Some movies are so bad that they’re good (read: Toxic Avenger is a classic example). But some movies are in that awkward middle ground where they’re not quite good enough to get all the way through, but not quite bad enough to make it comically survivable. Netflix is like a breeding ground for these half-hearted lacklusters. Here’s the recent list of flicks we started but couldn’t finish:
Mission Impossible (1): 87 mins of 110 total
If you search for Mission Impossible in Google Images, you’ll find approximate 1 bajillion pictures of Tom cruise hanging like a graceful sub from a swing. Why? Because it’s one of the few action sequences in this entire goddamn movie. What is this, Mission: Talking Heads? The genre has moved so far into explosions and lazor beams that this MI1 has not held up at all over time. Can we all just admit that we don’t go to movies to see Tom talk? Blow some shit up or something. Jesus.
Spoiler Alert: I fell asleep.
Vile: 16 mins of 87 total
Vile lives up to its name. This movie is so bad that there’s not even any stills on it’s IMDB page. The opening sequence has some not-too-terrible footage of vials or pills being made while handfuls of salt is being shoved in a shallow chest wound. You know, the kind of stuff that makes you go, “Ouch…I guess?” Then, the next timewarp-y 10 minutes is a pregnant girl in the woods trying to get the guts to tell her boyfriend, who she is happy with, that she is pregnant. And then they stay in the woods another night. And she pretty much doesn’t talk at all. It’s super boring. I actually thought that I had watched this movie for a lot longer than I had.
Anyway, eventually they get tear-gassed or something by some lady and then they wake up and there’s more people and someone pulls out a tooth. At this point, none of us cared anymore about Preggers McGee so we moved on to Osombie.
Osombie: 24 mins of 94 total
Osombie’s writer has surprisingly done other films. Or at least, I was surprised.
The name is exactly what it sounds like – Zombie Osama Bin Laden. I have no idea why they didn’t call it Zombie Bin Laden or Osama Bin Zombie or something less convoluted, but the point is that Zombie Laden has taken a page from Davey Jones and risen from his watery grave to once again wreck havoc…this time with the aid of zombie terrorists.
And, of course, the only thing stopping him is an idiotic yoga instructor inexplicably wearing fur-lined gloves in the desert looking for her conspiracy nut blogger brother, who teams up with a special military task unit (complete with swords!) and camo paintball uniforms (we think those were an accident, but the logo was still on them and we got a good laugh out of that).
Although we didn’t finish this one – my poor boyfriend couldn’t stand it – I’m hoping to go back and finish this one for it’s sheer terrible-ness.
Snoop Dog: PuffPuffPass Tour 2 mins of 197 total
Available for just $3.58 on Amazon.com, you can now watch this PowerPoint monstrosity anytime on your PSP!
There is not enough weed on the planet to make the graphics in this tolerable.
Blue State: 39 mins of 92 total
This movie sounded right up my political niche. Liberal blogger dude that looks like Bill Maher rants about how he should move to Canada to get away from recently re-elected W. Bush until out of the BLUE (har har) he gets an offer from a group called “Marry a Canadian” interested in helping him relocate and get his citizenship.
Without much plot development, he interviews a bunch of male road trip partners, whom he meet via roadside flyers. He instead chooses to drive into the sunset with the only girl who responded (who we see having some kind of nose-piercing, blue-hair-dying identity crisis briefly before they meet) even though they have nothing in common.
Now, this sounds like a romantic comedy of sorts, right? Wrong. The girl, played by TruBlood’s Sooki (Anna Paquin) just refuses to talk the whole time and have no opinions. You know, like a proper woman! But we believe in her because she has, ya know, blue hair and stuff.
We quit about the time that nothing was happening 40 mins into the film.
The Eyewash Station 