March Madness

Schizoid (1980)
The House Where Evil Dwells (1982)

Rad (1986)
The Squeeze (1987)

Alien Nation (1988)
Freejack (1992)

Sleepwalkers (1992)
The Babysitter (1995)

Living in Oblivion (1995)
Black Sheep (1996)

Jackie Chan’s First Strike (1996)
Desperate Measures (1997)

She’s All That (1999)
Crimes and Punishment in Suburbia (2000)

Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 (2000)
The Covenant (2006)

The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019)
Yellow Rose (2019)

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)
The Kid Detective (2020)

Also every time the Dora movie is brought up I'm required to post this clip.

Imagine if Klaus Kinski played Doc Brown. Or Judge Doom. That would've been fun.

Not for anyone on set or Robert Zemeckis, but for the rest of us.

Just read up on that. Woah had no idea any of that went down.

Just watched them.

He's either on drugs or doing a sort of Andy Kauffman "I'm fucking with you" bit. 

Or both.

Alien Nation (1988)
Freejack (1992)

1godzillafan might get mad but Alien Nation is worse than I expected and Freejack is better than I expected.

Alien Nation is of course a cult franchise. I’m sure it has its defenders. But it’s just a run of the mill buddy cop film with the gimmick that they’re aliens. I might give it a repeat watch in the future. Maybe I’ll see the light under a different viewing environment. But right now it’s a giant meh for me.

Freejack, on the other hand, has a pretty poor reputation. It was made by the director of Young Guns II and reactions to the movie were so bad they had to reshoot 40% of it. It was Solo before Doomsday and Jon Favreau rescued the Star Wars series. The 1990’s all-star cast of Emilo Estevez, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins and Mick Jagger completely shit on the movie during press tours. So I was expecting a dumpster fire of a movie. But… it’s actually a pretty decent sci-fi/action movie. The plot is a bit shaky but I had just sat through the cliché Alien Nation so that didn’t bother me too much. It’s a cheesy fun movie with a 90’s Hollywood budget. The polar opposite of Alien Nation that’s trying to be 48 Hours with aliens.

On a side note. Remember when Breaking Bad came out and suddenly we all realized that Jonathan Banks has randomly been playing villains in Hollywood movies for the past 20 years? He’s got a pretty fun role in Freejack. Might be worth checking out just for him.

Living in Oblivion (1995)
Black Sheep (1996)

If SnoBorderZero ever ends up directing a movie I’d imagine it would turn out like Living in Oblivion. But instead of mocking Brad Pitt and jerking off to Catherine Keener, he’d poke fun at Eddie Murphy and masturbate to Wesley Snipes.

Can’t speak for Doomsday, but I’m anecdotally glad to say I saw both Tommy Boy and Black Sheep in theatres. I don’t know if David Spade got a cut of the box office — but you’re welcome. I’ve revisited Tommy Boy a few times over the decades and it holds up from what I recall. It was the perfect star vehicle for Chris Farley. Black Sheep was supposed to recapture the magic of Tommy Boy, and I enjoyed it upon release, but I can now see why I never sought to rewatch it. It was a hollow attempt. I laughed a handful of times but Chris Farley seemed off (his drug problems might have caught up at this point — although I don’t recall him being this bad in Beverly Hills Ninja) and David Spade seemed like he didn’t give a shit.

Living in Oblivion is a legit indie classic from the 1990’s. Black Sheep lives up to its name.

She’s All That (1999)
Crimes and Punishment in Suburbia (2000)

Battle of the Funbags. Rachael Leigh Cook vs Monica Keena. Many trees were murdered cause of them.

Anywho, it’s funny how time changes your perspective of thing. She’s All That was a joke upon release. Rachael Leigh Cook plays an “ugly girl” who takes off a pair of glasses and becomes a hot girl. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s literally what happens in the movie. But all that is forgiven in 2022 cause, man, we really lived in a different world in 1999. I’m not an angry old man like Doomsday. I ain’t waging war against the Woke Mafia. But I do gotta admit we live in sanitized times. I had to double check if the movie was PG-13 cause I was caught off-guard by the things the characters said and did. She’s All That went from dumb but harmless to problematic. If PG Cooper watched this movie he’d be outraged and try to cancel Rachael Leigh Cook on Twitter.

On the flip side, you got Crimes and Punishment in Suburbia. I really enjoyed it back when it was released. And not just cause Monica Keena makes Kirsten Dunst vs Natalie Portman look like a fight between two lunch ladies. I genuinely thought it was a good movie. But as a grown man in his 30’s this movie just seems like it was made by Emo people for Emo people. I was never Emo. I wasn’t a frequent patron of Hot Topic. But when you’re young you can at least sympathize with Emo people. But now this movie just seems really silly.

I’ll go with She’s All That. I can’t allow PG Cooper to cancel Rachael Leigh Cook.


Wes Craven Presents: Dracula 2000 (2000)
The Covenant (2006)


Long before Doomsday and Gerard Butler became bros that like to be naked together, there was Dracula 2000. He was so young and thin back then. And so was Doomsday. Time’s a bitch to us all. I watched Dracula 2000 when it came out and immediately thought, “wow — that’s garbage.” But now I realize the movie is a parody. Or at least I hope it is. Cause it’s pretty darn funny. Where’s the 1godzillafan essay on it? It has to exist.

Renny Harlin snuck up on me with the Covenant. To give him credit, he sure is the voice of the youth. SnoBorderZero loves his 2000’s cinema and I can see why. It was the first time anyone felt they could make movies. Listen, Renny Harlin used to make real movies. They might have been terrible but they were real movies. Cutthroat Island used 35mm film and practical effects. It was a Hollywood movie. The Covenant looks like it was made by 14-year-olds using a Mini DV camera, Adobe Premiere and After Effects. Renny Harlin is a goddamn pioneer. He made people like SnoBorderZero believe they could make movies and now we’re stuck with shit like Coming 2 America and Space Jam 2. Fuck you, Renny Harlin.

I used a line from She's All That in my Villains Reformed in Batman: The Animated Series video.