Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)

Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)

Directed by: Peter Chelsom

Starring: Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment, Billy Ray Cyrus

Yep, I’m a 27 year old man and I watched the Hannah Montana movie by myself. I swear that I’m not a sex offender, I’m just a person who hates myself.

So Hannah Montana is a pseudonym that “Miley Stewart” pretends to be so she can be famous and have a normal school life at the same time. This makes her full of herself and her dad, Billy Ray Cy–er, “Robby Ray Stewart” takes her out to the country so she can learn what really matters: Hot cowboy love. Wait, that can’t be right, that’s horrifying. Nope, I just checked it again and that is definitely the lesson she learns in this movie: Have sex with a cowboy.

I knew I was in trouble when I started watching this, but I never really knew how bad this bland Disney pop music was. And, unsurprisingly, it lasts throughout the entire film and NEVER STOPS. If you ever find yourself accidentally watching Hannah Montana, here’s a handy tip I used to get the noise out of my brain: Trepanation! Worked for meeeeeeeearuuughelp

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Starring: David Hayter, Bridget Hoffman, Ivan Buckley

Apparently this is the first film that Miyazaki directed, which is based on the Lupin III series that… well, I don’t really know anything about Lupin III. It’s some 70’s cartoon about a thief who’s a good guy and he has a sidekick with huge boobs? That’s all I know. I’m not some damn anime scholar.

Lupin III is a thief who steals a bunch of counterfeit money, but it’s really good counterfeit money, so he decides to find out who’s in charge of the operation and take over. When he finds that his new foe is Count Cagliostro, he gets involved with the Count’s soon-to-be wife who is a rich princess and who doesn’t want to marry the bad guy. Some seriously unbelievable things happen and everything is insane for about a half hour, and then everything works out just fine.

Castle of Cagliostro is pretty dissimilar from the Studio Ghibli films Miyazaki would later direct. Mostly because this is the only one with an established cast of characters, I’d imagine. Also, it’s possible that I missed out on a bunch of stuff just because I haven’t ever seen the show it was based on and was left with no real hints about who these characters are or what their names are or what they do or anything. Ah well, whatcha gonna do.

Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)

Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)

Directed by: Bradford May

Starring: Larry Drake, Arnold Vosloo, Kim Delaney

Remember Darkman, the Sam Raimi “superhero” movie starring Liam Neeson? Well, he’s back, and he’s more not Liam Neeson than ever! What do you mean I don’t remember anything about the movie Darkman? Let me just look up my review of it… hm… it seems I didn’t do one. Weird. Maybe it’s like a Back to the Future thing and Sam Raimi went back in time and deleted all mentions and copies of it?! Or maybe I just forgot, I dunno, that’s possible.

Darkman thought he killed Durant (who I guess was the bad guy of the first movie?), but he gets brought back from the dead by his cronies. Darkman’s attempts to make his face formula work for longer (his whole thing is that he makes fake faces to cover up his messed up face, and also he can’t feel pain) run him across Durant’s gang again, and he tries to infiltrate the group and destroy them from the inside.

Who could’ve ever wanted a thing like Darkman II? For that matter, who liked BOTH of these movies enough to warrant a Darkman III, which is also a real movie that exists? Darkman is seriously one of the lamest “superheroes” they’ve ever made a movie about. If they made a Dazzler movie it would only slightly edge out the lameness of Darkman II: The Return of Durant.

Ernest in the Army (1998)

Ernest in the Army (1998)

Directed by: John R. Cherry III

Starring: Jim Varney, Hayley Tyson, David Müller

Here it is. Finally. The last Ernest movie! No more watching Ernest movies ever again for me! …Except apparently there was one weird one before the first one with Ernest in a cameo role. And also my friends wants to watch the short-lived Ernest TV show with him, too. By that point, I figure I’ll finally have worked up enough nerve to end it all, and then there’ll be no more Ernest ever. Never again. No more Ernest.

Ernest joins the army during Desert Storm and does a bunch of half-assed jokes. Nothing is funny nor worthwhile to mention about Ernest in the Army.

Seriously, this movie is so sad, even compared to the other Ernest films. You can tell that not even Varney is into it anymore (of course, it could have something to do with him dying of lung cancer, but whatever) and everybody’s just there for a paycheck. A paycheck which could’ve been gained with more dignity by prostitution or begging on the street.

Ernest Goes to Africa (1997)

Ernest Goes to Africa (1997)

Directed by: John R. Cherry III

Starring: Jim Varney, Linda Kash, Jamie Bartlett

You can just see the scene: It’s 1997, John Cherry is sitting in a room by himself, surrounded by crumpled up pieces of paper and broken pencils. Finally he looks up, as if struck by inspiration. “What if… Ernest… went to… AFRICA?! All the kids like Africa, right?”

When Ernest buys some rare gems from a flea market, he finds him and the girl he’s crushing on this week chased by evil bad guys who are bad and don’t like them. When neither of them know anything about the gems (Ernest has turned them into a yo-yo), the bad guys inexplicably take them both to Africa, where they do adventures and meet the natives and all sorts of other stupid shit.

Oh, but I didn’t mention the most amazing part of this film! At one point, Ernest gets in blackface and pretends to be a servant fella in a diaper named “Hey You, the Hindu”. It’s exactly as bad as that sounds, or perhaps worse if you’re extra sensitive about horribly racist caricatures. Then again, if you’ve got any kind of taste whatsoever, you probably aren’t going to be watching Ernest Goes to Africa.