"Airline Disaster" -Maria's Take

*Spoiler Alert*

The title is misleading. The "disaster" never happens...well, maybe when the investors threw money at Asylum to make yet another "contribution" to the film industry (ayuck ayuck).

Anyway, this movie is just bad. I don't know what I expected. I guess i thought this would be a "guilty pleasure" bad movie. One that was so bad it was funny. However, this movie just drags. Basically, this brand new Concorde-style plane is taking its maiden voyage. Little do the passengers know, the Aryan Brotherhood (take THAT political correctness) plans to hijack the plane to steal some bonds on board. Is that really the best Asylum could do? I can understand the Aryan Brotherhood, nobody likes them, they are a safe villian. However, they want to steal bonds? There is no political agenda, nothing the least bit controversial, and to top it all off, the villains are stupid. A lot of this felt like a ripoff of the original Die Hard. But where Hans Gruber is cunning, a truly worthy adversary, these bad guys make countless mistakes and it is just embarrassing to watch.

While the plane is being hijacked, the president, played by TV's Meredith Baxter (again with the political correctness), seeks the best way to deal with the Aryan Brotherhood's demands. Just for good measure, the screenwriters' (yes, plural, there were 3 actually) made the plane's pilot the president's brother. See what they did there? They reversed that ol' damsel in distress business. It is a really progressive movie (facepalm). Anyway, the president and her pilot-brother keep talking in code, using shared childhood memories to communicate. The problem with this bit of sentimentalizing is that the audience is isolated from this bit of reminiscing. I guess it isn't that important, but it just felt very lazy.

Long story short, after the plane nearly crashes in Richmond, Virginia (again, the filmmakers were trying to keep this as nonthreatening a movie as possible), it lands safely in a river near Washington, DC. Before safely landing however, it does take the the top off of the Washington monument. And, because of this movie's ridiculous social/political correctness, I cannot help but think this is some act of feminism... Ultimately, everyone is happy and the country is saved. Blah. Blah. Blah.

My biggest problem with this film as a whole, is it lacks sincerity. It is so drowned in its own smugness (lady president, lady air marshal, man in distress) that it makes it lame to watch. Film and literary archetypes should be the key factors in a film like this. I want misogynistic military guys acting tough, I want smart villains, I want gratuitous violence! A movie called "Airline Disaster" should not be the medium for one to stand on a soapbox and preach social progression.

"Airline Disaster"- Zach's Take

I'll be blunt: this film is a disaster. Incredibly hammy overacting, bland, murky cinematography, and a script that would make the Epic Movie guys cry "hack!"

But I kind of enjoyed it.

All of those terrible pieces coalesce to form an atrocious film that actually almost feels intentional. I mean, this is a film produced by Asylum, the shady characters who intentionally release blockbuster rip-off films to trick the blind, elderly, and the stupid. So there's no doubt in my mind that what they're doing here is purely to turn a quick profit. Not to get all Armond White on everybody but again, that sort of crass, cynical attitude really adds to the proceedings. It's enjoyably on a meta level, in a sort of people-actually-pay-for-this way. I'm not saying it has any deeper meaning, or reveals anything interesting. It's humorous in the same way that the Coen brothers find killing off their characters funny.

The basic story of Airline Disaster concerns the hijacking of a plane by the Aryan Brotherhood, in order to *spoiler alert:* steal money. Gasp! You see, we're lead to believe that the Aryan Brotherhood is doing this for ideological purposes and to free their imprisoned skinhead brethren. So essentially, the writers stole the twist from Die Hard and decided to execute it extremely poorly.

Speaking of Die Hard, remember when John McClane took essentially no initiative and stayed hobbled away in the basement until the third act? Oh wait, that's right. That's this movie. Only John McClane turned into some girl. And instead of a basement, she hangs out in the cargo of the plane for the majority of the film. Granted, at the end, she does finally get to kick some ass and smash some faces, but by that point, the character is so far gone. However, I must reiterate: this ineptitude only adds to the enjoyment of the film. It's like watching a train wreck or Natalie Portman's goofy laugh at the Golden Globes: you can't help but sit, stare, and be uncomfortable at the mess in front of you.

The whole thing plays out like one long comedy sketch or an episode of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. I'll put it this way, there's more than one scene where the plane narrowly avoids crashing in to Flynt, Michigan Washington, DC. It's an obvious attempt by the director to drag out the runtime. I'd say if all but one of the "near-miss" scenes were omitted from the film, the total length of the film would approach 50 minutes. Maybe. But, since those scenes were left in, we get nearly 40 minutes of truly terrible CG, shouting, and, oh yeah, what's that word for the opposite of tension? I don't know, un-tension? Boredom's not really the right word, because the scenes aren't technically boring, they're funny. I guess that's an achievement, right?

Goofy, derivative, and stupidly fun, Airline Disaster is a good time for all fans of schlocky cinema. It ain't no Silent Night, Deadly Night, but it'll do.

Coming Soon - "Airline Disaster"

Those scenes with the plane and jets are just placeholder animatics, right? Right?!!!

Oh god, what have I done?!

"Silent Night, Deadly Night: Part 2" -Maria's Take

Sorry for the break! The holidays brought a great deal of excitement to our household, so we took a short break from the blog. Never fear, we are back!

SNDN2, as it will be henceforth be known, is an entertaining movie. If you have been lucky enough to see the first in the series, you understand the black comedy/bizarre tone these movies emit. If you enjoyed the first one, you have to at least appreciate the second one. Why?

Because about 40% of the movie is either clips or shot by shot recreations of the original.

Our movie begins with Ricky, the kid brother of Billy who was the protagonist in the first film. Ricky, trying to deal with the events that transpired in the first film, explains his background to a psychiatrist. His explanations are uncanny. This is really the only thing that really bugged me about SNDN2. Ricky describes, in minute detail, events that he never experienced. Ricky is just a little kid in the first film. He spends the entire movie at the orphanage while Billy rampages through the Utah countryside. However, Ricky can recollect every event perfectly. Honestly, this is my only qualm.

SNDN2 is fun, its funny, stupid and outrageous. The kills are amazing and while the writing is weak, it never detracts from the absurdity of the overall plot. The actor playing Ricky is the worst actor on the planet. However, even though he is often laughable in his mock seriousness, he gets the character so perfectly. Ricky is such a strange character that any attempt of a realistic portrayal would be a hindrance to the film rather than an improvement.

There are many lines throughout both the original and this movie that Zach and I feel necessary to repeat again and again. After watching this movie, you will never be able to take out the trash without yelling a resounding "GARBAGE DAYYY!" at your spouse/life partner/cat.

It is a trashy masterpiece.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2" - Zach's Take

Wow. So it's been way too long since we've updated. Apologies all around -- the holidays got the better of us.

Regardless, the film in question this week is Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, the sequel to one of the most shameless, crass, and comedically sadistic movies ever made. It's, as I've mentioned before, a masterclass in trashy filmmaking.

However, the sequel is something of a minor classic. And there's really only one reason why: the first half of the film is simply Ricky (the protagonist) recounting the events of the first film to a psychiatrist. This boils down to liberally re-using footage from the first one. Thus, if you have seen the previous film, the first 35 to 40 minutes of the sequel are going to be kind of pointless. The good side to this, however, is that it essentially acts as a "best-of" medley of scenes from the first one. The ridiculous Mother Superior child abuse moments. The kills. The sheer insanity of it all.

In fact, I would say the only real moment missing from the footage is the scene where Billy (Ricky's brother, and the killer from the first film) gives a little girl an Exact-o knife after she claims to have been good all year. I mean, it doesn't make sense that Ricky would have known about that since he wasn't there, but he tells the psychiatrist plenty of things about the events of the first film where nobody but Billy was present, so logic and continuity went out the window the same moment common decency and pride did for the producers.

Once Ricky is done telling the shrink his story (and thus saving the producers a TON of money by only needing to make half a movie) we learn about Ricky's past encounters. Whereas Billy was simply a lunatic who killed "naughty" people on Christmas Eve, Ricky was somewhat of a superhero avenger type. He really only killed people who were harming others; an attempted rapist, a loan shark, and worst of all, a guy who talks in the movie theater. *Shudder.* You know, pure scum.

Oh yeah, and speaking of the movie theater. Guess which movie Ricky and his girlfriend are watching when the rude guy decides to start talking? Silent Night, Deadly Night. What?! Was this ghost-written by Charlie Kaufman? Again, in this dojo, all logic and coherence go out of the window. But you know what? That just contributes to the fascinating weirdness on display.

Another one of the many thing that adds to the overall bizarre nature of the universe in the Silent Night, Deadly Night films is that virtually all of the male characters are rapists. Or at the very least, driven by some strange hyper-sexual urge. I'm not trying to psycho-analyze these characters, but honestly, every single male character is either trying to have sex, trying to rape someone, or motivated by sex. Even Billy's character is implied to be suffering some sort of psycho-sexual issues. I don't know if that is simply the producers attempting to make some kind of point (most likely not) or, since these are very low-budget affairs, the producers are the usual type of grubby, creepy perverts that we think of when we picture porn producers.

Aside from all of that, is the film actually worth watching? Well, it is certainly not as good as the first one (good is relative here). However, it does provide a lot of entertainment value once you get past the clip-show of the first half. I mean, this is the movie that spawned the great "Garbage Day!" meme. I'd say use the first film as a litmus test. If you find yourself laughing hysterically when a deaf guy dressed as Santa is gunned down in front of a whole playground full of orphans, then I guarantee the sequel will be worth it. If you just read that previous sentence and wondered why anybody in their right mind would ever find something so twisted so funny, then you're probably at the wrong site.

For the uninitiated: