Ain't That A Peach??



As an impressionable teenager who was eager to get high for the first time, Cheech And Chong's Up In Smoke was right up my alley. As of 1995, I had never even heard of these guys until my sister recommended I check out some of their movies. If I wasn't convinced pot smoking would be a positive experience before I watched Up In Smoke, I sure as hell would be afterwards. For the most part, I was right. Sure, becoming a regular pot smoker put a huge dent in my ambition, and I gained a pound or 50, but no more boredom! And my outlook on life became a bit less serious, which can be good for some people. My still existing love affair with marijuana can be traced back even further than my first time smoking it. In fact, it can actually be traced back slightly further, to the night I watched Cheech And Chong's film Debut. Still one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. A pretty well-made film, directed by a guy named Lou Adler. Up In Smoke would kickstart a series of movies which Adler would not be involved. A couple years later, Tommy Chong himself would try his hand at directing and make an attempt at keeping the duo's momentum going. And so Cheech And Chong's Next Movie was born.

In Up In Smoke, Cheech Marin played a guy named Pedro and Tommy Chong played some random guy whose name we never learn and identity is a bit of a head scratcher. In this sequel, they are more or less playing the same roles, but are now referred to as "Cheech And Chong", who I'm guessing are supposed to be fictional versions of themselves. Probably what most people would expect or hope for them to be like at the time. We begin in the middle of a random day where the burnouts are in the process of stealing some gasoline so they can get Cheech to work on time. While successful in their theft, this leads to some rather explosive consequences once they attempt to light one up.

As Cheech fucks up at work, we watch Chong do jack shit with his day, which includes smoking a cock roach and terrorizing the neighborhood with his guitar-playing. Once Cheech returns home, we are treated to one hilariously random scene after the next until Cheech gets a call from his cousin, Red. Red happens to be in a bit of a pickle. From this phone call, we are given the impression that Cheech isn't overly fond of his cousin or the least bit interested in helping him with his problems. At the moment, Cheech is expecting a lady friend to drop by, so, he sends Chong out to find Red and hang out with him, and basically keep him away for as long as possible.

Chong tracks down Red at a hotel in Hollywood where he's being kept out of his room due to a failure to pay his bill. Pee Wee Herman isn't feeling especially reasonable today and isn't interested in excuses. However, Red's money is still in the room, nonetheless, so, something needs to be worked out. The "little asshole", as Chong angrily calls him, is merely trying to let enough time pass so the bill will increase. Long story short, Red and Chong break in and get Red's stuff, including a duffle bag full of pot. Pee Wee calls the cops, ultimately getting himself arrested. Listening to "dark Pee Wee" scream "YOU FUCKIN' ASSHOLE!" while being carried away by cops is every bit as funny as it sounds.

As Chong discovers Red has 20 pounds of pot in his possession, he quickly befriends Cheech's loud mouth cousin, and they go looking for some shit to get into. They end up at a massage parlor/enema clinic/whore house (?) where they run into some weirdos. Red pisses in the hottub and later walks in on some people in the middle of an unusual sex act, which he quickly gets Chong in on so they can make fun of them. Eventually, Red decides the logical next step should be to play a tape recorder of some police sirens that he just happens to have handy. This, of course, freaks out everyone and the place empties pretty quickly. Red doesn't seem to have one bit of self-control as he immediately acts on every given impulse.

The tied-up chick Chong and Red had walked in on decides to follow them where ever they go from this point forward. After causing a ruckus at some music store, they all follow some other chick home, which happens to be where that one guy who tied up the first chick lives. I assume he's the father of the second chick they just met. They are all greeted by the guy's wife, who has the thickest Minnesota accent you've ever heard. This lady isn't like other people. She seems to genuinely believe her visitors are the cowardly lion, Toto and Glenda, the good witch of the north... don't ask me! She has no idea who they are or why they are there, but for some reason, she is thrilled that they decided to drop by. After a bunch of singing, laughing and pot smoking, they all take a late-night drive and end up at a comedy show.

At the comedy show, the group runs into none other than dark Pee Wee himself, who is apparently moonlighting as a comedian. Funny, because this version of Pee Wee comes off like a miserable cunt with no sense of humor. Red being Red, he decides to heckle Pee Wee during his routine, angering him beyond words. First, Pee Wee challenges them to get on stage and see if they can do better. When that doesn't go to his liking, he tries getting them all kicked out, or in his words, "killed". As chaos ensues, Chong and Red hightail it and get separated from the others as well as their pot. Chong is not happy about this and insists they find more. What they end up finding makes me think Tommy Chong had no idea how to end this movie, because that was truly some random shit he came up with to wrap things up.

Cheech And Chong's Next Movie isn't like other movies. The story, if you can call it that, doesn't get started for a good 40 something minutes, and almost seems to abandon the familiar three act pattern most movies include. It was a bold move having Cheech and Chong separated for most of the movie, but worked since "Red" was really just Cheech in a wig with an obnoxious, Texas accent. The second half of the movie isn't completely devoid of Cheech as we go back and forth between Chong's and Red's shenanigans and Cheech waiting impatiently for his would-be fuck partner to arrive, which seems to take years. It's hard not to feel bad for him at times.

By far my favorite of the Cheech And Chong series. This movie is a perfect representation of what pot smoking can do to one's thought process and life, especially if you consider the first movie. While Up In Smoke had a more clear cut premise and characters with specific goals, this sequel has more in common with someone who's been getting stoned non-stop for a couple of years. This one is dumber, trashier, all over the place, and in no hurry whatsoever to get started. Next Movie is very much in it's own little world. Unlike the more professional production of Up In Smoke, this actually feels like it was made by someone who was stoned off their ass the entire time. Perhaps it was. 7/10



#Review

D&D: Honor Among Thieves 2023

I was into the video games in the early 2000s. Swords and sorcery always seemed cool to me, but then I'd go and watch something like Lord of the Rings and get bored as hell. Game of Thrones didn't do it for me either, so maybe the genre just isn't meant for cinema? Suffice to say, I went in with low expectations, but what a pleasant surprise. I have no complaints about this movie.

For all the nerds out there, this movie has it all. The locations, the races, the beasts, the classes, the spells, dungeons, (fat) dragons, traps, parties, quests, undead, and probably some other stuff. They packed a lot in here and it's fun. Not long and boring like LotR. Not royalty drama like GoT. Fun.

I was actually considering skipping this one with the idea that it would be another CGI shit show, but... yeah, there is CGI, but there are some cool scenes. I loved the druid's shapeshifting escape. I also loved all the portal stuff they did, because that's also a great fuckin' game.

Chris Pine strikes me as a cool guy. He reminds me of Jack Burton here, in that he's the main guy, but he's pretty worthless in the party. He is the glue that binds the team, but everyone else is clearly better than he is, and that makes him relatable to an inept tool like myself.

Medieval fantasy finally done right.

#Review

1883, that western show

There's another Yellowstone spin-off watched. Very bleak and depressing. Ever see that movie A Million Ways to Die in the West? It's a lot like that. A group fleeing the lawless Fort Worth travels across the country en route to Oregon. Some of them are pioneers. Some of them are clueless foreigners. Most of them can and will die along the way.

It's never very clear as to who will carry on the Dutton family name in these shows, and I think Sheridan leaves that ambiguous on purpose. These shows act more like period pieces rather than firm continuity benchmarks, and as period pieces, they sure love to remind us how easy we have it today. If I was alive in that time, I would be dead in a week.

Country singers Tim McGraw and Faith Hill give a solid performance, as does the lead actress Isabel May. Sam Elliott is also in there, basically playing himself as he can only do, but he's cool on account of his mustache and longevity and whatnot. I guess his character isn't supposed to be a descendent of Yellowstone's Lloyd? Okay then. 😐

So yeah... good show. Where Yellowstone is more of a soap opera, these prequel shows seem to be more defined in the stories they intend to tell. Anyone debating watching these shows due to the overwhelming continuity, I can say it's safe to skip Yellowstone entirely if that part intimidates you. The prequel shows can stand on their and they're sadistic and depressing as fuck, if you like that shit. I do.

#Review

John Wick: Episode IV - A New Hope

These movies have gone a little off the rails, huh? By the time we get around to this one, he's basically unstoppable. You have to turn your brain off to accept that he can get hit by a car a dozen times, fall off high buildings, and get shot and stabbed several times... and still keep going. There is no stopping him, because the box office is good. And the critic reviews are good. And the fan reviews are good too?

As Keanu says as his first of many^{very few} lines in the movie, "Yeah."

It is a fun movie to watch, even at that god forsaken runtime. It's the same old story as every other movie, what with the high councils, the ultimatums, the heavy bounties, and a massive body count. It doesn't matter so long as you have that last part. John Wick kills a lot of people.

The fight choreography is great. That's what we're all watching for anyway, and there's this cool top-down single-take fight scene that seems like it's being played in a video game. Pretty cool. Blind Asian Man and Black Guy with a dog are decent characters, Clancy Brown barely does anything, and Skarsgard is an asshole. Ian McShane is in a fair amount, but Lance Reddick has a very minimal role.

To all you boppers out there, there was a huge Warriors reference. "Nowhere to run to baby, yeah! Nowhere to hide!"

Since it makes money, they want to spin this off however they can. I'm not sure I care to see spin-offs, because it's going to become retarded like Fast & Furious at the rate it's going, so this entry would be a perfect place to stop watching and leave on a high note.

#Review

Spiral: From the Book of Saw (Part IX) 2021

In 2017, the series came full circle with a sequel that was also a prequel. It didn't have a number on it because things gets more laughable the higher the number goes, and this series was already getting exhausted at that point. As that one "ends", Jigsaw killer John Kramer is still dead, but only after having masterminded 8 over-complicated torture sprees upon the diagnosis of his cancer. If he had spent as much time seeking treatments, he probably wouldn't have needed to be such an asshole, but then you wouldn't have all this fine art, huh?

But fuck him. This movie finally moves beyond him and goes with another copycat. One with no connection to him other than his amazing engineering skills and sadistic tendencies. Chris Rock is a detective who gets caught up in this mess, which also involves his father Sam Jackson. As the story plays out, this "spin-off" veers more and more into familiar territory as the movie turns into more and more of the same-old same-old we Saw before. And of course, there has to be twist endings, right?


What I really hate about these movies is their "To Be Continued" vibes. They feel like episodes of some pretentious crime drama show, only with graphic torture to appeal to "horror fans". These films exemplify the term "Torture Porn" because they're more endurance tests than quality narrative and execution. The writing process revolves completely around torture methods, and there's never any optimism. Just about everyone tortured is tortured fatally, with no real desire for redemption in these characters, but rather the justification that they'll die horrible deaths. Glorified snuff shorts of sorts, and that's not exactly horror. It's not exactly fun. It's not exactly clever. And it's not exactly good. I find this whole series to be a rather low point for mainstream horror, and I don't pariticularly care for it.


SPOILERS

And of course, the cops had to shoot the black man at the end. I think this movie has a bit of a political agenda to it, which is probably why Chris Rock and Sam Jackson's liberal ass wanted to get involved. If all the sequels before had b-grade actors at most, then suddenly these more rich celebs get involved? And the timing after Floyd? 🤔

END SPOILERS


Of course they set it up for a sequel. All these endings are like that, implying that this dreadful series will go on forever. Some things need to end. Especially this review.

#Review

Cannibal Apocalypse 1980

Video nasties were any aspiring horror fan's wet dream in the early 2000s. That's when I first saw this and several other notorious splatter flicks. Like many others from its era, this one is nothing original. It tries to combine the infectious concepts of a zombie movie with the idea of cannibalism, yet it ends up nothing like either one of these subgenres. What we get instead is some kind of crazed Vietnam vet contagion scenario that's made watchable because it has the great John Saxon, as well as Italian horror staple Giovanni Lombardo Radice.

Back in the war, Saxon saved Giovanni and another POW, but not after they had to resort to cannibalism to stay alive. Cut to the present where Saxon is living in a nice neighborhood with a slight case of PTSD, and his old friend Giovanni comes back to visit. However, Giovanni still has that urge to eat human flesh, and it gets him and everyone else into some trouble with the authorities and a shitty biker gang for good measure.

In typical Italian sleaze fashion, there's also a subplot about a teen girl neighbor who seduces John Saxon for some shock value later on in the movie. Then another doctor guy is trying to get with Saxon's wife, trying to act all platonic until he casually blurts out that she should have married him instead of Saxon, to no reaction from the wife at all. I guess these type of suggestive comments are to be thought nothing of in Italy, but I definitely found it stupid.

The cops are inept and nothing works out for anybody in this movie. It's hardly an apocalypse though, but given enough time, some form of higher scale outbreak could occur. Of all the various alternate titles that this movie has, "Cannibals in the City" is the most appropriate, though it isn't nearly as cool as the more misleading Cannibal Apocalypse.

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Anthropophagus 1980

AKA "Antropofago", AKA "The Grim Reaper", AKA "Man Beast", AKA "The Savage Island", AKA "The Zombie's Rage".

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Starring George Eastman as the ugly cannibal. What more do you need?

The story is pretty simple. A bunch of hapless victims find themselves on an abandoned island in Greece and go exploring. Little do they know a maniac cannibal lives on the island, having been stranded there himself and forced to do some bad things to survive.

That's really about it. It's a cool eerie setting filled with fancy haunted mansions, seaside cliffs, stone ruins, and cavernous crypts. The film is mostly set during the daytime, which is pretty unique.

Being Italian, there's an inherent video nasty charm to its gratuity. It's all about that slow foreboding mood, and when big George shows up in his hideous visage, you know you're in for a good time with some mindless old school gore.

#Review

Slumber Party Massacre III 1990

Now here's a movie you don't see mentioned much. It's always about the first two movies and never this one, so why is that? Probably because it was made in the 90s. Yeah, 1990 is still pretty close to the 80s, but at the tail end when things started to lose their charm a bit.

SPM3 is kinda dull, isn't it? It's not nearly as fun as the first two, opting for a slightly more serious tone like the first one, only that one was still much better than this. Don't get me wrong, though. I do enjoy this movie, but it really doesn't have anything great going for it.

Who is the driller killer this time around? It isn't immediately obvious at the start like it is with the others. We're given a few weirdo creeps who may be the perp. One is a voyeur on the beach, and the other is some nerdy adult named Morgan who is overwhelmingly awkward. First, he breaks into the girl's house under the pretense of being on the market for a new home, but then he lingers. And then he lingers some more. I want to kick this guy's ass for being so lame and dry. But is he the killer? Hmm...

What follows is a strong rehash of the first movie. Girls have a slumber party, some dude bros try to crash it, the pizza guy^girl gets it, and then the real killer reveals himself. But before that, our protagonists act like sluts for a while. One of the hotties goes topless and it's rather jarring, because she has pepperoni nipples. I find that to be one of the most memorable aspects of this movie.

So spoilers for anybody who's 30+ years late to this party, but our killer is the seemingly regular guy with daddy issues (I think?). He's also got trouble getting it up, which is why he needs to get revenge on these stupid sluts for (not) turning him on. After breaking all kinds of household objects on his head throughout the film, the girls blind this dude with bleach and yet he still manages to kill a few more of these inept broads until one of them gets the upper hand and murders the shit out of him with his metaphorical penis: another big-ass drill.

It takes a while for the cops to show up because the asshole at the desk immediately assumes every call to the station is a joke and can't be bothered with. It's an easy way to keep everyone isolated, and this whole movie seems pretty void of life. It basically killed the series, until Jim Wynorski quasi-revived it under the new moniker Cheerleader Massacre. Now that's a good movie! I mean, it's pretty shitty, but he makes up for that by including dumber & sluttier chicks. Then the sequel to that one has robots.

#Review

Poker Face, tv show

There's been lots of talk of it lately, so I gave it a whirl and watched season 1. It's pretty decent. Natasha Lyonne is great in it as the human lie detector who gets caught up in weekly murder mysteries in various settings. I find it comparable to The Incredible Hulk in that she's on the run from something, inadvertantly doing good deeds in the various places she hunkers down in. It's more episodic in that sense than a lot of other shows, so you don't need to pay too much attention to a greater narrative, though there is obviously is one.

There are a lot of good guest stars, notably Benjamin Bratt, Adrien Brody, Chloe Sevigny, Tim Blake Nelson, Tim Meadows, Nick Nolte, Luis Guzman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Clea DuVall, and Ron Perlman. I also noticed a cameo by Sean Lennon.

Also, the title card is reminiscent of Columbo and retro films, what with that "(c) MMXXIII MRC II DISTRIBUTION COMPANY, L.P. / ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." subtitle. Fun fun.

#Review

Scream VI - No Spoilers

Obviously, I can't say much. The Manhattan setting is great. The movie is set on the cusp of Halloween, meaning Ghostface Takes Manhattan isn't a stretch. Everybody is throwing parties and there's an element of hiding in plain sight going on that's really wonderful. They certainly take full advantage of the NYC locale and try to exploit that in various ways. Notably convenient stores, subways, apartment buildings, and Central Park.

Our characters still got it, the violence is heavy, and there is literally a museum of references and callbacks to the previous movies while trying new things (but still emulating previous tropes). I liked most everything about it, but I'm not entirely thrilled at the killer(s) reveal/motivations. It does make sense in ways, and while the climax is quite fun, I'm still on the fence.

There are great moments in the film, and it's definitely not the worst entry. I didn't miss Sidney at all because the two leads are great. So hot. 🔥

What's next for the series? There's a lot of commentary on legacy characters, nostalgia, and subverting expectations. As things continue to distance themselves from the initial killing spree, the franchise admits that nothing is sacred and the series can (and probably will) move on beyond its roots. It is a franchise after all, and the only constant in this series is a killer in the ghostface mask. Will that be enough for future installments? Probably.

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