Not to be lazy by just rewriting blurbs from last week, but, um, if you don't watch Trailers From Hell, you really ought to, because it's the best.
In fact, it is so much the best that we're just going to let Joe Dante Mick Garris talk about this week's feature.
It also bears mentioning that not only is this directed by the guy who did War of the Worlds, but right after this, he went on to work on the pilot of Star Trek. And, whooboy, can you tell.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, and Tim Kay have never read Daniel Defoe's original book. Have you? Didn't think so.
April 28, 2013
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Kids, ask your parents to Google "Robinson Crusoe" for you.
Simian pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mike Spiegelman, Tim Kay, and other Fridays.
As we mentioned last week, if you don't watch Trailers From Hell, you really ought to, because it's the best.
In fact, it is so much the best that we're just going to let Joe Dante talk about this week's feature.
In other words, this may well be the the greatest movie we've ever done. But you'll have to come down to find out.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, and Tristan Buckner will find out...IN CINEMAGIC!
April 21, 2013
The Angry Red Planet
The only movie about Mars to ever properly acknowledge the existence of bat-rat-spider monsters.
CineMagical wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, Tristan Buckner, and other planeteers.
Do you watch Trailers From Hell? If you don't, you really ought to. It's the best.
Three days a week, Trailers From Hell offers up a trailer for an older film along with a new commentary (and not just snarky commentary like we do at Bad Movie Night) by a moviemaker who loves it. Called "Gurus" because that's totally what they are, the three dozen-ish commentators include site founder Joe Dante (director of Matinee and Gremlins) and contemporaries such as John Landis, along with younger kids like Eli Roth and the e'er-adorable Edgar Wright.
They've done plenty of trailer from famous directors, including some of their most interesting work. One of those directors they've covered is Brian DePalma, director of this week's feature.
My boyfriend Edgar Wright is a big DePalma fan, and covered one of the great mid-70s musicals (and an early Bad Movie Night feature), Phantom of the Paradise.
The just too-damn-cute Edgar also talked about DePalma's The Fury.
Josh Olson, who is cute in a very different way from Edgar, disussed DePalma's Blow Out.
All those (as well as Scarface and Get to Know Your Rabbit), and yet, they haven't done a commentary on the trailer for this week's feature. Can't imagine why.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Alexia Staniotes, and Dan Foley will find out, oh yes they will.
April 14, 2013
Mission to Mars
Y'know what would be boring? Going on a mission to Mars. This movie proves it.
Unaccomplished pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Alexia Staniotes, Dan Foley, and other missionaries.
Just because this week's feature is one of the biggest flops of 2013, that's no reason for you to be ill-prepared, is it? No, it most certainly is not. So.
For this movie to make any sense at all, you must familiarize yourself with the following deeply intellectual documentary.
Get to work. There will be a quiz.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, and Mike Spiegelman have already failed the quiz, which is why they have to watch this movie.
April 7, 2013
John Carter
A stunning biopic of our 39th President, aka History's Greatest Monster, and his adventures on Mars. Or something.
Overbudgeted wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, Mike Spiegelman, and other princesses.
On March 27, 2005, Jim Fourniadis and Ty McKenzie unleashed Bad Movie Night on an unsuspecting world.
Damn. Eight years of bad movies on Sunday nights. That's, like, four hundred and ten-ish weeks of copyright violation love.
No one thought it would last. Some of you were hoping it wouldn't. You know who you are.
One former Dark Room regular actively boycotts Bad Movie Night, claiming it "just makes us all that much more stupid." To that, we say...um...er...your mom!
Someone else allegedly said that we should be burned down for making fun of It's a Wonderful Life, as we do every December.
But the scorn fueled us, like tiger blood fuels Charlie Sheen. (Topical!) (At least, it would have been in 2011!)
In honor of the haters—hello, haters!—we're once again showing the flick that started things off in those sepia-toned days of the mid-Aughts: the 1984 paramilitary
fantasy Red Dawn, in which multicultural Commies take over the USA. Or at least a budget-friendly midwestern town.
Come on down and take over The Dark Room as we celebrate eight years of Bad Movie Night
making the world stupid for everyone. Especially your mom.
Your hosts will be Jim Fourniadis, Ira Emsig, Rose Lacy, and ZOMG Teh Wolverines!!!11!!1
Bad Movie Night's Eighth Anniversary!
March 31, 2013
Red Dawn Patrick Swayze plays a high-school football player leading a bunch of kids in a battle against multicultural commies.
Painful, probably socialist math: this will be the ninth time we've done this movie.
Socialized pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Ira Emsig, Rose Lacy, and other Wolverines!!!11!!1
Okay, we admit it. This movie a) came out in September, b) was not a blockbuster (it was one of the biggest flops of the year, in fact), and c) whether or not Judge Dredd qualifies as a superhero is debatable.
On the other hand, it may be the most ruthlessly entertaining movie we do all month. (Yeah, even moreso than The Avengers. Deal with it.)
So what do YouTube people have to say about it?
My not-really-my-girlfriend girlfriend Grace Randolph is wearing a plain black shirt in her review.
Jereremy Jahns is wearing pretty much the same thing he ever wears.
Angry Joe is not worth looking at at all. So, I'd recommend you don't.
These guys could put a little more effort into their wardrobe, and their sound recording is lousy, but their accents are kinda cute.
And this kid in the blue hoodie goes straight for the obvious pun.
Wait, what we were talking about again?
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Mike Spiegelman, and Maura Sipila will not reach a verdict on this movie.
March 24, 2013
Dredd
A reboot of a movie based on a comic book that nobody realized was based on a comic book in the first place.
Dreadful pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mike Spiegelman, Maura Sipila, and other helmet-heads.
And then there was last year's other big superhero movie. (Not counting Dredd, which we're doing next week because, what the heck, there are four Sundays to fill.)
It's probably not possible to have two large-scale, professionally made superhero films that are more different in their tone that The Avengers and this week's movie. There have been zillions of other superhero movies this past decade, obviously, but to have these two come out in the same summer made 2012 kinda top-heavy.
And, between you and me? I liked this week's movie better. That's why I scheduled myself to host. (I am neither Mikl-Em or John Hell, if that helps you narrow it down.)
In any event, you should start getting your Bane impressions ready, and the best way (well, a way) to do it is to watch YouTube videos of people doing it. Like this guy.
And then there's this guy.
Or this guy.
And if you want to do it without looking like you're mid-sneeze, there's this guy.
You're welcome. Now get to work.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, and John Hell are not anybody's reckoning.
March 17, 2013
The Dark Knight Rises
The final Batman film evar until the next one.
Yeasty wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, John Hell, and other banes.
So, here's what there is to say about this movie: sure, it's fun. It's competent. It made a hundred zillion dollars, so it must be good.
Is it above being mocked or having the b-word applied to it? I guess we'll find out.
The thing is, while we appreciate the presence of Cobie Smulders (seen above) in this movie, there's one seriously weak link, acting-wise.
The fact that pretty much everyone on the planet finds her fuckable has helped her sidestep her lack of acting chops, but damnit, if you're going to go all ga-ga over a blonde in black leather in a movie called The Avengers, may we suggest the movie with the blond in black leather who can truly act?
It's a bad movie, but at least it doesn't have Scarlett Johansson in it. Which, unfortunately, this week's does.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, and Tim Kay would prefer to avenge Harry Dean Stanton instead.
March 10, 2013
The Avengers
Okay, I'm almost positive this is the one about the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Whedonesque pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Tim Kay, and other ironmen.
More than any other month, when we do superhero movies, that's when people tend to get "Hey, that's not a bad movie!" and up in our grill about daring to make a fun of a movie that they like.
At least, we fully expect that to happen over the next few weeks with The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises.
This movie? Not so much.
In any event, here's what Mike and Jay at Red Letter Media had to say about it.
To hear what we have to say about it, come on down this Sunday.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, and Tristan Buckner will be amazed if this movie doesn't suck.
March 3, 2013
The Amazing Spider-Man
Warning: You will not be amazed.
Rebooted wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mike Spiegelman, Tristan Buckner, and other slingers.
Y'know, this is the kind of thing that makes that makes Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters look like it has a degree of thematic integrity which other literary mashups lack. Jane Austen's characters never encountered zombies or sea monsters, and Lincoln never battled vampires (probably!), but Hansel and Gretel totally killed a witch. So there's that.
But we're not watching Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters this week. We're watching one of those other ones.
For now, let's watch Grace Randolph from Beyond the Trailer chart the arc of the movie. On May 22, 2012, she compared it with the Spielberg picture before either had come out. She wasn't wrong, though she was perhaps a little over-optimistic about this movie's chances.
On June 22, she reviewed the movie itself, putting it in the context of other upcoming films concerning slavery. She finds it wanting, though the audiences she interviews like it well enough.
Finally, on June 25, she discussed all the ways the movie failed: financially and otherwise. But mostly financially. It's kinda glorious, especially how the original book's author's career has taken a dive.
But not so glorious is the movie itself, which we'll have to watch.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, and Ira Emsig also have a thematic integrity this movie lacks.
February 24, 2013
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
The story of the passage of the 13th Amendment. (Or was that a different movie?)
Honest pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Mikl-Em, Ira Emsig, and other railsplitters.
The thing of it is, doing a movie based on a board game isn't an inherently bad idea.
In some ways, it should be a more fertile source of storytelling than a book, because inevitably you're going to lose everything that made the book special, but a board game is much more of a blank slate, and sometimes a blank slate is exactly what the kind of freedom filmmakers need. (And don't even get me started on the "Why can't Hollywood come up with original ideas?" argument.)
The primary example of this is the 1985 movie Clue, which while not exactly great, is not bad at all.
One of The Dark Room's earliest and most popular stage adaptations was a live version of the movie. While there's no video of it online, the movie keeps inspiring adaptations, including this pretty damned good one from a bunch of high school kids.
Oh, kids these days, with their well-done adaptations of movies that came out a decade before they were born!
The point of it is, a movie inspired by a board game is not necessarily a bad idea, and sometimes it can become a beloved cult classic.
All that said, there will not be a live version of this week's feature at The Dark Room anytime soon, and chances are high schoolers will not be doing their own versions of it in 2039.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, and Alexia Staniotes will not be sunk by this movie.
February 17, 2013
Battleship
Oh, Hasbro. You...I mean, really, the decisions you guys make, it's...just, oh, Hasbro.
Sunken wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Tristan Buckner, Alexia Staniotes, and other shippers.
Sunday,
February 10, 2013
At Oddball Film + Video, 275 Capp 8PM, $10
For pretty much every Sunday since March 2005, we've done Bad Movie Night at The Dark Room.
Until this Sunday. The Dark Room is being used for the final night of SF Sketchfest, so Bad Movie Night is moving around the corner to Oddball Film + Video.
Don't worry! We'll be back at The Dark Room on February 18 to do Battleship. Though you should be worried about Battleship, because it's pretty lousy.
So is the movie we'll be doing at Oddball, but at least it's a fun kind of lousy. Here's what L.A. Morse had to say about it Video Trash & Treasures II:
Kat Shuchter, Programmer at Oddball and co-conspirator on this adventure, is quite the fan of the film, and she edited this pretty-much-says-it-all video:
Come to think of it, that doesn't quite say it all. Come to Oddball Film + Video (275 Capp, around two corners from The Dark Room) and say the rest of it with us.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Jim Fourniadis, and Alexia Staniotes will
dominate this movie right back.
For my birthday this last year, I decided to go see Prometheus.
I didn't go to movies in the theater that often—they're stupidly expensive, and I hate crowded movie theaters, epsecially when people talk over movies, which isn't ironic in the least—so it was kind of a big deal for me.
It was a Saturday, and my real-life girlfriend and I went to the matinee showing at the CineArts at the Empire in West Portal. We got lucky; very few people were in the theater with us, and most of them were loners who kept quiet. Perfect!
Except for the fact that Prometheus was practically drowned out by this week's feature, which had opened the night before and was playing on one of the other screens. The thudding bass (and quite a lot of treble) made it difficult to concentrate on our movie.
Still, it could have been worse. Rock of Ages was actually playing two screens over, and between us and it was The Exotic Marigold Hotel. Man oh man, did I feel sorry for the old people who just wanted to enjoy their quiet little Judi Dench film. Sucked to be them.
Speaking of things that suck, let's look at what people on the YouTubes have to say about Prometheus.
JeremyJahns explains how it's an Alien prequel, and also not.
ChrisStuckmann spends twenty minutes attempting to explain the film over a chill techno beat.
Though I'm an atheist, I was immediately annoyed by the TheAmazingAtheist. He doesn't know how to record sound properly, and seriously, that facial hair and wispy ponytail? Just, no.
Red Letter Media, because of course.
And since you know how it ended, here's how it didn't end, but should have ended.
Yeah.
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, and Dan Foley will burst this movie's chest, except not.
February 3, 2013
Prometheus
Totally not a prequel to Alien, except for how it kinda is. Also, it totally doesn't suck, it except for how it kinda does.
Xenomorphic wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Mikl-Em, Dan Foley, and other Fassbenders.
So, it's come to this. But it's good this time: We're in SF Sketchfest again!
Continuing Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women's theme from last year, we present yet another very, very bad movie about men going into space only to discover hot babes waiting for them. While the quality of this film is better overall, not being a Roger Corman pastiche of an older Russian film like before, there's also the problem that Zsa Zsa Gabor is in it.
Don't worry, we'll run subtitles so you can actually understand what she's saying. Though I'm not sure why you'd want to understand what she's saying.
Also, a fun fact: Zsa Zsa is not in fact the queen in question (even though we claimed she was in our blurb). Zsa Zsa doesn't like the queen very much at all!
Here's Allan Arkush on Trailers from Hell, liking the film more than he wants to admit.
We'll be joined by special guest riffer Will Franken, so get your tickets now! (It'll cost a few more Gabors than usual, but it'll be worth it, we promise.)
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis,Sherilyn Connelly, and Will Franken will be the king(s) and queen of outer space snark.
January 27, 2012
BMN: SF Sketchfest Edition!
In the mid-twentieth century, filmmakers created many bold visions of what humankind might find up among the stars. However, the 1958 stinkburger Queen of Outer Space is not one of the bolder visions, though it does have Zsa Zsa Gabor as the (heh) titular space queen.
Get your tickets now! Hurry! (It'll cost a few more Gabors to get in, but it'll be worth it.)
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Sherilyn Connelly, and special guest riffer Will Franken.
So, it's come to this. A remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Actually, that's not really fair. It's an ancient story which had been told many times even before Disney appropriated it. But, you know, it's still the whole dumb stupid "dark fantasy" thing that's going around these days. And it's not far off from last week's feature, in a lot of ways. So much gray! And no real reason for it to exist!
But exist it does, and there's nothing we can do to change that. So let's look at some of the other versions.
This is what a commerical for the Disney film sounds like when you're watching it on the Disney Channel in the Czech Republic.
Courtesy of the nightmare factory that was Childhood Productions, here's the trailer for Snow White and Rose Red. I'm pretty sure that getting dumped off at theaters showing this kind of thing as children is why boomers are so screwed up.
Well before Snow White met the Huntsman (wait, who?), there was this "dark" version.
Speaking of "dark" versions, here's one that's more of a dork version—Snow White: A Deadly Summer!
This happened back in the day, and there's nothing we can do to make it un-happen.
But let's all do what we can to make sure it never happens again. Not making movies like this week's feature would be a good start.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis,Tim Kay, and Mikl-Em will feel pure as the driven slush after watching this movie.
January 20, 2013
Snow White and the Huntsman
You remember that story, right? The huntsman? That was a thing, wasn't it?
Pitch black pandemonium reigns.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis,Tim Kay, Mikl-Em, and other stewarts.
The hell of it is, in a lot of ways the movie was very much ripe for a remake, in that they could have gone back to the source material and made it more faithful to Philip K. Dick. Y'know who was originally supposed to direct the movie in the late 80s? David effin' Cronenberg, that's who.
Sigh. Instead, we have this. So what did people on the Tubes think about it?
My eternal girlfriend at BeyondTheTrailer lays out what went wrong.
Jeremy Jahns says it's a good enough movie for August, sans alcohol.
However, the never-hyperbolic Alex Jones insists that it's a primer for how the globalists plan to take over. So there's that. (And the Info Wars guys are the ones who put the flyers of Obama-as-Hitler all over San Francisco last year, so they're clearly some pretty deep thinkers.)
Oh, and there's no Mars in this one. Nobody gets their ass to Mars. Darn globalists!
Your hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Maura Sipila, Dan Foley can't wait to forget this movie.
January 13, 2013
Total Recall (2012)
A loose adaptation gets remade for no reason. Yay Hollywood!
Forgettable wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Sherilyn Connelly, Maura Sipila, Dan Foley, and other amnesiacs.
You heard about it back in the mid-aughts. You laughed about it.
You probably even blogged about it on your Geocities account or whatever, you motherfuckin' nerd.
But you didn't actually pay ten bucks to see it, did you?
Didn't think so. You probably barely even remember that it existed, or that movies once cost ten bucks and were shown in 2-D.
But that's okay. We here at Bad Movie Night exist to make sure you get a chance to see internet-famous financial flops which you'll probably never get around to putting in your Netflix queue.
You probably shouldn't watch it on teevee, though. It won't be quite what you expect:
Anyway, it's our tradition here. It's how we started 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, after all.
And those years turned out great, huh?
2013 will be better. We promise.*
(Oh, and stick around after the show if you want to watch Mr. Plinkett's review of Titanic with us.)
*promise not valid anywhere, ever.
Your hosts Jim Fourniadis, Damien Chacona, and Andy Wenger have not yet had enough of this motherfucking movie.
Annual Kickoff Movie!
January 6, 2013
Snakes on a Plane The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by motherfucking snakes.
Slithery wackiness ensues.
Hosts:
Jim Fourniadis, Andy Wenger, Damien Chacona, and other bad motherfuckers.
Guys! Pay attention, please. This is very important.
It's always fun to watch movies in which the lead actor would clearly be somewhere else.
Not to be lazy by just rewriting blurbs from last week, but, um, if you don't watch 
As we mentioned last week, if you don't watch 
Do you watch 
Okay. Gonna ask you guys to do a little homework.
Hot damn! It's our anniversary, you guys.
Someone else allegedly said that we should be burned down for making fun of It's a Wonderful Life, as we do every December.
Okay, we admit it. This movie a) came out in September, b) was not a blockbuster (it was 
And then there was last year's other big superhero movie. (Not counting Dredd, which we're doing next week because, what the heck, there are four Sundays to fill.)
So, here's what there is to say about this movie: sure, it's fun. It's competent. It made a hundred zillion dollars, so it must be good.
Oh, here it comes.
Y'know, this is the kind of thing that makes that makes Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters look like it has a degree of thematic integrity which other literary mashups lack. Jane Austen's characters never encountered zombies or sea monsters, and Lincoln never battled vampires (probably!), but Hansel and Gretel totally killed a witch. So there's that.
The thing of it is, doing a movie based on a board game isn't an inherently bad idea.
For pretty much every Sunday since March 2005, we've done Bad Movie Night at The Dark Room.
For my birthday this last year, I decided to go see Prometheus.
So, it's come to this. But it's good this time: We're in SF Sketchfest again!
So, it's come to this. A remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
So, it's come to this. A remake of Total Recall.
You heard about it back in the mid-aughts. You laughed about it.
