Brunch and Bombs

Our second Video Game Month movie is Street Fighter. Jean Claude Van Damme stars as a definitely American Colonel Guile, an underutilized Chun Li is a reporter for some reason, and every single freaking Street Fighter character shows up as version of themselves that makes no sense, complete with weak backstories. The star performance is Raul Julia's M. Bison. He's the only one who seemed to know what kind of movie they were making.

It's the game Doom, except it feels and looks nothing like it, you barely get to see Mars, and the storyline is completely different. Excepting a ten minute first-person shooter scene toward the end of the movie, Doom is a letdown for fans of the iconic game. But we got through it--with the help of BFDs (Big F***ing Drinks).

For our last Romantic Movie Month episode, we watched Shallow Hall--a movie with an insane premise only supported by cruel and unfunny fat jokes. Find out why we liked the first 15 minutes, what was most upsetting, and where you can find the best deep-dish pizza in Austin. 

Our next romantic movie episode debuts on V-Day itself, so we had to watch Valentine's Day, a shameless (and terrible) ripoff of Love Actually. To its credit, it was the first of a string of terrible Love Actually ripoffs, so it's original in that. Valentine's Day is exactly what you think it is--a bunch of intertwining stories of romantic and not-so-romantic things happening to pretty people. This movie sucked, but, hey, we got to have yummy fondue and a V-Day cocktail (Cupid's Arrow), so there's that.  

Romantic Movie Month starts with a bad movie from our teenage years, 50 First Dates. This could be cute (albeit unrealistic), but it's just gross and depressing. But at least we got to have poke bowls and a cute and tasty V-Day cocktail!

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry...tries. Maybe the characters are so TERRIBLE at first to highlight how they change to become "better" people by the end. But are you really a better person if you finally address society's homophobia and your own internalized homophobia, if you realized it's bad *only* because it happened to you?...Maybe that's a little deep for this "film," but that's just one of the ethical questions this movie raises.

In episode 33, Hope makes a delectable Shakshuka for brunch, Jerry learns about cosmetology school, and Summer finally figures out how to pronounce Israeli. We watched You Don't Mess with the Zohan, and it's just as offensive as we thought it would be, i.e. Rob Schneider wears Brownface.

Adam Sandler Month continues with Pixels, a video game movie Jerry deemed not good enough for Video Game Month (coming March 2021 y'all!) It's not the absolute worst, just formulaic in that Happy Madison way--Sandler's a doofus who wins acclaim and gets a girl much too good for him. 

Little Nicky, whose mother is an angel and father is Satan himself, has no interest in dear old dad's "family's business"--but it looks like he might have to save it from his two older bullying brothers. Can Nicky restore the balance of good and evil on Earth? Which Emo band frontman inspired his haircut? And why does Adam Sandler have this weird thing about giving his on-screen love interests double V names?? (Veronic Vaughn in Billy Madison, Virginia Venit in Happy Gilmore, Vicki Vallencourt in The Waterboy, Violet Van Patten in Pixels, Violet Valentine in Hubie Halloween, and in Little Nicky, Valerie Veran).

Merry Christmas! Our Christmas gift to you is our final holiday episode, four days early! (That's what you wanted, right?) This Jack Frost is the Michael Keaton family comedy, not the horror movie. But don't get us wrong, it *is* horrific. Please, please watch this, or at least listen to us delight in its absurdities. Need something to listen to while you wrap those last minute gifts? Go ahead and pour yourself an eggnog spiked with bourbon (or rum, I guess...no judgment), smash that play button, settle in, and get ready to laugh.