Another Stupid movie to Overreact to...

[The Count]

@Drtooth.
Throw in a bleh live-action movie in the middle of an all-night animated series marathon that people are more interested in watching? Way to stay classy Nick.
But on the upside... Nickelodeon's taking Marmaduke—whose real title is something is Mierdapuke—away from The Hub? Thank you! That means it'll air for hopefully the last time this week during Hub's annual Dog Days of August festival titled "Bark Week" this year.
The downside is that Nick will air the heck out of that movie in the upcoming year the same way Hub aired Monster House which they looted from Cartoon Network every single month last year.

@Slackbot.
Oh, modern day film versions of both The Patchwork Girl and Tin Woodsman would be enjoyable.
Tin Woodsman's severed talking head? Nope, not weird at all given that Robin Williams portrayed the severed head of the Moon King in the movie version of The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen.
Ending up as a tin cyborg automaton because the witch jinxed your axe? That's somewhat comparable to Lord Scrapperton from Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!
Finding the girl you loved and became an automaton because of the witch's wrath has now married a Frankensteinish cobbled chimera of your amputated flesh parts and another guy who befell the same fate? Okay, now we're talking!
The problem is that the two names I would suggest for this film are up to their necks in production slate heck and they have other potential projects we or rather I myself am more interested in finally being developed like a better version of the Haunted Mansion or BJ2.

 

[Slackbot]

Count, you've read The Tin Woodman of Oz? Or did you get that from a wiki? If the former, I'm impressed!

Hash Inc. has made a CGI musical based on that book, and it's head and shoulders above the usual fan films, but it has its definite weak points. They cut the Tin Soldier completely out of the story, but leave in the scene where Nick talks to his own severed head. It makes no earthly sense unless you know what they edited out. And they gave the Hip-po-gy-raf the ability to summon Ozma so as to take a shortcut to the end of the story. Huh?

 

[The Count]

No, I got that from the Oz Wiki as well. At least, those are my thoughts after reading through the plot section of the article.

Hip-Po-Gy-Raf can summon Ozma to shortcut straight to the end in the Hash Inc. CGI film? Way to cop out and cheat the entire audience.

Back to the topic of animated movies... Does anyone understand the trailer for The Boxtrolls? I'll be honest and say I haven't gotten ParaNorman or Frankenweenie, I'm hoping they'll be in this year's 13 Nights of Halloween on ABC Family amidst the perennial fodder.

 

[Drtooth]

Boxtrolls is going to be epic. The only other trailer besides the teaser I've seen shows only a fleeting semblance to the movie's plot. It's great to see that we're still seeing Stop Motion films being made when the last bunch didn't make that much over here (bad timing killed that awesome Pirate movie, probably did better in its native Britain).

EDIT:

GAAAAHHHH!!! Why do I keep forgetting things like this? There's going to be a movie called "Jersey Shore Massacre." Haven't seen the trailer, it's on hulu's front page for trailers. Now, obviously... crappy slasher flick? nothing out of the ordinary there. But it insists upon a vague connection to the (thankfully) long gone and (mercifully) no longer in vogue MTV series with it's title and font! No kidding! It steals the actual logo...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2713642/

OH, and it's a comedy. A parody of something, again, long gone and no longer in vogue. How about a The Weakest Link Massacre movie? That seems just as fresh.

 

[Drtooth]

I'm going to overreact to The Maze Runner. Anyone else getting sick of these horrible YA novels being turned into even worse movies? They come in three flavors. Twilight ripoff, Harry Potter ripoff, and Hunger Games ripoff. They're all about kids fighting some adult conspiracy, only..well... it's been done, better already.

Seriously... now when I see these trailers I can't unthink of Tina from Bob's Burgers writing erotic fan fiction where the consporacy is that they can't touch each other's butts...

And that would STILL make a better movie. Why is everyone whining about how there's nothing but super hero movies and sequels to remakes when there's just as much of this teenybopper garbage (if not more) per year?

 

[Drtooth]

I'm having this conversation by myself, aren't I? I found a perfect example of suck on Cracked...

There's a Christian Mingle Movie that's as subtle a hard sell commercial ploy as it sounds. With a stiffly formulaic RomCom plot to boot.

Ughhhh... The Transformers four movie series was less a commercial. You could play the same 30 second commercial for 2 hours and have less of a commercial.

 

[charlietheowl]

I'm having this conversation by myself, aren't I? I found a perfect example of suck on Cracked...

There's a Christian Mingle Movie that's as subtle a hard sell commercial ploy as it sounds. With a stiffly formulaic RomCom plot to boot.

Ughhhh... The Transformers four movie series was less a commercial. You could play the same 30 second commercial for 2 hours and have less of a commercial.

Poor John O'Hurley. He's in this and I've seen him doing commercials for one of those "is your PC slow? Go to this website and fix it" things. It's not good to speculate on these kinds of things, but you only do those if you desperately need money.

 

[Drtooth]

It doesn't seem like this was going to draw a major actor crowd. Lacey "Not Meg" Chabert is the star in this. She's by no means awful, but it seems she's playing Jennifer Love Hewitt light. And her career isn't so hot either.

I honestly can't see this being a major theatrical movie. This is the first time I'm even hearing of it. Somehow, you just know that someone's going to say "It has Christian in the title! It's a moral substitute for US!" Even though I kinda thought Christians watched...well... everything else made without much problem. But it's just a bitter marketing ploy by the company, which also owns other specialty dating sites.

But there's no excuse for the reverse subversive "women are miserable things that need to focus on romance cum motherhood instead of having a career" message of the movie. Overused to the point where subversion is overused doesn't sat the half of it.

 

[beatnikchick300]

I'm having this conversation by myself, aren't I? I found a perfect example of suck on Cracked...

There's a Christian Mingle Movie that's as subtle a hard sell commercial ploy as it sounds. With a stiffly formulaic RomCom plot to boot.

Ughhhh... The Transformers four movie series was less a commercial. You could play the same 30 second commercial for 2 hours and have less of a commercial.

The Cracked article does make the movie sound hilariously bad (particularly because even its trailer is ridiculously cliche).

I honestly can't see this being a major theatrical movie. This is the first time I'm even hearing of it. Somehow, you just know that someone's going to say "It has Christian in the title! It's a moral substitute for US!" Even though I kinda thought Christians watched...well... everything else made without much problem. But it's just a bitter marketing ploy by the company, which also owns other specialty dating sites.

But there's no excuse for the reverse subversive "women are miserable things that need to focus on romance cum motherhood instead of having a career" message of the movie. Overused to the point where subversion is overused doesn't sat the half of it.

To your first point, I thought the same thing (being formerly Christian myself). My parents and younger brothers are still Christian, but my mom and dad still watch regular, mainstream TV and movies, and my two youngest brothers (ages 16 and 12) like superhero movies and Adventure Time, respectively. Movies like that one, that are supposed to play to a certain audience, just seem like an almost-insulting level of pandering.

To your second point, I'm so tired of movies (of any kind) that make it seem like women can either have relationships/family or a career, but not both. It's 2014; a lot of women in real life DO have both, and do both really well. Even though this movie seems like something playing to the "squeaky-clean entertainment" audience, a good number of films in recent years (especially romantic comedies) play that trope straight.

 

[Drtooth]

To your first point, I thought the same thing (being formerly Christian myself). My parents and younger brothers are still Christian, but my mom and dad still watch regular, mainstream TV and movies, and my two youngest brothers (ages 16 and 12) like superhero movies and Adventure Time, respectively. Movies like that one, that are supposed to play to a certain audience, just seem like an almost-insulting level of pandering.

When it comes to things playing to a Christian audience, it seems that it's for a specific group and has ulterior motives that I don't want to get into. The motive first, then the message, then the entertainment dead last. That's why there's so many ugly Christian based puppet shows (some use Ventriloquist dummies). This Av Club article spells it out much better than I can). Then there are those who want to purposely make the message entertaining and accessible, and they produce better done things like Veggitales and 321 Penguins. Something that's not meant to push an agenda, but rather view Christian themes gently and fun, instead of heavy handed and indoctrinating.

As for this film, I'd love to go on a thing about the "moral" alternative, but something more cynical abounds. It's a commercial for a dating site cross promoted by the site themselves. Some will take this as tailor made for them as everything else is considered immoral somehow, but at face value, it's a commercial. Doesn't matter if it's Christian Mingle, J-Date, or Our Time. it's to sell single people a membership. An Infomovie, if you will.

I'm so tired of movies (of any kind) that make it seem like women can either have relationships/family or a career, but not both. It's 2014; a lot of women in real life DO have both, and do both really well. Even though this movie seems like something playing to the "squeaky-clean entertainment" audience, a good number of films in recent years (especially romantic comedies) play that trope straight.

I agree. It's a terrible, overused plotpoint that got tired in the 90's as soon as it took off. The worst part is, as this is nothing more than a 90 minute commercial, they totally intended to have such a lazy, cliche ridden plot.

Gah... between this and Hero of Crayon City, turns out you can do a worse commercial of a film than Food Fight!