Movie Review Dude Bro Party Massacre 3

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 (2015) 

Directed by John Salmon, Michael Rousselet, Tomm Jacobsen, Joey Scoma 

Written by Alec Owen 

Starring Alec Owen, Greg Sestero, Patton Oswalt, Nina Hartley 

Release Date July 7th, 2015 Re-Release Date September 1st, 2023 

Published August 31st, 2023 

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 is a glorious piece of horror satire. Released in 2015, this comic send up of 80s horror tropes and Dude Bro caricatures is now getting a special re-release for on-demand rental on Friday, September 1st. The creation of 5 Second Films, Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 comically satirizes 80s horror movies by picking an in progress franchise with a deathless villain named Motherface and a group of Dude Bro frat guys who make terrific bloody fodder for inventive and imaginative horror movie death scenes. 

Dude Bro Party Massacre tells the story of a twin frat brothers, one of whom has survived two previous Dude Bro Party Massacres at the hands of the vengeful Motherface. The twins are played by Screenwriter Alec Owen and part three picks up with the brother who'd starred in the previous massacres being murdered. This his more shy and reserved twin brother to his old college campus to investigate his brother's death. To do this, he will have to join his late brother's frat, Delta Bi, a group of hard partying survivors known for their epic parties and epic pranks. 

In classic frat movie fashion, those darn Delta Bi's are major pranksters and troublemakers. The only difference is that there pranks tend to have a body count. The frat was responsible for more than 4000 deaths but hey, it's just a prank bro. They also toppled a South American dictator? Maybe? These scenes are hilariously presented as boys will boys stuff punished with a week long suspension, during Greek Week, so you know they are in real trouble. 

The suspension is a ruse to get the Dude Bros of Delta Bi off the campus and onto a lake side where they are set up to be killed by Mother Face. As happens in long in the tooth 80s franchise horror, new supernatural elements tend to get added to the plot. Here, the local sheriff, played in a brilliant cameo by Patton Oswalt needs the Dude Bros to be killed and a virgin sacrifice in order to protect the town from some vaguely specified demonic presence. The sheriff has conspired with the College Dean, played by adult film star Nina Hartley to set up the Dude Bros while he sets up a former Dude Bro turned cop to be the virgin sacrifice. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review: Big Fan

Big Fan (2009)  

Directed by Robert D. Siegel

Written by Robert D. Siegel 

Starring Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan, Michael Rappaport, Josh Trank

Release Date August 28th, 2009 

Published September 15th, 2009 

The rise of the man-child is one of the darkest moments of our culture. This basement dwelling cretin, personified by his lack of social grace, living with their mother and desperate clinging to childish things, has risen to prominence in just the last ten or so years and is becoming something of a force.

The movies are a haven for these overgrown children, as the career of Adam Sandler and his minions attests. In these movies the lifestyle of the man-child is critiqued but most often accepted and assimilated into the lives of exceptionally forgiving, stunningly attractive adult women in a tacit approval of the man-child life choice.

“Big Fan” is the rare film that takes the man-child to task for his childish proclivities. Directed by Robert Siegel, Oscar nominated screenwriter for “The Wrestler,” and starring comedian Patton Oswalt, “Big Fan” is a dark, ironic, parody of the man-child and his obsessions.

Paul Aufiero (Patton Oswalt) is obsessed with the New York Giants. He lives and dies with the team’s wins and losses. His nights at work, he's a parking attendant, are spent scribbling scripts for late night phone calls he places to a sports radio station. There he is Paul from Staten Island, a legend among other man-children for his passionate defenses of the Giants and attacks on their opponents. Paul even has a mortal enemy on the radio in Philadelphia Phil (Michael Rappaport). These witless battles of wit are at the center of Paul's being.

The plot of “Big Fan” kicks in when Paul and his man-child buddy Sal spot their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop (Jonathan Hamm) in their neighborhood. They choose to follow him and track QB back to Manhattan and a very pricey strip club. There, Paul gets up the nerve to approach his hero and wakes up several days later in the hospital.

Quantrell beat the holy hell out of Paul after he confessed that he and Sal had followed him. Now, as Paul awakes from a coma his only concern remains whether the Giants won or lost while he was out. When asked about the assault; Paul’s fan-boy nature kicks in and he develops amnesia. Will he turn in his hero or keep the secret to save his team?

The answer is not so much the subject of “Big Fan.” Rather, it’s something of a foregone conclusion by the time the answer arrives. “Big Fan” is not a mystery or a crime thriller but a darkly humorous, endlessly ironic observation of severe arrested development.

What Director Robert Siegel and star Patton Oswalt are after is a critique of man-child fan-boys whose obsessions have rendered them ill-equipped to deal with the fully formed adults around them. In movies like “Failure to Launch” starring Matt McConaughey or “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler this childishness is played as charm. In “Big Fan” it is realistically pathetic.

Taking the critique further, director Siegel adds a disquieting homo-eroticism to Paul’s hero worship. Paul has a poster of Quantrell over his bed. He dreams about Quantrell, sweating and snarling, shirtless in his three point stance. Though Paul is too timid and immature to get it, he is a frustrated, closeted homosexual whose frustration is channeled into his love of sport.

Whether it’s Tom Brady or Han Solo this level of obsessive hero worship tinged with homo-erotic undertones is part of the culture of the man-child. Are all man-children closeted homosexuals? No, but frustrated sexuality and sexual identity are an aspect of the man-child most often unexplored.

Patton Oswalt is fearless in exploring these aspects of Paul Aufiero. Though he does well to keep Paul in the dark about his true self, Oswalt and director Robert Siegel are downright elegant in the ways they reveal and subtly ridicule Paul’s ignorance. In sending up Paul they send up those like Paul, the emotionally stunted, childishly obsessed man-child.

Darkly humorous, endlessly clever and revealing, “Big Fan” is a punch in the mouth to the growing man-child culture. Where so many movies let these overgrown children off the hook, “Big Fan” holds a mirror up to them and reveals them for who they truly are. It’s not a pretty picture.

Movie Review Nerdland

Nerdland (2016) 

Directed by Chris Prynoski 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker

Starring Patton Oswalt, Paul Rudd, Kate Miccucci, Riki Lindholme, Mike Judge, Hannibal Burress

Release Date December 6th, 2016

Published November 29th, 2016 

Nerdland features the voices of Paul Rudd and Patton Oswalt as John and Elliott, loser roommates starving for fame. John is an aspiring actor and Elliott is a screenwriter though neither seems particularly interested in the work that goes into becoming famous, just the fame. There could be comedy to be wrung from a pair of fame-whoring losers but Nerdland pretty much stops at making John and Elliott losers. 

After John fails at a lame attempt to get Elliott’s screenplay into the hands of a dopey movie star during an interview junket the two begin brainstorming awful get famous quick schemes. Among the failed attempts at becoming stars is a YouTube style video where they give a giant check to a homeless person in hope that their charity will go viral. Unfortunately, Elliott fails to record the attempt and the homeless man runs away with the oversized novelty check. 

After fame manages to elude them in several other ways the guys take a shot at infamy, brainstorming a mass murder spree. John and Elliott visit their landlord with the intent of making her their first victim, which should be easy, they reason, because she is very old. Naturally, they fail as killers as well and the film then spins off into a minor media parody after the guys witness a robbery and become the targets of both the police and dangerous mobsters.

Throughout the movie references are dropped regarding a rebuilt Hollywood sign. The reveal of the sign is mentioned several times during the film and it comes up one last time during the film’s climactic scene. Spoiler alert: We never find out why the sign matters in any way. That actually may not be a spoiler as it plays absolutely no role at all in the outcome of the film or the fates of John and Elliott and yet it drags on throughout the entire run of the movie.

The sign bit is emblematic of how sloppy and shapeless Nerdland is but that is not what makes the film so damn disappointing. It’s the talent that made this shapeless, sloppy, mess of a movie that is so disappointing. On top of Patton Oswalt and Paul Rudd, a dynamic comic duo completely wasted, we have the talents of Riki Lindholme and Kate Micucci, AKA Garfunkel & Oates, Mike Judge, Paul Scheer, Laraine Newman, Hannibal Burress and “Seven” screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker.

Chris Prynoski is the director of Nerdland and I have to imagine he is responsible for the final product. Prynoski has a cult following from his similarly odd animated TV shows Metalocalypse, Superjail, and the recent live action and animated series Son of Zorn. Prynoski’s style is combatively unfocused, he seems to actively not care if the audience laughs. Prynoski engages in the kind of anti-comedy that attempts to mine laughs from the absurd lack of something funny. Sometimes this kind of comedy can be exciting as a taunt toward a passive audience. In Nerdland it just feels messy and shapeless, even if you feel like you get the anti-joke.

I cannot for the life of me tell you why the movie is called Nerdland. I guess that John and Elliott could be considered nerds but they aren’t really interesting enough to earn any label other than losers. The one character who could rise to a common stereotype of a nerd is played by Hannibal Burress but he is such a grotesque caricature that he defies any simplistic label. Burress’s character is fat and sloppy and runs a comic book store and has access to the darkest corners of nerd culture; something the movie seems to use for narrative convenience except that Prynoski loses interest in even playing out his narrative clichés.

Anti-comedy is tough to pull off. The intent is to drive away lazy audiences and potentially entertain a few of the like-minded souls willing to overlook the ugliness to find the bold and daring comedy below. Andy Kaufman eating ice cream on stage at The Comedy Store is anti-comedy at its finest, a daring taunt from a comic genius who knows that the absurd silent scene on stage is funnier than most of the written material of any other comic. Chris Prynoski is no Andy Kaufman. His brand of anti-comedy isn’t as well refined or daring, merely off-putting.

The joke of Nerdland seems to be its own existence. It plays as if Chris Prynoski hired an all-star team of comic talents with the intention of doing nothing remotely funny with them. It is most certainly a taunt and it does provoke the audience but it lacks wit. Only Chris Prynoski knows why Nerdland is intentionally unfunny and if that self-satisfaction is enough for him then I bow to him. I don’t recommend his movie but I respect what I assume is the self-satisfying result.

Movie Review Ratatouille

Ratatouille (2007) 

Directed by Brad Bird 

Written by Brad Bird

Starring Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garrett, Peter O'Toole, Will Arnett 

Release Date June 29th, 2007

Published June 28th, 2007

Brad Bird began his career as an animator on some lesser Disney efforts in the early 80's. He then moved briefly to the art department for The Simpsons and has since taken what he's learned in both of those unique arenas to feature films. His Iron Giant was a wondrous combination of classical animation and lovely storytelling. Sadly that film was never appreciated upon its release and only now seems to be gaining the classic status it so richly deserves.

His follow up, 2004's The Incredibles, thrust him to the forefront of modern animated artistry. His take on the all too real lives of superheroes was humorous, heartwarming and action packed and combined Bird's talent for beautiful animation with deeply human animated characters in extraordinary situations.

That film was, of course, a Pixar animation effort. The company that leads the way in computer animated artistry has once again teamed with Brad Bird for another exceptional film. Ratatouille, the story of a French food loving rat, is a loving tribute to food lovers everywhere and a supremely entertaining movie for anyone who enjoys movies. Not just animated movies or kids movies, Ratatouille is entertainment for everyone.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat in species only. In his heart Remy is a foodie, a lover of the greatest culinary delights. When he finds that he is living in the sewers beneath Paris, Remy see's a whole new world of foodie delights. Accidentally separated from his family, Remy seeks a new home and finds one in the kitchen of the late world famous Gusteau (Brad Garrett).

Gusteau is world famous for his cookbook ``Anyone Can Cook", a book that Remy has read cover to cover and taken to heart. Separated from his family, Remy develops an imaginary friendship with Gusteau who leads him to his restaurant now run by the miserly tyrant Skinner, Gusteau's ex-second in command. Skinner has turned Gusteau's into a money machine, marketing microwave food under Gusteau's world famous name.

Remy arrives at Gusteau's at the same time as a timid young man named Linguini who has his own connection to Gusteau. Linguini has been fired from numerous jobs and see's Gusteau's as his last chance to find something he can make a living at. A letter from Linguini's mother convinces him to hire Linguini as a garbage boy. However, when Linguini decides to help out with the soup, Remy has to step in and help him out.

When the soup is a hit, Linguini is put in charge of the soup and the two form a partnership and a friendship that could return Gusteau's restaurant to its former glory.

The key to Ratatouille is establishing its heart. We are talking about a movie whose star is one of the most reviled characters in the animal world. When you add the fact that our lead rat character is going to be involved with food and you have an awkward mix. However, the power of animation can tend to soften our feelings toward any species, but the real reason we come to love Remy is the terrific voicework of comedian Patton Oswalt.

The caustic comic surprisingly finds the perfect mix of winning humor, and passion that makes Remy a lively lovable character. Listening to Oswalt as Remy talking about food; you hear excitement and the purest of all joy. Remy has a desire not just to taste great food but to create and share great food with anyone and everyone and you hear that zeal in the voice of Patton Oswalt.

Credit director Brad bird for recognizing that passion and genuine enthusiasm in Oswalt's voice when he happened to hear Oswalt giving an interview on the radio. Oswalt was doing a bit from his act about the Black Angus Steakhouse chain and Bird decided then and there he wanted this guy's eager, earnest, enthusiasm for Remy.

The rest of the voice cast is equally well placed with the legendary Sir Peter O'Toole oozing worldly expertise as the tough as nails French food critic Anton Ego. It is O'Toole as Ego who is at the climax of the movie, its most important character and he delivers the climax in a wonderfully unexpected way.

As with all Pixar creations, the animation of Ratatouille is first rate. I mention Pixar because their stamp of quality brings an extra bit of credibility to Ratatouille. But, even working for Pixar, director Brad Bird has put his own stamp on the film. As he did with his previous Pixar produced work, The Incredibles, Bird brings his talent for traditional hand drawn animation to the world of computers and creates his own unique palette.

The look and feel of Ratatouille and its animated Paris milieu is warm and inviting with just a hint of the traditional Paris attitude. The look is timeless, not unlike the real city of lights, thus why you can't really get a sense of the time of Ratatouille. It has both modern and classic touches to the storytelling and the animated locations. It's in no way alien, just unique, its own sort of universe.

So many wonderful things stand out about Ratatouille and one of the most pleasurable is the genuine love of food. The film is a carnival of carnivorous delights making it the perfect movie to see right before going out to a nice dinner. If this movie doesn't stoke your appetite, you simply don't know how to enjoy good food.

Ratatouille is yet another triumph for Brad Bird and the team at Pixar. A joyous celebration of characters, story and animation. What a delight it is to see a movie that delivers in nearly every way imaginable from direction, to storytelling to casting. Nothing is left to chance and we in the audience are the ones who reap the rewards.

Not just a movie for the kids, but by no means over their little heads, Ratatouille is a complete movie. The rare treat of a movie that all audiences can enjoy.