Read it and Weep

People kept raving about how delightful this little British bear is but I had to see for myself. Our one and only bear movie of Grizzmass 2018, we watched and completely adored this movie.

Plus! The invention of the new game FAN FACTS. Super fun. Keep em coming!

It’s the Christmas movie that has kids everywhere raving, “I like when the bad guys get hit in the face.” But does the facial-abuse comedy hold up to adult scrutiny? Find out!

We all know Christmas needs to be saved. No, not from commercialism, paganism, secularism, and the conspiracy of atheists who insist we acknowledge the existence of other people but saying “happy holidays.” Oh no. Kirk Cameron thinks Christmas is perfect the way it is, it just needs to be saved from religious people not enjoying it enough. So he’s helped produce a movie where he uses the power of insane logic to justify everything he was going to do anyway.

Is it dumb or evil? Is it annoying or just boring? And will it save Christmas? Find out!

What better way to end our first ever James Bond month than with the parody that changed the Bond franchise. So we dug up the low-budget comedy from our childhoods that was quoted to death, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. We wonder aloud whether or not it holds up, and settle on kinda. Grab your nostalgia hats and Swedish penis pumps and dive in.

James Bond hasn’t always been a famous international man of mystery. Briefly, he was a mysterious Australian international man of mystery. For one day and one day only, he was played by George Lazenby (peach), a model with an ocean-deep chin notch. Is he the worst James Bond? The best? Underrated? Not Yet Rated? Find out!

Also of note, this includes the saddest James Bond scene, the weirdest, the most uncomfortable daughter-auction, and an allergy based harem.

Becoming Bond, the 2017 documentary about G Lazy.

It’s in the name of the month, and it’s the first ever James Bond movie. We watched the 1962 film Dr. No! It’s got a lot of the elements we love about James Bond (tuxedos, weird card games, bonkers villains) and a lot of the elements we hate about James Bond (sexism, harassing women at work, having sex in front of military personnel). It’s got its upsides (Sean Connery, peach variety of James Bonds, not nectarine) and some downsides (a really hard to watch rear projection car chase scene).

To put it in this historical context, we had Ezra’s dad on, David Fox, to talk to us about what it was like to see it in theaters in 1962 and about how it’s changed over the years, how parents use James Bond for bonding.

Welcome to our first-ever Dr No-vember! We’re bonding all month over the classic spy who sexually harassed us, starting out with Pierce Brosnan’s debut in the 1995 film that revitalized the series, GoldenEye. Yes we talked about the video game too.

The movie is interesting for almost recognizing all the problems with the series but then doing nothing about them. Also it’s got a really cool tank chase.

We all know The Rock reaches high heights. but just because you can physically jump all the way from that tower crane to the tower, that doesn’t mean you you should. You might land the jump, but be worse for wear afterwards. That’s what happens here. It turns out the rock isn’t quite strong enough or fast enough or charming enough to save a really boring script from working. This is a movie about a really tall tower and The Rock, and I thought that would be enough for me, but it turns out I’m starting to demand a little bit more. It’s okay, and it’s better than if The Rock wasn’t in it, but this #TheRocktober just tipped over at the end.

We talk during the Jumanji 2 episode about how creating a movie from a marketing idea and working backwards is not a great way to make a movie. It worked in that case, but in this one, it seems like they came up with the idea for the tagline, and then really slapped together a movie to fill it out. Whoever came up with the line, “Saving the world takes a little Hart and a big Johnson,” deserves a raise. Everybody else on this movie deserves a demerit.

This is what it looks like when you make a movie backwards. You’ve got a video game franchise. You gotta get the Rock in it. You have to blow up Chicago.

Unlike Jumanji, this doesn’t 100% work. It’s fine. It’s got some good parts. There’s a giant cartoon monkey. But it’s not amazing.