This week in Netflix

April 28, 2008 on 4:13 pm | In Movies, Netflix | 5 Comments

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

The Weekend
Directed by Michael Todd Kuskin, this rollicking indie comedy chronicles the high-spirited fun at a wild weekend shindig thrown by well-heeled high schooler Jacob Meyers (Kristian Kordula). Hormones rage out of control as Benjamin (Beau Allulli) tries to bed his reluctant girlfriend, Marty summons his courage to pursue his dream girl (Elizabeth G. Wilson), and the geeks turn up looking to change their image.

Many of you may be familiar with this plot, as it seems to have borrowed from about 90 other movies, including American Pie, Can’t Hardly Wait, Revenge of the Nerds, and the parody of all of them, Not Another Teen Movie. I do not doubt that the 8 stars this film got on IMDB were from people who had not seen the movies The Weekend ripped off. It’s also possible that the cast and crew of The Weekend got together and each gave the film 8 stars, just to skew the results. There’s also the slim chance that this is the BEST TEEN HORMONE COMEDY EVER and I’m just being cynical.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not that interested in a movie where hormones rage out of control. To me, that just sounds like a lot of scenes where characters are acting desperate, and that doesn’t make for a good film.

One of the big selling points, right off the bat, in this Netflix description, is the fact that The Weekend is directed by Michael Todd Kuskin, which would be more impressive if Michael Todd Kuskin did anything other than direct and star in The Weekend. He hasn’t, and neither has his sister, Joey Kuskin, who played “drunk girl #3,” nor his mother, Laurie Kuskin, who played “Jacob’s Mom,” nor did casting consultant Emily Knopf, who also played “Ms. Roth,” nor Emily’s husband, Marshall Knopf, who played “nerd’s dad,” nor did their daughter Elizabeth Knopf, who played “drunk girl #4,” nor their son, Max Knopf, who played “Donny.”

This would be the point in a review, if I were a competant critic, where I’d say, “And I hope we see more from this talented cast,” but instead I’ll say, “It’s ok to say ‘no’ to your friends and relatives when they ask you to star in a movie about teen hormones.”

This week’s runner up

In The Blood
Finally ready to explore his attraction to men, college jock Cassidy (Tyler Hanes) goes out with sexy Victor (Carlos Alberto Valencia). But in the middle of their foreplay, he has a disturbing vision of his sister’s death, which may be linked to the recent murders on campus. A serial killer is on the loose, and the only way for Cassidy to have more psychic visions to help catch the murderer is to embrace his homosexuality completely.

This probably should have gotten top billing, but The Weekend was just so chock full of nepotism I couldn’t let it slide. However, I can imagine what the scene inside the police station was like.

“What? Slow down, you’re saying you know where he’s going to strike next? How? Um…that’s…not really standard police procedure. And…you say if you embrace your homosexuality completely, you’ll succeed where we have failed? Well, uh, if it gets you out of our station quicker, I say go for it. Godspeed, junior psychic gay deputy Cassidy! You can take the hovercar.”

This week in Netflix

April 23, 2008 on 2:37 am | In Movies, Netflix | 1 Comment

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?
Oban Star-Racers: Vol.1: The Alwas Cycle

Every 10,000 years, a huge galactic race takes place, and Earth’s only chance to avoid annihilation by the evil Crogs is to win the race with its entry, the Whizzing Arrow. When Earth’s star pilot is taken out, its fate rests on teen prodigy Molly. Co-produced by French and Japanese studios, this popular series boasts theatrical-quality animation and a thrilling story line, drawing viewers into an action-packed world beyond imagination.

Rule one in film: DO NOT use more than one set of colons in your title. Yes, I know it’s some sort of anime thing that’s divided into ninety million parts each with an obscure proper noun in the title, but it just looks dumb. Use a dash or something, people.

So this film took up the time of both the French and the Japanese. All the crepes that could be made, all the sex robots that could be made…sigh. No, instead of working towards better trade relations, these two superpowers got together and made a movie about an implausible space race and their cute little car “Whizzing Arrow”.

I have not seen this film, I always have to say that with these articles, but I assume it adequately explains the fact that our planet is threatened if we don’t win a race. It’s fairly typical of alien races in anime to judge the viability of a culture based on how well it does in a galactic race, right? I remember a Speed Racer episode with a similar plot, where a country would close off its borders unless someone could beat them in a race. Must be a familiar theme with foreign countries.

Part of me suspects that this is just a ploy by the Japanese and French to put the idea of a galactic race in our heads, and then make fun of the US when we don’t have the stones to enter it. I understand, that’s a good plan on their part. Not a feasible, reasonable plan, but whatever, it’s at least being proactive.

C’mon America, get in the race already. It only comes around once every 10,000 years.

This week in Netflix

April 16, 2008 on 9:21 pm | In Movies, Netflix | No Comments

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week’s gem:

The Last Hour

Six hard-core criminals are lured by letters — each from their late fathers promising wealth beyond their wildest dreams — to a remote bulletproof house, where they soon discover they have only an hour to live … unless they can survive. The cops are outside awaiting their chance to take out these six, but the group actually has only one thing to fear: the mysterious madman on the inside who’s icing them one by one.

There are many things wrong with this description. So many, in fact, that I’d like to start off by mentioning things that are actually right with it, since there are fewer of them.

1. Sentences properly end with periods
2. It gets the reader interested in the film by forcing him/her to read it multiple times, mostly out of disbelief
3. It does not pause in the middle to go, “Wait, hang on, let me start over.”

Now that the positives are out of the way, let’s get into the meat n’ potatoes.

BULLETPROOF HOUSE?

What the hell is a bulletproof house? And why can’t six grown men escape from it? Are they standing in the living room, shooting at the wall, trying to make the outline of a door? Then I’d understand about a bulletproof house. Otherwise, it just sounds like a waste of real estate, especially because it’ll be insanely hot in the summertime and all the power would keep shorting out.

I assume this is a ranch-style house. No particular reason, I just couldn’t imagine anyone taking the time to build anything bigger out in the woods.

The premise just reads as awkward, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me. The men are lured by a really stupid scheme into a theoretically bulletproof house where there’s a killer, and also there are cops outside. This is basically the plot to House on Haunted Hill, except lispy Vincent Price has been replaced with former rapper DMX and former actor Paul Sorvino. Cops, a killer, some criminals, a mystery treasure, dead fathers, and the bulletproof house. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a rejected Scooby Doo script.

The real line that disturbs me is “they have only an hour to live … unless they can survive” which I assume was written by a committee of robots only basically skilled in humanspeak. If you switch out synonyms, it just reads as “they have only an hour to live … unless they can live.” It doesn’t really pack any punch, does it? They’re going to die…unless they don’t! I wanna see that movie!

I’m kidding, I don’t want to see that movie. I’d like to watch something that doesn’t have unlikable main characters trapped between the cops and the killer. My sixth sense tells me that we’re going to be rooting for the killer in this one, and when he doesn’t kill everybody we’ll feel like we just wasted a Netflix rental. We also might be rooting for the cops. I, for one, will be rooting for the bulletproof house.

Runner Up:

Lars and the Real Girl

Supposedly, this movie is pretty good. It’s the story of a man who falls in love with his sex doll - surprisingly, it did very well and got good reviews. Good reviews that should keep it from being listed next to Mannequin 2: On the Move on the Netflix new releases page.

p>Ethan Kaye was kicked out of Hogwarts for vandalism.