Sexy Cineplexy: Reviews

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

haha. Will probably watch it with my gf or something. Hope she doesn't think this is my way of telling her i'm going to transition.

I'm enjoying your reviews so much lately that I'm tempted to pull a Gideon58 and start reading and replying to reviews from eight years ago. I was hesitant to read your review for Independence Day: Resurgence for fear of spoilers, but I'm glad I went ahead and read it anyway. Excellent review. Hilarious, yet informative. I'd gotten bad vibes from the trailer, but I'm still a little surprised by just how poorly received it's been. I'll rent it somewhere down the road. Your review has given me a good idea of what to expect, so my expectations for the film are now low enough that it shouldn't disappoint me too much. I'm both fearful and curious to see Dr. Okin and his bearded boy toy. You make a lot of great points about the strengths of the first film. I still think Independence Day is the ultimate alien invasion movie, but it's been forever since I sat down and watched it in its entirety

I hated Leatherface, but I remember next to nothing about it. I'd forgotten all about Viggo Mortensen being in it. Even though the first film is the only one I love, I think the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is my favorite horror series. A lot of that probably has to do with the Southern/redneck flavor that made you think of me, but I'm also fascinated by the family aspect. Even though they're murderous psychopaths, they generally care about each other and look out for one another. Some families watch movies together and play board games. Other families hack people into pieces and turn them into chili. It's the same twisted family dynamic that draws me so strongly to Rob Zombie's Firefly family. I'm not sure why that family aspect appeals to me so much, but I'm sure you'll try to psychoanalyze it. I think my dream movie would involve Captain Spaulding and the Firefly family crossing paths with Leatherface and his family. That's my Freddy vs. Jason.

I'd love to read your review for The Next Generation. I recognize that it's a terrible film, but I weirdly like it due to just how crazy and WTF? it gets. McConaughey and his unexplained robotic leg. The bizarre subplot involving the Illuminati. I'll take The Next Generation over Leatherface, A New Beginning and Texas Chainsaw 3D. I just watched the latter a few weeks ago. It has some interesting ideas, but the execution is so incredibly moronic that I ended up hating it. 3D ignores all the sequels and picks up right where the original left off, where the eventual protagonist (played by Alexandra Daddario) is just a baby. Then the film jumps ahead to the present day, where either Daddario was cryogenically frozen for twenty years or is simply the hottest 40-year old ever. Or maybe the film was taking place in an alternate universe where everybody had smart phones and laptops in the 90's. You could probably write a pretty entertaining review for it. And who knows, you might like it given how much we tend to disagree on films and music and which homeless man to bring home and tie to the bed

I caught a few minutes of It's Pat on TV one time and it looked like the most annoying movie ever. Pretty sure I'd hate it, but I kinda want to see it for the Tarantino connection. I hope I like it, though. I want to like it. Considering how sensitive our politically correct society is nowadays, movies like It's Pat probably deserve to be cherished and celebrated. If a movie like that came out today, the social justice warriors would publicly shame it and try to boycott it. For that reason alone, I want to like It's Pat. Just curious: would you rather f*ck Pat or Chris?

I'll only charge you $10 . . .

. . . But I'll do it for free if you wear the mask.

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Everytime I look at one of your reviews just the look of it is like a ransom note, or one of those letters sent to the cops from serial killers in movies.

DEMOLITION

Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée
Released in 2015
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Davis Mitchell, Naomi Watts as Karen Moreno, Chris Cooper as Phil, Judah Lewis as Chris, Heather Lind as Julia, C.J. Wilson as Carl and Wass Stevens as Jimmy



From the director of Dallas Buyers Club, one of my favorite films, comes a new Jake Gyllenhaal movie..... should be amazing, right? Well, I liked it. I definitely didn't hate it. I was going to watch it a second time before reviewing it so I could really get a grasp on the whole thing..... but I just wasn't feeling in the mood to watch it again. Soooooo..... Dallas Buyers Club this isn't.

I think this may have been the weirdest Jake Gyllenhaal movie I have ever seen. I am not forgetting Donnie Darko, Enemy, Source Code, Prisoners, Zodiac, Nightcrawler, or even Bubble Boy. Damn... dude really likes to do strange movies, doesn't he? Maybe that's why I like him. Accidental Love... that David O. Russell movie that David O. Russell abandoned. The one where Jessica Biel gets a nail in her head (thanks to a nail gun) and becomes hypersexual and falls in love with Jake Gyllenhaal (sounds like my life story).

Yes. I think Demolition is weirder than all of those other films. The fact that I think it's weirder than Enemy is really something. Why is it so weird? It's weird in a stupid way. In the film, Jake plays an investment banker whose wife dies in a car accident (he was in the car with her). He returns to work immediately, acting like there isn't a problem. This bothers his boss, Chris Cooper, who happens to be his father-in-law. Chris Cooper and his wife are deeply upset and want to be there for Jake.... but Jake.... doesn't really care. Right away, I was TOTALLY reminded me of Jake's movie, Moonlight Mile, from back in 2002, which basically had THE EXACT SAME PLOT. Sort of. Except the parents of the deceased wife were played by Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon. So I thought.... okay.... momentarily he's gonna meet up with Naomi Watts and it's gonna be Moonlight Mile all over again. Obviously Jake Gyllenhaal has some kind of weird theme going on in his life where he enjoys acting in these movies where his wife dies. You know what? His wife dies in Southpaw, too. This man's really into playing roles where his wife dies. He LOVES having a dead wife! I bet that's why Jake Gyllenhaal is single. He's got some kind of issue I think he works out through his roles where he always ends up with a dead wife. He doesn't want to be married.



Anyway, back to Demolition -- which turns out to not be like Moonlight Mile, afterall. So immediately after his wife dies, he's in the hospital.... and the vending machine there fails to spit out the Peanut M&M's or whatever it was Jake ordered from the vending machine. I can't blame the vending machine -- I wouldn't spit out for Jake Gyllenhaal, either. But anyway.... the vending machine doesn't spit, and this leads to Jake Gyllenhaal writing a letter to the vending machine company to complain. Except it's no ordinary letter -- and he's not really complaining. Instead, he vents about how his wife died -- he writes a couple of lengthy letters about his wife, her death, their marriage, all kinds of stuff. As luck would have it, the customer support lady at the vending machine company happens to be a pot smoking Naomi Watts, and she takes to Jake Gyllenhaal's letters like a fat middle aged woman reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

Before you know it, they're sending letters back and forth, and playing a sort of cat-and-mouse game where Jake is trying to track her down because apparently she lives close by. Eventually they do meet, but, SURPRISE -- she lives with her angry boyfriend, who happens to be the owner of the vending machine company. OH, and she's got a 15 year old gay son, too. But despite the close relationship he develops with the caring and understanding and pot smoking Naomi Watts, they DO NOT have sex with each other. They simply.... write letters.

I don't really wanna spoil much more..... what kept me glued to this movie (besides Jake Gyllenhaal) was wondering how it was gonna end. It is ALL OVER THE PLACE! And Jake even finds himself being stalked by a mysterious unknown driver in an old station wagon. It's creepy, that station wagon. Think Michael Myers in the Smith's Grove Sanitarium car in Halloween driving around Haddonfield if he was stalking Jake Gyllenhaal.



But you need to hear about why this movie is so weird -- besides what I've already told you if you found any of that weird. Let's just say there's a scene where Jake and Naomi Watts' gay son (who has pictures of Divine and James St. James in his bedroom -- so it looks like my room) .... anyway, they DEMOLISH Jake Gyllenhaal's very modern, very nice house. They get a bulldozer and everything. They destroy everything. It's very Fight Club.

They go out in the woods and the gay boy SHOOTS Jake Gyllenhaal in the chest while Jake wears a camouflage bulletproof vest (which is something that I would do, too, in the woods with Jake Gyllenhaal, but not with a gun).

They do it for funzies. Anyway, later, at a hardware store (I think it was?), the gay boy confesses to Jake that he might be gay, but he is NOT SURE. I'm like -- BITCH -- you have Jake Gyllenhaal in front of you and you're NOT SURE if you're GAY? Who does that?!?! I mean, if Jake Gyllenhaal shook a gay Magic 8-Ball and asked it, "ARE YOU GAY?" the Magic 8-Ball is not going to give the "OUTLOOK NOT SO CLEAR" answer from inside its little watery domicile. It's gonna say "HELL YES!" every time and then its little round window is gonna open and it's gonna turn into a Magic Gloryhole. "GIVE IT TO ME" it'll say.

So anyway, Demolition is a weird movie, so it's only fitting that I write a weird review. There's scenes of Jake Gyllenhaal dancing in the streets and acting crazy. Like Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man 3. There are weird old drug dealers who take care of old carnival rides, like a merry-go-round. There's lots of destruction. It's all about demolishing your life. Changing your life and starting over and being yourself. That's basically the whole message of the movie.



I must say, though -- the ending was sort of a letdown. And yet at the same time, sort of not. Naomi Watts kind of disappears, I feel. I wasn't too satisfied about how the whole Naomi Watts relationship turned out. It's almost as if he forgets about the friendship with Naomi Watts and just starts becoming a better friend with the 15 year old gay boy. Which I'm sure would be a dream come true to any gay boy -- becoming friends with Jake Gyllenhaal. Yet for some reason, when he's around Jake, he is not even sure if he is actually gay. I don't understand. That was the same age I was when I came out. Where the Hell was my Jake Gyllenhaal then?!

So yeah.... I thought it was a kind of weird movie. Not a very good movie.... like, I liked it because I could connect to some things about it. But in general, I don't think this would appeal to a lot of people. Maybe. I saw online that a bunch of people who saw it didn't like it. I can totally understand that.

You can definitely tell it was directed by the director of Dallas Buyers Club. He has a certain style to his movies. He LOVES explaining something by showing all these quick, soundless flashbacks of the past. They get on my nerves. I didn't really like that in Dallas Buyers Club, either. I need SLOW. Snappy editing makes it hard for me to pay attention and understand something.

But yeah, this was no Dallas Buyers Club. Actually, for the first half hour of this movie.... I really thought I wasn't going to like it at all. In fact, I was even starting to think to myself.... alright, Jake Gyllenhaal, you're starting to piss me off here. If these kinds of stupid roles are what you're going to keep doing, I don't know how much more of you I'm gonna wanna take. FOR REAL. Because there was something about this character at first -- and even throughout -- that just..... tried to be "cute." Cute in a weird, quirky, obnoxious, cruel way that.... if some other actor had played it, I wouldn't have had the tolerance for it.

I really hope that Jake Gyllenhaal starts taking parts in bigger movies. This indie thing he's sort of got going these days (Demolition only made $1 million dollars at the box office, and I CAN'T even find this movie for sale in stores -- I rented it to watch it) .... anyway, this indie thing he's got going on these days.... if they keep being movies like Demolition, I'm going to get tired of him.....

Demolition is a good movie, but for me, it's sort of a scary sign for Jake Gyllenhaal. It was good, but it wasn't THAT good. He needs to do something bigger. I'd like to see him become an Oscar winner someday. He needs to stop being so quirky and start being more serious. Otherwise, he's going to disappear.

I am including a picture of a nude Jake Gyllenhaal while he sits on a toilet from the movie Demolition, which I took with my phone. You're welcome.

Now was that really necessary? I wasn't on this site eight years ago...I'm not allowed to comment on things that were posted before I got here?

BOO!
A MADEA HALLOWEEN

Directed by Tyler Perry
Released in 2016
Starring Tyler Perry as Madea Simmons/Joe/Brian, Cassi Davis as Aunt Bam, Patrice Lovely as Hattie, Diamond White as Tiffany, Liza Koshy as Aday, Yousef Erakat as Jonathan, Bella Thorne as Rain, Lexy Panterra as Leah, Brock O'Hurn as Horse and Tyga as Tyga

Lord Have Mercy.

Well, here I am, back from the movies after having watched Boo! A Madea Halloween. It's opening night (even though you could have watched it last night, too.)

You might be surprised (or not surprised) to learn that I didn't exactly enjoy this 100%. In fact, I made fun of it constantly in my mind as I watched it. WHAT I COULD UNDERSTAND OF IT. 'Cause, you see, being that it's opening night at a Madea movie, all the Tyler Perry fans (aka black people) showed up in droves. There were earrings all over the floor. There I was, WHITE AS CAN BE, standing out like a ghost at a Madea Halloween movie. If Madea had been there, she would have punched me right in the face, whether I deserved it or not (some of you might say I do).

These people LAUGHED during the whole damn movie. A fat old black woman who uses two canes gets up off the damn couch -- UPROARIOUS LAUGHTER. The ceiling chips off and eventually falls down on ya. Apparently there was even a theater terrorist -- one of those shooters -- during my screening of Boo! A Madea Halloween. I never knew -- I didn't hear the gunshots. Nobody paid any attention. All eyes were on Madea.

Madea falls down a flight of stairs, you go f*cking deaf from all the laughter around you. Go in a Madea movie, come out Marlee Matlin.

The story revolves around Madea's granddaughter. She's a rebellious 17 year old girl who wants to hang out with horny college boys at a fraternity, while dressed like Janet Jackson. Her dad, played by Tyler Perry out of drag, is trying to lay down the law and tell her not to go to the Halloween fraternity party, but of course she doesn't listen, because it's Madea's job to eventually get her straight.



When we first find Madea, she's giving out candy with - I guess it's her friend, but maybe her sister since her name is "Aunt Bam." Aunt Bam is a pot smoking fat old woman who uses two canes, and she just got her card that says she can smoke medical marijuana legally, which she proudly waves around during the movie every chance she can. She also likes to steal candy from the trick-or-treaters (for her munchies) by giving them one piece of candy, while she slips her fat hand in the pumpkin and takes out several pieces of candy already in there. A fat black boy dressed as a cow comes by and Madea calls him "chocolate milk" and he realizes what Aunt Bam has done to his candy stash, but does our moralistic Tyler Perry teach us that it's wrong to steal candy from trick-or-treaters with this scene? Absolutely not. Chocolate milk takes a hoofy hike and Aunt Bam keeps her new goodies.



A PAINFUL scene takes place in a living room soon after, with Madea, Aunt Bam, their friend (or other sister, cousin, step-mother, God knows what) Hattie, and Uncle Joe, who is Madea's equally acid-tongued brother and the only other character besides Madea that's really interesting. This scene goes on for what feels like TWENTY MINUTES (or twenty hours) and it's all about these people ENDLESSLY talking about parents and how they should beat the sh*t out of their children if they misbehave, condoning things like Madea putting her 4 year old son (at the time) on life support because she tried to spank him to death or something. Or she took the chainsaw to him, I don't remember. But the scene goes on FOREVER. It's like realism. It's like you're actually sitting with this insane black family for an entire conversation. Maybe it was supposed to be a homage to the dinner scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre -- on and on and on. Criterion Collection will be releasing Boo! A Madea Halloween later because of the realism of the boredom you experience. It was so boring that snails walked out of the theater.

But I must say -- as bad as it was, I still had a good time. The theater experience and the audience added to the fun. I've seen a couple of other Madea movies in theaters, but the experience was never like this one, so if you want a true blue Madea movie experience, now's the time to go have one with Boo!

This movie actually started off as an idea in the Chris Rock movie, Top Five, released in 2014, which of course I never saw. As a joke, that movie featured the film Boo!, which was a Madea Halloween movie. Tyler Perry took the joke and made it reality.



The scares were nothing to write home about -- in fact, it almost seems like this WASN'T a Halloween movie. Not a lot of original ideas. Feels more like Animal House or some kind of college movie -- maybe Scream 2 with the college/horror thing going on. In one scene, college boys ask to see Madea's big, pendulous breasts. She obliges and lets them touch her for awhile, till they run away (after what seems like a minute of watching a Madea porno), and then she chases after him, offering her big behind for the next set of feels.



Clowns pop up frequently in this movie, as well as ghostly writing on a bathroom mirror ("GET YOUR FAT ASS OUT OF MY HOUSE!"), a dog program on television having interference or something, a zombie invasion with Madea running for her life (while the audience fights for their breath back as they hyperventilate from laughing). There's a whole lotta weed smoking among the senior citizen characters -- to the point that it's like The Golden Girls having conversations NOT about sex (but definitely about almost murdering their children) while they smoke cheesecake flavored weed. Uncle Joe tries to masturbate, but gets interrupted by Madea and Friends running from a clown. And eventually, it turns out that the college frat boys were just playing pranks on Madea -- so she decides to pull a prank of her own as the final word.

Not sure what else there is to say. It's a long movie (about two hours) -- feels almost longer than that -- and it doesn't really have much going for it. I wouldn't exactly call it the definitive Halloween movie to watch every year. Ernest Scared Stupid was scarier (I can only imagine Madea punching Ernest right in the face if they had ever met).

I had a good time, I LIKED IT, but it is what it is -- a stupid Halloween movie with Madea. Didn't blow me away, but it definitely moved me at least some.

SC, it sounds like reading your review was more entertaining than the movie itself!
I like your politically incorrect style!

What drove you to go see this in the theater? (and please don't say a car)

"Young man, I guess nobody told you... I'm Madea... Ma to the damn D-E-A!"

LOVED reading this review...so glad you're back.

Have no desire to see this movie, but sire enjoyed reading your review.

Loved this review too...it's actually made me want to see a movie that I really had no interest in seeing before reading it. Not to mention, it seems to have ruffled a lot of feathers around here and I like that.

It's awful in every single way. Even Will Smith wouldn't of saved it.

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I dissagree with the whole Alien attack approach the movie took. I mean c'mon, whether the Alien attack was 20 years ago or not people would still be scared. The last time there was an attack they nearly wiped the bloody planet out. Plus the young cast in this movie where only young children so surely this would of come as terrifying ordeal this time around?. But nope, no one is remotely bothered. Its bad one liner after bad one liner. Even when the Aliens attack its like no one cares.

I actually kinda liked Independence Day: Resurgence. It certainly isn't a particularly good film but I was still able to find enough to enjoy. And I appreciated that they made efforts to present a changed world and attempted to introduce a few new wrinkles to the story instead of just a complete retread. Some of the most interesting developments however were rather glossed over. For example I'd have been interested in seeing and learning more about how that town in Africa dealt with the crashed ship from 20 years ago and the ensuing battle over the years with the aliens. I also think they could have made more of the fact that the new ships were so giant that they had their own environment and ecosystem; there's a forest inside a UFO!

Yes some of the logic is pretty ridiculous and the writing poor, but what can I say, I didn't hate it. As someone who loves the first film I also just enjoyed seeing several of the characters return, especially Brent Spiner's Dr Okun and the touching relationship with his fellow scientist who cared for him all these years

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Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.

Directed by Leslie Harris
Released in 1992
Starring Ariyan A. Johnson as Chantel Mitchell, Kevin Thigpen as Tyrone, Ebony Jerido as Natete, Chequita Jackson as Paula, Jerard Washington as Gerard, Tony Wilkes as Owen Mitchell and Karen Robinson as Debra Mitchell



Now what in the world have I watched here, you must be wondering. Trust me -- I had never heard of it before, either, until today. I was looking for something to watch on In Demand cable. I saw this and the movie description read: Arrogant and ignorant, a know-it-all Brooklyn teenager (Ariyan Johnson) becomes pregnant and tries to hide it.

*throws hands in the air*

I watched the trailer to see if it was really something I should check out. It looked like it would be something I'd probably turn off after 15 minutes, but for some reason, I started it up anyway. This movie feels like it goes on FOREVER, and the song "Daddy's Little Girl" by Nikki D plays CONTINUOUSLY on the soundtrack, over and over again, as if it's the only song they could afford to use.

And even though I paused the movie several times during its run.... I ultimately couldn't turn it off and I finished it. And I'm glad I did.



This is the story of a high school student named Chantel. Chantel is basically a teenage version of Shenaynay from the 1990's TV show, Martin. In fact, this whole movie is basically Martin on steroids. So obviously, the film was a dream come true find for me.

If you ever need a sassy black woman movie to get your day going, look no further than Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. It's practically the mother of sassy black woman movies -- even though Chantel is just a young woman.



The plot is simple: Chantel lives in the Brooklyn projects. She gets A's and B's in school and she dreams of getting out of the poor neighborhood and going to college and becoming a doctor. She has a sassy, loud, dirty mouth. She thinks she's the sh*t. She thinks she's going somewhere. Where she does go is to a party where she meets Tyrone, who takes her home in his jeep and impregnates her when he won't wear a condom. Next thing you know, she's in the welfare line and she's not telling her family and friends that she's pregnant. Her boyfriend gets $500 from his uncle to pay for her abortion, but she won't go -- is she possibly going to keep the baby? She ends up spending the $500 on a shopping spree with her best friend, Natete.



It's your typical story of a stupid little girl in the projects who thinks she already knows everything about the world and she's gonna take it by storm and everything's gonna work out okay. She's gonna get what she wants, she thinks.

As terrible as this all may sound to you.... this wasn't a bad movie at all. I've gotta say -- it was better than any Tyler Perry movie I have ever seen. As silly and stereotypical as it may seem, there was a decent sense of realism to the film. I won't reveal what happens at the end of this film, but I was shocked, disturbingly so, to the core. This is a sad, gritty, yet whimsy little picture that seems like a little known Criterion Collection film or something. The movie is filmed in a way that doesn't really look bad for its low budget. It was even a Sundance winner. The main character, Chantel, breaks the fourth wall a lot, letting us know her opinion on things. It's like Ferris Bueller's Day Off if Ferris was a pregnant black girl named Ferrisha.

I'm not sure what else to say because I've only watched it once. I would probably be willing to watch it again or even own it. Just checking in to let you know that I discovered I haven't yet run out of interesting indie films from the 1990's with sassy black girls who scream loudly when their daddies slap them on the face or they hear about girlfriends catching HIV with the first guy they slept with.



Give the girl on the I.R.T. a try sometime -- but whatever you do, don't get her pregnant.

THE TELEPHONE

Directed by Rip Torn
Released in 1988
Starring Whoopi Goldberg as Vashti Blue, Amy Wright as Honey Boxe, the Irate Neighbor and Jennifer on the Answering Machine, Elliott Gould as Rodney, Severn Darden as Max, John Heard as the Telephone Man and Wookie the Owl and Marshall the Owl as Bert the Owl



If Yoko Ono and a Sexy Celebrity thread had a baby, it would probably be Whoopi Goldberg's bastard child of a film, The Telephone. I'm not kidding when I say this is a bastard child -- Whoopi herself wanted nothing to do with this film. She took the producers of this movie, New World Pictures, to court and tried to sue them to prevent this film from being released. When she lost her case and the film was ultimately released, it made about $100,000 -- and that's A LOT for a movie like this. People fled the theaters, screaming for their money back, or they prayed that the film would break. Apparently it fared better when it was released on video. I remember that video. I rented it in the mid-to-late 1990's when I was a youngin' because the cover and the title always fascinated me. What was this Whoopi Goldberg movie I had never seen where she's talking on a zebra striped phone? It SCREAMED me.

Well, when I finally watched it... I was gobsmacked.

And I must warn you -- I'm going to SPOIL the ending as I continue on with this review. There's a twist ending, one I don't think I saw coming back then (although, I think the person I watched it with guessed the ending before it came, unless I'm just imagining that -- been too long ago). I kind of think you NEED to know the ending to really enjoy the film. Let me explain why.......

The film is about 80 minutes of nothing but Whoopi Goldberg acting INSANE inside her little dump of an apartment that's next to the freeway. And I mean that -- we NEVER get out of the apartment.

Her biggest co-star is an OWL. Yes, an owl. Named Bert. Played by Wookie and Marshall, both owls. Wookie, Whoopi and Marshall.

The other people in the movie -- you can count them all on one hand -- are barely in the movie. And I mean BARELY. I've list them all above with the cast, except for a saxophone player and two street vendors, who aren't that important (for this movie). Severn Darden (whatever kind of name that is) has MAYBE a minute of screen time during the opening credits. Probably more like 30 seconds. Elliott Gould has maybe 5 minutes. Amy Wright has the most, but you only see her onscreen for the same amount of time as Elliott Gould. The rest of the time she only appears as a DIFFERENT CHARACTER -- an irate Asian-sounding neighbor you don't see, who hates Whoopi Goldberg's character, who wants to call the SUPER on her and have her evicted, and who gets pissed when the electricity goes out, her Wheel of Fortune along with it. She's also apparently "Jennifer on the Answering Machine", another voice, though one I don't even remember hearing. And then there's John Heard, who appears at the very end of the movie, maybe 5 minutes, maybe 3.



That's it.

The rest of the film is Whoopi Goldberg and her pet owl -- and a goldfish, I forgot about the goldfish.

What does she do? She talks on a zebra striped phone to her friend Jennifer (never heard, only on the answering machine, and I don't remember the message). She also talks to a lot of other random people she calls up, including a cop. All of them are not interested in her, it sounds. Jennifer seems to like her.

She also reads from Shakespeare, very theatrically -- she's an out-of-work actress, of Shakespeare caliber. She dons a red hat and pretends to be a Japanese chef. She wears a cowboy hat and pulls down her pants after exiting her tiny bathroom, then walks over to the wall/double door thingie that separates her apartment from the irate Asian-sounding neighbor lady who also plays a blonde bombshell named Honey Boxe and Jennifer on the answering machine -- she bugs the neighbor lady. She.... gets visited by her ex-agent, a sleazy scumbag type who looks like he still lives in the 1970's. She makes more calls. She listens to her answering machine. She gets a visit from John Heard, the telephone man. 80 minutes.

It is more insane than it sounds.

BUT -- like I said -- there's a twist ending -- and I am going to reveal it now. It surprised me the first time I saw it, I think, but now as I watch the movie, it seems WAY obvious.

You see, not only does The Telephone feature all of the above.... but it is also a beta test version of Fight Club... starring Whoopi Goldberg.

If you haven't already guessed it from the review.... like I said, Whoopi's insane. LITERALLY.

She ain't talkin' to anybody on the damn telephone.



Her telephone was disconnected. MONTHS AGO. So we learn from John Heard, the telephone man, when he arrives to collect her zebra striped phone, which he says looks like a phone sex phone.

And suddenly, this completely random, totally insane movie.... that might bore you to death, whether you know the ending that's coming or not.... makes more sense. Sort of. It at least gives it a purpose.

It's a movie about a woman who's totally lost her mind. It's Whoopi with a mental illness. Schizophrenia, I assume. It is a feature length film that basically gives us a "fly on the wall" point of view of a basketcase living by herself, after she's lost her mind.

What happened to her? Some think she was just a lonely woman. We hear about Larry, her ex-boyfriend (ex-husband?), who left her. Whoopi's character, VASHTI BLUE, brings him up a lot. She says he's on her mind and she can't get him off of it. Maybe he left her and she just snapped.

So as you're watching this movie, and you're watching endless scenes of Whoopi Goldberg talking on the telephone.... there's nobody on the other end. Nobody's listening to her. It makes you think. Is this a routine she's developed and been acting out EVERY DAY for a long time now? She's marking down something on her kitchen wall -- it appears to be based on traffic accidents outside her apartment, but maybe she's marking down the days she's been crazy.



I'm at a point now where I'm not even sure if the OTHER CHARACTERS that we see are even real. Could they be delusions? Could the owl be a delusion? The telephone man himself? This movie is so crazy IT MAKES YOU THINK CRAZY! I don't really think the other characters are, like, schizophrenic hallucinations.... but who knows? Maybe the irate neighbor behind the wall is just an auditory hallucination. Maybe we're seeing inside her crazy mind. Who knows WHAT THE F**K this movie really is. Is she even a black woman in an apartment? Or a schizophrenic space alien in a mental hospital? It makes one wonder.

When the end credits begin to roll, we are weirdly treated to a DUET with LITTLE RICHARD and THE BEACH BOYS! Which was apparently made JUST FOR THIS MOVIE. The Beach Boys does kind of make sense.... I saw Love & Mercy and I know all about crazy old Brian Wilson. This is his kind of movie. But a duet with Little Richard and The Beach Boys? JUST FOR THIS MOVIE? THIS MOVIE?! It's a nice song, though. It's called "HAPPY ENDINGS."

Bad reviews are the norm for this Telephone movie. I do believe it's a bad movie. I don't know if I can recommend it. But I must say -- I have seen much worse. And this film is definitely one-of-a-kind. I very much like what they attempted to do. My favorite scene is where Whoopi drives the irate neighbor crazy by loudly playing "One Love" by Bob Marley as she dances around her apartment.

There's a Christmas tree in her apartment, so I kinda think of The Telephone as a weird Christmas movie, even though apparently Christmas is actually LONG over in the film, so says the Telephone Man played by John Heard.

You can see it if you're curious, or you can just know the film from my review. Diehard Whoopi fans have GOT to see it. I wish it had actually got more respect. I wish Whoopi hadn't tried to sue the producers and prevent its release (even though I understand why she did). I hope my review gets out there and helps give the film a little more positive exposure.

Look out for a brief moment of the Christopher Young score for Hellraiser, which plays on an old movie on Vashti Blue's television set.



*hangs up the telephone*

This cracked me up. No please SC, we are all planning on watching this

Rip Torn directing Whoopi Goldberg? That blows my mind

Good review It was weirdly fascinating and even though i know i wouldn't like the movie the twist does sound pretty good.

Loving the way you are doing your reviews Sexy

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This just might be the funniest review I have ever read on this website.

CANDYMAN

Directed by Bernard Rose
Released in 1992
Starring Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle, Tony Todd as Candyman, Xander Berkeley as Trevor Lyle, Kasi Lemmons as Bernadette, Vanessa Williams as Anne-Marie McCoy, Gilbert Lewis as Det. Frank Valento, DeJuan Guy as Jake, Carolyn Lowery as Stacey and Michael Culkin as Professor Purcell



Though I don't speak of it much, mainly because I haven't watched it in years -- Candyman is absolutely one of my favorite movies of all time. It is a gothic horror film based off a short story by Clive Barker and the villain is a black man. It feels like something classic. It reminds me of Dracula. I didn't give it the best possible watch for this review -- I paused it a lot, I didn't always look at the screen -- but I've seen this movie so many times in the past that I know what's going on. I didn't think I'd be reviewing it, but I feel like I should attempt to.

What is it about Candyman that's so good? One -- it has a very haunting, very well done score by Philip Glass. It is also a horror film... I don't believe we ever really see the likes of much anymore. I cannot imagine this movie being made today. If they did try to make it, it would be downright stupid. It would focus largely on the paranormal aspects, the fact that Candyman is ghostly and all that... it wouldn't really have this "mature" thing about it that I see in the film.

This movie takes about an hour for it to really get started -- but it's an hour that is absolutely not wasted. Typically, that would sound boring as Hell, and awful to me. But not in this case. The movie is fascinating, even when the horror aspect hasn't really started. It's honestly not at all a horror movie until the first hour has passed. It's almost like a drama. A crime drama, maybe, and yet that description isn't even right.



Candyman is about .... an urban legend in a very poor black ghetto of Chicago called Cabrini-Green. There's this apartment complex/housing project -- and it's actually a real one, apparently -- called Cabrini-Green, and that's where Candyman "lives." He kills people here. Actually, he'll kill people almost anywhere. But you have to CALL HIM first. Like Beetlejuice. You have to look in a mirror and say his name - "Candyman" - five times. Then he comes to you. A tall, looming, black man in a big coat, which, when he opens it, bees fly out -- lots of bees. I don't know who would want to call Candyman except maybe suicidal people, 'cause when he comes, he kills you -- but -- he's an urban legend. Like the Bloody Mary urban legend, where you call for Bloody Mary in a mirror, and she comes. Are urban legends even real? Who would think that if you say a word in a mirror five times, a person is gonna come and kill you? Nobody's gonna really believe that. So they call Candyman -- on a dare -- and in this movie, that appears to be a very, very big mistake.



The film is about a woman named Helen Lyle, played by Virginia Madsen. She's a graduate student and she and her friend, Bernadette, are writing a thesis on the whole Candyman legend. They want a REALLY GOOD thesis -- so good that these two brave women decide to visit the gang-ridden Cabrini-Green to go get pictures and interview residents. Something happens (I won't spoil much of this movie), and suddenly, Candyman's whole legend is in jeopardy. Did you see Freddy vs. Jason where Freddy Krueger was pissed because people were forgetting about him, and he couldn't have that? Same thing happens here. Something happens in this movie that jeopardizes Candyman's reputation. The idea that he's real. Helen Lyle is responsible, in a way, for this.



So what does Candyman do? When this movie finally gets going, and after Helen has called for him in her bathroom mirror.... he comes for her. And he comes for her big time. Like Dracula in the night, going after his woman. And he doesn't just kill Helen Lyle. He totally eviscerates every aspect of her life. She becomes a sacrifice... so that the legend of Candyman will live on. To the point that when people think of Helen Lyle, they'll think of Candyman. They'll think that Candyman... is still real. And not only that... but she herself will become her own urban legend, as well. Joining forces with the Candyman. And since she's a white woman played by Virginia Madsen, it's like an interracial Spike Lee love story on crack.



Kasi Lemmons plays her friend, and since she also played Clarice Starling's friend in The Silence of the Lambs, you might notice or feel some similarities between that movie and this one. But they are both two totally different films.

I don't really have much else to say about the movie. It is probably best that I don't spoil much in case you haven't seen it. I very much recommend seeing it. It is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. It is a very well made horror movie. The absolute best one, I'd say, based on the work of Clive Barker.