Your Stupid Minds

Your Stupid Minds continues its series on "children's movies no one has ever seen involving talking/hyper intelligent pets" with the somewhat Wishbone ripoff How I Saved the President (or The Undercover Kid). Precocious kid Max Anderson (Bradley Pierce) is in a stifling home environment, which he copes with by talking to his cat Nellie (Victoria Jackson) and Jack Russell Terrier Bo (played by Robert Knepper and Barkley the Dog, respectively).

When a foreign-sounding German Shepherd at the park tips them off about a presidential assassination plot, Max must use his four-legged friends to stop the terrorists! But first he must convince his oppressive dad and clueless mom that the plot is afoot, and he can indeed talk to animals. Join Chris, Nick, and special guest Nico Mesa on this bizarre family romp through high stakes international intrigue.

After a month of reviewing big budget sequels starring some of our favorite actors, we at Your Stupid Minds decided to scale back to a nice zero-budget drama written, directed, and starring one of our favorite auteurs. Yes, we return to Neil Breen, the writer/director/producer/star/visionary behind Fateful Findings, one of our favorite movies of last year (yes, we know it technically came out in 2013). This time, it’s I Am Here.... Now, a morality play about a godlike alien being as he hassles a handful of drug dealers and corrupt politicians as he decides whether the human race should be eradicated. He also befriends an old man with cancer and a young environmental activist/escort. Will Neil Breen and his weird robot body and zombie face kill us all? There’s only one way to find out!

It’s our follow-up to “Academy Award nominees appearing in cash-grab sequels,” as we follow Batman Returns with The Lost World: Jurassic Park, featuring Academy Award Nominee Julianne Moore! Several years after the events of the first film, the almost unrecognizable Dr. Ian Malcolm heads to a second, “lost” island where the dinosaurs have flourished in isolation to find Sarah (Moore), his dino expert girlfriend. For no reason, his 12-13 year old daughter tags along. But the environmental observation is ruined when a team of EVIL poachers appear, ready to embark on a plan 50X dumber and more irresponsible than Jurassic Park’s “clone dinosaurs and then make people buy plane tickets to come and see the dinosaurs.” Featuring an all-star supporting cast (Vince Vaughn, Pete Postlethwaite, Peter Stormare) and one of the best action directors ever, the film still manages to be pretty terrible, thanks largely to a script that makes characters actively sabotage their own survival for little to no reason and behave in incredibly dumb ways whenever the script demands.

Your Stupid Minds returns to the well of goofy comic book movies; this time, it's that movie that you never think about but remember being sort of good: Batman Returns! It's the Ghostbusters 2 of a new generation! It's also the return of Academy Award favorite Michael Keaton to the podcast. Was his performance in Birdman better than Jack Frost? You tell us!

Join Chris, Nick, and returning guest Vincent Goodwin as we address the wall-to-wall strange choices that helped propel Batman Returns to the #3 spot of the 1992 box office (oh wait, it completely coasted on the success of Batman, the #1 film of 1989)! Together, we answer the tough questions like: what happens in this movie? Who is the main character? Why does the Penguin act the way he does? What is Penguin's plan? What is Catwoman's plan? How many press conferences can one mayor throw in the same plaza? Why isn't Gotham constantly dealing with recall elections?

Your Stupid Minds finally finishes the epic Ayn Rand film trilogy with our podcast review of Atlas Shrugged Part III: Who Is John Galt? Two box office bombs weren’t going to stop the producers of Atlas Shrugged, so after a Kickstarter campaign and a second complete recast, the series is finally complete. Hear our reviews of Part I and Part II for a more holistic experience.

After Dagny Taggart (Laura Regan) crashes her plane while searching for Galt’s Gulch, she finally finds John Galt himself (Kristoffer Polanha) a hunky libertarian who seduces Dagny with longwinded speeches about self-sufficiency. After a guided tour of the Gulch which mostly takes place in Galt’s arms, Dagny is still hesitant to participate in their collective temper tantrum and returns to the rail company, which is on the verge of nationalization. Will she save the railroad? Will her and Galt get it on? Will there be muted political discussions amongst rich jerks drinking wine? Find out!

Happy New Year from Your Stupid Minds! We start off the new year right with a return to Slam Dunk Fun! This time we have Freaky Friday meets Like Mike meets that part in Space Jam when all the superstars lose their basketball abilities: 2012’s Thunderstruck starring NBA all-star Kevin Durant! A 16 year old basketball fan (who acts 10) is comically terrible at basketball, and after an exchange with Durant at an Oklahoma City Thunder game, is magically imbued with his amazing basketball skills! The high school basketball coach (played by “sleepy bear” Jim Belushi) lets him on the team and performs amazingly. At the same time, Durant is horrible and his agent Alan (Brandon T. Jackson) figures out very quickly that it’s because of this gypsy curse. Special thanks to YSM fan Brianne for the recommendation (and we hope your team does better this or next season).

Your Stupid Minds returns from a brief hiatus to provide yet another Cannon Group/Golan-Globus movie, this time riding the coattails of the sensational news story of the Legion of Doom vigilante group at R.L. Paschal High School in Fort Worth. Dangerously Close was the low-budget theatrical version released one week before the made-for-TV movie of the same subject, The Brotherhood of Justice, starring future heartthrobs Keanu Reeves, Kiefer Sutherland, Lori Loughlin, and Billy Zane. Dangerously Close stars no one, unless you count John Stockwell (future director of In the Blood), and Michelle Pfeiffer’s sister.

At a high school presumably in Southern California, a student organization called “The Sentinels” cleans up the school through education, regular hallway patrols, and targeting people they don’t like and pretending to murder them. When one of their victims ends up actually murdered, high school newspaper editor and goody-two-shoes Danny (J. Eddie Peck) investigates. When Danny’s pudgy annoying punk friend Krooger (Bradford Bancroft) goes missing, Danny decides to expose The Sentinels for the murderous terrorist organization it truly is.

Digest the day away with our newest podcast episode: 1996’s The Phantom starring buff tan Billy Zane. Evil 1930s guy Xander Drax (Treat Williams) tries to get three powerful shiny skulls so he can shoot a bunch of people with skull lasers. He enlists the help of secret cult member and all-around goon Quill (James Remar) and perpetually catsuit-clad aviatrix Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to jet set around the globe to New York sets, jungle caves, and uncharted pirate islands. The Phantom (Billy Zane) tracks his movements in a purple suit with the help of his white horse and pet wolf (who can talk to horses). The Phantom made $5 million its opening weekend, ranking #6 behind instant classics such as Eddie and Dragonheart.

After going months without reviewing a Cannon/Golan-Globus film, we finally snapped and watched Link, the story of an ape that doesn't seem to understand when a young Elizabeth Shue isn't interested in him that way. Shue plays Jane (of course), a chimp apologist and student who volunteers to work with Professor Steven Phillip (Terrence Stamp)'s chimps at his remote country estate. She's greeted at the door by Link, an orangutan in chimp-makeup, and quickly befriends the various chimps, disapproving of Stamp's negativity and casual attitude towards Link smoking cigars at the dinner table. When the Professor disappears, Jane is left alone with the chimps, and eventually starts to realize that something ain't quite right. It's almost like Link won't let her leave. And what's he doing outside her bathroom while she's showering? Try closing the door, dummy.

A special Halloween episode with one of the worst movies we’ve ever reviewed! Have you ever thought “you know, I really like those Leprechaun movies with Warwick Davis, except I wish he couldn’t talk and was a monster instead of a leprechaun”? Well you’re in luck! WWE Studios acquired the franchise, cast dwarf wrestling novelty act Hornswoggle, plastered him all over the marketing materials, and then put him in a disgusting full body costume and gave him no lines. The result is a lazy generic slasher film with absolutely no remnants of the original franchise.

On their last week visiting Ireland (which looks suspiciously like British Columbia), a group of four friends (with suspiciously Canadian accents) come upon a small town with charming locals who agree to take them to a special hiking spot. As it turns out, this hiking spot is a ruse to provide the tourists as human sacrifice for a monster terrorizing the countryside, which they insist is a leprechaun despite all appearances to the contrary. What results is a barely written series of scenes alternating between various cabins, vehicles, and forests involving running, scampering, screaming, whimpering, yelling, and crying.

Not only is the movie pure tedium, but by the end the audience is subjected to twelve (12) minutes of excruciating end credits with nary a post-credit stinger in sight. That’s $5.40 we will never see again.