What if someone designed a computer program based on a hundred of the worst serial killers, assassins, despots, and also Emperor Hirohito for some reason, used silicon snake technology to make him real, and set him loose in Los Angeles? Also what if this terrifying being was Russell Crowe and you see his butt and he acts like the Joker the entire time? Those are the questions that 1995's Virtuosity asks. Join us and special returning guest Sarah Long as we deep dive into this '90s cyberpunk classic.

Parker Barnes (Denzel Washington) is a former cop wrongfully imprisoned (he did kill two innocent people, but it was an accident and he looked cool while he was doing it) performing tests in a VR environment designed to train cops on what to do if a serial killer creates a hostage situation in a Japanese restaurant. The program kills Barnes's virtual partner, and then the serial killer program, SID 6.7 (Crowe) is made real and escapes into reality. Though SID is made up of many baddies, the "dominant" personality is that of Matthew Grimes (Christopher Murray), a super terrorist who killed Barnes's family. Therefore Barnes is the only person who can stop him, so they implant a tracking/kill device into his brain and set him on the hunt.

Barnes's de facto partner is criminal psychologist Madison Carter (Kelly Lynch), a single mom with a precocious daughter Karin (Kaley Cuoco). I sure hope that kid doesn't get kidnapped! Will Barnes stop the killer in time? Did he really shoot that woman on the train? Or was it the mass murderer holding her hostage? Why didn't they give that guy clothes before going on TV? And how do you say the name "Fichtner?" Is it like sphincter? All this and more in our latest episode!

Your Stupid Minds is back after a February break with the film that connects us all, it's 2024's Madame Web, brought to you by the delicious taste of Pepsi-Cola!

Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson) is a sassy New York EMT who has trouble connecting to people except for her partner Ben (Adam Scott). After a near drowning she unlocks her latent spider power of seeing the future, something spiders are known for.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel Sims (Tahir Rahim), who, and I can't be certain of this, may have been in the Amazon with Cassie's mom when she was researching spiders before she died, is on the hunt for three superheroes who kill him in a dream. He utilizes the NSA's 2003 super-spying technology to track them down. Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Anya (Isabela Merced), and Mattie (Celeste O'Connor) are all on the same train when Cassie gets a vision of their deaths at the hand of Ezekiel. Cassie intervenes and from then on they're on the run and trying to find answers.

Note: This episode originally aired on April 24, 2015.

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This week, YSM tackles the truly bizarre buddy cop/talking dinosaur movie Theodore Rex. Join us as we wonder whether writer/director Jonathan Betuel got an uncredited plot assist from his four-year-old nephew Tommy and whether Theodore Rex is the most annoying 90s "poochie" protagonist we've ever covered. In the near-future, human-sized dinosaurs have been brought back by an eccentric German scientist just to see if he can. Now, the scientist is planning to start another ice age in order to bring in a new society. In the wake of a dino-murder, police officer/publicity stunt diversity hire Theodore Rex is given permission to investigate, along with new partner Katie Coltrane (Goldberg), a tough cop with computer enhancements. Together, they deal with the evil scientist and his henchmen "Edge," (Stephen McHattie), "Spinner," (Bud Cort), and "The Toymaker" (Peter Kwong).

Note: This episode originally aired on October 16, 2014.

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We continue our October scary-movie-a-thon-thing with the terrifying and impossible to alphabetize cyber thriller .com for Murder. Directed by schlock semi-master Nico Mastorakis, this ripoff of Halloween, Psycho, Rear Window, etc. stars Nastassja Kinski (Cat People), Nicollette Sheridan (former Michael Bolton paramour), Roger Daltrey (Vampirella, The Who), and Huey Lewis (of the News).

When hotshot architect Ben (Daltrey) leaves his temporarily handicapped wive Sondra (Kinski) in the care of her sister and a completely computerized mansion named Hal, she uses the opportunity to antagonize murderers in an online sex chatroom. When she annoys the wrong murderer—a hacker who goes by Werther—he uses the opportunity to send her video footage of a murder (encrypted as a racist public domain cartoon) and then go after her as well! Meanwhile FBI Agent Matheson (Lewis) takes the case despite lacking a basic understanding of computers and technology.

Join Nick, Chris, and returning special guest Sarah Long (from Episode 42: American Strays) as we try and figure out how to add blood effects to chatoom text, why the director thought the delete key could possibly execute any sort of command, and the murderer's extremely dubious time estimate for death by wrist knick.

Your Stupid Minds continues its Worst of 2023 limited series with yet another nine-figure Netflix action movie that they apparently forgot to promote. It's Heart of Stone with Gal Gadot!

Rachel Stone (Gadot) is a young statuesque superhacker who's a new recruit to MI6. She's part of a team including combat expert Yang (Jing Lusi), another combat expert Parker (Jamie Dornan), and another superhacker Bailey (Paul Ready). Their mission is to kidnap some Russian guy for information, which they fail at spectacularly.

But Stone isn't a normal MI6 agent. She's actually part of an even secreter organization called the Charter, which does everything based on the word of an AI supercomputer called the Heart. The Heart has the power to change the tide of human history, but they mostly use it for video game vision in the field and spewing out useless probabilities in real time. As a double agent, Stone is tasked with finding out who's trying to destroy the Heart, which for the most part she also fails at spectacularly until it's too late.

Cars blow up, people jump out of airplanes, and unconvincing CGI muzzle flashes light up the screen. It's about what you'd expect from another $150 million Netflix screensaver. But is it better or worse than your average first quarter theatrical release action flick? You'll have to listen to find out!

Your Stupid Minds starts 2024 with our Worst of 2023 limited series. Our first one is the John Cena action "comedy" from the director of Taken (no, not Luc Besson) and co-starring Alison Brie! It's 2023's Freelance.

Mason Pettits (Cena) is former Army Special Forces who injures his back in a helicopter crash during a mission to "liberate" the fictional South American country of Paldonia. After being bored as the most jacked lawyer of all time, he takes on a "freelance" job from his Army buddy Sebastian (Christian Slater) protecting journalist Claire Wellington (Brie) as she visits Paldonia to interview President Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba). The mission goes off without a hitch, Mason collects his $20,000, and his wife loves him again. The end.

Just kidding. The mission goes sideways when a coup d'état breaks out during the visit. Venegas's worm nephew Jorge (Sebastian Eslava) is under the control of foreign powers who want to strip the country of its natural resources. Pettits, Venegas, and Brie must team out to save the country, and blow up some more helicopters in the process.

Apparently we're only in Day Six of the Twelve Days of Christmas (look it up), so we're doing another Christmas movie with Disney's Robert Zemeckis's 2009 CGI monstrosity adaptation of A Christmas Carol!

Do I really need to explain the plot of A Christmas Carol? Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is visited by three spirits (Jim Carrey, Jim Carrey, and Jim Carrey) to change him of his miserly Christmas-hating ways. This adaptation is slavishly faithful to the text of the story, so it adds a lot of non-verbal CGI gobbledygook to take advantage of all 2000s era CGI 3D technology has to offer. Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, and Bob Hoskins are also present.

The end! Merry Christmas!

Your Stupid Minds FINALLY gets into the holiday spirit with, what else, a Hallmark-style Christmas movie with a wrestler! It's the free agent holiday movie starring WWE's Trish Status, 2022's Christmas in Rockwell.

Alyssa (Stratus) is a former child actress turned grown up actress who made it big at 12 years old with Holly's Puppy Christmas (or something similarly titled, I don't want to go back and look it up). She travels to Rockwell, Nowheredaho (but really it's in Canada), her home town that she hasn't been to since she left as a child for the bright lights of Los Angeles.

Her goal is to fulfill her Christmas list, doing all the holiday things she missed out on as a child and are part and parcel for these types of movies: Go ice skating, sit on Santa's lap, hang out in a hotel lobby for a while. The only problem? It's the 25th anniversary of Christmas Holly's Puppies, and she doesn't want anyone (especially the press) to know she's in town.

She immediately has a meet cute with the obligatory bland single 30-something hunk Jake (Stephen Huszar). Jake runs an arthouse movie theater with his mom Juniper (Sheila McCarthy) and her secret lover Morty (Roy Lewis). The theater is failing because mom insists on only showing obscure ancient arthouse films that no one's heard of and do not exist. Other than that Jake is a complete blank slate, a man without a past, who speaks only in vague aphorisms. If he existed anywhere outside of a made-for-streaming Christmas movie he would be an amnesia patient or serial killer.

Short story short: The press find out Alyssa is in town and the Puppy Holly Christmas superfans lose their minds. She blames Jake but he obviously didn't spill the beans because he is incapable of independent thought or action. Will they reconcile and smooch? Yes. Is there any wrestling in this movie? No.

It's officially the Christmas season! Here we come a-wassailing! Here comes Santa Claus right down Santa Claus Lane! Jack Frost nipping at your nose. We're reviewing Assassin's Creed (2016).

Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is a convicted murderer who is being put to death in the Texas desert prison outpost in Huntsville. As he's executed, he wakes up in a strange facility in Madrid. Sofia (Marion Cotillard) explains that they need to hook him up to a giant GLaDOS-like mechanical arm so he can tap into the genetic memory of his ancestors, steal the Apple of Eden, which contains the genetic code for free will, and this will somehow solve violence. Makes sense to me!

Cal is apparently a descendant of a line of assassins who have been fighting the Knights Templar for generations, mostly for this Apple but for other stuff too. He meets other assassin descendants, who basically have nothing else to do but hang around this facility for a while. There is also the icy Rikkin (Jeremy Irons), the Gendo of this organization and father of Sofia, as well as Cal's father (Brendan Gleeson) who he thinks killed his mother.

Can Cal, under his cool ancestor assassin name of Aguilar, recover the Apple and save the world or something? Or is this creepy shadowy organization using sense memory VR to force you to do cool flips in 15th century Spain not all it's cracked up to be? You'll have to listen to find out! Also, if you didn't know, this is based on a video game.

Your Stupid Minds covers a movie that may not exist, except in the deepest, darkest dollar bins of the seediest Walmarts of the world. It's the David DeCoteau Punisher-lite tale Prey of the Jaguar (1996) starring Maxwell Caulfield, Stacy Keach, and Linda Blair.

Damien Bandera (Trevor Goddard, a.k.a. Kano in the original Mortal Kombat movie) is a drug kingpin who's just been busted out of prison by his compatriots. Or is his name Banderas? He's referred to as both in this movie.

Derek Leigh (Caulfield) is a regular 90s dad with a mustache who, for a 96 minute movie, spends a LOT of time in the first act with his loving pregnant wife and precocious son for them to not be fridged. His son Jeremy (Devon Michael) shows his dad the completely novel superhero he's invented that has no ties to any existing intellectual property: The Jaguar!

Derek is visited by The Commander (Stacy Keach), his former boss at a secret espionage organization sporting a turtleneck, ponytail, and George H.W. Bush glasses. The Commander warns him that Bandera/Banderas, the guy he put away in an undercover operation, is out. Derek acknowledges his family may be in danger, and then goes to work. Bandera/s shows up where he works, shoots him, and throws him off a building. And mentions that he killed his entire family.

Three hours later, after he's processed all of his grief, Derek decides to kit himself out and become a super karate vigilante named the Jaguar, fashioned after his son's superhero. Will he fulfill his revenge? Was the Commander REALLY killed off screen in that car crash? Will there be a talking cat?! You'll have to listen to find out.