Apparently, my wonderful wonderful wonderful wife broke the last thread. There were all these posts applauding her and then BLAM! The thread is DEAD!

I'd better be a lot nicer to her. Honey, if you're reading this, I love you very much and am going to spend way more than I should on our upcoming anniversary. You deserve it!

The first stop in my RodeoSchro Wife Appreciation Tour was taking her and my Favorite Mother-In-Law to see a movie that I knew would be: (1) awesome; and (2) here and gone in a week.

That movie is "Brennan's War".

I was right on #1. I hope I'm wrong on #2. But as some will tell you, I know way more about #2 than anything; in fact, some even think I'm full of #2.



Well, "Brennan's War" is just a great, great movie - IF you like motocross, or the Army, or watching the good guy win.

It's the story of Marshall Brennan (not a real person), who was a champion amateur motocross racer but joined the Army when he found out that he could ride cool electric motorcycles across the Afghanistan countryside, taking out snipers and other baddies.

Which he does, until he accidentally rides over a booby-trap while saving the life of his buddy. They get blown off Brennan's bike, and Brennan wakes up in the hospital. His buddy Riley is still in surgery - Riley's survival is iffy at best.

But Brennan has a seriously messed-up foot anc ankle. No amputation is needed, but the doctor is recommending a medical discharge from the Army, as well as recommending that Brennan never ride a motorcycle again, as the next injury could mean permanent disability, a wheelchair, or worse.

Kind of like Rocky's eye after the first Rocky-Apollo Creed fight. But like Rocky, Brennan ultimately wins the championship.

And c'mon - there is NO WAY I could have spoiled that. Trust me, you will absolutely know what's going to happen in every scene. Except maybe one. But what happens in every scene is what you WANT to happen in every scene. And you will love it!

I urge you to see "Brennan's War" this week. I highly doubt it will be in theaters more than a week but it really is a great movie. If "Blinded By The Light" isn't the feel-good movie of the summer, then "Brennan's War" is.

Oh wait - I forgot to brag about how I was a motocross racer in my youth. Hold that movie rating!

I raced motocross until my dad said I was old enough to start paying for it. Then I switched to basketball, since the costs of a basketball were far less than the cost of a Honda Elsinore 125 and the attendant gear. Also, I was a lot better at basketball than I was at motocross. But I could do an awesome cross-up!

Motocross racers gave up doing cross-ups about the time Supercross was invented, but a cross-up is still the coolest thing you can do on a motorcycle (except for a double back flip). A cross-up is when you hit a jump and in the air, you turn your front wheel one way while leaning the bike the other way. It's much more beautiful that the move guys make now, which is to whip the rear of the bike to the side and then bring it back. To prove that I'm right, here's a cross-up:





ISN'T THAT BEAUTIFUL?!?

It sure is!

Brennan doesn't do any cross-ups; he uses the whip move described above. But I'm not going to fault the film maker for that. It is what it is.

OK, back to the rating:

"Brennan's War" gets 4 1/2 cross-ups out of 5 cross-ups. See it! And hurry!

(I love you, honey!)

The Farewell (2019)

Funny, relatable and poignant family film. Akwafina carries the movie well and the ensemble cast is wonderful. Gets a little too ponderous towards the end but still one of the better films I've seen this year.

.25

Watched it last night with zero expectations and liked it. I probably would´ve felt a bit disappointed if I had watched it in a cinema but it´s pretty decent. I liked how the people behind the Cloverfield series somehow manage to connect three completely different movies or stories into one series.

This part is more of a psychodrama than a sci-fi flic . I wish the sci-fi portions were longer but that probably would´ve made the movie too long and complicated. John Goodman is really good in this one.

Some questions were left unanswered though. Or maybe I was just too tired while watching it.

Good movie.

3.5 stars .

Three movies in the last three days. 5 star rating.

Aladdin (2019): * * * * (watching it as its own movie without comparisons wasn't hard, and it worked; some characters had more backstory, quite a few Easter eggs in, plus the Carpet doing the Carlton dance at the end HA)

Night School: * * 1/2 (super disappointed this wasn't more fleshed out as a comedy, especially with funny people like Hart & Haddish in it)

Shazam!: * * * * (being a fan of the TV series long, long ago, this was a fun take on it; other movies like this tried to do it as comedy and they were a bust, think Bewitched and Land of the Lost).

The Heretic. A doc about the pastor Rob Bell, who went from being a fundamentalist to a top liberal pastor. Great man who tears the bible up but still loves it. I don't like his friendship with Oprah, but I do like how he pissed off the right. Jesus and Karl Marx are one.

Robin Hood (2018) I really wanted to like this movie because of the cast.......however, it felt was like a another Guy Rtichie knock-off. Too much ham and not enough cheese. I give it a 1 out of 5

TrivialPursuit said:

Three movies in the last three days. 5 star rating.

Aladdin (2019): * * * * (watching it as its own movie without comparisons wasn't hard, and it worked; some characters had more backstory, quite a few Easter eggs in, plus the Carpet doing the Carlton dance at the end HA)

Night School: * * 1/2 (super disappointed this wasn't more fleshed out as a comedy, especially with funny people like Hart & Haddish in it)

Shazam!: * * * * (being a fan of the TV series long, long ago, this was a fun take on it; other movies like this tried to do it as comedy and they were a bust, think Bewitched and Land of the Lost).

We watched Rocketman last night. Very fun movie. The musical recreations were really well done. Plus seeing Taron having naked gay sexual relations with Richard Madden (aka Rob Stark) was giving me all sorts of gay feels. * * * * 1/2

I forgot to mention he also watched Ready Player One over the (U.S.) holiday weekend. I knew nothing about it or what to expect. It was just fantastic. Being a Gen X, the music and retro references were excellent. You'd have to watch that movie 100x to find all the pop culture references. One of my favorites was the symbol from Greatest American Hero on his headset in the latter sequence. The Atari game was great. The CGI was amazing. When I saw that last year, it sorta put me off, but I decided to watch it anyway. I felt like it pushed the technology envelope forward with what was possible with computers in movies. * * * * *

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003)

Informative doc on the rise and fall of the auteur directors in film and how they changed Hollywood forever. It contains a lot of great interviews of many of those directors, as well as actors, writers and other figures of the time. Essential watch for cinephiles.

.5

TrivialPursuit said:

Inspired by onlyforaminute's viewing of "Saving Mr. Banks", I too decided to watch a "Banks" movie. However, I went for Elizabeth Banks and watched "Brightburn". Didn't see that coming, did you!

Now, I couldn't very well tell Mrs. RodeoSchro and my Favorite Mother-In-Law that we were going to watch a movie because it had a hottie like Elizabeth Banks in it, could I? No, I could not! So I went to Plan B and reminded them that while we did not know the star of the movie, Jackson A. Dunn, we (or I) do know Jackson A. Dunn's father, Dennis. He's one of my brother's best friends, so by the Transitive Power of Star Acquaintance, I hereby declare that we know Jackson A. Dunn.

I just read that again. Wow, is that weak. Almost as weak as the plot of "Brightburn" but not quite.

Don't get me wrong - this isn't a bad movie. It's scary; it's got aliens; it's got some really extravagant gore; and it's entertaining. Just don't think about the plot while you're watching it.

I know what my mistake was. I watched "Brightburn" completely sober, thereby rendering all my cognitive powers at their sharpest. Bad mistake; one I hope not to repeat with the next movie. But since I made this mistake with the movie that I am currently reviewing, I feel compelled to set my analytical powers loose and tell you all the plot holes in "Brightburn".

And there are plenty.

Let's start from the start.

Elizabeth Banks and Roy from "The Office" are a married couple living on a Kansas farm. A spaceship crashes in their field and inside is a little baby boy.

However, this space baby's name is not Kal-El.

PLOT HOLE #1 - Banks and Roy from "The Office" raise the boy, telling everyone that "the agency" let them adopt him. Which is bogus and if it's bogus, then how could the boy get things like a Social Security number, which you have to have to get into a public school?

Ten years later, and little space boy Brandon is in school. He's smart so he's naturally made fun of by some other students. But a real pretty girl tells him it's OK, because the smart guys usually get the best girls. Schwing!

Schwings are usually good things but this particular schwing enables Brandon's superpowers.

PLOT HOLE #2 - I think I'm the only one that recognized that it was the schwinging that unleashed not only Brandon's superpowers, but also the alien spaceship waking up and communicating telepathically to Brandon that he needs to kill everyone and destroy the Earth. I can't believe some anti-schwing organization hasn't picked up on this.

Brandon's schwinging also causes some hormones to be released and he appears to become disobedient to Roy from "The Office". Then the whole family goes to the only diner in Brightburn, Kansas for Brandon's birthday party. They meet Brandon's aunt and uncle. I thought the uncle was Mose from "The Office" but it was actually Zeke from "The Office".

PLOT HOLE #3 - Skipping ahead a little here. At one point Brandon kills Mose/Zeke from "The Office" (Even though this actor didn't play Mose in "The Office", I'm referring to him as Mose as well as Zeke from "The Office" because I like the Mose character a lot). When Roy from "The Office" figures out that Brandon had killed Mose/Zeke from "The Office", he says, "He was my friend!" But that's wrong - Mose/Zeke from "The Office" was either Roy from "The Office"'s brother or brother-in-law. He would have referred to Mose/Zeke from "The Office" as one or the other; not as "my friend".

Back to life, back to reality.

Mose/Zeke from "The Office" gives Brandon a rifle for a birthday present but Roy from "The Office" takes it away, saying he'd told Mose/Zeke from "The Office" not to give him a rifle just yet, as he's too young. The NRA disagrees but screw them.

That night, Elizabeth Banks catches Brandon "sleepwalking" in the barn. He's trying to get into the locked trapdoor where they keep the spaceship that Brandon arrived in. She wakes him up but notices the chickens are scared of Brandon. The next day, the door to the chicken coop is found to have been ripped off its hinges and all the chickens were massacred. Elizabeth Banks thinks a wolf did it, but Roy from "The Office" thinks it was Brandon.

In order to get Brandon straight, the whole family goes hunting/camping. Roy from "The Office" takes Brandon out to watch him (Roy from "The Office") shoot stuff and, figuring that hormones are the cause of Brandon's behavior, Roy from "The Office" has The Talk with Brandon.

PLOT HOLE #4 - Not a Plot Hole as much as a Check This Out story. The Talk that Roy from "The Office" has with Brandon is incredibly stupid. But probably not as stupid as The Talk I had with my son. I went through the birds and the bees and then asked my son if he had any questions. He said, "Let's never talk of this again". To this day I don't know if I did a good job or not.

But Roy from "The Office" does a horrible job. After totally confusing Brandon, he finally says, "You have urges and sometimes it's OK to act on those urges". Brandon says, "It is?" Roy from "The Office" replies, "Yes, it is".

So naturally that night, Brandon uses his superspeed and shows up in the bedroom of that girl who was nice to him at school. And just as naturally, this freaks the girl out and she orders him to leave. Bad move, but it gets worse.

The next day at school, Brandon's class has a trust-fall exercise and it turns out Brandon shouldn't have trusted that girl. She sure doesn't trust him; in fact, she lets him fall to the ground and calls him a pervert. The coach makes her apologize and help Brandon up, but he repays that kindness by using his superstrength to totally crush her hand.

The girl's mom is understandably upset and wants Brandon arrested, but the school says he needs to undergo counseling. Of course, since they all live in some podunk town, the counselor is Brandon's aunt. Brandon can hardly wait for that.

That night Brandon sleepwalks again, this time hovering over the open trapdoor (he used his superstrength to break the lock). Elizabeth Banks wakes him up mid-hover, causing him to fall through the trapdoor and fall on the spaceship, cutting his hand in the process. This is the first time Brandon has ever bled or actually been hurt in any way, and he's freaked out by the blood on his hand.

But not as freaked out as discovering that he's an alien who came here from parts unknown in a spaceship. And since Elizabeth Banks and Roy from "The Office" have always told him that he was adopted from "the agency", Brandon gets really mad and calls everyone a liar.

PLOT HOLE #5 - It's at this point that a reasonable set of parents would have calmed Brandon down and done their very best to explain where he came from. Brandon would certainly listen, as his parents are the only people who might have any clue as to his origins. But everyone just gets mad, Brandon translates the alien murmurs he's been hearing as a message to "Take the world", and the killing begins.

First, Brandon superspeeds himself to that pretty girl's bedroom again, bringing her flowers as his way of apologizing. But the girl says that her mother has forbidden her from ever seeing Brandon again. Brandon says, "I'll handle that" which he does by going to the diner where the mom works, toying with her a little, and then killing her and taking her body to parts unknown.

The next day Brandon has his first counseling session with his aunt, who...

PLOT HOLE #6 - ...is a terrible counselor. I mean, really bad. At this point all anyone knows is that Brandon "accidentally" squeezed a girl's hand way too hard but they treat Brandon like he's a criminal. That he is a criminal is beside the point because only you and I know it at this particular time. I guess because of the pretty girl's mother's squaking about arresting Brandon, his aunt says she has to report on his progress or lack thereof to the sheriff. Which is ridiculous. Not only does his aunt fail to ask any real questions of Brandon, she says she has to do something that no counselor would ever have to do. Trust me - I was sent to the principal's office five-count-'em-five times in the third grade and no one ever ratted me out to the fuzz.

Brandon tells his aunt not to report anything to the sheriff but she says that's her job. This understandably upsets Brandon so he superspeeds to her house that night whilst her husband Mose/Zeke from "The Office" is at the bar, playing pool with Roy from "The Office" and the rest of the Brightburn Irregulars.

His aunt is scared but not scared enough to freak out, so she tells Brandon to go home and then she goes to bed. But he doesn't go home, instead superspeeding about the house, planning to do something. However, before Brandon can do whatever he's going to do to his aunt, Mose/Zeke from "The Office" comes home and finds Brandon wearing his scary mask and hiding in the closet.

PLOT HOLE #7 - Brandon has about 538 superpowers and I'm sure he could evaded sight/capture if he wanted to. Why didn't he want to?

For some reason he waits until Mose/Zeke from "The Office" has found him before superspeeding around and levitating about the house. This freaks out Mose/Zeke from "The Office" so he does the logical thing and hauls butt in his truck, leaving his sleeping wife alone and behind.

Mose/Zeke from "The Office" doesn't get very far before Brandon makes his truck die. Then Brandon levitates the truck, drops it, and makes Mose/Zeke from "The Office" die, although not right away. The lower half of Mose/Zeke from "The Office"'s face has been torn away, but he's still alive and...

PLOT HOLE #8 - ...although we are never told how anyone found Mose/Zeke from "The Office", he ends up in the hospital. Which leads us to...

PLOT HOLE #9 - When Mose/Zeke from "The Office" gets home from the bar, the first thing he does is kiss his sleeping wife. She gives a contented smile, meaning that she knows he made it home. But Mose/Zeke from "The Office" dies at the hospital and since no one knew he died because Brandon levitated and dropped his truck, they all think he died driving home from the bar in an intoxicated manner. For this, everyone blames Roy from "The Office" for letting him drive, but Mose/Zeke from "The Office"'s wife knew that Mose/Zeke from "The Office" actually did make it home. No one asks, "If Mose/Zeke from "The Office" actually did make it home, then (a) that means Roy from "The Office" isn't at fault for letting a drunk guy drive; and more importantly (b) why did Mose/Zeke from "The Office" leave his house?

Roy from "The Office" tells Brandon that his Uncle Mose/Zeke from "The Office" has died and Brandon is all like "meh". This proves to Roy from "The Office" that Brandon killed Mose/Zeke from "The Office". So he does the only logical thing and says, "Hey Brandon, old buddy old pal. Let's go hunting!"

PLOT HOLE #10 - Brandon had pushed Roy from "The Office" across the house with his superstrength after Roy from "The Office" had all but accused Brandon of killing Mose/Zeke from "The Office". And then they're going to go hunting? And not even with the rifle that Mose/Zeke from "The Office" had given Brandon, which is the only possible way Brandon would fall for that banana in that tail pipe? Yeah, right.

Brandon in fact does fall for that banana in that tail pipe. So much so that Roy from "The Office" gets Brandon out in the woods and while Brandon is examining some deer tracks, Roy from "The Office" puts a round in Brandon's head. One problem - the bullet was not made from spaceship metal and thus harmlessly bounces off Brandon's head. Irritated, Brandon turns around to see his dad reloading. Figuring that this is the worst Father-Son Bonding Trip ever, Brandon melts Roy from "The Office"'s face with his heat vision.

PLOT HOLE #11 - This movie is really nothing more than "What if Superman landed on Earth but was a real butthole instead of the guy who stands for Truth, Justice and the American Way?"

PLOT HOLE #12 - Different movie entirely, but there is no way Batman could ever kick Superman's butt. No way EVER.

Brandon calls his mom from Roy from "The Office"'s phone but tells his mom that Roy from "The Office" is dead. And he's coming home to see her.

She dials 911, bringing the sheriff and a deputy. Neither survive very long. Elizabeth Banks hides but then figures, "Hey - he's my son. I've already told him I'll love him no matter what. This should give me ample opportunity to kill him". She breaks off a jagged piece of alien spaceship material.

PLOT HOLE #13 - No, there is no way that an alien metal would be impervious to all things space and atmosphere, yet be breakable enough for Elizabeth Banks to snap a piece of it off the nosecone. But she does.

Elizabeth Banks confronts Brandon in the barn, tells him she loves him, and embraces him. The jagged piece of alien metal is in her back pocket.

PLOT HOLE #14 - Picture this: You have a piece of jagged alien space metal in your back pocket. You're hugging a kid with both hands. You remove one hand from the hug, revealing that you have the jagged alien space metal piece in that hand. How did it get there? We'll never know.

What we do know is that just before she stabs Brandon with the magically-appearing piece of alien space metal, he grabs her wrist. The jig's up!

He levitates her right through the roof of the barn. This should have flattened Elizabeth Banks' head and killed her, but at least the director did show that her face got all bloody.

Brandon and Elizabeth Banks fly up to about 31,000 feet whereupon Brandon lets her go. Literally. Or as some might say, LIT-rully. She falls to her death, although if what I read once in Ripley's Believe It or Not! is true, she died from a heart attack way before impact. Or if what I learned in flight school is correct, she actually froze to death before she was dropped. Count those as plot holes if you want.

Having dispatched his mother and still hovering at 31,000 feet, Brandon notices a passenger heading right for him. Perfect! Apaprently the jet hits the Boy of Steel, as the next thing we see is a news report that a passenger jet has crashed directly above the farm of Roy from "The Office" and Elizabeth Banks, and that there are no survivors and that includes Roy from "The Office" and Elizabeth Banks.

PLOT HOLE #15 - No one ever asks, "What happened to their son Brandon?"

The movie ends with news reports of various demolitions by some unknown creature (it's Brandon), while an idiotic Alex Jones-type says that the Lizard People are finally here.

You might think from this long-winded review - and from a world-record number of "The Office" references - that I didn't like "Brightburn". Wrong! Like I said, if you don't think about it at all, "Brightburn" is both scary and pretty entertaining. So here is the only rating one can give to a movie like this:

"Brightburn" gets 2, 3, 4 or Whatever It Takes glasses of your favorite adult beverage out of a possible What Is Your Limit When It Comes To Adult Beverages? Tip a glass or six and enjoy!

In the last few days since my last post:

Otherhood (Netflix): * Great actresses in terribly cast roles. Patricia Arquette as some doting and guilt-tripping Jewish mother, Felicity Huffman has a fragile "my son is gay and didn't tell me" type. Angela Bassett's role was the only one halfway believable, but the whole thing wasn't fleshed out well at all. It jumped around a lot.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: * * Slow movie, never really had steam for anything in it. Lot going on, yet not a lot happening in between.

Ma: * * I'm disappointed in this. It was a very slow build up, and the latter 1/3 is rushed. Once you realized why she's bonkers, it's never played out as sinisterly (is that a word?) as it could have. It was a long slow burn, then a quick rip of the band aid. But there's fake Luke Evans peen which is worth at least one star alone.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1954): Being a Wilde fan, I've never read this book for whatever reason. I knew nothing about it. The movie was really well done. I enjoyed it. I put the book on my Nook.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:

This is a friendly reminder from me, RodeoSchro, your favorite movie reviewer, that there is no such thing as a "dark comedy".

So guess what kind of movie I'm about to review?

In my defense, I didn't know "Pain & Gain" was a dark comedy when I overpaid $3.47 for it at Walmart yesterday. I thought it was an actual comedy about bodybuilders who go bad.

Wrongo bongo!

I should have tossed the video back in the bargain bin when I saw the name "Michael Bay" on it. For a dude that's done a whole lot of popular movies, he hasn't directed any that I liked. The first Transformers was Ok but mainly because it had a 1973 yellow Camaro in it, and I used to drive a 1974 yellow Camaro in highschool. Also, Megan Fox was in it. But I digress.

As stated in the PSA above, there simply is no such thing as a dark comedy. I defy anyone to list a movie that is dark but also has funny lines in it. Don't waste your time. There aren't any. None. Empty set. Every person that's tried to make a dark comedy has failed.

Including Michael Bay.

"Pain & Gain" seemed to have all the ingredients necessary for a good movie. It had The Rock. It had Mark Wahlberg (don't hate, I like Marky Mark). It had bodybuilding. It had a caper based on a true story. What went wrong?

Pretty much everything.

Marky Mark plays an over-the-top musclehead that's freshly out of prison for financial fraud. But he's motivated and seems to have committed himself to hard work, both in the gym and in life its own self.

A smooth talker, he gets a job at an upscale gym and promises to triple its membership in three months, or weeks, or three somethings. Whatever - he does! In a stroke of brilliant marketing, he gives free memberships to strippers. It appears there are a lot of strippers in Miami and soon they're all working out at Marky Mark's gym, which of course brings in the paying customers. Just like in real life! So I'm told.

He gets a promotion and you would think, more money. But the next scene shows him buried under default notices from all his creditors. This does not make sense but Marky Mark does what any motivated fitness fanatic would do - he goes to a real estate investment seminar.

The seminar is put on by Jonny Wu, who is a take-off on legendary infomercial maniac Tom Vu. "You friends are losers!" is a line that got blown out of proportion. In real life Vu used it to describe people who were telling him that he'd never amount to anything.

Well, Ken Jeong is onstage telling everyone that their friends are losers and he's speaking directly to Marky Mark. "Your friends are losers! What are you - a 'doer' or a 'don'ter'?"

Marky Mark is a doer! Which means that what he's going to do is kidnap a rich guy and make the rich guy sign over all his assets to Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch. All he needs now is a Funky Bunch, and then a rich guy.

He recruits The Rock (in a rare disappointing role) and some trainer from his old gym who's destroyed his testicles with the only steroids in the world that apparently destroy your testicles but DON'T add any muscle to you. This guy is NOT ripped, NOT jacked, NOT swole, NOT anything. Bro, do you even lift?

They decide to rip off a guy named Victor. This is a GIANT stretch from what these guys had been doing. Bay takes great pains to show that Marky Mark is a highly-motivated, gone-straight guy. I guess he wanted us to like Marky Mark but when Marky Mark goes off the deep end, there really isn't any logical reason given for that.

But who cares - it's a dark comedy!

They got the "dark" part down. The "comedy"? Not so much. Like I said, it's just impossible to be funny while also being dark.

Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch kidnap Victor, who is blindfolded but immediately figures out that it's Marky Mark. They torture him for a month, during which Victor ultimately signs over his assets and whatnot. So what's next?

Eh - gotta kill Victor. The Rock is a born-again Christian but somehow is convinced that killing Victor does not violate any of the Ten Commandments, so Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch:

1. Pour a gallon of booze down Victor's throat
2. Strap him into his car, mash on the accelerator, and run him into a concrete pole
3. But The Rock had helpfully seatbelted Victor in, so Victor survives. Whereupon,
4. Marky Mark douses the car with gasoline, sets it on fire, and watches it blow up
5. But the front seat doesn't blow up, and Victor gets out of the car
6. So they use their van to run over Victor
7. Twice

That should do it!

It doesn't.

But Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch don't know that, so they drive away and set about spending all the money they stole from Victor. Marky Mark takes over Victor's house and boat; the non-working testicle dude marries Rebel Wilson, who works at Testicle Regeneration Facility; and The Rock goes back to snorting cocaine and dating strippers.

Not surprisingly, about a month later Marky Mark is the only guy with any money left over. But he wants to help out the Funky Bunch, so they plan another operation.

While all this is happening, Victor somehow makes it to a hospital. The cops come, but - and this is true, it happened this way in real life - because Victor is a scummy, rude a-hole, they don't believe a word of his story. They figure it's a drug deal/sex toys operation gone bad, so they dismiss Victor's pleas to arrest Marky Mark.

I forget how Victor finds Ed Harris, but he does and it takes Ed Harris awhile to believe Victor too but he eventually does and starts working on the case.

Let's talk about Ed Harris for a minute. What an underrated actor! And by "underrated" I mean "I haven't seen enough of his films". I've seen "The Right STuff" and "Run All Night". He was tremendous in both films. But incredibly, on Harris's wikipedia page, the summary of what he did each year does not include "Run All Night" in 2015! Who do I sue?!?

Harris is going to be in "Top Gun: Maverick" so if you didn't already believe it's the odds-on winner for Best Picture of 2020, you do now.

The other thing I like about Ed Harris is that he aged. He didn't go in for face lifts, or Botox, or waxing, or whatever dudes try to do stave off the natural aging process (leave hair paint out of this. I've already told you it's like crack.).

While Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch are carrying out their next operation, Harris is closing in. But not fast enough to prevent the killings of the man and wife targeted by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch for swindling. But sadly, even though Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch killed the man and his wife, they didn't get any assets signed over to them. Not only that, but they didn't even get the right combination to the dead dude's safe. Other than stealing his purple Lamborghini, it's a total loss.

It turns out their whole lives are total losses, because Ed Harris has finally convinced the cops of the guilt of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, so the cops arrest everyone - or try to. But Marky Mark escapes, hops in Victor's boat, and zips over to the Bahamas in order to clean out Victor's off-shore haven. And he does! However, the cops show up and this time they nab him.

At the trial, The Rock reverts back to Christianity and turns states' evidence on the rest of the Funky Bunch. That really happened, and he gets only 15 years. The real guy - or actually, guys - on whom The Rock's character is based are now free and moving about in society. Don't you feel safe?

Rebel Wilson divorces the deformed testicle guy so she can testify against him and also make fun of his willy. I doubt that really happened; at least, I doubt the willy-shaming part. In both the movie and in real life, deformed testical guy got the death penalty.

Marky Mark also got the death penalty. Plus an extra 30 days for "being an a#$hole to a prison guard". Ha ha, I guess. Oh - and that really happened. Both the death penalty part, and the 30 days for being an a#$hole part. Both Marky Mark and the deformed testicle guy are still alive and in prison, appealing their death penalty sentences.

"Pain & Gain" could have been a good movie if Bay had made the bad guys truly bad, and Victor truly good. For what it's worth, the real Victor says he IS a good guy - despite being arrested for Medicare fraud literally the minute the trial of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch ended.

But there are no good guys here (except for Ed Harris but his part is too small to count) and there sure aren't any funny guys either. So what you ultimately have is two hours of looking at Marky Mark and The Rock in tank tops and t-shirts. Some may rate that as a perfect movie, plot be damned. However, as an accredited Movie Reviewer, I can't do that.

Rating "Pain & Gain" as an accredited Movie Reviewer, I have to give it 1.5 Phony Movie Reviewer Accreditations out of a possible 5 Phony Movie Reviewer Accreditations. Watch "Pumping Iron" instead!

TrivialPursuit said:

[Edited 9/13/19 19:14pm]

[Edited 9/16/19 21:27pm]

I just watched my 1,850th movie. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. It was what it was. But hearing Cher sing "Fernando" was worth the watch.

The Hippopotamus 4 out of 5. It was an interesting story but really did serve as a vehicle for Stephen Fry's atheism.

Yesterday I got up early and, after watching a little College Gameday, clicked up to a Western Movies channel because I saw it was playing "Bar 20 Rides Again". To quote Johnny Nelson, "Yippee!!!"

Although this is a movie review, since it's written by me, it needs some background. Background on me, of course.

In between watching 80's comedies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, I read a lot. I mean a lot. A book a week, usually. I like fiction and I get on author jags. If I find an author I like, I read everything they've ever written before moving on to another author. The first author I jagged was Louis L'Amour.

He's written about 104 books, and I've read them all. Most of them twice. Including the 4 Hopalong Cassidy novels he wrote, which are great. But Louis L'Amour didn't invent Hoppy - an author named Clarence Mulford did.

So when I was at an antique store in Colorado and saw some original Mulford Hopalong Cassidy books, I pounced! And they were worth the pouncing! The writing style is so cool, and the characters just come alive.

Hopalong Cassidy works at the Bar 20 Ranch as the foreman. In the Mulford novels, he was a real pistol - definitely NOT a man of manners. But onscreen, they cleaned him up a lot. The action, however, remains the same.

The Bar 20 is full of awesome characters - Red Connors, Hoppy's best friend; Johnny Nelson, the young buck with a quick temper; and various other red-blooded American cowboys. Basically they punch cattle and have adventures, almost all of which involve taking care of cattle rustlers.

And that's the plot of "Bar 20 Rides Again".

Hoppy gets a letter from his old friend Jim Arnold saying that Arnold is being beset upon by rustlers, and would he and Red come help? Of course they would! Hoppy and the Bar 20 guys love shooting up rustlers. But one thing - Arnold says not to bring Johnny Nelson because his daughter Margaret - who Johnny is in love with - has fallen in love with some Eastern dandy.

Naturally, when Johnny is told not to go, he goes anyway.

It turns out the Eastern dandy is also the head rustler, operating under the name of "Nevada". His gang is ultimately disposed of, he loses Margaret's love, and then one of his own guys shoots him dead.

HOWEVER - the amazing thing about this is that the Eastern dandy snorts cocaine several times during the movie!

He has this little container that he holds to his nose and sniffs. It's gotta be cocaine. I guess cocaine wasn't illegal in 1935? I don't know, but snorting definitely occured and no one really cared. (NOTE: It turns out cocaine was outlawed by the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. So what WAS the Eastern dandy snorting up his nose?!?)

So to sum it all up: Never go up against Hoppy and the Bar 20 gang. And drugs will get you killed.

"Bar 20 Rides Again" is one of the 66 Hopalong Cassidy movies that were made, but it's the only one I've seen, and it follows one of the Mulford books I've read, so it's the best Hopalong Cassidy movie I've ever seen or probably ever will see.

I'm giving "Bar 20 Rides Again" 4 Johnny Nelson "Yippee!!!!!"s out of a possible 5 Johnny Nelson "Yippee!!!!!"s. Oh - and Johnny ended up with the girl. Yippee!



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[Edited 9/15/19 10:05am]

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - what a bummer. The bouncing back n' forth between the present & the past was very confusing at first. Then it's all this hubbub which leads to nothing basically. I'm barely giving it one star, and that's only because Cher was in the last 20-ish minutes of the movie and sang "Fernando", which was divine.

Paint Your Wagon (1969) This is my all-time fav film of Clint Eastwood because he gets to sing 3 songs and shows a ligher side of his screen persona. The cinematography and set locations were amazing and I loved the catchy soundtrack (Gold Fever, I Talk to the Trees, They Call the Wind Mariah are a standout). Plus the cast is great, especially Lee Marvin as the gruff the Ben Rumson, and his version of Wandering Sky is truly unforgetable I give this rip roaring western musical a 4.5 out of 5

[Edited 9/16/19 21:56pm]

I Drink Your Blood. Garbage.

I just returned from watching "Rambo: Last Blood". Or as it should have been called, "Rambo: Home Alone for Idiots".

Man, what a HORRIBLE movie. And you know how much it pains me to say that.

There are NO redeeming qualities to this movie. None. Hey - remember when my wife took over my account and was funnier than me? Yeah, I do too. But one thing she commented on was me talking to the "Rambo" preview, when Rambo said, "I'm gonna hurt you real bad".

Oh HECK yes! Except.......in the actual movie he says that to a woman. Who did deserve to be hurt real bad. And who was NOT hurt real bad. She wasn't hurt at all, and yet she was directly responsible for the death of Rambo's niece.

WHAT KIND OF TOPSY-TURVY WORLD ARE WE NOW LIVING IN?!?

Let's start at the start.

Rambo lives in a ranch in Arizona where, presumably, he grew up. Or something like that. Apparently he's a horse whisperer and has a niece who rides the horses he whispers to.

But...niece? How? Is she the daughter of his brother? Or his sister? Or some wife we don't know about? Or...why does he say later in the movie that she's his daughter?!? From who? The girl that died in "First Blood 2 - Rambo"?!? Impossible. And there were no other women. Plus, this girl is part Hispanic. Last I checked, no Rambo movies were set south of the border. What gives?!?

(It's just now occurring to me that maybe y'all like to read my reviews of movies that severly disappointed every Y chromosome in my body, so I'll really try to play up that angle.)

Unbelievably, some chick that Rambo's niece hasn't seen in forever finds out where the niece's father is. Mexico, of course. This chick is also the chick that Rambo says he's gonna hurt real bad but never does - again, even though this chick is directly responsible for the death of Rambo's niece.

Rambo tells his niece that under no circumstances can she go visit her father. He's a bad, bad, BAD guy with a heart as black as they come. He has to be the villian in this movie, right?

Wrong.

He's a putz! He's a nobody! He's a Chicago Cubs fan! (Probably, I'm just guessing here.)

The niece makes it down to Mexico, confronts her father, and the father says, "I never wanted you. Goodbye". That's bad, but not Rambo-cutting-out-your-heart bad. More like Jude-Law-crying-for-days bad or something like that. Perhaps Morrissey-is-going-to-sing-about-you bad.

And that is the LAST we see of the father - the "worst guy in the world, with a heart so black you can't imagine how black it is". BOO.

However, the niece is still upset so her awful friend takes her to a Mexican disco where, in what looks to be a set-up, the niece is drugged and turned into a sex slave. I told you that friend was bad and I bet you were shocked/laughed when I said she deserved to have Rambo carry out his promise to hurt her real bad. But selling your friend into a sex slave ring deserves something, doesn't it?

Rambo finds out about this and heads to Mexico. He's surely going to lay wasted to a large part of Northern Mexico!

Or...or...OR...he's going to get caught spying on the bad guys; get beaten to a pulp; and have the bad guy's "V" initial carved into his cheek.

No. WAY.

Just like Jack Reacher never loses a fight, John Rambo would NEVER just walk into a situation where he has not only no chance to win, but not even a chance to throw a single punch or stab a single person. But there he is, looking even worse than at the end of "Rocky II", and he gets the aforementioned "V" carved into his face. Then the bad guys say they're going to let him live so that he cries every night at the unmentionable horrors his niece is undergoing.

All the while a mysterious stranger is watching, and she carts Rambo away before the bad guys decide to come back and reneg on their promise to let him live.

I figured the mysterious stranger was CIA. "She's going to be his partner, help him kill lots of bad guys, but get killed in the end!" I thought but luckily did not say out loud. "I can live with that!" (I accidentally did say that out loud, and everyone was confused.)

But again - nope. She was not CIA, or Mexican Special Forces, or any kind of anything. She's a journalist who honestly does nothing except patch up Rambo. Everything except the "V for Victory!" on Rambo's cheek heals in about one day.

Rambo rescues his niece but she dies on the way home. Rambo buries her and decides to declare war on everyone (another stupid movie, as I'm sure you recall).

Believe it or not, I did wikipedia this movie. And wikipedia told me that Rambo's niece was his housekeeper's granddaughter. Which means his housekeeper is either his brother or sister's mother - which means she's Rambo's mother, too - or the title of "Uncle Rambo" was honorary.

You should NOT have to think this hard in a Rambo movie.

I blame the 26 producers. And no - I didn't exaggerate that number. There are twenty-six people listed as some sort of producer on this movie. Twenty. Six. I bet each one of them contributed some stupid part, on account of they were a "producer". I almost wish "Rambo: Last Blood" would win the Oscar for Best Picture, just so we could see 26 idiots on a stage at one time, all vying for the single microphone.

After Rambo's whatever-she-was dies, Rambo goes back to Mexico and beheads the bad guy that carved him up. He makes sure they know who did it by leaving a picture of his whatever-she-was behind, knowing they have his drivers license and are going to come to his ranch for revenge.

This is where the movie becomes a bizarre, morbid take-off on "Home Alone".

Rambo actually spreads out a map of his ranch - which, by the way and this should not surprise you - has a gigantic tunnel network underneath the ground. Rambo spends 10 minutes fashioning all kinds of gruesome traps for the anticipated invaders, which begs the question:

If the tunnels were to repel unknown invaders anyway, wouldn't he already have had some traps ready to go?

Of course but again, we shouldn't have to think this hard in a Rambo movie.

The invaders show up and they all die gory deaths. Which was a problem, as Rambo put many of them out of their stabby misery by shooting them after they fell into whatever prong-and-spear-laden torture area he had concocted. The Rambo I know would have told various not-dead-but-totally-shish-kabobbed bad guys, "I could kill you and end your pain but I'm going to let your screams terrify those who are left alive".

Rambos I, II, II and IV would have done that, but Rambo V just shoots them. Completely unsatisfying.

The end comes with the one main bad guy left alive, but Rambo pins him to the barn wall with four perfectly-placed arrows. Then Rambo cuts his heart out. Meh. I was groaning by this time and it wasn't for any good or pleasurable reasons.

Rambo retires to his rocking chair, nursing the various places he'd been shot. You figure he's going to die, and the credits show various scenes from earlier Rambo movies. But then we see the Rambo from THIS movie, riding his horse into the sunset. Which is strange because Rambo made all his horses leave before the big battle. But I guess he lived, the horses came back, and the worst part is that yes, there is a "Rambo VI" being talked about. At least it's planned to be a prequel, but Stallone wants to set it when Rambo is in high school and killing people in high school really isn't cool. At all.

I booed this movie when it was over. BOO! I also gave the thumbs down to all my fellow audience members and I assume they all agreed with me. No one clapped, that's for sure.

All in all, this was a major disappointment. I am going to give "Rambo: Last Blood" one Knife out of five Knives and that's being generous.

RodeoSchro said:

EmmaMcG said:

RodeoSchro said:

I just returned from watching "Rambo: Last Blood". Or as it should have been called, "Rambo: Home Alone for Idiots".

Man, what a HORRIBLE movie. And you know how much it pains me to say that.

There are NO redeeming qualities to this movie. None. Hey - remember when my wife took over my account and was funnier than me? Yeah, I do too. But one thing she commented on was me talking to the "Rambo" preview, when Rambo said, "I'm gonna hurt you real bad".

Oh HECK yes! Except.......in the actual movie he says that to a woman. Who did deserve to be hurt real bad. And who was NOT hurt real bad. She wasn't hurt at all, and yet she was directly responsible for the death of Rambo's niece.

WHAT KIND OF TOPSY-TURVY WORLD ARE WE NOW LIVING IN?!?

Let's start at the start.

Rambo lives in a ranch in Arizona where, presumably, he grew up. Or something like that. Apparently he's a horse whisperer and has a niece who rides the horses he whispers to.

But...niece? How? Is she the daughter of his brother? Or his sister? Or some wife we don't know about? Or...why does he say later in the movie that she's his daughter?!? From who? The girl that died in "First Blood 2 - Rambo"?!? Impossible. And there were no other women. Plus, this girl is part Hispanic. Last I checked, no Rambo movies were set south of the border. What gives?!?

(It's just now occurring to me that maybe y'all like to read my reviews of movies that severly disappointed every Y chromosome in my body, so I'll really try to play up that angle.)

Unbelievably, some chick that Rambo's niece hasn't seen in forever finds out where the niece's father is. Mexico, of course. This chick is also the chick that Rambo says he's gonna hurt real bad but never does - again, even though this chick is directly responsible for the death of Rambo's niece.

Rambo tells his niece that under no circumstances can she go visit her father. He's a bad, bad, BAD guy with a heart as black as they come. He has to be the villian in this movie, right?

Wrong.

He's a putz! He's a nobody! He's a Chicago Cubs fan! (Probably, I'm just guessing here.)

The niece makes it down to Mexico, confronts her father, and the father says, "I never wanted you. Goodbye". That's bad, but not Rambo-cutting-out-your-heart bad. More like Jude-Law-crying-for-days bad or something like that. Perhaps Morrissey-is-going-to-sing-about-you bad.

And that is the LAST we see of the father - the "worst guy in the world, with a heart so black you can't imagine how black it is". BOO.

However, the niece is still upset so her awful friend takes her to a Mexican disco where, in what looks to be a set-up, the niece is drugged and turned into a sex slave. I told you that friend was bad and I bet you were shocked/laughed when I said she deserved to have Rambo carry out his promise to hurt her real bad. But selling your friend into a sex slave ring deserves something, doesn't it?

Rambo finds out about this and heads to Mexico. He's surely going to lay wasted to a large part of Northern Mexico!

Or...or...OR...he's going to get caught spying on the bad guys; get beaten to a pulp; and have the bad guy's "V" initial carved into his cheek.

No. WAY.

Just like Jack Reacher never loses a fight, John Rambo would NEVER just walk into a situation where he has not only no chance to win, but not even a chance to throw a single punch or stab a single person. But there he is, looking even worse than at the end of "Rocky II", and he gets the aforementioned "V" carved into his face. Then the bad guys say they're going to let him live so that he cries every night at the unmentionable horrors his niece is undergoing.

All the while a mysterious stranger is watching, and she carts Rambo away before the bad guys decide to come back and reneg on their promise to let him live.

I figured the mysterious stranger was CIA. "She's going to be his partner, help him kill lots of bad guys, but get killed in the end!" I thought but luckily did not say out loud. "I can live with that!" (I accidentally did say that out loud, and everyone was confused.)

But again - nope. She was not CIA, or Mexican Special Forces, or any kind of anything. She's a journalist who honestly does nothing except patch up Rambo. Everything except the "V for Victory!" on Rambo's cheek heals in about one day.

Rambo rescues his niece but she dies on the way home. Rambo buries her and decides to declare war on everyone (another stupid movie, as I'm sure you recall).

Believe it or not, I did wikipedia this movie. And wikipedia told me that Rambo's niece was his housekeeper's granddaughter. Which means his housekeeper is either his brother or sister's mother - which means she's Rambo's mother, too - or the title of "Uncle Rambo" was honorary.

You should NOT have to think this hard in a Rambo movie.

I blame the 26 producers. And no - I didn't exaggerate that number. There are twenty-six people listed as some sort of producer on this movie. Twenty. Six. I bet each one of them contributed some stupid part, on account of they were a "producer". I almost wish "Rambo: Last Blood" would win the Oscar for Best Picture, just so we could see 26 idiots on a stage at one time, all vying for the single microphone.

After Rambo's whatever-she-was dies, Rambo goes back to Mexico and beheads the bad guy that carved him up. He makes sure they know who did it by leaving a picture of his whatever-she-was behind, knowing they have his drivers license and are going to come to his ranch for revenge.

This is where the movie becomes a bizarre, morbid take-off on "Home Alone".

Rambo actually spreads out a map of his ranch - which, by the way and this should not surprise you - has a gigantic tunnel network underneath the ground. Rambo spends 10 minutes fashioning all kinds of gruesome traps for the anticipated invaders, which begs the question:

If the tunnels were to repel unknown invaders anyway, wouldn't he already have had some traps ready to go?

Of course but again, we shouldn't have to think this hard in a Rambo movie.

The invaders show up and they all die gory deaths. Which was a problem, as Rambo put many of them out of their stabby misery by shooting them after they fell into whatever prong-and-spear-laden torture area he had concocted. The Rambo I know would have told various not-dead-but-totally-shish-kabobbed bad guys, "I could kill you and end your pain but I'm going to let your screams terrify those who are left alive".

Rambos I, II, II and IV would have done that, but Rambo V just shoots them. Completely unsatisfying.

The end comes with the one main bad guy left alive, but Rambo pins him to the barn wall with four perfectly-placed arrows. Then Rambo cuts his heart out. Meh. I was groaning by this time and it wasn't for any good or pleasurable reasons.

Rambo retires to his rocking chair, nursing the various places he'd been shot. You figure he's going to die, and the credits show various scenes from earlier Rambo movies. But then we see the Rambo from THIS movie, riding his horse into the sunset. Which is strange because Rambo made all his horses leave before the big battle. But I guess he lived, the horses came back, and the worst part is that yes, there is a "Rambo VI" being talked about. At least it's planned to be a prequel, but Stallone wants to set it when Rambo is in high school and killing people in high school really isn't cool. At all.

I booed this movie when it was over. BOO! I also gave the thumbs down to all my fellow audience members and I assume they all agreed with me. No one clapped, that's for sure.

All in all, this was a major disappointment. I am going to give "Rambo: Last Blood" one Knife out of five Knives and that's being generous.

I completely disagree. COMPLETELY. It was exactly what I expected it to be and I loved it. Basically, all I wanted from this movie was to see Rambo kill people. Violently. And Stallone delivered. The biggest complaints I've seen from reviews are that the movie is "too violent" and questions about why Mexicans are displayed in such a bad light and if the movie was only made for Trump voters. Bullshit. Total bullshit. A movie can not be "too violent". Especially a movie with Rambo in it. The more violent, the better. And as for the Mexicans being portrayed as villains? For fuck sake, the movie has to have a villain and it wouldn't make sense for him to be going after the Vietnamese again. So the villains are Mexican. Who cares? Nowhere in that movie does it say that all Mexicans are involved in forced prostitution. Are people that fucking soft that they can't accept a simple revenge story without trying to politicise it? Pussies. The lot of them. Rambo: Last Blood is not a patch on the original movie. Nowhere near it. But it's not even in the same genre so comparisons are futile. It's a simple, old fashioned action movie and it does exactly what it sets out to do.

I'd give this movie 5 beheaded Mexicans out of 5 beheaded Mexicans.

I'm glad you liked it!

If this had been a generic action movie with a lead character that was new to the movie, I'd have rated it higher. But the problem for me was that this was John Freaking Rambo.

First of all - Rambo said more words in the first 5 minutes of this movie than he'd said in the other 4 combined. I thought that was a bad sign but held out hope.

Second - Rambo would have NEVER been spotted the first time at the bad guys' house. We're talking John Freaking Rambo here - a guy who covered himself with mud, hid undetected in a mud wall and then leapt out of that mud wall to knife a highly-trained soldier! I just couldn't buy Rambo being dumb enough to be spotted by a look-out not once but twice.

Third, Rambo NEVER just walks into a den of bad guys. The real Rambo - assuming the real Rambo was dumb enough to get spotted - would have retreated and re-grouped, so as to be able to cladestinely kill as many bad guys as possible. But when he's walking up those stairs? I bet you thought the same thing I did - he's leading dudes into traps and every time someone turns a corner, they're going to get beheaded. And I bet you also thought the same thing I did when all that happened was that he just walked out into the balcony and found himself out-numbered 50 - 1. First I thought, "Awesome! Rambo's going to lay waste to dozens and dozens of scuzzballs!" But all I ended up thinking was "WTF?!?"

John Freaking Rambo once beat the entire Russian, North Vietnamese AND Burmese armies by himself. If anyone knows how to overcome a numerically-superior enemy, it's John Freaking Rambo.

Fourth - no headband. Are you kidding me? Sure, he doesn't have as much hair as before, but NO HEAD BAND? That's Rambo's signature! I was also a little dismayed that because Stallone is now completely covered in tattoos of his wife's face, he couldn't take his shirt off whilst killing bad guys. Really nothing they could have done about that, but a Rambo-phile like me takes notice of that stuff.

I do agree that people who are geting upset about Mexicans being the bad guys are probably reading too much into this. Although, did you notice the one shot of Trump's wall? It was an overhead shot. Not surprisingly, I said something about the wall out loud, but no one complained. I noticed that Rambo had no problem taking some backroads and crossing back into the US of A without going through customs, which is good considering he had a dead body in the truck.

Also, if you want to take on some idiotic Trump supporter who thinks Stallone was making a point about Mexicans invading America, you could point out that the Mexicans in this movie never came to America except when Rambo invited them to a beheading party. If Stallone was really trying to Trump it up, he'd have had the Mexicans sneaking into America and doing all their sex slave stuff here. Minor point, but we all know that Trump supporters aren't smart enough to understand basic cinema, so I'm sure this will have to be explained to them.

What was the point of Rambo making his whatever-she-was father to be the worst guy in the world, and then the father turning out to be nothing more than an insensitive jackass? If you ranked all the bad guys in every Rambo movie ever, the father would be at the very bottom of the list. Like I said, he was piffle.

So was the Mexican journalist. She was obviously an after-thought, added by one of the 26 producers. She had no real part in this movie whatsoever. Rambo didn't need her to magically fix his face. The real Rambo knows 248 different desert plants that have healing powers, and he could have fixed himself with no problem at all.

Speaking of producers - I watched the credits, hoping for some extra Rambo-ing. Sadly, there was none but there was someone on the crew who's title was - and I am not making this up - "Porcupine Driver". What is THAT?!? There weren't any porcupines in this movie! NOTE: I just Googled "Rambo Porcupine" and unsurprisingly I am not the only one asking this question. It turns out that a "porcupine" is a mobile artillery truck. Cool except there were no mobile artillery trucks in this movie. Again - I blame one of the 26 producers for this apparently superfluous porcupine.

Were you as disappointed as I was that the chick who helped sell Rambo's whatever-she-was into sex slavery was never dealt with? Rambo said he'd hurt her real bad, but he never did. That chick was responsible for the death of whatever-that-girl-was, but Rambo let that slide. WRONG. In a real Rambo movie, the last scene would have been Rambo riding off into the sunset on that horse, but dragging that chick behind them while they galloped over rocks and cacti. And he would have been grimacing maniacally.

My feeling is that if the "Rambo" character had been named Billy Badass, this would have been a much better movie. But it was supposed to be John Freaking Rambo, and that guy onscreen did NOT act like John Freaking Rambo at all.

Blazing Saddles (1974) - In order to ruin a western town, a corrupt politician appoints a black Sheriff, who promptly becomes his most formidable adversary.

Is it possible for a movie to be hilariously cringeworthy? No way would this film be made today. 4/5