Fighting Tones and Top Dog (1995)

Having a background of watching numerous bad movies can help to highlight the problems that many of them share.  Major problems become obvious to spot when watching bad movies.  Minor problems become more apparent as more bad movies are watched.  It becomes much easier to describe the qualities that helped to make a movie lesser than it could have been.  Watching bad movies is a way to practice spotting the issue areas, and finding ways to possibly improve them.  That is what critics, analysts, and writers are supposed to do.  It is all about improving the art.

My history of watching bad movies is just like that.  I take what I see and point it out in an effort to find a way to avoid it or turn it into a positive.  Bad movies have many bad qualities.  I’m not going to lie about that, since it is true.  They also have good qualities that can be praised, in order to show the filmmaker, or other filmmakers, what their strengths are.  They can take the advice and focus their movies more around these strengths, or use the positive to work on the negative aspects and strengthen them.

These qualities that can be found in movies come in many forms.  The acting in a movie is one element.  I always think back to Jack and Jill when I am trying to remember some of the best performances in bad movies.  Though the movie as a whole was bad, Al Pacino stood out as great while he was portraying himself on screen.  I believe that in the post for that movie, I had given an alternate plot that I think would have improved the movie and allowed Pacino’s performance to stay intact.  That’s because he was the most promising aspect of the film and was something that could have been a good starting point to strengthen all of the surrounding qualities.

This week, I want to take a look at a different aspect of a movie that can make or break the overall product.  That aspect is the tone of the movie.  More specifically, I want to take a look at movies (using Top Dog, this week’s movie, as an example) that try to fit adult themes and childish humor together in ways that sometimes work and other times do not.  The clash of demographical ages sometimes makes a movie feel like it is fighting itself for what it wants to be.  Does it want to be an action movie for adults or does it want to be a kid friendly movie?  It can feel like the filmmaker had no idea and just made the movie anyway.

When I think of movies that combine adult themes with childish humor, I usually think of action movies in the 1990s.  Whereas the 1980s saw the rise of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris as staples of action movie cinema, the 1990s saw some of the guys try to make movies that were more family friendly.  Arnold Schwarzenegger branched out into comedies with movies like Twins, Junior, and my personal favourite of the bunch, Kindergarten Cop.  Kindergarten Cop had the adult themes of Schwarzenegger trying to stop a crazed criminal from kidnapping his child and possibly murdering innocent people.  The character tried to stop it from happening by becoming a school teacher for kindergarteners.  So you end up with some Arnold action and childlike humor blended together in a way that mostly works.  Perhaps it is because the humor, though from children, isn’t directed solely at children.  The humor works for adults in the same way as the show Kids Say the Darndest Things did.  It is just kids saying cute things that only kids would say, and Arnold reacting.  It makes it easier two blend the two differing tones.

Top Dog is a movie that doesn’t blend quite as well.  The action is once again an adult theme.  It’s about Neo-Nazis who want to cause mayhem and destruction amid a racial equality celebration.  That is something that children aren’t likely to fully comprehend.  The action is adult, and the overall story of the movie is adult.  But all of the humor is playing directly to children.  The dog trying to steal red scarves, the dog sliding from side to side in the back seat of the car before holding the seatbelt out to someone in the front seat, Chuck Norris having a very messy room and needing to drag the phone to his bed by the cord.  All of these jokes are simple things meant to interest kids in the action movie.  It sure worked for me when I was younger.  I adored the movie.  Now I am able to see that the movie has a major problem in these two clashing tones.

Like many movies that try to capture both a child and adult audience, Top Dog does not know what it wants to be.  These two different tones that are in the storytelling struggle with each other to make a movie that doesn’t really have its own voice.  It doesn’t know what it wants to be.  Half of Top Dog wants to be an 80s style action movie starring Chuck Norris as a badass police officer.  The other half of the movie wants to be a children’s comedy about a grouchy tough cop who must team up with a lovable, badass police dog.  There is never a good middle ground found that can bring these two halves together.  It always feels like two separate movies trying to tell the same story, and it never fully works because of that.

Tone is a big thing that movies have to deal with.  The tone is the one thing that needs to remain constant or at least coherent throughout a movie.  Inconsistent tone or tones that clash with one another take the audience out of the experience.  People are smart enough to recognize when a movie feels off in tone, though they may not be able to figure out what it is about the tone that doesn’t sit right.  This is one instance where I can tell the differing tones of the movie that don’t quite fit together.  I might not be the best person when it comes to noticing all of the finer details of movies, but tone is one that tends to stand out to me.

With my personal history of watching bad movies, I’ve been able to notice things that aren’t as easy to notice in better films.  When a movie is of better written quality, the tone doesn’t stand out as much because it is consistent.  There are not as many noticeable aspects of the movie because you are too absorbed in what is happening.  The disjointedness of a movie’s tone can help you to notice how much tone means to a movie.  And that’s what makes bad movies useful to watch.  They let you know what good filmmakers do well.  They let you in on what makes a good movie a good movie.  I can’t help but love bad movies for that.  They’ve highlighted a lot of film aspects to me, as they do for many people.  We should all be grateful that bad movies exist.

Of course I have some notes for this week’s post:

• I mentioned the film Jack and Jill, as well as the post I wrote for it.
• Clyde Kusatsu was in Top Dog.  He was in one of the earliest Sunday “Bad” Movies, A Nanny for Christmas.
• Have you seen Top Dog?  What did you think of it?  Have you noticed any movies where there were two tones that didn’t blend well?  You can talk about this post and related topics in the comments.
• If you have a movie that you think I should watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can suggest it in the comments.  Or you could find me on Twitter.  There’s also an email account: sundaybadmovies@gmail.com
• Next week’s movie is Steel.  Why did I choose Steel?  Next week is the release of The Avengers: Age of Ultron, so I thought I would watch a superhero movie.  Yes, it’s DC while the Avengers are Marvel.  I don’t care.  I’ll see you next week.

Week 125 Bonus Recap

One hundred and twenty five weeks.  That’s a lot of weeks of bad movies.  That’s a lot of time that I have spent watching the movies that many people don’t want to see.  The movies are left to rot because they don’t look as good as other movies.  I made a vow to watch a large number of these movies because every movie deserves a fair shot.  And that’s what I have been doing for these two and a half years.  I’ve been watching the movies that most people let slip by.  Because I want to see if they’re really as bad as people think.

I’ve gone through the history of the Sunday “Bad” Movies many times before.  You don’t need to read all that again.  You could go back and take a look at the posts I made at 25 weeks, 50 weeks, 75 weeks, or 100 weeks.  Any of those would do for a history.  It’s not like much has changed in the blog since week 100.  There were a few bonus posts, but no big format changes.  So how about I just discuss the last twenty-five posts and the small things that have happened in there?

The first thing I should write about are the bonus posts.  I tried to make them a regular thing, and up until February, it worked.  I’ll get into that post in a minute.  Bonus posts have always been a thing that happened in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Okay, not always.  But I have a history of having bonus posts.  This is a bonus post.  I did a bonus post when Paul Walker passed away.  I did a bonus post when I read The Disaster Artist because it was about The Room.  It’s not like they are completely new to the blog.

At week 100, I thought I would go all out with a bonus post.  I enlisted other people to help with it.  I had them write a little bit about their feelings regarding bad movies.  And I made a post using their musings.  It was pretty fun and I liked having other people contribute their thoughts.  It sparked something inside me, and I tried to recreate it through a couple of other posts.  They ended up having diminishing returns, which culminated in February’s post.

My idea for the post in February was to do in depth thanking of some of the most frequent people to suggest movies for me to watch.  I was going to talk about the movies they suggested and why I appreciated the suggestions.  The final thing I wanted to add was the people talking about their suggestions and why they suggested the movies.  The problem was, one of the people hasn’t used Twitter regularly in forever, and nobody else responded to me.  I didn’t get anyone’s participation.  I waited an extra week, edited the post a little bit to get it to work for that next week, and still got no response.  Without people participating, the post didn’t feel right and I never put it up.  So that happened.

As for everything else, the blog has been chugging along at a steady pace.  Each week, I would watch the movie(s) that needed to be watched and get the post up on time.  I do feel as though the overall quality has gotten better in this quarter than it has been in the past.  I’ve been more satisfied with the writing since post 100 than I had been with the writing before.  That’s something.  The average post quality seems to be getting better in my eyes, which makes me happier.  I can only hope that you guys have also seen a rise in the quality.

With all of that said, I also use these mile-marker 25 week posts to lay out the statistics of the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Sure, I have a statistics page on the blog now.  I’ve had it since around the time that the posts got their own blog.  I still like to have a record of what the statistics were like every 25 posts as a way of showing how that section of the Sunday “Bad” Movies influenced everything.  It serves as a sort of historical document on what the Sunday “Bad” Movies were at every 25^th week.

The first statistic that I want to give is the top actors featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  There were a couple of changes to the top ten list in terms of the people featured.  Most of the top 10 remains the same, however.  In total, 251 actors have been features in multiple movies throughout the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Note that it is movies, not weeks.  So, here’s the list.

Again, the rules are as follows.  The ranking goes by the number of movies that an actor has been featured in.  If there are multiple actors with the same number of movies, it then goes to number of franchises.  Within the actors with the same number of movies and franchises, it goes by the order in which the final movie was featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  If that is the same movie, the next most recent is the ranking criteria.  If all of their movies are the same, then it goes by last name alphabetical.  And in the very rare case that all of that stuff is the same, then first name will have to be how they get ranked.

So here are the ten actors most featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies:

1. Lloyd Kaufman – Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned, Big Ass Spider!, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, The Toxic Avenger Part II, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
2. Ed Gale – Tiptoes, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, Howard the Duck, Santa, Jr.
3. Danny Trejo – Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno, Rise of the Zombies, Anaconda
4. Adam Sandler – Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, Going Overboard, Jack and Jill
5. Joe Fleishaker – Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
6. Louis Gossett Jr. – Iron Eagle, Iron Eagle II, Aces: Iron Eagle III, Iron Eagle IV
7. Rick Collins – The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
8. Dan Snow – The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV
9. Jaime Pressly – The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, Torque, Cruel World
10. Cary Elwes – Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, New Years Eve

And, of course, I need to go through the directors as well.  The rules are the same as with the actors.  Though, with directors, I only go with the top five because there are exponentially more actors who have been featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies than directors.  Most movies only have one director.  They have many more actors.  Here are the top 5 most featured directors, as of week 125:

Lloyd Kaufman – Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie, Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV

Roel Reine – Death Race 2, Death Race: Inferno, The Marine 2

Charles Band – Evil Bong, The Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong II: King Bong

Sidney J Furie – Iron Eagle, Iron Eagle II, Iron Eagle IV

Michael Herz – The Toxic Avenger, The Toxic Avenger Part II, The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie

The final little thing that I would like to do before I head off into the next week of the Sunday “Bad” Movies is quickly thank the people who suggested the movies that I watched in this quarter.  These people are important to my experience of watching bad movies as they are the ones who point out many of the bad movies that I end up adding to the schedule.  They deserve some credit for their work, however minimal it was in the bigger scheme of things.

@TheCatFilmFan and @rosstmiller – You two suggested Jack and Jill.  By my own rules, a double suggestion must be added to the schedule.  I hated it almost as much as the first time I watched it, though that final scene still works like gangbusters.  It’s all the Jill stuff that turns me off of the movie.  Pacino is great, but Jill is such a grating character.  Ross, you also suggested one of the Leprechaun movies that I watched for week 120.  Those movies are a hoot and I found a new appreciation of Back 2 Tha Hood that I didn’t have when I first saw it a few years ago.  Thank you for that rewatch.

@JeramyWainwrigh – Frogs was an interesting movie to watch.  Not something I had known too much about before watching it on your suggestion.  Now I’m going to have to watch it again soon because I’ve had it assigned for me for a review.  I’m not as afraid of it because I know what I’m getting.  Thanks.

@LastFilmSeen – Your suggestion, Santa, Jr. was about the same as any Lifetime or Hallmark movie I’ve seen.  Dispensable fluff.  It’s entertaining enough but nothing that is going to stand out.  It was fine while it was on, and I still sometimes think about it.  So thanks for that.

@nickissac – D.E.B.S. is an interesting movie.  Not because it’s good.  Far from it.  But it does tackle the topic of lesbians in a way that was refreshing.  Especially for a movie from 2004.  It wasn’t about sex or about how weird it was that two girls could love each other.  It was simply about the love.  It was like a lesbian Romeo and Juliet, and that was nice.

@robtrench, @1sttimewatchers, and @TheTrueBrendanF – The movie that you guys suggested, Riki-Oh:The Story of Ricky, was one of the craziest movies I have seen in a long time.  Over-the-top action, practical effects, and an odd story.  It was a perfect addition to the Sunday “Bad” Movies and I’m glad that you guys suggested it.

@refocusedmedia – I got myself way too excited for The Time Machine (I Found at a Yard Sale).  You were right in saying this was a bad movie.  I was expecting a dumb, fun bad movie though.  What I got was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.  It hurt to watch the movie.  Thanks for making me feel again.

@SebastianNebel – You gave me my second Uwe Boll movie to watch with Blackwoods, which was an interesting one.  I wouldn’t say that I liked the movie.  But there are some interesting twists and turns that I think better editing would have helped with.  I’m always open to another Uwe Boll movie in the future.  I don’t hate him as a filmmaker yet.  Thanks for giving me one that I thought about for a while.

@jaimeburchardt – No thanks section would be complete without you, bud.  You’ve given me three of the best suggestions that anyone could have.  Simon Sez is the third of those.  If people think that Dane Cook was bad in his romantic comedy phase, they haven’t seen this movie.  Thanks for pointing it out to me, bud.

@JEBermanator – I had a lot of fun with The Million Dollar Duck.  It’s an old style of slapstick comedy that I very much appreciate.  It is a good movie?  Perhaps not.  But in terms of me enjoying the movies I watched, this was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable movies to have been suggested to me in a while.  I wasn’t expecting to be as entertained by it as I was.  Thanks.

@SilverEmulsion – You suggested a monster movie I had never heard of from the 1990s that had a man in a monster suit.  Zarkorr!The Invader.  That was interesting.  And a tiny “mall tramp” alien woman telling a postal worker to stop the monster because he was average.  Okay.  This was a strange movie.  Thanks for that.

@TheTalkingCan – One of the things that I had mentioned wanting to include in the Sunday “Bad” Movies was some Pauly Shore.  Your suggestion of Bio-Dome allowed me to do just that.  And it allowed me to see why Pauly Shore was never meant to be a leading man.  Thanks for knocking this movie off my list of movies that I needed to see for the Sunday “Bad” Movies.

And with that final thanks, I bid you farewell.  We’ve gone through all that we can go through with this post.  It’s been a good one.  A look back at the last twenty-five weeks for when I want to take a look at the quarter.  It has been a fairly good twenty-five weeks, and I hope the next twenty-five are just as good.  I'll see you all next week for Top Dog.  Thanks.  Goodnight!