Speed 2 Month 2016 Day Two – Less Time, More Quality

It's a Crime Fighting boat.

SPEED 2 Month: a yearly exposure of the futility of movie-making has been going on for many years now, in a variety of forms. For the last few it’s been a focal point of this weblog, of which has been all but abandoned otherwise. Unfortunately for 2016, I’ll be unable to fulfill a full 31 days of comeuppance to Jan de Bont’s King of Excrement. June is the true SPEED 2 Month and it’s already been postponed to July as time has become heavily constrained to new jobs, a more intense focus at From the Hip and the FtHSoapbox website, and a living situation that is tenuous, at the best.

Regardless, SPEED 2 Month will continue, in a limited, sporadic format for this year on this page. In subsequent years it may move again to a new home if I wish. That’s another year or so away and not to be decided now.

How did SPEED 2 Month start? Well, I’ll let my words of last year tell the tale, because no SPEED 2 Month is worth its salt if there isn’t some mention of John Amenta in it.

Some years past, while discussing films and comic books and other geek nation topics at a nearby comic and game store, I happened to mention SPEED 2 and the horrifying displeasure this movie impressed upon me. It, to be blunt, was a ridiculous mess of a story, with acting better suited for a Junior High School setting. This apparently was somewhat upsetting to a friend of mine who was there at the time, Mr. John Amenta. John claimed to have enjoyed the movie, disagreeing with me that it was the worst he’d ever seen. I took umbrage to the fact that he, a man of esteemed good taste, could even find a minutes worth of entertainment in the 122 that made up the waste of celluloid. SPEED 2 became a running gag for me, particularly in response to anything that John made claim to enjoy. For myself, I took immense pleasure not only in teasing John, but in discovering how many movies, no matter how bad, are not nearly on the low level of SPEED 2.

This… celebration of inadequacy… began as an oft-mentioned topic when A Leaf on the Wind began as a weblog at Myspace. It became a daily event through the month of June a few years back, though only being fully realized last year. If you’re of stout mind, you can go through the archives and read what was done last year in conjunction with this year, which may prove to be a landmark thirty days.

So yes, there are a number of years’ worth of reading previous columns, with a different movie in each one. I have yet to repeat films as there are hundreds upon hundreds that I’ve never ever witnessed, not to mention the many that I have seen which have not yet been featured in this event. Yesterday started SPEED 2 Month with a look at a video game stinker and the next one will be within the same vein. And if you see this guy at a convention or dog park, make sure you tell him that “SPEED 2 sucks!”

Not Lord Viggo, the other guy

Speed 2 Month 2016 Day One -- Fighting in the Streets

It’s a few days into SPEED 2 MONTH, which I delayed due to some personal conflicts of the greatly chaotic 2016. Of course, it’s Independence Day here in the States, where we all enjoy blowing up small parts of the land in celebration of a divorce from our best friend in the world. I suppose I should start this year’s exploration with the movie that steals the holiday’s name, but that would be too easy. Plus, no matter what you say about it, INDEPENDENCE DAY (ID4) was so far superior to SPEED 2 that it’s just not worth the exercise. Instead, I’ll go into a movie I recently retched... er, watched, STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI.

I will assume readers are all aware of Street Fighter, the video game or at least, the manga and comics. Chun Li is one of the principal characters of the storyline in all aspects of the game and subsidiary product, as well as one of the most popular. She’s a Chinese national, at least in most interpretations, with pseudo-traditional dress to make her stand out. In the video game she has a signature fighting style that made her fun to play, pushing her to heights of pop culture nobility far exceeding the games.

The video game is pretty simplistic storytelling, getting dense when you explore character backgrounds. It was pretty much the grand daddy of all character driven fighting games, setting the stage for many, many, many others. I’m guessing that the simple story of the game is generally why any live-action production garnered from the game attracts so many dungflies.

Street Fighter has had two English-language films based off of it, the second of which is LEGEND OF CHUN-LI. I’ll maybe handle the first movie next year, because two Street Fighter movies during this month might break my already fragile psyche. In fact, if I wasn’t drinking right at this moment, reliving LEGEND OF CHUN-LI might make me run out and burn down a building. Awful is the name of the game here, people. It’s the prettiest, most bad-ass, tv-actor-to-movie-actor-filled slugfest of total boredom I’ve ever seen. O yes, it’s terrible. Not as terrible as the ineptitude of the King of All Crappy Movies, SPEED 2, but hey, that’s a tall mountain to climb.

Where does STREET FIGHTER: LEGEND OF CHUN-LI fail? Well. Let’s start with the lead. Kristin Kreuk, late of the CW series Smallville, where she did her level best to ruin the hearts of fans as the lovely Lana Lang, takes on Chun-Li as a Chinese-American. Fail one. Chun-Li, at least in the games and other supporting material, is a very strong personality. Here, it’s an origin story and not a good one. It takes most of the movie for the real Chun-Li to finally appear, which, if this was to be a franchise builder, would not necessarily be a bad thing. Sadly… I kept waiting for Ming-Na Wen to show up. That’s a pithy, pop-culture reference that some of you might get. Google it if you need to.

Neal McDonough is the big baddie, M. Bison. He is usually lots of fun to watch, but here it ain’t happening. If he took the role for a new roof, I get it. Even actors have to pay bills. Well, most of them do. He brings nothing to the role, which was handled so much better in the previous Street Fighter film by a very sick Raul Julia, which is even more displeasing, as I personally enjoy McDonough in everything, even stinkers like WING COMMANDER. Fail three.

To assist our hapless heroine, we get a Mortal Kombat film veteran, Robin Shou. I didn’t even recognize him in this oxygen-stealing stinker. His fight scenes were weak and poorly clapped together, a failure if there ever was one as he was arguably the best athlete in the MK movies. To add to this, most of the fight scenes were not well done, so fail five.

Fail six: Chris Klein.

Where is the movie good? It’s pretty, as stated before. Kreuk is one helluva looker for film and she does gain some great headshots from this celluloid clunker. Some of the chase scenes are fun and action packed, a few of the fight scenes are okay and Shou and Kreuk actually do have some bond going on screen that makes their time together watchable. But the ONE, SINGLE THING that makes the movie so, so much better than SPEED 2: Cheng Pei-Pei. Likely best known for her role as the misguided character Jade Fox in CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, she eats up every scene she gets in every movie she appears in. Just for this alone, STREET FIGHTER: LEGEND OF CHUN-LI stands apart from SPEED 2. Do yourself a favor and watch anything this great actress has done. You won’t be sorry.

SPEED 2 Month 2016 Day One: Taken down by a video game adaptation. Maybe this will be video game movie month vs. SPEED 2. Maybe.

More tomorrow, with an explanation of all things SPEED 2.

Visit From the Hip, a podcast and website covering all sorts of pop culture and beyond!

SPEED 2 Month will start July of 2016 due to a ridiculous amount of hellacious garbage that is still better than Jan de Bont's terrible film or Jason Patric's acting. See you in less than 30!

More writings, difference place

For those not aware, I've been podcasting with friends Vinnie Agosta and John Amenta under the title of From the Hip. After some discussion, we've also decided to start a larger web presence, currently at a weblog of the same name. I recommend you check it out as we will be growing it exponentially over the coming weeks, with new insight and information not covered by the usual pop culture sites. There's no hand-holding with the boys of From the Hip! Go there now, you won't be sorry.

SPEED 2 Month Day 22: Just Horrible

Sequels make up a good portion of SPEED 2 Month largely due to the fun of attacking terrible attempts at making a cheap buck off the original. During 2014’s SPEED 2 Month, an in-depth report on HIGHLANDER 2: THE QUICKENING explored the positive outcome of thoughtless money grubbing, regardless of quality or intelligence. You can read it here, if you missed it. Today, A Leaf on the Wind will be eyeing a similar idea, if only in the vein of sequel driven drivel.

HORRIBLE BOSSES, a 2011 film starring Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis, with Jennifer Aniston, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx and Kevin Spacey in supporting roles, was a breakout success. Regardless of how amusing the movie was (or wasn’t, in the valued opinion of A Leaf on the Wind), it hardly deserved a sequel. Bateman didn’t do a whole lot beyond his continuing role as straight man; Day was annoying and Sudeikis boring. Aniston went way, way beyond her “good girl” role, which was likely a large portion of the audience draw here. Other than Spacey, little more is noteworthy for this drudgery of stupid Hollywood selling lots of stupid to stupid people shelling out 10 bucks to see stupid. So, why not make a sequel, right?

A horrible depiction of who is in the film

HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 stumbled its stupid way to the stupid… er, silver screen Thanksgiving weekend of 2014, with the hopes people still dulled by their overeating of turkey and tryptophan would not notice how dumb the movie was. Once again, Bateman, Day and Sudeikis return to a script that has as little to do with the original movie as possible, in hopes to light some magic under the spotty asses of those involved. Aniston comes back again, with dialogue straight out of a higher budget porn, with Spacey stealing scenes from his imprisonment (his character was jailed at the end of the original flick). Jamie Foxx returns as well, with new characters from the excellent Christoph Waltz and the not-Captain Kirk Chris Pine. About 20 minutes into the plot of HORRIBLE BOSSES 2, I stopped listening and started flipping through potential other movies for SPEED 2 Month. HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 wasn’t just stupid in the way the first film was, it was excruciatingly stupid. It was tediously boring. It was everything the first movie was, quintupled for the added benefit for the addicted movie goer.

The incomperable Christoph Waltz

To explain the plot that’s trying to be complex, the three principals have gone into business for themselves, making a rather stupid product. They then sell that stupid product to Waltz and Pine’s company, who them dick the threesome over. The trio then tries to get even with the help of Foxx, who they’d hired in the first film to help them do the stupid things they did then. They’re so dumb this time, even Foxx’s character has to explain to them, and the audience, that they’re so fucking stupid they should be institutionalized just on that alone. Things get dumber and dumber and dumber, involving Aniston in part, as well as Pine’s character trying to get even with Waltz. By the time the movie concludes, you’re in pain just trying to get away from it. It is in the opinion of A Leaf on the Wind that if you were to drink six bottles of Jeppson’s Malort, you would lose less brain cells than if you watch HORRIBLE BOSSES 2.

Let us do a complete comparison: SPEED is to HORRIBLE BOSSES as a smallish budget (30 million for SPEED, 37 million for HORRIBLE BOSSES) is to high profits (350 million and 208 million respectively). SPEED 2 is to HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 as a terrible idea made through dollar signs is to a quickly made shitstorm (less than three years for both movie sequels from their original film). If A Leaf on the Wind was outfitted with mathematical geniuses, an algebraic formula could probably be put together for Hollyweird to use when determining profitability of potential sequels. Hell, if Billy Beane could make it work for baseball, why not make it work for the film industry? That is, unless they’re actually doing this already and we the public are getting tortured with more Adam Sandler movies than we need. Damned math.

HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 is better than SPEED 2. It is, really. First, the budget wasn’t increased to an astronomical amount and second, it didn’t exactly lose money. It pulled in 102 million off a 42 million dollar output, far surpassing SPEED 2 in the box office. It doesn’t have Jason Patric in it, so that’s a plus. Christoph Waltz makes pretty much anything he’s in better, so that helps. If he has put some of the creepy nastiness into his character here that he did in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, it might have been even more entertaining. Regardless, he was fun to watch, as I think he enjoyed playing the character for what it was. Pine wasn’t bad either, honestly. At the end things went way off the rails, as a stupid “comedy” tends to do when the plot just doesn’t stick, but he was fun to watch if you pay attention, which A Leaf on the Wind admittedly didn’t. The final thing that makes HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 better than SPEED 2 is this: Naughty Aniston!

Next up, superheroes!

A gratuitous shot of Jennifer Aniston, not from HORRIBLE BOSSES 2.

SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 19: The Heat of Mediocrity

On Day 4 of SPEED 2 Month, A Leaf on the Wind focused on the popular Sandra Bullock, star of both SPEED and the puerile sequel. Within it, her amazing amount of successful films was shown to far outweigh her dogs, regardless of creative opinion. One of her more recent ventures was the 2013 release, THE HEAT, with popular comedic actress Melissa McCarthy.

THE HEAT theatre poster, with an image that never occurs in the movie

THE HEAT is a plebian “buddy cop” picture with little to no entertainment factor outside of McCarthy being a foul-mouthed Boston police detective. Bullock is an anal, over competitive, overbearing FBI agent trying to get a promotion and ends up having to work alongside McCarthy to locate a mysterious drug lord. In the middle of that, there’s a lot of stupid jokes, near-cameo appearances from known actors, lots of movie cliché’s and a plot that will put you to sleep. If you’re having a bout of insomnia, this movie is for you, believe it.

The film does have some amusing bits, most of which come from McCarthy. The “slowest chase scene in movie history” is particularly funny, as is her incredibly foul comments throughout the movie, regardless of who they’re pointed at. Michael McDonald is cast against type as a vicious criminal and does not disappoint while Jane Curtain and Michael Rapaport are terribly underused as McCarthy’s mother and brother, respectively. Tom Wilson is great as McCarthy’s overworked captain, but does not get nearly enough screen time as he deserves. This flick is totally about Bullock and McCarthy being the Odd Couple of the chick-police, no matter how boring their personality conflict might be. It’s a shame that other actors suffer from being a part of the story that really goes nowhere. I also don’t understand this perpetual need to have high impact violence as part of a comedy movie, regardless of setting. BEVERLY HILLS COP worked because a lot of the violence was off-screen or not in your face. In THE HEAT, there are at least two head shots with red mist spray in a graphic show of “shocking” violence. A Leaf on the Wind hopes that someday, this sort of wanton need to shock will no longer be a part of certain types of films, as is the way of Hollyweird.

Michael McDonald, not as he appears in THE HEAT

THE HEAT was made for 43 million dollars and was a big hit, pulling in 160 million in the States and 229 million overall. Usually this would beg for a sequel, unless you’re a smart producer and just take the profit and apply it to something different with what worked in the movie: McCarthy. As is well known at this point, she’s gone on to make quite a few comedic flicks, some hotter than others. At present, McCarthy has a movie in theatres by the same director of THE HEAT, Paul Feig. It’s currently at #2 behind JURASSIC WORLD, the biggest blockbuster in years. Regardless of how good THE HEAT might not have been, it was popular enough to make a good income and give McCarthy and Feig another shot. Will you?

Next up, horrid work situations.

SPEED 2 Month 2015 Day 17: It’s Just a Habit

Sequels make up a large part of SPEED 2 Month, particularly in the case of those that didn’t do nearly as well as the predecessor. While mining some films for SPEED 2 Month, I came across one I don’t think I’d ever seen before: SISTER ACT 2: BACK IN THE HABIT.

When the Whoopi Goldberg fueled SISTER ACT was released in 1992, it hit the theatres with a storm. With a modest budget of 31 million dollars, it pulled in Over 230 million worldwide, a pretty serious smash hit for a comedy, even in 2015. Of course, that meant a sequel had to be made, because, well, money. Hollyweird doesn’t wait long for more money to be made, so part 2 was fast tracked. Fast tracked may be a bit of an underwhelming term, considering the sequel hit the screens the following year, just before Christmas. SISTER ACT 2 is as much a lesser film as many other sequels, with only a small budget increase. It didn’t do nearly as well as the first, yet it still made money. Luckily Touchstone Pictures realized that the cash flow was unlikely to continue and didn’t go ahead with a SISTER ACT 3.

SISTER ACT 2 retained almost the entire cast from the first film while adding known character actors Barnard Hughes, Michael Jeter and Brad Sullivan as Franciscan friars, and James Coburn as an administrator. This time, Whoopi gets to come back not in hiding, but role-playing to help the nuns in their new school, which has a number of “trouble” students. Whoopi gets to have fun playing a not-nun with some added kooky personalities in the friars. Coburn is a complete waste here, standing around looking menacing in a not-very menacing style. I’m guessing he either needed a new car or wanted to keep his SAG card active for insurance coverage to willingly take this role. The ladies returning from the first film are almost entirely wasted. Where they got the lion’s share of funny lines and were part of the charm of SISTER ACT, they’re lost in the story of the school and the reason Whoopi is brought back to them.

SISTER ACT 2 is not a horribly bad movie, but it isn’t a good one. Worse, SISTER ACT was never a terribly great movie, either. It’s amusing, it’s got heart and it certainly struck a chord with moviegoers. That said, part 2 is preposterous in so many ways it makes the first film seem like a documentary. I mean, Whoopi’s character was in hiding at the time of the first film. The reasons she’s wearing the habit this time is just… stupid. It’s an unnecessary plot device that feels like an anchor by the time the movie gets to the conclusion. Now, the cast itself was big in the first movie, and ads not only the four principal male characters, but students as well. I won’t list all the teen actors with speaking roles, but two of them are notable for who they are now. Lauryn Hill, former member of the Fugees and incredibly good singer in her own right, and Jennifer Love Hewitt of Maxim fame are the two. There’s a whole trite plot of Hill’s character that bogs down 30 or so minutes of the movie, with only a bare bones conclusion that the viewer has to just shrug off because it doesn’t make much sense in the first place. Mommy-daughter drama that is as clunky as the 1996 Ford I bought some months ago just doesn’t do much for a comedy movie.

The more I look at SISTER ACT 2: BACK IN THE HABIT, the more I see similarities between it and the television series GLEE that people either love or hate. Whoopi’s character essentially puts together a glee club at a Catholic school filled with annoying teens, including the rapping Italian kid. The rapping Italian kid with a Brooklyn accent in San Francisco. If for nothing else, watch the scenes with him so you can groan out and facepalm yourself properly.

I’m trying to recall exactly why this movie is better than SPEED 2. It’s a groaner for sure, but it’s just not as bad as Jan de Bont’s mastermess. Yes, that’s the new comparison: “Just Not That Bad.”

Tomorrow, I return to Sandra Bullock and one of her own clunkers.

Rapping Italian teen. Ugh.