Your Stupid Minds

Bad movie expert Nathan Smith returns to the podcast with another Uwe Boll masterpiece, his sophomore entry into his mid 2000s video game trilogy (I know he's done more but House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, and BloodRayne are the gold standard) Alone in the Dark!

Based on a computer game no one's played, this one features Christian Slater as a globetrotting paranormal investigator, Tara Reid as an archeologist and expert in fictional ancient languages, and Stephen Dorff as the head of Bureau 713, a secret government organization that seeks to protect the world from paranormal dangers. An evil old man tries to unlock monsters from the legend of the ancient Mayan-like civilization the Abkani, and it's up to the team to stop him. Or open it before him? It isn't entirely clear.

The Barbarian Twins Peter and Paul David (from The Barbarians) return to the podcast. Instead of a Conan the Barbarian ripoff that showcases the fact they're two buff twins, they're now in a buddy cop comedy that showcases the fact they're two buff twins. Peter Jade (Peter Paul) and David Jade (David Paul) are two buff twins whose life paths have diverged. David is a cop in an LA Raiders children's sweatshirt and mom jeans, while Peter is a slick suit-wearing cat burglar. Despite their estrangement, they apparently still coordinate on workout regimens and mullet hairstyles, but that's another story. When Peter steals diamonds and a secret key code for a diamond vault, all-around bad guy Philip Chamberlain (Roddy McDowell) is out for blood. To solve the case, the two brothers must team up and stop the heist before it comes to fruition. Also David Carradine is in one scene.

Your Stupid Minds delves into well-trodden bad movie territory with the notoriously terrible animated Italian film Titanic: The Legend Goes On. We may not have the annoying falsetto screech of The Nostalgia Critic, or the deep-seated racism of JonTron, but we do have notable animal lover and Chris's sister Sarah Dobson back on the podcast.

Angelica (Lisa Russo) is a lowly beautiful servant who looks strikingly like Anastasia. She meets the rich and handsome William (Mark Thompson-Ashworth) who gropes her laundry and they fall in love. meanwhile, a menagerie of obnoxious talking animals, including a rapping dog, a noble French mouse who looks like Fievel, and a trio of horrible Mexican mice stereotypes, sing tonally inappropriate songs about partying and dancing. Then the boat sinks and almost no one dies, thus tarnishing the legacy of the 1,500 actual people who perished in this real life tragedy.

In honor of the probably mediocre renter Ghost in the Shell coming to theaters, Your Stupid Minds reviewed something that kinda sounds like it: 1993's Ghost in the Machine, starring Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Sandlot), Chris Mulkey (Twin Peaks), and Jessica Walter (Dr. Strange, Arrested Development).

The Address Book Killer (Ted Marcoux) is a local weirdo who works in a computer store. After acquiring Terry Munroe's (Allen) partially digitized address book, he drives off into a torrential thunderstorm to murder her and her friends. He gets into a car accident and a power surge while inside an MRI machine scans his entire body and consciousness into the internet so he can continue his murderous rampage as a ghost in the machine (literally!).

Meanwhile Bram Walker (Mulkey) is a down and out super hacker who helps Terry and her wiener son catch the killer. Featuring some wonderfully gruesome deaths involving a microwave, pool cover, and dishwasher.

Your Stupid Minds tries a semi-new release before the other big name bad movie podcasts can take a crack at it: Fifty Shades Darker! Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) return per contractual obligation for this needless sequel to the passable first film Fifty Shades of Grey.

Ana and Christian are broken up. And when you break up with someone, it's important to just move on. Just kidding! You should buy several photographs of her at a public gallery, follow her around and maintain a dossier with her picture and measurements. Luckily this works (when you're a billionaire), so the lovers reconcile and proceed with progressively kinkier "vanilla" sex.

Unfortunately their disgusting love is tainted by pockets of tension which quickly dissipate, such as a rapist boss with the on-the-nose villain name of Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), crazy ex-lover Leila (Bella Heathcote), older abuser Elena (Kim Basinger), and third act helicopter malfunction. The movie is mostly Batman Returns at this point, except with Christian being much more manipulative and aloof than Bruce Wayne.

Your Stupid Minds is staying political with 1996's First Kid? Haven't you wanted to see what would happen if a snot-nosed child of the President of the United States teamed up with Sinbad? Your wish has come true!

Luke Davenport (Brock Pierce) is the teenaged son of the president. He doesn't get along with his current Secret Service agent, so Sam Simms (Sinbad) is assigned to his detail. He sneaks him out of the White House, teaches him how to fight against prep school bully Rob (Zachery Ty Bryan), and gives him the moves to get the girl.

Your Stupid Minds brings you a chilling tale of things to come (or are) with 1996's Barb Wire. See if any of this sounds familiar to you. It's during the second civil war. Martial Law. Congressional Directorate. Old democracy overthrown. Sounds familiar. What year does this take place?

2017??? THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT! Barb Wire pinpointed where we were going with shocking accuracy.

In any case, it's a sexy comic book adaptation with Pamela Anderson (Barb Wire). Udo Kier is also there. It's a shoddy dystopian remake of Casablanca. It's based on a Dark Horse comic book. Enjoy!

Your Stupid Minds finishes out the Neil Breen oeuvre with 2015/2016's Pass Thru, brought to you by a purchased $30 standard def DVD from the Breenster himself!

Falling into Breen's "foreign being committing mass murder for the sake of humanity" genre, Pass Thru is about a time-traveling alien named "Tghil" (named after a yogurt container) who embodies the corporeal form of a heroin-addicted loser to bring benevolent genocide to the world. He befriends a multicultural aunt/niece combo to take on the corrupt politicians, hypocritical media, and greedy CEOs while a group of tenacious young astronomers try to seek him out.

Merry Christmas from Your Stupid Minds! We celebrate the holiday with a middling shelved Hungarian/UK adaptation of Tchaikovsky's classic, with 2010's The Nutcracker in 3D! Starring a young Elle Fanning as Mary, John Turturro as The Rat King, and Nathan Lane as Uncle Albert Einstein (yes this actually happened in the movie).

When Uncle Albert brings over a Nutcracker and dollhouse for his niece Mary and hellish toy-destroying Nephew Max (Aaron Michael Drozin), the Nutcracker comes to life, along with the dolls inside the house! Mary travels to a dream world full of Nazi-horrors, as the fascist Rat King has taken over the Nutcracker's kingdom and genocided all the toys. It's up to Mary, the Nutcracker, a harlequin clown, a chimp man, and a Rastafarian drummer boy to save the day. Also Sigmund Freud is briefly in the movie.

Your Stupid Minds takes a detour off the well-traveled roads of bad movies to seek out William McGaha, a writer, director, producer, and star of three very cheap films in the 1960s and 70s. Fresh off Nudie-Cutie Bad Girls for the Boys and Stock-car racing+gangsters project The Speed Lovers, McGaha's third and final passion project is J.C., a 1972 biker movie about a religious fanatic and Jesus-allegory biker who basically just mooches off everyone.

After construction worker J.C. and his cohort are yelled at for smoking during a lunch break, J.C. quits and gets high in his tighty-whities while his former social worker girlfriend runs errands and is a functional adult. J.C. has a vision of a big eye or something and that night at a campfire rouses his biker pals to drive cross-country to his hometown for.... reasons. The bikers immediately upset the local populace, not (only) because they are rude and smell bad, but because they have brought their black friends. Will J.C. and his crew run afoul of Sheriff Caldwell (Slim Pickens, somehow in this movie)? ....Yes.