire gun-guys?!?!? Lastly, after he becomes a man-bat, he could have just sat down with Milo and come up with a plan for the next step that completes their research and fixes the issue with the cure. OR become vampire guys that aren't idiots who just eat random people. Then there is the fact that the movie tells us our hero is Morbius and our villain is Milo - even though they do the exact same thing and have the exact same character trajectory. Morbius ate the mercenaries. Milo stalks and eats some douches at a bar. That doesn't work.Lastly, it looks like dump. It is so based on rehashing cheap CGI that Sony used in other movies and bad character design because it "looks cool" and isn't actually. The teeth are too much. The "bat-aerodynamics" glow is butt as hell and it doesn't make any sense. The bounce fighting is vague and impossible to have a clue what is going on. Its just a mess of visuals that weren't well thought out. It is as if there is an "effects meter" and they had to get to a certain level for the film to be released so they just crammed effects in until they got there. Work done, boys. Time to go home!Morbius has very little to enjoy and is mostly just a joyless experience, even if your there to lampoon. Skip it.