This week the witches go with a cold open that sets up the two main plots for the night. In one scene Wendy is sitting bound in a chair within a magic circle while Ingrid tortures her (We are guessing this is not “our” Ingrid; we are later proved right). In the other scene, which turns out to be a dream sequence, a night spent taking inventory at the bar turns into some hot and heavy action for Freya and Killian, but then Freya wakes up next to Dash. Love triangle juxtaposition action!
Sharknado is one of the few SyFy original movies that actually became a cult phenomenon (SyFy’s motto is: if at first you don’t succeed, try try again) so when we saw it on Amazon Prime, we had to watch it as connoisseurs of silly SyFy movies. Overall, it was super campy movie that we both thoroughly enjoyed watching for its sheer hilarity.
The movie follows a bar owner, his two friends, estranged wife, son, and daughter as they try to survive first a typhoon and then three tornados that have thrown a mess of sharks into the air and in every available space on the land. There are sharks in the street, sharks in the sewers, sharks flying through roofs, and sharks in people’s houses. Eventually, the only way to save everyone in California is to throw bombs into the tornado, which will make them dissipate because of the warm air…or something.
Summary: An uptight man stuck in the “friend zone” switches another man’s semen for his own when his “friend” decides to get pregnant via artificial insemination. Upon meeting his child, the man becomes less uptight, his “friend” finally falls in love with him, and they live happily ever after despite his huge violation of her trust.
Verdict: In the friend zone. There were some cute moments between the main guy and the kid, but there was too much crap about how awful it is to be in the friend zone. Also, the big plot point (the semen switch) was a major violation played off as something the main female could just get over through the power of love. She’s also an annoying character, so there’s that, too.
Full Recap: The Switch begins by introducing Michael Bluth in the lead role as Wally, who is basically the same character but with hypochondria. Seriously, Wally even has daddy issues like Michael Bluth.
Wally is narrating images of happy couples and depressed single people (like there’s any other type of single person, amirite?) with advice about love not being like a pop song and how sometimes it happens in a completely unexpected way.
We’ll just leave this here.
Article: Ex Management
Author: Jessica Knoll
Summary: As expected from the title, this gem offers advice on how to deal with a variety of what are evidently stereotypical exes. The degree of horrible to which Cosmo’s advice descends is pretty dependent on the stereotype they choose to talk about, but it’s all pretty bad. Of note is the fact that Cosmo enjoys engaging in some totally healthy self-blame and simultaneously caveman-ifying the men by focusing on six ex stereotypes.
After last week’s episode whose theme seemed to be “ghosts gonna ghost,” this week we turn back to the ongoing theme of “people always kill us.” With that, on to the recap!
SyFy had such great success with the shark craze that catapulted movies like Sharknado and Ghost Shark that it decided to branch out to other horrifying things that live in the water. They searched long and hard until finally settling on: stingrays. But because stingrays aren’t really that scary, SyFy made them into blood-sucking, super-intelligent, flying “vampires of the sea.” The resulting movie is pretty damn hilarious.
The Beast of the Bering Sea follows a family of seafaring gold hunters. They have a rivalry with a seafaring mob-like group who are also after undersea gold. However, they are confronted by stingray-like creatures that attack them both in and out of the water. Teaming up with a marine biologist, the family manages to defeat the creatures before driving their boat off into the sunset.
Summary: A woman runs away from a dangerous situation and settles down in a small town. There she meets a handsome convenience store owner and father of two, and they fall in love with a lot of loooooong looks and sloooooow sex. Then her past catches up with her in the last few minutes and is quickly resolved.
Verdict: YAAAAAWN. The main twist was easy to spot, none of the “peril” felt actually dangerous, and all the romantic scenes felt forced and clichéd. There was one twist that A didn’t expect, but that was only because she has never seen any other Nicholas Sparks movie or read any of his books.
Full Recap: Safe Haven begins with a young brunette woman running away from a house in her bare feet while carrying a small plastic bag. She goes to an old lady’s house first, then to a bus station. There, an Evil Cop is following close behind. He stops several buses but manages to miss the one that has the girl on it. We know he is evil because he’s chasing the protagonist.
Summary: Little Black Book tells the story of an insecure woman (played by Brittany Murphy) snooping on her long-term boyfriend by investigating his exes. She discovers that her boyfriend is a lying liar, her “best friend” is a lying liar, and basically everyone she works with is a lying lying liar. This makes them all perfect for her since she, herself, is a lying liar. Then she meets Carly Simon.
Verdict: It’s complicated. On one hand, see above re: lying liars. There’s also the intense frustration that accompanies the main character’s insistence on talking to everyone in the world except her boyfriend, the painful and highly inaccurate climax, and a grown woman’s confusion at a routine gynecological exam.
On the other hand, the end is better than we expected from any romcom. We’re not sure that overcomes the other things, but it at least changes the overall message the movie sends, which is a really, really good thing.
Full Recap: Our main character is Stacy Holt, but we begin with a quote from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Hell is empty. All the devils are here.” Really puts you in the mood for a romantic comedy, right?
We then learn about Stacy Holt’s mother. She raised our intrepid Stacy to believe two things: you must be certain about everything (especially relationships with men) and Carly Simon fixes everything.
Stacy’s mom also gave her the BEST NAME EVER.
We open with the big reveal…Joanna and Baldy shifter were good friends back in ye olden times. However, she knifed his ear off because he turned in her girls for doing witchcraft, for which they were burned at the bad special effects stake. However, we don’t stick around these interesting parts long enough; we go right to modern day lesson time during which we basically learn that everyone should be careful with their magic. Shocker!
SyFy’s Zombie Night has a few more recognizable names than usual in the cast, but is still pretty silly. The main characters make so many stupid mistakes that we basically spent the whole movie yelling “you’re stupid!” at the TV. That said, it’s definitely not lacking in action. In fact, the movie hardly lets up for the entire two hour run.
Featuring Anthony Michael Hall and Daryl Hannah, the plot centers around two families trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Like Grave Halloween, this one is light on plot so that one sentence basically sums up the entire film. There’s some light drama around trying to get to a safe house and a side plot where we follow the dumbest cop ever, but other than that it’s basically just the two families (and eventually one family) running and hiding and fighting zombies.
Hot, fresh, salty or sweet reviews on all things pop culture.
I'd like to see you come up with a catchy title.
"Probably my worst quality is that I get very passionate about what I think is right." ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton
Film Reviews From Tim The Film Guy
the blog of foz meadows
. . . musings and photos
Commentary on Whatever I'm Watching
The Overlooked Onlookers 