THE 3RD HALL OF INFAMY: Infamy Rises Again

Double Down

Well I actually didn't hate this and there's a lot of what the hell moments that make me feel like I have no clue what to make of Breens character. But he was interestingly quite an odd dick. And there were just things that made me laugh. Needing a refill on his over half full glass of water was probably my favorite. And in the credits saying there was no hair stylist cracked me up to no end. There's a minor outside chance that I would actually watch this again. I can't say that for the rest outside of maybe Robot Monster. And it actually was filmed pretty decently. So, in this case instance, this wasn't as big of a failure as it was intended to be here.

Again I know we have talked about it before, but I really dig the format of watching at near or around the same time. Keeps everything pretty well fresh in everybody's minds.

Double Down (2007) -

I feel I'd need to watch more from Breen to be confident on why I enjoyed this so much, but whatever Breen was going for here, I found it fascinating. Of course, the acting is atrocious, the narration is beyond overbearing, the nudity is awkward, the plot is nonsensical, etc. However, the further I got into the film, the more intrigued I was by whatever it was doing. Again, I'm sure people who've seen more from Breen will be able to explain his strengths better, but one thing I noticed was how the runtime felt nonexistent. Given how much introductory narration filled the first third and given how not much happened throughout that section, it felt like a prolonged first minute. When I checked how far in I was and saw it was over 25 minutes, I remember feeling a mix of emotions to that discovery. No movie I've seen moves like this. I also found Breen's character completely baffling. The narration portrays him as a genius who seems to have invented every single thing imaginable, has ties to all kinds of governments and higher-ups, and he might've cured cancer. On the other hand, he has a cliché tragic backstory, has frequent hallucinations and regularly wakes up on the road next to his car, he's a hacker who plans to take control of Las Vegas, and has a tuna addiction. Just...wow! How exactly am I supposed to even read this character? Breen clearly doesn't intend for this to be comedic and reveals all these details with a straight face, so am I supposed to like or dislike his character? I genuinely have no idea. The entire film just seems so inexplicable in its merits I have to be impressed. I had little interest in watching anything from Breen prior to watching this, but I'm now eager to check out some more of his filmography.

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Letterboxd

Gotta be the highest anyone's ever rated an infamy movie

I think Captain Terror has it as a 4 as well.

If you want to keep exploring Neil Breen, I recommend seeing Fateful Findings next, which is a loose remake of Double Down. I considered choosing that one, but I went with his first movie since he's a guy whose work you need to ease into. Need more motivation? It has even more blank laptops.

Somebody has to nominate Fateful Findings for the next Hall of Infamy - I refuse to do any future ones without a Neil Breen movie in them. Of course, whoever nominates is taking one for the team, because they're amazing.

Costa Rican Summer, meanwhile, is pure torture.

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I'll be getting to Costa Rican Summer in a couple days. You guys are making me dread watching it though.

Costa Rican Summer - or 1 clearance sale wig out of 5

Let's cut to the chase: this movie fails at nearly everything it sets out to do. It's labeled as a comedy, but it is never funny. The writer does not seem to know that euphemisms for "doing the deed" and dirty words are not funny in and of themselves and that context is key. As for its supposed comedy centerpiece, those fantasy sequences with Pamela Anderson, I'll just say that every time their cheesy musical theme kicked in, I checked out of the movie even more than I was already checked out. The plot description mentions that the movie is titillating, but that is not a word I would ever use. It's hard to think of something less sexy than a lack of self-respect, which describes the two Swedish cousins to a T. Every time their tops came off, I felt sorry for the actresses that this movie is why they had to do it and hoped they were paid well. Also, when you think of surfing, "exciting" comes to mind, right? There's no excitement to be had in the paltry amount of surfing found in this movie, which if I remember correctly is only in the supplemental footage. That's right: the big showdown the movie builds up to does not even feature any surfing! Have you ever been in a class or heard a speech where the speaker pauses intermittently and without warning? It's pretty soporific, isn't it? That is how I would describe the pacing. Speaking of classes, I was more engaged by the readings we did of Shakespeare plays in high school English than by this movie's performances. So, why did I say "nearly?" The romance between Kyle and Eva has its sweet moments, but it seems foolish to mention this because they're not enough to salvage the entire product.

I will concede that there is a value in the movie's lesson that it's just as important to improve physically and mentally in general as it is to improve in a particular discipline. However, due to all the above and a general impression that everyone involved in the movie's production gave the bare minimum of effort, it undercuts this lesson at every turn. Who knows, maybe director Jason Matthews is a decent, hard-working guy? Now that I've seen his sole credit, though, I imagine him to be that one film student who only tried hard enough to get a passing grade, knowing that his rich parents would only bankroll his movie if he got a degree. In short, I had my suspicions about this movie upon discovering that it is only available to watch on the dark web and it confirmed all of them. There is a popular game on the internet you have probably heard of called "you laugh, you lose." If someone were to play the antithesis of this game, "you react, you lose," all they would have to do is screen this movie and they would win every time.

Costa Rican Summer

Not even surprised that people are still making dumb surfer B-movies about babes and bikinis, but the Pamela Anderson fantasies were a new one. But when it comes to movies of this grade I've already got a million bad movies to compare this to, as well as the CGI movie Surf's Up (which was quite good). But despite its successfully dorky approach, I'm not really laughing very much. It's like every character is playing either a woman who's job it is to be foreign or a man who's competing with the others to become a modern day Pauly Shore. Although a big plus is that many moments seem more PG-13 rather than R, which is actually a big plus considering that such an underground movie like this could've gotten away with much dirtier humor. In fact, out of all the unfunny and lifeless jokes, very few of them were "disturbing." In fact, a couple things actually surprised me a little, so it's more like the entire movie is made of "so-so quality" rather than being "terrible." It's decently watchable all the way through, a little dumb but not terrible, has so-so acting and never makes you look away or wanna press pause. Of course, it does drag things on quite a bit, and character development seems so minor that they might as well have taken all their tropes from Nick cartoons, so I can't really say that this is a good film in anyway shape or form. Also, I think by that point, I'll forgive the cheesy ending. Shoulda seen it coming by that point.

Is this just going to be a bunch of scenes of objectifying women? That's my guess so far.

It looks like it's more than just that, but the other scenes are sucking so far as well.

That and getting criticized for it. You'll find out.

Eh, idk. The frequent nudity/fantasies/sexual scenes feel overtly exploitative so far and clearly intended as titillating. If this was intended as a critique of such, the execution is way off. Maybe the rest of the film will be different though.

I will concede it's getting less obnoxious now that it's focusing more on the pathetic natures of the characters, but I'd still say the execution is obnoxious enough that it doesn't feel like a sincere attempt at critiquing this behavior. Maybe if they had toned the over-the-top style of it down some more, I wouldn't have checked out of the movie as much.

Whenever a film is critiquing something like this, there's a thin line as to how much of that subject it can depict as the more it shows and the more emphasis it places on such, the more its points get diluted and the more it seems like depicting the "titillating" content is all it wants to do. While I've encountered worse cases over the years, this one still felt shallow.

Anyways, just finished it. One thing I did enjoy was how, though it wasn't equal opportunity nudity by any means, they at least sexualized the men in a few parts. I mean, we didn't get much, but it wasn't entirely boy's club fare.

Objectifying women? In a movie? Now THIS I've gotta see!

That's highly un-Takoma-like of you.

I mean, I've seen a lot of things in my day, but a movie objectifying the female body is something I've yet to run across. Color me intrigued!

Hi. My name is Peter Perry Jr. I make nudie cuties.