Those DTV movies with big stars that keep coming out? I want to find out if any of them don't suck.

[Guestx]

Whos going to watch this?

It's directed by the same guy who directed Marauders, which I kind of liked, so I'll probably check it out even though it looks ridiculous.

 

[splendica]

Cuba Gooding Jr.'s movies have been below "B" for a long, long time now. They don't even turn my eyes for a second glance anymore.

I'd rather watch Val Kilmer. Actually his "B" movies aren't half bad. At least the scripts and stories are interesting.

 

[BisexualMMA]

Eagerly awaiting an in-depth Tapped Out review.

Not sure if srs.

Here's the deal. When we judge movies we have to judge them against something--against other movies--because nothing can be judged in a vacuum

I think something like The Room would come in at the bottom. Let's call it a baseline. It's a 1. And then something like Sci-Fighter would be a couple of notches above it because Sci-Fighter at least tells a coherent story. So it might be a 3.

Well, in any distribution system, you have to decide what you want to have emphasized and revealed in detail, if anything. There is the poisson, the chi-squared, the normal, etc.

If you want to work with the mentally disabled, you can crush the upper intellects together so that you can't really tell a good high school physics teacher from Niels Bohr. And that will allow you to really get down into the nitty gritty and tell the difference between Forrest Gump, I am Sam, Simple Jack and Mace Windu.

Or you can just assume right off the bat that you don't want Simple Jack or Forrest Gump doing your taxes, and instead focus on being able to measure the difference between Albert Einstein and Jacob Bronowski.

The truth is that I don't really give a shit about the difference between Ankle Biters, Time Chasers and Future War. I mean, people have undoubtedly picked up a camera and actually made worse movies than both, and probably enough times that if you plotted everything ever filmed on a normal distribution, you'd be able to find enough movies worse than either one to statistically justify a rating somewhere higher than what I would ascribe them.

The simple fact is that all three are retarded and one is probably better served exploring the differences between Philadelphia and Monster.

 

[riddleofsteel]

A couple of John Cusack ones:
Drive Hard - with Thomas Jane.
Reclaim - with Ryan Phillippe. @shadow_priest_x, you get Philippe & Cusack. Although according to wikipedia, this movie did have a limited theater release to go along with video on demand.

I haven't watched either movie.

 

[Guestx]

Not sure if srs.



Well, in any distribution system, you have to decide what you want to have emphasized and revealed in detail, if anything. There is the poisson, the chi-squared, the normal, etc.

If you want to work with the mentally disabled, you can crush the upper intellects together so that you can't really tell a good high school physics teacher from Niels Bohr. And that will allow you to really get down into the nitty gritty and tell the difference between Forrest Gump, I am Sam, Simple Jack and Mace Windu.

Or you can just assume right off the bat that you don't want Simple Jack or Forrest Gump doing your taxes, and instead focus on being able to measure the difference between Albert Einstein and Jacob Bronowski.

The truth is that I don't really give a shit about the difference between Ankle Biters, Time Chasers and Future War. I mean, people have undoubtedly picked up a camera and actually made worse movies than both, and probably enough times that if you plotted everything ever filmed on a normal distribution, you'd be able to find enough movies worse than either one to statistically justify a rating somewhere higher than what I would ascribe them.

The simple fact is that all three are retarded and one is probably better served exploring the differences between Philadelphia and Monster.

I do my best to give all possible credit where it's due. For instance, if the director used a more interesting moving camera shot where he could've just used a static camera instead, I note that. If a shot is visually interesting where it could've looked bland, I jot it down in my mind.

Also, maybe it's because I grew up absolutely loving low-budget action and martial arts films, but I have a soft spot for films that fall into that realm.

Not every movie needs to be Philadelphia or Monster. In fact, if that's all cinema had to offer us things would become pretty boring pretty quickly. I can enjoy a B-movie just like I can enjoy fast food. They provide their own kind of enjoyable nourishment.

 

[Guestx]

Cuba Gooding Jr.'s movies have been below "B" for a long, long time now. They don't even turn my eyes for a second glance anymore.

I'd rather watch Val Kilmer. Actually his "B" movies aren't half bad. At least the scripts and stories are interesting.

I don't know what happened to Cuba. He went from awards contender to fringe actor and it happened pretty quickly.

He seems to have rebounded though. He was quite good in American Crime Story and it was a big hit for him.

And it's kind of funny you mention Val. Just the other day I learned that he starred in a Francis Ford Coppola movie in 2011 called Twixt. I never knew that. Both of them have been off the radar for years.

 

[Guestx]

A couple of John Cusack ones:
Drive Hard - with Thomas Jane.
Reclaim - with Ryan Phillippe. @shadow_priest_x, you get Philippe & Cusack. Although according to wikipedia, this movie did have a limited theater release to go along with video on demand.

I haven't watched either movie.

I actually watched the trailers for both of those the other day. Drive Hard looked like it probably is not good, but Reclaim might be watchable.

As you say, it does give you both Phillippe and Cusack.

 

[BisexualMMA]

I do my best to give all possible credit where it's due. For instance, if the director used a more interesting moving camera shot where he could've just used a static camera instead, I note that. If a shot is visually interesting where it could've looked bland, I jot it down in my mind.

Also, maybe it's because I grew up absolutely loving low-budget action and martial arts films, but I have a soft spot for films that fall into that realm.

Not every movie needs to be Philadelphia or Monster. In fact, if that's all cinema had to offer us things would become pretty boring pretty quickly. I can enjoy a B-movie just like I can enjoy fast food. They provide their own kind of enjoyable nourishment.

The cinematographer for Tapped Out was Pasha Patriki, and Pasha Patriki did a reasonable job.

The editors did a reasonable job.

Take those, and some of the action choreography out of the picture, and there really isn't much that could even hypothetically have been worse.

I didn't say every movie has to be Philadelphia or Monster. A good scale still leaves room to explore the difference between Deadfall, Saw 6, Batman Forever, Paradise Alley and The Scorpion King. Unlike Tapped Out, each of those has the benefit of being an attempt to make a real movie.

 

[splendica]

I don't know what happened to Cuba. He went from awards contender to fringe actor and it happened pretty quickly.

He seems to have rebounded though. He was quite good in American Crime Story and it was a big hit for him.

And it's kind of funny you mention Val. Just the other day I learned that he starred in a Francis Ford Coppola movie in 2011 called Twixt. I never knew that. Both of them have been off the radar for years.

I even like some of his lesser known movies like 7Below. I don't have the time at the moment, but there are a bunch of others. I think he chooses interesting scripts way better than Cuba.

 

[Guestx]

The cinematographer for Tapped Out was Pasha Patriki, and Pasha Patriki did a reasonable job.

The editors did a reasonable job.

Take those, and some of the action choreography out of the picture, and there really isn't much that could even hypothetically have been worse.

But those are very important aspects of the film! A good image and coherently edited shots are a pretty important aspect any film.

I didn't say every movie has to be Philadelphia or Monster. A good scale still leaves room to explore the difference between Deadfall, Saw 6, Batman Forever, Paradise Alley and The Scorpion King. Unlike Tapped Out, each of those has the benefit of being an attempt to make a real movie.

Define "real movie."

 

[BisexualMMA]

But those are very important aspects of the film! A good image and coherently edited shots are a pretty important aspect any film.

I'll answer the second question in another post.

As to the first point, what would you rather look at, a wild boar wearing a nice wig and lipstick, or prime Cindy Crawford with no make up?

What is the point in hiring a cinematographer to shoot garbage in a competent fashion? You could have the best CGI shot of a camera swooping around the city and then seamlessly transitioning through a window into a glorious and wonderfully blocked in-camera shot of the interior of an apartment (like, say, the opening of Birdman)...and then the camera moves expertly to a low angle right under the main character, and it's Ron Jeremy, and he's naked, and he's squatting over the camera, and the lighting is perfect, a Rembrandt portrait of his ass, and then he takes a dump right on the camera lens. And then you have the greatest titling sequence ever. It puts The Terminator and Stranger Things to complete shame. And it says, "One day later." And it's a new morning, and the camera swoops around the city, above and under telephone lines, over cars, under 18 wheelers, between the spokes of a kid's bike, up the side of the wall of an apartment and in through the window. And Ron Jeremy shits on the camera again. And it repeats for 90 minutes. Do you give the movie a 5.0?

 

[BisexualMMA]

Define "real movie."

All right. The best way to do this under these circumstances is to explain why and how Tapped Out isn't one.

I don't know if you detected this, but it was very, very, very obvious by the twenty-minute mark that the film was written by the star, Cody Hackman, and that it was a very early effort if not his first ever. There's no way that script, the way it was written, gets filmed in any sort of fashion unless the writer is also the star.

I would call it a vanity project, but it was far worse. It was the worst of three worlds: a cynical MMA craze cash grab, a self aggrandizing Cody Hackman ego project, but also Cody Hackman's pathetic public plea for adulation and acceptance.

What was written there wasn't a script. A movie like Deadfall is a bad movie, but it has actual scenes. Scenes with a beginning and end, with give and take between the characters, shifts in power, etc. The story and scenes are predictable, but there are scenes, like for instance the one with Michael Biehn and Talia Shire in the bar. That was a run-of-the-mill con scene, with unremarkable but not terrible acting, and that scene alone was better than anything put to paper in Tapped Out.

Tapped Out just has four or five lines to set up the next series of shots to show how cool or great Cody Hackman is.

A few lines and look at how Michael Biehn approves of Cody Hackman!
Did you see Martin Kove walk by the window and look approvingly at Cody Hackman! Reese and Kreese are both impressed.
A few lines (you need to meet these guys to help you with your ground game and) WOW, did you see how Lyoto Machida AND Anderson Silva both approve of Cody Hackman?
Plus Cody Hackman gets the chicks.
What a badass too. He's only back in the dojo because he was out of chances with society.

Calling this movie a Karate Kid ripoff is giving it far, far, far too much credit. It is so lacking in originality or inspiration that I wouldn't be surprised at all if they originally asked Martin Kove to play Krzysztof's sensei and he had to squash that as being far too blatant and sad, and ask for something else, hence writing in the principal when Cody Hackman (don't mix him up with Gene) seems way too old to be hanging around any kind of high school.

The movie, its writing and its acting are best encapsulated in the scene where Cody Hackman goes to the police station after seeing the killer in the underground MMA scene. I'm going from memory here, but... He bursts into the police station, reports the crime, and when they ask their first question (I think they ask for his name so they can start a file) he gets frustrated with the bureaucracy and storms out, giving up on the police altogether. What the fuck? And I would say that Cody Hackman can't be blamed too much, as there IS no way to deliver that scene well, except he wrote the fucking movie.

"What did you expect, wax on wax off?" I bet a little piece of Michael Biehn died when he delivered that line. He probably stared at that line of the script as he looked at that page for the first time the day of shooting, thought about suggesting some alternatives, but just said fuck it, since the train was already rolling along. Probably pretended it was funny and that he was impressed with the dialogue after they shot the one take of it.

Cody Hackman's character is supposed to sweep the dojo on his first day. What does the movie do? Pole twirling martial arts display montage. What the fuck? The movie can't take two minutes to establish (whatever the character's name is) as someone willing to work and learn because that would come out of "Cody is a stud" time.

What was the thing about him having some kind of martial arts background? People seemed to remember him from his karate lessons when he was nine years old or something, so now that he's sent to the dojo for community service, he's "back in the game." Like fucking Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. Except he was nine, and now he's supposed to be eighteen or something.

His character is a Gary Stu of the highest order. Every scene, every line of dialogue - none of it exists in the service of telling the story of (let me look up the name) Michael Shaw. Every line, every truncated thirty second scene, exists to get to the next example of how awesome Cody Hackman is. And why that girl shouldn't have dumped him in high school or whatever.

Look, Cody Hackman just beat the shit out of Krzysztof Soszynski!

There's no story there. It's not even a ripoff or pastiche of other tired screenplays. The process began with how Cody Hackman can look cool, and they just wrote shit to get from each of those Hackman showcases to the next.

Take out all the stuff that Cody Hackman and his director buddy have in the movie to make Cody Hackman look cool - be it approval from Kove and Biehn, beating up real MMA fighters, impressing Anderson and Lyoto with his training, macking on the hot babes, doing martial arts demonstrations for no reason.

Now what are you left with?

Literally the most tired, simple, jotted down in ten seconds with no brainstorming or editing, treadless, predictable, basically point form ideas to just get from Cody is Cool #4 to Cody is Cool #5.

It's basically an ad for Cody Hackman, and anyone that signed on to make it happen got suckered. Except for Biehn and Kove, because for actors of their stature, this is the closest they can come to literal prostitution. They knew full well that they were just delivering some lines for money in Cody Hackman's plea for acceptance.

There were some forks in the road where Hackman and director / co-writer Allan Ungar could have chosen a path with more integrity, but every step of the way they didn't. They didn't give a shit what happened in the story or what the characters said as long as it made Cody Hackman look cool.

Like I said, they managed to obscure some of this with passable cinematography, editing and choreography, but this thing was a fucking joke.

 

[Guestx]

As to the first point, what would you rather look at, a wild boar wearing a nice wig and lipstick, or prime Cindy Crawford with no make up?

What is the point in hiring a cinematographer to shoot garbage in a competent fashion? You could have the best CGI shot of a camera swooping around the city and then seamlessly transitioning through a window into a glorious and wonderfully blocked in-camera shot of the interior of an apartment (like, say, the opening of Birdman)...and then the camera moves expertly to a low angle right under the main character, and it's Ron Jeremy, and he's naked, and he's squatting over the camera, and the lighting is perfect, a Rembrandt portrait of his ass, and then he takes a dump right on the camera lens. And then you have the greatest titling sequence ever. It puts The Terminator and Stranger Things to complete shame. And it says, "One day later." And it's a new morning, and the camera swoops around the city, above and under telephone lines, over cars, under 18 wheelers, between the spokes of a kid's bike, up the side of the wall of an apartment and in through the window. And Ron Jeremy shits on the camera again. And it repeats for 90 minutes. Do you give the movie a 5.0?

Okay, so a few things here. . .

First, the "film" you're describing really is no film at all. It is a complete failure on a narrative level. Do you really think that Tapped Out is such a failure?

Act I: Michael's parents are killed. He's taken in by his grandfather, but he acts out and is getting in trouble both at school and with the law. His grandfather pulls some strings (he's a former cop) to have Michael assigned to do community service at his old karate dojo.

Act II: Michael finds his love for karate again, re-connects with his former sensei, and also meets a girl. This girl introduces him to the local MMA scene, and while exploring this scene he recognizes the man who killed his parents. In an attempt to get back at his parents' murderer, he takes a street fight to get an invitation into an MMA tournament where, if he wins, he can fight K-Sos.

Act III: Michael begins training his ass off for the tournament, montage-style. And finally, the tournament begins, Michael whoops some ass, and gets his revenge.

It's a simple story, and it's also not very original, but it makes sense on a conceptual level and is coherently told. So I just don't see how you can call it "beyond putrid" or whatever. Considering that it is neither incomprehensible, nor morally repugnant, from whence does this desire to treat it so harshly come from? Just because it is rote and uninspired? Well that's what makes it a 5 instead of something higher.

Technical competency + a comprehensible and complete, but uninspired, narrative = a textbook 5.

 

[Guestx]

All right. The best way to do this under these circumstances is to explain why and how Tapped Out isn't one.

I don't know if you detected this, but it was very, very, very obvious by the twenty-minute mark that the film was written by the star, Cody Hackman, and that it was a very early effort if not his first ever. There's no way that script, the way it was written, gets filmed in any sort of fashion unless the writer is also the star.

I would call it a vanity project, but it was far worse. It was the worst of three worlds: a cynical MMA craze cash grab, a self aggrandizing Cody Hackman ego project, but also Cody Hackman's pathetic public plea for adulation and acceptance.

What was written there wasn't a script. A movie like Deadfall is a bad movie, but it has actual scenes. Scenes with a beginning and end, with give and take between the characters, shifts in power, etc. The story and scenes are predictable, but there are scenes, like for instance the one with Michael Biehn and Talia Shire in the bar. That was a run-of-the-mill con scene, with unremarkable but not terrible acting, and that scene alone was better than anything put to paper in Tapped Out.

Tapped Out just has four or five lines to set up the next series of shots to show how cool or great Cody Hackman is.

A few lines and look at how Michael Biehn approves of Cody Hackman!
Did you see Martin Kove walk by the window and look approvingly at Cody Hackman! Reese and Kreese are both impressed.
A few lines (you need to meet these guys to help you with your ground game and) WOW, did you see how Lyoto Machida AND Anderson Silva both approve of Cody Hackman?
Plus Cody Hackman gets the chicks.
What a badass too. He's only back in the dojo because he was out of chances with society.

Calling this movie a Karate Kid ripoff is giving it far, far, far too much credit. It is so lacking in originality or inspiration that I wouldn't be surprised at all if they originally asked Martin Kove to play Krzysztof's sensei and he had to squash that as being far too blatant and sad, and ask for something else, hence writing in the principal when Cody Hackman (don't mix him up with Gene) seems way too old to be hanging around any kind of high school.

The movie, its writing and its acting are best encapsulated in the scene where Cody Hackman goes to the police station after seeing the killer in the underground MMA scene. I'm going from memory here, but... He bursts into the police station, reports the crime, and when they ask their first question (I think they ask for his name so they can start a file) he gets frustrated with the bureaucracy and storms out, giving up on the police altogether. What the fuck? And I would say that Cody Hackman can't be blamed too much, as there IS no way to deliver that scene well, except he wrote the fucking movie.

"What did you expect, wax on wax off?" I bet a little piece of Michael Biehn died when he delivered that line. He probably stared at that line of the script as he looked at that page for the first time the day of shooting, thought about suggesting some alternatives, but just said fuck it, since the train was already rolling along. Probably pretended it was funny and that he was impressed with the dialogue after they shot the one take of it.

Cody Hackman's character is supposed to sweep the dojo on his first day. What does the movie do? Pole twirling martial arts display montage. What the fuck? The movie can't take two minutes to establish (whatever the character's name is) as someone willing to work and learn because that would come out of "Cody is a stud" time.

What was the thing about him having some kind of martial arts background? People seemed to remember him from his karate lessons when he was nine years old or something, so now that he's sent to the dojo for community service, he's "back in the game." Like fucking Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. Except he was nine, and now he's supposed to be eighteen or something.

His character is a Gary Stu of the highest order. Every scene, every line of dialogue - none of it exists in the service of telling the story of (let me look up the name) Michael Shaw. Every line, every truncated thirty second scene, exists to get to the next example of how awesome Cody Hackman is. And why that girl shouldn't have dumped him in high school or whatever.

Look, Cody Hackman just beat the shit out of Krzysztof Soszynski!

There's no story there. It's not even a ripoff or pastiche of other tired screenplays. The process began with how Cody Hackman can look cool, and they just wrote shit to get from each of those Hackman showcases to the next.

Take out all the stuff that Cody Hackman and his director buddy have in the movie to make Cody Hackman look cool - be it approval from Kove and Biehn, beating up real MMA fighters, impressing Anderson and Lyoto with his training, macking on the hot babes, doing martial arts demonstrations for no reason.

Now what are you left with?

Literally the most tired, simple, jotted down in ten seconds with no brainstorming or editing, treadless, predictable, basically point form ideas to just get from Cody is Cool #4 to Cody is Cool #5.

It's basically an ad for Cody Hackman, and anyone that signed on to make it happen got suckered. Except for Biehn and Kove, because for actors of their stature, this is the closest they can come to literal prostitution. They knew full well that they were just delivering some lines for money in Cody Hackman's plea for acceptance.

There were some forks in the road where Hackman and director / co-writer Allan Ungar could have chosen a path with more integrity, but every step of the way they didn't. They didn't give a shit what happened in the story or what the characters said as long as it made Cody Hackman look cool.

Like I said, they managed to obscure some of this with passable cinematography, editing and choreography, but this thing was a fucking joke.

I appreciate you taking the time to express your thoughts.

At the same time, I have to say that I didn't really get any of that from the film at all.

First, I had no idea he was a co-writer. It didn't even cross my mind, since I remember in the 80s and early 90s I saw plenty of karate movies that followed very similar story ideas, and the stars were never the writers. Bear in mind that the director also has a vested interest in the star "looking cool."

Second, you act as if Cody/Michael never struggled with anything in the story. Consider what you said here:

WOW, did you see how Lyoto Machida AND Anderson Silva both approve of Cody Hackman?

If you remember, Cody starts out without any clue about what he's doing. He gets taken down easily, because he doesn't know how to sprawl. Anderson puts him in chokes like it ain't shit. When Lyoto is trying teach him the jumping front kick, The Dragon has to keep telling him, "More force" until he finally gets it.

Is this really any different from ANY "Time for the protagonist to learn some shit!" montage, where our main character goes from zero to hero in a short period of time?

Or you mention the part about Kove as the principal, approving of Michael since his grades are improving. Again, isn't that a common arc? Our hero was low in the beginning and now he's raising himself up?

Like I said before, I don't find much that's original about this movie. And the reason is because I've seen it all before, many many times. But that just means that it's a mediocre movie that's copied so many others that have come before it. It doesn't mean that it's a special example of awfulness.

With that said, I will agree that the writing was on a few specific occasions very clunky, such as when:

* Michael recognizes that K-Sos was the killer. How? K-Sos was in a mask when Cody saw him. So unless I missed something, it doesn't make sense that Michael was able to recognize him.

* Michael went into the police station to report that he found his parents' murderer. I agree that scene was sub-par.

* Michael goes K-Sos's private party and stands outside his window with a gun, and then gets punked by K-Sos for trespassing.

* A featherweight in Michael was able to beat a giant monster like K-Sos in an MMA fight. To their credit, they make it about as plausible as possible. Michael is getting his ass beat until K-Sos bangs his leg against one of the cage posts and Cody is able to capitalize on an injury. But still, nah, I didn't buy it. They should've gone the Never Back Down route and made the villain someone who was in great shape and muscular, but who was of only moderate size.

 

[BisexualMMA]

* Michael recognizes that K-Sos was the killer. How? K-Sos was in a mask when Cody saw him. So unless I missed something, it doesn't make sense that Michael was able to recognize him.

I can't believe I'm about to defend Tapped Out, but didn't he recognize K-Sos' tattoos?

Anyway, the good news is that, unlike Cody Hackman, you don't need my approval, and you can shoot for any kind of movie you want.

 

[Guestx]

I can't believe I'm about to defend Tapped Out, but didn't he recognize K-Sos' tattoos?

LOL

Like I said, if he did, I didn't catch that. But I do hope there was something like that I just happened to miss because otherwise it is bad writing in indeed.

 

[BisexualMMA]

LOL

Like I said, if he did, I didn't catch that. But I do hope there was something like that I just happened to miss because otherwise it is bad writing in indeed.

And I have to backpedal slightly on one of my criticisms. "Michael Shaw" isn't a Gary Stu of the highest order, merely a garden variety Gary Stu. I've seen worse.

 

[Guestx]

And I have to backpedal slightly on one of my criticisms. "Michael Shaw" isn't a Gary Stu of the highest order, merely a garden variety Gary Stu. I've seen worse.

I had to look that up to even know what you were talking about. I still don't see it as any different from any other character that we've seen go from nothing to something.

Look at Van Damme in Bloodsport. He starts out as a punk ass kid, breaking into some dude's house. 15 minutes of montage later and he's a disciplined martial arts warrior who's ready to fight in the kumite for his sensei's honor.

Michael's arc isn't so different.

Spoiler

Or is this where you tell me that Bloodsport is also not a good movie?

 

[BisexualMMA]

I had to look that up to even know what you were talking about. I still don't see it as any different from any other character that we've seen go from nothing to something.

Look at Van Damme in Bloodsport. He starts out as a punk ass kid, breaking into some dude's house. 15 minutes of montage later and he's a disciplined martial arts warrior who's ready to fight in the kumite for his sensei's honor.

Michael's arc isn't so different.

Spoiler

Or is this where you tell me that Bloodsport is also not a good movie?

I suppose I have to admit that Cody Hackman had the restraint to not have his character kicking the shit out of Anderson and Lyoto right out of the gate. Though I have to assume that was in the original version of the script and that he simply couldn't afford to pay Anderson and Lyoto enough for them to lose to him on camera.

Bloodsport is a very good version of its (slightly limited) genre of film. It is a few changes away from being a true classic, but it's still a lot of fun. And it's several orders of magnitude better than Tapped Out.

And it's also not as good as Rambo 2.

 

[Gregolian]

There's one with Nic Cage in like Templar knights gear that always shows up when I'm scrolling Netflix, haven't taken the leap to see how bad it is yet.