Author: Ga2so

  • Retro Movie Adventures: Hellzapoppin (1941)

    Chic Johnson and Ole Olsen mugging in a scene from Hellzapoppin. They are rendered in shades of red, orange and yellow. The background is unidentifiable blue and purple shapes.
    Martha Raye standing in front of a target, mouth wide open, surrounded by arrows.

    Great- now I’ve got a crush on 1941 Martha Raye. Thanks, Hellzapoppin.

    I love that they realized the stage show of Hellzapoppin would never work as a movie, so they didn’t even bother to try and make a direct translation of the show. It’s 84 minutes packed with topical (at the time) jokes, music, and special effects strung together by a plot that Olsen & Johnson are actively mocking.

    Hellzapoppin isn’t streaming anywhere, but there’s a really good restoration on YouTube.

    Today’s fake poster was inspired by the “poppin” part of “Hellzapoppin,” and features a secret link to They Might Be Giants.

    A poster for Hellzapoppin mimicking the poster for Mary Poppins.

  • Retro Movie Pass Adventures: Jaws (1975)

    Roy Scheider tosses his chum at a shark.
    Roy Scheider hangs onto the mast of a sinking boat and fights a shark.

    I think this Spielberg guy is a pretty good director.

    Today’s fake poster is based on Spielberg’s second-greatest film.

    A poster for Jaws mimicking the poster for Hook.
    Of course, the greatest is 1941.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Double Feature Streaming & Movie Pass Adventures: The Lego Movie (2014) and Final Destination Bloodlines

    A cropped version of the skull from the poster for Final Destination Bloodlines altered to look like Lego pieces.

    The Lego Movie

    part of the face of Vitruvius from The Lego Movie, eyes glowing, with other Lego figures partially visible behind him.

    I had never watched this, even though I’d heard tons of great reviews for it. But this was the last week of school and I needed something to entertain my students while I cleaned and finished grading, so I put this on. Even with sort-of knowing most of the story, it’s still pretty great.

    This fake poster is based on the real poster for the other movie I watched today.

    A poster for The Lego Movie mimicking the poster for Final Destination Bloodlines

    Final Destination Bloodlines

    Two women screaming in Final Destination Bloodlines.

    After work I had a little time to kill (ha!) before going to a retirement party, and Final Destination Bloodlines fit the extra time nicely. I’ve never watched any of this series, but I knew the basic concept. Does this movie make any sense? No. Did I laugh a lot? Oh, yeah. It does the same “violence so extreme and silly that it becomes a live action cartoon” thing as The Monkey.

    My first plan was to copy The Lego Movie’s poster for this movie’s fake poster, but that thing is really complex, so I did a quick Lego effect on the featured image instead. You probably won’t have any trouble figuring out the actual source poster.

    A poster for Final Destination Bloodlines mimicking the poster for Barbie.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Retro Movie Adventures: Cooley High (1975)

    Sherman Smith, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, and Glynn Turman freaking out while riding in a car in Cooley High.
    Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs and Glynn Turman as Cochise and Preach in Cooley High.

    Why wasn’t Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs ten times as active as an actor? I wouldn’t have minded if we got less Boom Boom Washington if it meant more big movie roles.

    It was good to see a pre-SNL Garrett Morris in a more serious role. Another guy who should have had a much larger career.

    Oh, and Robert Townsend is in this (uncredited) for about ten seconds!

    My first thought for today’s fake poster was a riff on Vanilla Ice’s “Cool As Ice,” but copying the title design would have meant writing it like this:

    COOL
    EY
    HIGH

    and that looked dumb. Then I thought about using a different high school movie like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but that seemed too similar. So I went with a movie that takes place in the same city, but in a different decade.

    A poster for Cooley High mimicking the poster for Chicago.
    Posters that use the “the name on the left is lower than the name on the right so everybody can claim they got top billing” thing crack me up.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Friendship

    The chests of Tim Robinson (wearing a puffy brown jacket and holding up awhite styrofoam cup with a red straw) and Paul Rudd ( wearing a blue and red jacket and holding up a large mushroom) in the movie Friendship.
    A large, charmingly smiling, blue-hued face of Paul Rudd looms behind a small, awkwardly smiling, red and yellow hued Tim Robinson (who is sitting, leaning forward, with his hands in his lap).

    If you’re looking for a movie where your date curls up against you to try and hide from the film, skip horror movies and see this! Then enjoy 100 minutes of cringing.

    Holy cow, this was painful to watch but irresistible- and much better than the last Paul Rudd A24 movie I saw.

    Today’s poster was easy to the point of plagiarism (“let’s copy the look of one poster with images from the real one”) but too perfect to deny.

    A poster for Friendship mimicking the poster for I Love You, Man.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: The Accountant 2

    Jon Bernthal and Ben Affleck in The Accountant 2
    Altered image of Ben Affleck in The Accountant 2. A profile picture, high contrast, in four colors (red, blue, green, and yellow). The background is dark purple screenprint-style dots on a lighter purple field.

    When I watched the original Accountant movie earlier this week I wasn’t surprised that Affleck’s character has Hollywood Magic Autism that makes him a super genius who sometimes does unexpected things. The sequel beats that by giving him a squad of kids who also have super-autism that they can use to control any device connected to the internet to help Affleck’s character solve a mystery- or murder people, if that’s the job.

    It’s not very good.

    Today’s poster would work better if I had better Ralph Steadman-style custom Photoshop brushes.

    A poster for The Accountant 2 mimicking the poster for Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas.
    Fediverse reactions

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Thunderbolts*

    Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine at an impeachment hearing in Thunderbolts*.
    Stylized image of The Thunderbolts* (Ghost, Taskmaster, US Agent, Bucky, Red Guardian, and White Widow) in red and yellow, with a blue background

    It turns out Marvel can still make fun movies with Captain America characters (as long as they aren’t actually Captain America). Let’s see if they can get two in a row with Fantastic Four.

    Today’s poster was an excuse to try out a Photoshop trick I saw in a Youtube tutorial.

    A poster for Thunderbolts* mimicking the poster for The Exorcist.

    Fediverse reactions

  • Streaming Movie Adventures: The Accountant (2016)

    Ben Affleck as The Accountant, writing on a window like all geniuses do.
    Ben Affleck in The Accountant thinking "Remember: autism makes you stand like a robot"

    “Hey, y’know how Matt Damon’s first big role was as a math genius, and then he did a bunch of action spy movies? What if we had a movie where the lead guy was both, and also a secret philanthropist?”

    “How would we make that believable?”

    “Easy- let’s make him autistic!”

    “Does autism give people super math/killing/philanthropy powers?”

    “No idea!”

    “Good enough for me!”

    “Should we also include a nonsense plot?”

    “I think that’s practically a requirement.”

    “If people like it, we can do a sequel in ten years.”

    “But after all that time people will forget the first movie!”

    “You’re right. Let’s do it in nine.”

    Today’s poster is so, so, so dumb. But so is the movie, so that works out.

    A poster for The Accountant mimicking the poster for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I had to stop myself from adding "Into the Accountant-Verse."

    Fediverse reactions

  • Retro Movie Adventures: Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)

    Michelle Pfeiffer looking shocked as she realizes she's in Amazon Women on the Moon.
    Alpha Beta (yeah, that's the moon girl's name) and Butch in Amazon Women on the Moon.

    1987 was a huge year for movies. Full Metal Jacket, The Princess Bride, The Untouchables, Predator, Lethal Weapon, Robocop, Three Men and a Baby, Good Morning Vietnam, and The Last Emperor all came out that year. So many great films came out that a lot of smaller films got buried- films like Hollywood Shuffle, Swimming to Cambodia, and River’s Edge.

    There also was this turd. It’s like someone said “Let’s make a new Kentucky Fried Movie, but lose a lot of the racism and sexism (but we’ll still keep a healthy serving of both). But let’s make sure we stick to the real spirit of Kentucky Fried Movie by avoiding humor as much as possible.”

    Here’s the best sketch from the movie. You can skip the rest.

    Kind of an obvious parody poster today.

    A poster for Amazon Women on the Moon mimicking the poster for Moon.
    I should rewatch Moon, and pretend I don’t recognize the robot’s voice.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Cheech & Chong’s Last Movie

    Cheech & Chong smiling and looking at the camera.
    Early Cheech & Chong, shirtless and making bodybuilder poses & silly faces.

    The story of how a Chinese Canadian soul musician and a Mexican American with a love of pot(tery) became comedy superstars. Very watchable. A little too forced at times, but that’s about right for these guys.

    I went with a different last movie for the parody poster.

    A poster for Cheech and Chong's Last Movie mimicking the poster for The Last Picture Show.
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