ENDURANCE TEST TUESDAYS #5 – ALL MUSIC VIDEO EDITION

Last week’s “Endurance Test Tuesdays” was… shall we say, rough.  So, this week, I’m doing something COMPLETELY different.  Instead of reviewing one movie, I’m going to watch and review SEVEN awful music videos!  These span different genres, different styles, and cover all kinds of random acts of what-the-fuckery.  So, with that in mind, let’s do this!!!

1. BLACKSTREET/MYA/MA$E/SOME RANDOM NIGGA – TAKE ME THERE

Have you ever thought “WOW, I wanna hear a song about orgasms that also samples the Rugrats theme song”?!  If you have, I hate you.  This is an awful song made more awful by the fact that it’s clearly about things that are way too adult for its intended audience.  But, alas here we are, a song made for the Rugrats Movie soundtrack (in theory).  The music video tries to connect itself to the TV show by having an annoyingly colorful palette, and also having outright weird and creepy visual gags.  For example, you have MYA singing about sex while sucking on a pacifier in an oversized crib…  Um…  Nah, B.

Blackstreet comes in later on after some shitty dancing from Mya and her no-name back-up dancers, and continues singing creepily about things that shouldn’t be associated with Rugrats.  Each and every one of them looks like they’re doing this as some form of court-ordered community service.  Speaking of, Ma$e comes in, and raps an unbelievably shitty verse to go along with all the other unbelievably shitty verses that defined his joke of a career.  This video depicts Ma$e and his other rapper buddy riding around in a Reptar car chasing the Rugrats…  Grown men… in a car that attracts children… chasing after young toddlers as they run screaming….  Erm…..

My greatest hope is that this music video, once and for all, exposes the 90’s as the weird and messed up decade that it was.  If anyone wants to complain about how Millennials don’t know good music, just google this, and shut the hell up.

NEXT!

2. TONJE LANGETEIG – I DON’T WANNA BE A CRAPPY HOUSEWIFE

If there is any song that could count as an acceptable form of torture, it’d be this.  “I Don’t Wanna Be A Crappy Housewife” is a song about a late 20-something woman-child’s attempt to find her youth by going to a lightly attended nightclub in broad daylight.  Tonje (pronounced like TOENAIL) starts out the video lamenting that she’s a “little pretty girl trapped inside a grown-up’s body”.  A relatively generic sounding EDM-lite track starts as Tonje and her butterface friend get out of a car, and are mobbed by about 10 people standing around before going into a mostly empty nightclub, and singing about not wanting to be a “crappy housewife”.

This song seems to indicate that a woman who might want to start a family, and raise children is “crappy”.  On the contrary, women everyday are either relegated to cultural roles like (a) being a housewife, or (b) being one of the idiots in this video.  This video, of the two extremes, seems to prefer the latter.  So much so, that by rejecting being a “housewife” who is also “crappy”, it completely ignores… y’know, the majority of women who don’t fit either roles.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the actual politics of the song, because the song has no politics.  The song has no anything.  It barely has lyrics.  That is, until two wiggers come in to save the day, and rap (horribly) about how our female protagonist’s youth is fading, as if to throw it in her face repeatedly.  Of course, the rapping is shitty…  Because, it’s Norway’s assumption of what rappers are supposed to look like and sound like.  Except, they’re about two decades behind, and end up settling around the vicinity of 1992 rap stereotypes.  I’m sure all of these people, include Tonje (or Toenail) thought they were making something amazing.  But, what they made was shit.  So much for not wanting to be a crappy housewife.

NEXT!  (MORE FROM NORWAY)

3. JILL-HAD/BIG J/LITTEL T – WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A HOMIE & A HOMO

This is either the world’s second worst rap video (we’ll get to the 1st in a sec), or the world’s worst attempt at a parody of rap.  The lines blur, and I’m not entirely sure if these guys are actually failing at rapping, or failing at making fun of rap.  Either way, they fail.  “What’s The Difference Between a Homie & a Homo” is, homophobic title aside, almost too-stupid to be offensive.  Almost.  We go through the video, and it’s a bunch of assholes hanging out at a golf course rapping while another guy who is clearly supposed to be the “homo” in this video gets irate and angry at the guys.  This leads to a chase between golf carts that ends with our “homo” hero hitting the guys with golf balls.

I’m bothered by so many aspects of this music video…  Mainly that it’s trying to be funny.  And, almost nothing is worst than watching something try to be funny, but fail so spectacularly at it.  One can tell it’s trying so damn hard.  It’s probably one of the more cringey music videos I’ve seen.  “What’s The Difference Between A Homie & Homo” one guy says at the end of the video.  “I don’t know!  I don’t know shit!” says another guy.  That much is true.

NEXT!

4. CINDY ST. VIL – BOAZ

Little known fact: I love Gospel music.  Growing up in the Pentecostal Church, I have a fondness for the genre.  But, when it sucks, oh boy…  And, “Boaz” is no different.  What makes “Boaz” terrible (other than the fact that the music/singing/production/everything is shitty from top to bottom) is that it acts as some sort of clumsy attempt at a love song while also teaching people to NOT HAVE SEX.  That’s right.  “Boaz” is a song in which a woman sings about waiting for the right man and staying celibate whilst waiting.  Ah…  The ol’ “NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE” thing, huh?  Plus, this woman can’t sing.  She just can’t.

She also can’t act!  Which is especially unfortunate since there’s so much damn acting in this video.  There’s this stupid prologue that seems to last forever about our protagonist rejecting men, and lamenting how she’s waiting for her “Boaz” (For non-Bible people, Boaz is a central character in “The Book of Ruth”).  Then, it transitions into a series of awkwardly acted scenes and awkwardly choreographed dancer numbers.  The video just lurches on… and on… and on… and on…  There was a point where I thought it’d never end.

Look, I know there’s good Gospel out there.  Listening to this reminded me of other BETTER Gospel singers like Kierra Sheard or Dottie Peoples.  Those songs just rouse something in you where you feel it even if you don’t believe in God.  Songs like this make people actively become Atheists.  And, I couldn’t blame them either.

NEXT!

5. A BUNCH OF ASSHOLES – THE ANDOVER SONG

Of the videos, this one was the truest Endurance Test of all.  Mostly due to its length.  What you get is nearly 8 minutes of (mostly white) teenagers rapping about how great their boarding school is…  Unfortunately, their teachers rap too.  I feel like I’m seeing a theme in every single one of these videos I’ve watched tonight…  They all seem to take place in some weird alternate dimension where EVERYONE can all of a sudden bust a rhyme at a moment’s notice.  All of these students look like they’re out of their depth, obviously made to do this by their teachers or else they would’ve flunked.

Phillips Academy Andover, being the WASPiest place on the planet, of course would be able to drum up some stupid bullshit like this.  Kids with parents that can afford to put their ungrateful asses in a fancy boarding school sing and rap about how privileged they are to have parents with money!  Oh, I’m sorry, was that not what the song was about?  Because, that’s all I could hear while listening.  This is one of those videos that tries to go for something that could go “viral”…  Teenagers rapping?  Check!  Their teachers rapping too?  CHECK!  All this needed was a cute cat, and this would be viral gold!

“The Andover Song” is like High School Musical for sociopaths.  Unfeeling, nihilistic, floating in an indifferent and apathetic musical universe devoid of substance or sustainable life, “The Andover Song” is like the Mein Kampf of high school pep rally songs.

NEXT!

6. LAFEAR – THE SECRET

If you ever need to convince kids to not do drugs, just show them this video.  It’ll scare em straight with ease.  This is the worst rap video I’ve ever seen.  Ever.  I’ve seen a lot of them.  This is the very worst, and it’s not even close.  First of all, can we talk about the clearly high-as-shit rapper at the center of this?  I mean, clearly he smoked a shit ton of crack before shooting this, that much is known.  But, even the recording matches the energy level of the actual video…  Meaning, THERE IS NO ENERGY.  And then, his video girls dancing around awkwardly.  The one thing I can applaud this video for is actually having video girls who look like actual hood rats.

There is so much that is “hood” about this music video.  Bodegas, backyard pools, strip clubs in someone’s basement where they throw around one dollar bills like ballers on a budget.  This nigga…  his eyes all bloodshot, lookin’ like he just woke up before shooting this, standing around while hood rats apathetically dance around him.  Can’t call this ratchet, it’s too BORING to be ratchet.  Everyone looks BORED as shit in this video.  The actual song is incredible… in its shittiness.  The beat sounds like some Fruity Loops bullshit, and the guy’s actual rapping makes me question whether he was really tired.  He sounds like he’s on the verge of falling asleep the entire time he’s on record.

Originally, I had another video in this one’s place.  But, after stumbling upon it, I knew there was no way I could get away with writing this without watching it.  In the hands of someone good, this could be some messed parody of rap in the way that our Norwegian idiots from a couple of videos ago could only dream of.  But, this dude is serious… Let that sink in.

NEXT!

7. R.A.E.D. – I’VE COME A LONG WAY

This song is pretty much the worst thing to happen to rap music since the Crack epidemic.  I think I’ve heard enough shitty rap tonight to never complain about the radio ever again.  If you truly think that Drake or Lil Wayne are ruining hip-hop, I’d refer you to this.  This is the type of shit that qualifies as “rap music”.  Unfortunately, this video doesn’t have quite the same level of what-the-fuckery as our previous video.  But what it does have is a guy rapping to a completely different beat than the one that’s backing him, utilizing a strange auto-tune/transposing effect on his vocals.  It’s like listening to one man’s slow descent into insanity.  From what I can gather, this video is just this guy on vacation, rapping, petting animals, and grabbing young boys and making them (unwillingly) appear in front of the camera.

This dude is like a male Iggy Azalea…  I had to know who the hell this asshole is.  He’s a guy born from Melbourne, Australia.  He apparently used to be an Ecstasy dealer, and used his money from his drug trafficking days to fund a rap career.  It’s the kind of heartwarming story that makes me wish he stayed in the drug trade.  That sounds cruel, I’m sure.  But, then again, I’ve sat through TWO (count em…  TWO) of this asshole’s music videos expecting something not shitty.  Apparently, that’s a tall order.

This isn’t to imply that rap isn’t inclusive.  We ALL know it is.  There’s rap music that spans cultures and countries…  Polish rap, Korean rap, French rap, German rap (my personal favorite kind of international rap)…  This genre opens its arms, and gives most people a chance.  And, then there’s asshole’s like this who seem to have a self-congratulatory attitude about his own rhymes.  I can’t make this funny, I can’t say witty things about this video, or the song it’s based on.  I really just wanna curl up into a ball, and die after listening to this.  Which is what I think I might do after finishing this post.

Ugh….  I thought this would be a fun palette cleanser after “Megan Is Missing”…  But no.  Next week, it’ll be back to our regularly scheduled shit of shitty movies.  So keep in mind…

Every Tuesday, I will watch and review whatever terrible shit you send me.  You can send me stuff to watch via facebook… Post it to my wall, and next Tuesday, you’ll see which video(s) made the cut.  So, send in your submissions (facebook.com/LewisMorrisPoetry) before Friday!

ENDURANCE TEST TUESDAYS #4 – MEGAN IS MISSING

TRIGGER WARNING: This film is about sexual violence against teenagers.  Seeing as I’m reviewing this, some of the (nsfw) images here are direct still shots taken from the film.  Still, just a heads up.

Once again, it’s time to discover the worst of the worst.  That’s right, it’s time for “Endurance Test Tuesdays”.  This is a recurring blog in which I willingly watch the very worst shit out there, and review it.  As always, Endurance Tests can come in any length or any style.  The only big rule is that they can’t be gross/gory/too easy to make me quit with.  Aside from that, it’s fair game…  With that said, this week’s Endurance Test is…

MEGAN IS MISSING (suggested by anonymous)

Every so often, there comes a film that demands our attention…  A film that rattles our collective lives, and forces us to reevaluate our world and how we relate to it.  That film is NOT “Megan Is Missing”.  You wouldn’t know that based on the quote from the poster above, or the director’s own self-congratulatory attitude about his own film.

Let’s not get it confused…  “Megan Is Missing” is a vicious little turd of a film…  Both utterly bewildering in its ineptitude, yet incredibly angering in its contradictory storytelling.  The main conceit here is that it’s supposed to be some kind of found footage film, compiled entirely from video chat, cell phone chat, etc.  This film fails majorly on all of those points.  More on that in a bit.  Let’s run down the plot.

The film is about two teenage girls.  They wear make-up, go to parties, and drink, and shit.  One of them (Megan) starts talking to some guy named “Josh” online, goes to meet him, and then goes missing.  Police get involved.  Then, the other girl (Amy) starts talking to the same guy (I’m getting a headache just typing this, it’s so fucking stupid), goes to meet him KNOWING it’s the same guy, and also goes missing.  What follows is about 20-30 minutes of rape/torture scenes involving a minor until the guy sticks the second girl in a barrel where Megan’s corpse has been left to rot, and then buries her alive with said corpse.  And, that’s the end of the movie.

Because, people totally use cell phone video chat for this rather than, y’know… a compact mirror.

Literally writing that rundown makes me wanna chug a gallon of bleach.  This film is bullshit in multiple ways, I don’t even know where to start.

Okay…  First, the film’s most egregious issue… it’s logic… There is none.  NO ONE ACTS THE WAY PEOPLE WOULD IN REAL LIFE.  Which is especially heinous here since this is found footage, and… y’know… IT’S SUPPOSED TO SIMULATE THINGS THAT REALLY HAPPENED.  If you ever decide that you hate yourself enough to watch this piece of shit, here’s a series of logic issues to have fun with:

A). When Megan goes missing, Amy (for some reason) doesn’t feel compelled to report this “Josh” character to the police.
B). After she does tell someone about “Josh”, the police don’t feel the need to monitor Amy’s online activity despite the fact that her best friend is missing, and that her online dealings could have something to do with it. I mean, Megan did go missing AFTER meeting up with this “Josh” character. Is it plausible AT ALL that Amy wouldn’t put two & two together.
C). Even after that, Amy feels compelled to chat with “Josh”… What the fuck?
D). Amy’s parents don’t feel compelled to monitor her online activity, or to tell her “no more chatting”, or “you can’t go outside right now”.

Ugh…. I hate having to post these actual stills from the film.

There’s more, but you get the point.  Also, let’s talk about the filming technique, since it makes no fucking sense at all.  Logically, this film is supposed to take place entirely via online communication.  So, video chat, and things of that nature.  In the film, the camera is always perfectly aimed, with characters sitting in one spot, talking, never multitasking at all.  Because, when I video chat, I don’t have other tabs open, I don’t surf the web, I sit in one spot for the entirety of the conversation not moving, or anything…  Bullshit.  Also, where I live, my reception is perfect 24/7, and NEVER drops out, or freezes, or loses resolution EVER… BULLSHIT.  Also, all of my friends rely ENTIRELY on video chat on their phones to talk to everyone and communicate plot points… er, I mean information to each other!!!  Because, no one fucking texts, or calls anyone EVER.  BULLSHIT!!!!!!

Ugh………  It also doesn’t help that the actual video quality is too good to be on a wireless network.  At multiple points, the movie contradicts its own logic with things like this.  Yet, it wants us to buy into the illusion of “this is all real”.  Another thing that ruins that illusion is that the acting is some of the worst I’ve ever seen.  No one talks the way people talk, and no one acts the way people act.  Our protagonists are supposedly “best friends” because the movie tells us they are.

Once it comes time for the movie to actually get into the abduction, the film goes from confusing and inept to insulting and harmful.  This film, which has been mostly about minors talking about sex or having sex, becomes a snuff film as it fetishistically depicts a young teenager being tortured and molested repeatedly until she is eventually buried alive with the corpse of her best friend.  I mean, what the fuck.

This is that corpse, by the way. I really truly hope something bad happens to this director.

The director is some asshole named Michael Goi, a cinematographer who has worked on shows like “Glee” and “American Horror Story”.  Looking into his filmography as a director, which includes films with titles like “Sexy Urban Legends” and “Voyeur”, I can’t help but view this as torture porn of the most despicable kind.

But, wait…  Do you hear that?  That’s the sound of BULLSHIT RATIONALIZATION!  That’s right, folks!  The defenders of this film (idiots, by the way) might suggest that this film is a call to action for parents everywhere to be more weary of their kids’ internet interactions.  Even the director himself has rationalized his shitty dialogue as “taken from real conversations from real 13/14 year old girls”.  You know what, I don’t know any girls that talk like the ones in this movie.  I don’t know any girls that consistently rely on video chat as their main mode of communication with each other.

The director… If I ever find this man, I’m gonna punch him directly in the face repeatedly.

And, another rationalization is that it’s “based on actual events”…  According to the director, it was culled together from like 8 different cases of child abduction.  Okay asshole, WHICH ONES?

You know, let’s cut the bullshit.  I’m sick of movies that try to hide their true intentions under the pretension of being about “important things”.  This is straight up nothing more than torture porn given more importance than it deserves because it’s about kids and the internet.  But, if it was REALLY all that important, then the director would’ve worked harder making sure that the logic of the film, and the actual visual presentation of it held up to scrutiny.  It’s so fucking lazy, I can’t believe it even exists.

“Megan Is Missing”, for all I know, could have been made with the absolute best intentions.  But, this final product is complete and total garbage not worth the DVD its printed on.  This is an absolutely AWFUL and downright DESPICABLE film, and I truly truly hate whoever suggested that I watch this bullshit.  Whoever that person is, we aren’t friends.

Please, I beg of you, do not give your time to this film.  I now feel like a permanently damaged person for having watched it.  Please don’t put yourself through it.  Seriously, I’m begging you, don’t watch it.  Ever.

I give this the highest cringe-meter rating….

5.0 out of 5.0

Every Tuesday, I will watch and review whatever terrible shit you send me.  You can send me stuff to watch via facebook… Post it to my wall, and next Tuesday, you’ll see which video(s) made the cut.  So, send in your submissions (facebook.com/LewisMorrisPoetry) before Friday!

ENDURANCE TEST #3 – AFTER LAST SEASON (punishment time)

Look…  I know I’m a piece of shit.  I missed the past two “Endurance Test Tuesdays”.  The reasons why are long and boring.  But, I’m back now.  And, to make it up to you guys, I’m gonna punish myself by watching the worst film ever made in the history of ever…

AFTER LAST SEASON

“After Last Season” is… something.  I hesitate to call it a movie.  I hesitate to even call it an “anything”.  I can’t call it “shit”.  Because, at least shit is distinctive.  At least shit has a smell.  At least shit has a color.  Sometimes, there’s even corn.

“After Last Season” is more akin to “gruel”.  Bland, colorless, and flavorless to a degree that is disturbing to even think about.  To write about this counts as a form of “self-harm”.  I’m hurting myself thinking about this… this… thing.  I hesitate to even call it a “thing”.  To call it a “thing” implies that it has some type of form, or that it has some type of weight as an existing thing.  It doesn’t.  It’s anti-matter.

So, that begs the question: what the hell is “After Last Season”?

The look of an actor desperately trying to give a fuck.

The answer is a complicated one.  First, let’s try to make sense of the plot.  The only reason why this is necessary is because at some point (unbeknownst to us), the film becomes a dream sequence.

The plot revolves around two people (ehhhh……) who are medical students, who are also interns at some pharmaceutical company.  And, there’s also murders happening.  And also, there’s a chip that can translate thoughts into images, and then there’s a ghost, and then there’s…. um… cardboard.  Lots and lots of cardboard.  Cardboard as far as the eye can see.

Confused?  Good.  Imagine having to watch this, and trying to make sense of it through it’s 90 minute run time.  This is cinema… without the cinematic….  Like, all the shit that gets cut out of regular movies in fear of being too boring ends up showing up here.  Most of the dialogue is filled with the following:

1. Directions
2. Small talk
3. Medical jargon
4. Small talk
5. More directions
6. Cell phone conversations
7. Incomprehensible garble
8. Small talk
9. Conversations about printers

Most of the dialogue sounds like it was recorded via a Game Boy speaker.  Dialogue gets munched into indiscernible garble when met with the sound of cars/traffic/vents in the room they may be filming in.  Speaking of, I’ve never seen a movie shot in 35MM that looks as ugly as this one does.  Maybe it’s because most of the lighting (or lack thereof) is one big giant light shining directly in the actor’s faces.  Of course, this produces a pesky thing known as “shadows”.  Think… when was the last time you remember actually noticing shadows in a movie?  Can’t remember?  See this movie, and be amazed at how ugly they can look on film.

Did you know people can die from ketchup stains? Well, now you do.

The ugly extends far beyond the “lighting”, and is directly involved with the entire production on a technical level.  Like, the production design…  There is none.  Most of the film seems like it was shot in the basement of a long abandoned office building.  and, the props are almost entirely made out of cardboard.  It’s like some 4th grader’s science fair project, except there’s older people acting as if it’s not made by children.

I’m making this sound “so bad, it’s good”.  I can assure you, IT’S NOT.  The biggest sin this movie commits is that it’s FUCKING BORING.  There’s nothing funny about this movie.  It starts out as aggressively (and dare I say flamboyantly) boring, then becomes irritating as it goes on, then becomes actively angering.  You can see that if different choices were made, one could salvage something watchable from this turd.  But, more often than not, the film is so ineptly put together, it defies logic.  Example: the simple choice to use more than one light source might’ve helped to make the film look not as inept.  Some simple editing choice would’ve made the film seem a lot less awkward.  Some simple shit…  Shit that isn’t even that fucking hard to do… could’ve made something kinda watchable.

There’s no joke here. This is an actual shot from the film… Let that sink in.

And, this is just talking about the actual film stuff.  This isn’t even counting the 10-25 minute long uninterrupted dialogue-free animation scenes that look more like Windows 95 screensavers than actual animation.  These scenes go on… and on… and on… forever.  And, in the end, once the movie plays its final hands, those scenes are ultimately pointless, and meaning absolutely nothing in the grand scene of the film.

Everything, from the editing, to the acting, to the film score……  ALL OF THIS IS TERRIBLE.  Terrible in a way that I can’t laugh at, can’t make fun of, can’t make interesting with friends or foreign substances.  This is just garbage, and it is indeed without a single doubt in my mind the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

But, this doesn’t answer the question I posed in the beginning of this rant/review/slow descent into insanity.  What the hell is “After Last Season”?  Well, I have a theory about that.  This movie costed 5 Million to make.  $5,000,000….

(intentionally left blank)

I seriously believe in my soul that this was a scam to lure investors in, and then take their money, and run.  OR, it’s a money laundering scam done by the mob.  There is absolutely no reason to assume that any of the $5,000,000 budget actually went into the making of the film.  No one actually spent money on this.  No one.  Absolutely no one.

“After Last Season” defies explanation, and reason.  It is bad on a level I can’t comprehend.

For that, I give the highest cringe-meter rating….

5.0 out of 5.0

Every Tuesday, I will watch and review whatever terrible shit you send me.  You can send me stuff to watch via facebook… Post it to my wall, and next Tuesday, you’ll see which video(s) made the cut.  So, send in your submissions (facebook.com/LewisMorrisPoetry) before Friday!

ENDURANCE TEST TUESDAYS #2 – LIVE FROM COLORADO

While in Colorado, I enjoyed the scenery.  I looked at the mountains, marveled the silence, and reveled in being at peace.  It was the kind of peace that made me depressed that “Endurance Test Tuesdays” was coming soon. The time in which I willingly (and masochistically) watch the very worst shit out there, and review it.  Like I said last week, Endurance Tests can come in any length or any style.  The only big rule is that they can’t be gross/gory/too easy to make me quit with.  Aside from that, it’s fair game…  With that said, this week’s Endurance Test is…

SNOW WHITE & THE SEVEN DWARVES (THE SHITTY ONE)

(Submitted by Tara L.)

So, imagine a not-that-great-to-begin-with story is put in the hands of a plumber, and that plumber is forced to make an animated movie about it at gunpoint.  This is what you get with this garbage, except part of me wishes that the trigger was pulled.

Calling this “animation” is like calling someone who masturbates on camera a “pornstar”.  Obviously, not everyone who has sex can be a “pornstar”, just like not everyone who can draw stick figures can be an animator.  This was clearly done by people who have never touched a pencil and a piece of paper ever in their lives.  And, if they did, then I’d question why it looks like this:

Before you die, you’ll see this face.

You can take a screenshot from any moment of this, and be amazed at the levels of ineptitude to the actual animation.  It reminded me of the 60’s Spider-Man cartoon.  There is constant recycling of images and animation sequences recut into different places to give the illusion of different sequences happening.  I mean, even the same animation sequences are reused with different characters put on top of them.  The actual images themselves seem weirdly unnatural.  The eyes are all dead.  All of them.  And, every character in the video seems like they were created from Microsoft Word clipart.

So, I don’t feel the need to recap the “Snow White” story.  But, you’d be forgiven if you watched this boring piece of non-entertainment thinking its good for your kids,  I mean, c’mon.  The story of “Snow White” has only felt grown up in a precious few instances.  One of those being the original Grimm fairy tale.  Ironically, this version takes most of its cues from the original text.  But, I don’t think people remember how repetitive the original text was.  The story follows this pattern.

1. Evil Queen tries to poison Snow White.  It doesn’t work.

2. Evil Queen tries to poison Snow White again.  It doesn’t work.

3. Evil Queen tries to poison Snow White yet again.  This time, it only sorta/kinda works.

This “Snow White” is still a better actress than Kristen Stewart.

Walt Disney’s “Snow White” streamlined the story so it wouldn’t be as boring.  Because, no one ever said the Brothers Grimm were great storytellers (spoiler alert: they’re not).  The story elements here seem at odds with the clearly kid-friendly approach to the animation.  Like, the ending where the Evil Queen is forced to put on molten-hot metal boots and dance in them until she dies of shock?  Yeah, that shows up here (shittily).

It became clear about 6 minutes in that this was made by people in which English isn’t their first language.  Like, the Evil Queen sounded like she was trying to do a Christopher Walken impression with her lines, and everyone else had confusing accents.  Even the narrator sounded like that guy who sang “Chocolate Rain”.  After doing a little more digging, I realized that this was animated by a South Indian production house that puts out shitty animated things like this.  And, they’re all in English.  Fairly broken English, that is.  So much so, that they had to put subtitles on it.  However, even the subtitles are written in broken English too.  It reminded me of this:

Another thing that tipped me off to the cheapness of the production is the use of stock music.  Musical cues are looped on top of each other, one after another.  Even blatantly ripping off music from other movies (mostly Jerry Bruckheimer action movies).  Like, you could put “score produced by someone who REALLY likes 90’s Hans Zimmer”, and you’d be accurate.  But, there is also a style of film scoring, specifically for children/family films, that I hate more than anything else.  And, that appears here in spades.  Like, it’s trailer music for shitty direct-to-video Disney movies (Space Buddies, anyone?)…

Look, here’s the gist…  This is fucking boring.  This is the most boring thing I’ve watched in a long long time.  It’s not a fun type of bad, it’s not an angering type of bad.  It’s just boring.  I was actively fighting sleep while watching this, hoping that something interesting would happen in its 50 minute run time.  When nothing did, I abandoned hope, and secretly wished that this would be a “ring” type of scenario, and a little girl would climb out of the computer screen, and kill me.

Since that didn’t happen, I have to give it this “cringe-meter” rating:

2.5 of 5.0

Every Tuesday, I will watch and review whatever terrible shit you send me.  You can send me stuff to watch via facebook…  Post it to my wall, and next Tuesday, you’ll see which video(s) made the cut.  So, send in your submissions (facebook.com/LewisMorrisPoetry) before Friday!

ENDURANCE TEST TUESDAYS #1

The worst things in life are free.  In this case, the worst possible things ever are on the internet, ready for consumption.

With a group of friends, sometimes we do what I like to call “Endurance Tests”.  That is, we find the worst stuff on the internet (but not things that are too easy to win with like gory or gross stuff i.e. Two Girls One Cup, BME Pain Olympics, goatse.cx, etc.), and try and make it through the entire thing.  These things come in the form of terrible movies, awful music videos, or downright cringeworthy youtube videos that will try the patience of any sane person.  Since I’ve been writing reviews, I make it my mission to seek out the very very worst of the worst, and really unpack them.  Figure out what makes them so fascinating.  Every Tuesday, I will watch something terrible (submitted by you), and I will review it as if I were reviewing any present day film.

Today, I’ll be reviewing a video submitted by Amanda W.

WINDOWS 95 VIDEO GUIDE

Here’s a 3 step guide to how to make this video.

1. Take a Windows 95 Instructional Manual.

2. Add Cocaine.

3. There is no step 3.

Someone had the genius idea of mixing an instructional video with a sitcom… for some reason.  One would think that the info of an instructional guide might be easier to digest if it wasn’t in a format that wasn’t meant to convey information in a clear & concise way.  But, the fact that videos like this pervaded the 1990’s, instructions given in a format that doubles as entertainment, says a lot about the 90’s..  If we can be candid about this, the only format this works in is TV for toddlers (Sesame Street for example).  The reason for this is because the information is so basic, that crafting entertainment around it wouldn’t distract from the info.  In this format, an instructional sitcom teaching people how to use a computer operating system, this video was bound to fail from the start.

The look of actors wishing they were doing something else.

This video can be separated into two halves.  The first half is the sitcom.

Matthew Perry and Jennifer Aniston show up at Microsoft’s headquarters to talk to Bill Gates about appearing in a Windows 95 video (It’s meta…  Get it?!).  They meet a snappy secretary.  They have unfunny banter.  Then, we’re thrust head-on into info-time!  From this point on, the video acts as a clumsy device to sell us on Microsoft’s operating system momentarily interrupted with by unfunny banter.  Then, we’re treated to other “zany” characters like the foreign window washer who they make fun for being overweight.  Fat-shaming is so funny, guys!  And then, he somehow has info about Windows 95, and he feeds us info too.  Cue unfunny banter!  Then, we’re introduced to a nerd stereotype who has the hots for Jennifer Aniston.  He has more unfunny banter.  Then, we get a guy who is a delivery boy for a Chinese restaurant, and speaks in a weird accent that is a hybrid of a Southern Cali accent and a Stereotypical Chinese accent  Yay, because racism is so funny!  Then, we get a kid who rolls in on a Razor scooter.  He challenges Jennifer Aniston to a game of 3D pinball.  Then, a rock band comes in, plays some music randomly, and everyone starts dancing.

Because, overweight people are FUNNY! RIGHT?!

At this point, it dawned on me exactly what the hell was wrong with this video.  The fundamental problem with this video (besides the fact that it’s monumentally unfunny) is that every character shows up as if we’re supposed to already know them.  It’s like we’re dropped into the middle of the 4th season of a TV sitcom, like we’re already supposed to be acquainted with these people, and find them funny.  We don’t.  At least I didn’t.  I laughed so little, I seriously began questioning if I’d ever laugh again.  Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry are irritating anyway.  Their smarmy “quirky” personalities started to actively get on my nerves about 5 minutes in.  This… is so convinced of it’s comedic genius, that there are actual pauses in the middle of dialogue where laughter should be.

You know what I like in my instructional video? Offensive Asian stereotypes, that’s what!

I know people have a lot of nostalgia for the 90’s.  But, this video is a time capsule of a decade practically filled with unfortunate pop culture phenomenons.  We don’t have the heart to admit the things we liked as kids and/or teenagers sucked.  If this video serves any purpose, it needs to destroy what little nostalgia my generation has left.  This is an artifact.  A product that reminds of what a weird and culturally tone-deaf decade the 90’s were.  And, also a reminder of why “Friends” always annoyed the ever-loving shit out of me (seriously, Seinfeld is better).

This kid grew up to be a serial killer, by the way.

Fortunately, the sitcom segment ends about halfway through (this thing is an hour long).  And, from then on, we have the much more entertaining segment which is the basic instructional stuff without the awkward comedy.

Endurance Tests are usually difficult for two reasons:

1. Length

2. Cringe-worthiness.

This one is more of the former.  It’s an hour long, which makes sitting there and watching it in one sitting hard.  It’s “cringe-worthy” because of the sitcom-shit.  There is nothing harder-to-watch than a comedy that isn’t funny.  You start to feel embarrassed for the actors & actresses involved.  This big swelling of pity is what makes this not necessarily as unwatchable as most of the other Endurance Tests that might come my way.

I give this a “cringe-meter” rating of…

3.0 out of 5.0

Every Tuesday, I will watch and review whatever terrible shit you send me.  You can send me stuff to watch via facebook…  Post it to my wall, and next Tuesday, you’ll see which video(s) made the cut.  So, send in your submissions (facebook.com/LewisMorrisPoetry) before Friday!