Scratching the Surface of Nepotism with Martial Law (1991)

There’s a saying in show business that it’s all about who you know. The people you are friends and family with will help you succeed. You can definitely see that by the people who become stars, and the people who get multiple chances to try to become stars. Many of them have these connections. Many of them use these connections to land roles in movies. Some of them even use the connections to land roles behind the scenes.

Over the past couple years, the term “nepo baby” became a big thing. I don’t know exactly why. Nepotism had been around for many years, especially in Hollywood. There have been major Hollywood dynasties, thanks to nepotism. Lionel and Drew Barrymore. The Baldwins. The Fondas. Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh birthing Jamie Lee Curtis. Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee. The Coppolas. The list could go on and on and on. There’s really no end to the number of celebrities who are related to other celebrities.

One movie that could help show the power of nepotism is Martial Law. This was a direct-to-video action flick from 1991 that people mostly know now for Cynthia Rothrock being one of the three leads. They might not even know there were other leads in the movie. From every poster I saw, she was the prominent image. But there were two other leads. There was the guy known as Martial Law, Sean Thompson (Chad McQueen), and the villain, Dalton Rhodes (David Carradine). They were the nepotism of the movie, in the standard view of what nepotism is.

Sean Thompson was the main hero of Martial Law, a police officer hunting down a murderous mafia-style boss. Over the course of the movie, Sean found out his brother was involved in Dalton Rhodes’s mafia dealings. Things got personal as Sean got closer to taking down the crime syndicate.

Chad McQueen took on the lead role, showcasing his martial arts skills in a big way. He was an actor who wasn’t known for too much. He would later appear in Squanderers with Don Swayze (brother of actor Patrick Swayze), but his biggest role was probably as one of the Cobra Kai members in The Karate Kid. The skills he showed off in that movie were fully on display in Martial Law as Sean kicked and punched his way through bad guy after bad guy.

What might not be as well known as his role in The Karate Kid is that Chad McQueen is the only son of the late Steve McQueen. The actor, not the director. He was born into the Hollywood system through his father, who had been one of the biggest movie stars of his time. At least, that’s how I perceive it now, but I wasn’t alive during Steve McQueen’s heyday. The semi-success and multiple chances that Chad McQueen had in Hollywood were because of his name. The same could be said for his son, Steven R. McQueen, who has been in things like The Vampire Diaries, Piranha 3-D, and Chicago Fire.

The villain of Martial Law was Dalton Rhodes. He was a smuggler and arms dealer who had his underlings steal expensive cars he could sell to shady people. His business practices were dangerous. He killed anyone who threatened his business, as well as many who didn’t. The whole police investigation came after he killed someone with a karate move and left the dead body out in the open.

David Carradine took on that role, pulling from his own martial arts background to make his character an intimidating master of sorts. He starred in the television show Kung Fu, of course. There was going to be some martial arts background when bringing in the guy that starred in Kung Fu and its sequel series, Kung Fu: The Legend Continues. The people behind Martial Law likely knew that during the casting process. They didn’t know the sequel series, though, since that came out after Martial Law.

David Carradine came from a family that had been all over Hollywood for decades, and kind of still is. His father was John Carradine, his brothers were Keith and Robert Carradine, and his nieces were Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton. Each have had their own success in Hollywood. The family is a dynasty that began with John Carradine. There’s no way nepotism didn’t help his children, including David, and grandchildren find fame.

That’s not to say that the nepotism was as strong with David Carradine as it was with Chad McQueen. Sure, it was there. It was going to be there with his father being a famous actor. But, based on the longevity of his career, and the quality of performances I’ve seen from him, David Carradine had more acting talent. He probably could have made it fully on his own. The hypothetical success he’d have had on his own might not have been as much, though, because nepotism played a part in his career.

The dichotomy between Chad McQueen and David Carradine shows the two ways that nepotism could help someone find a career in show business. In Chad McQueen’s case, people casted him for his name. His martial arts prowess may have played a small part, but it definitely didn’t hurt that his father was Steve McQueen. In the case of David Carradine, his father’s career had given him the skills to become his own performer. The name didn’t hurt, but he learned acting from watching his father at work. Chad McQueen didn’t ever seem to be fully into performing, which is maybe why he transitioned into car racing as a career in the early 2000s. It could also be why his quality of acting was nowhere near his father’s.

I do not think that Martial Law was a movie made to feature actors who capitalized on nepotism. First and foremost, I think it was a movie based around martial arts. It was a movie meant to feature Cynthia Rothrock and her butt-kicking presence. It just so happened that the other two actors to land lead roles may have had nepotism dictate their careers in some way. A “nepo baby” isn’t necessarily someone whose entire career was predicated on the fact that they knew or were related to someone else within the business. It’s someone who was given more opportunities because of that connection. Which, for these two actors, they certainly fall into that category.

There are many actors, directors, and musicians who might be considered the product of nepotism. Success and forward momentum in any business is about building connections and using those connections. But in show business, that nepotism is on full display to everyone. The families that have been around since the birth of Hollywood. The friends who were put into movies simply for being friends of someone involved. Anyone from Saturday Night Live being able to show up in any Adam Sandler movie. The connections matter in building a long-lasting career. Nepo babies won’t be going away any time soon.

Now it’s time for a few notes to wrap things up:

• Brant von Hoffman made his fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Martial Law. He was previously a part of Dudley Do-Right, Police Academy, and Police Academy 3: Back in Training.
• Benny Urquidez has now been in three Sunday “Bad” Movies. They were Road House, Street Fighter, and Martial Law.
• Another actor making a third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance is James Quinn, who was in both Iron Sky and Iron Sky: The Coming Race before this watch of Martial Law.
• David Carradine was the villain in Martial Law. He had a very small part in Death Race.
• Hank Baumert was in Top Dog and Martial Law.
• Martial Law saw the return of John Fujioka to Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was also in Mortal Kombat.
• Kung Pow: Enter the Fist and Martial Law both featured Philip Tan.
• The star of Martial Law was Chad McQueen. He also starred in Squanderers.
• You may have seen Tony Longo in Martial Law. He had already been in Tarzan the Ape Man.
• Vincent Craig Dupree played a fairly sizeable role in Martial Law. He made heads roll in Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
• Finally, James Lew was in Martial Law and Savage Beach.
• Have you seen Martial Law? What did you think of it? What do you think of nepotism? Who do you like that resulted from nepotism? Let me know your thoughts in the comments, on Bluesky, or on Threads.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know. Same three places are good. The comments, Bluesky, or Threads.
• So, the next post is already written. I don’t know if it’ll also go up today (I’m on a week off from work), or if it’ll wait until next week. I guess that will depend on if I take the time to edit it. It’s about a rightfully forgotten movie from 1978 called Loose Shoes. Come back for that post because… That movie was something.

Puppet Master: Axis of Evil (2010), Puppet Master X: Axis Rising (2012), and Puppet Master: Axis Termination (2017)

Many movies have clear cut heroes and villains. An action movie tends to have that action star who can survive almost any situation to come out on top over a bad guy with an evil plot. Science fiction movies might have humans of Earth going up against some sort of extra-terrestrial species trying to take over our planet. Horror movies could have ghosts, ghouls, monsters, or animals attacking vulnerable people. Or, in the case of slasher movies, any sort of evil person, creature, or thing.

The Puppet Master franchise is a great example of heroes versus villains. The first movie, which I covered a few years ago, featured a group of psychics staying in a hotel where evil puppets roamed and murdered. It was the psychics against the puppets as they tried to survive the miniature mayhem. That would continue into the second film (which I haven’t covered), which had some parapsychology students venturing into the hotel and experiencing the same sort of marionette murders. The third film in the franchise, a prequel to the first two flicks, flipped the script.

Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge set the stage for later entries in the Puppet Master franchise. It made one major change to the action. The puppets were no longer the villains of the story. They were the heroes. Well, maybe they were anti-heroes. They did heroic things in less-than-heroic ways. There was one way they were able to pull that off, which was to choose a villain worse than what audiences had seen out of the puppets in the first two Puppet Master entries. The villains of the third movie were Nazis.

The next few movies after the prequel would sidestep the Nazis and go with other villains. There were Egyptian gods, an evil puppeteer/mad scientist guy, and even a toy company. However, Nazis wouldn’t stay out of the franchise forever. Following a less-than-successful crossover with the Demonic Toys franchise, Full Moon Features brought the Nazis back into the storyline. There was another prequel, set immediately after the opening scene of the first Puppet Master movie, that featured an America against Germany in Los Angeles conflict. It would be followed by two other movies, which are called the Axis Trilogy of Puppet Master movies. Three movies, one after the other, that all had a continuing storyline about that World War II on home soil conflict.

Puppet Master: Axis of Evil kicked off the trilogy in 2010, bringing David DeCoteau back to the franchise. That was a good thing. He made two of the better movies in the franchise up to that point and turned in another good, for a Puppet Master movie, installment. Danny Coogan (Levi Fiehler) worked with his uncle as a woodworker since he wasn’t fit to join the war effort. His uncle owned the Bodega Bay Inn. Danny, who was friends with hotel guest André Toulon, inherited Toulon’s puppets following Toulon’s death at the hands of Nazis who wanted his formula for reanimation. This inheritance led Danny into a fight against the Nazis that killed Toulon as they planned to destroy a bomb factory that Danny’s girlfriend, Beth (Jenna Gallaher) worked at.

Nazis are villains with a built-in history. Most people recognize Nazis as one of the world’s worst ever villains. They committed massive genocide while destroying large portions of Europe and killing millions of people, attempting to seize power and land. There haven’t been many groups who have had such a negative impact on the world, both in the time where they were at their height, and the years that followed. Nazis still exist, though not in the same form as the headed-by-Hitler, German political party.

With that history in mind, it was easy to get on board with the puppets as heroes in the Puppet Master franchise. That might be why it was so tempting to return to a World War II era setting for Puppet Master: Axis of Evil. The puppets were now (in order of release, not in order of story setting) working with the Americans as heroes to stop the Nazis. The puppets were the good guys. The puppets were patriots, even if they were the creation of a French puppeteer who performed in Germany.

In terms of horror, it might be scarier for the puppets to commit their violent murders on the protagonists that you hoped would survive. However, it’s difficult to make puppets scary. Even at its best of puppets-as-villains storytelling, the Puppet Master movies weren’t all that scary. The shift to make the puppets heroes signalled that Charles Band and his team realized that fact. They knew it would be better to go with satisfying murders, rather than scary ones. Killing Nazis is very satisfying.

Puppet Master: Axis of Evil sure revelled in that satisfaction. It played into American patriotism by having the puppets work with an American to defeat some Nazis on American soil. It played into the satisfaction by setting up some truly threatening villains. The Nazis killed André Toulon and were also behind the death of Danny’s family. It was not only Danny fighting for America in a patriotic way. That was part of it, for sure. But it was also personal. The Nazis attacked the people he knew. The puppets helped him get revenge, all while saving America.

Puppet Master X: Axis Rising didn’t keep the personal aspect to the story. The closest to a personal vendetta was that one of the puppets, Tunneller, had been kidnapped by the Nazis. Danny (Kip Canyon) wanted to get him back. The plan of the Nazis wasn’t even as good or realistic. The Nazis wanted Tunneller’s life force to bring people back from the dead and raise a zombie army. The technology wasn’t ready, though. A kidnapped doctor was working on it, being forced to do the Nazi science work because the Nazis had his daughter. I guess that was personal, but he was also a villain, so that was an odd choice. That’s what you get when Charles Band directs.

This was the Axis Trilogy going full B-movie. Sure, puppets attacking people was always going to be a B-movie story. There’s no way around that. But at least the story in the previous entry, outside of living puppets, had been grounded. It was a battle between a good guy who wanted to be part of the war effort and bad guys who wanted to blow things up on American soil. The sequel was about Nazi zombies. Which one sounds more like the evil plan of a B-movie villain? Yeah, it’s the Nazi zombies.

That didn’t really matter. Sure, the quality of the story took a downgrade with Charles Band taking the directorial helm and choosing to go a little more out there with the Nazi plot. But the villains were still Nazis. They were still the worst of the worst. It was still extremely satisfying to see them get their puppet comeuppance. Or their zombie comeuppance, in one case.

It is more satisfying to see a movie where puppets continuously stalk, attack, and murder Nazis than it would be to see puppets working for the Nazis continuously stalk, attack, and murder the protagonists. It’s more fun to watch bad people get the punishment they deserve, from a movie standpoint. Especially a bad movie standpoint. I’m sure someone out there could make a great film about Nazis bringing puppets to life to murder others, and it would be scary and captivating. Charles Band doesn’t have that in him. I think he knows that. I think that’s why so much of his career has been devoted to making fun, dumb movies rather than movies with real substance. There may be a little bit of substance to take out of them, but they’re mostly just there to have a good time.

That said, Charles Band added a little bit of substance in the third, and final, part of the Axis Trilogy, Puppet Master: Axis Termination. I should quickly note that there was technically a fourth entry, a spin-off that followed the events of Puppet Master: Axis Termination, called Blade: The Iron Cross. However, it only featured one puppet and one human character from Puppet Master: Axis Termination. The main part of this 1940s storyline was the three movies.

Puppet Master: Axis Termination opened with the two main characters of the previous two movies being murdered by a spy while trying to hand the puppets over to the US government. The spy was then murdered, and the government put together a psychic team to help the puppets stop a Nazi puppet master and her psychic sidekick. It was puppets versus puppets and master versus master.

When I say that Puppet Master: Axis Termination had a little more substance than Puppet Master X: Axis Rising, it wasn’t much. With the two conflicts, puppet conflict and human conflict, it touched a little upon the nature versus nurture debate that so often goes on in the world. Were the bad puppets only bad because of their master? Could they be good with a good master? We had already seen that was the case throughout the franchise. André Toulon himself had flipped from good guy to bad guy, and with him, the puppets had also changed allegiances. The first two films in the franchise, which took place some forty years after the Nazi movies, saw the puppets as villains because their masters (Toulon included in Puppet Master II) had been bad people. Every other movie had seen them as heroes because their masters had been heroic. Actions speak louder than words. The franchise had already given the actions. Now it was giving the words for the people who hadn’t been paying attention.

There was a full circle feel to Puppet Master: Axis Termination. The nature versus nurture story thread was brought to the forefront, a story thread that had been unspoken but present through the rest of the franchise. The team of psychics was back for the first time since the original movie. Dr. Ivan Ivanov (George Appleby) was a talented puppet master who could empathize with the puppets. His daughter, Elisa (Tania Fox) saw things in her dreams that could become reality. Georgina Vale (Alynxia America) performed voodoo. The big difference was that this team of psychics knew what they were up against, where the psychics of the original thought they were in an empty hotel.

Another aspect that felt full circle was the Nazi villains. Sure, the main villain of the original Puppet Master wasn’t a Nazi. But the first movie opened with André Toulon being shot in his hotel room. He was shot by Nazis. The opening of Puppet Master: Axis of Evil continued the story of those Nazis through to their deaths. However, those two Nazis weren’t the only part of their American branch. The villains of Puppet Master X: Axis Rising and Puppet Master: Axis Termination were also part of that Nazi sect. It was still the same Nazi crew being defeated by having another plain foiled.

Finally, there was the ending. Yeah, I’m about to spoil the first and eleventh Puppet Master movies. Puppet Master ended with the puppets turning on their master because he treated them poorly. They broke free of his mastery and brutally murdered him in an elevator. Puppet Master: Axis Termination saw the Nazi puppets turn on their master and brutally kill her because they saw how their master didn’t truly care about them. They were treated poorly. It was another villain coming to the same, violent end. Only, not in an elevator this time. The final Axis Trilogy installment brought the franchise full circle before the reboot that came a year later.

This full circle storytelling couldn’t have been done without the transition of the puppets from villains to heroes. Without that transition, there could be no nature versus nurture storyline. The puppets would simply be killing machines, killing anything and everything in their way. Without the transition, the Nazis wouldn’t be the villains of the trilogy, making the trilogy not happen at all. Unless the puppets got in with the Nazis, I guess. The ending could have still happened. It happened in both movies where the puppets were the villains. It wouldn’t have been as satisfying, though.

The entire Puppet Master franchise was interesting for various reasons. Every movie, following the second, seemed to try something new. The prequel setting of the third. The Egyptian gods of the fourth and fifth. The psychological horror of the sixth. The even earlier prequel. The crossover. The clip movie. The reboot. The spin-offs. Each movie felt like its own thing. The quality of those attempts is up for debate. Some of the more interesting (outside of the psychological one, which might be my favourite Puppet Master movie) have been the three prequel-sequels that make up the Axis Trilogy.

When Charles Band and David DeCoteau decided to make the puppets heroes and bring Nazis in as villains for the third Puppet Master movie, they probably didn’t know it was going to lead to a trilogy of Nazi movies in the 2010s. Why would they? They were just trying to extend a franchise beyond where it probably should have stopped. Yet, here we are.

Heroes and villains tend to be clear cut in movies and movie franchises. Here’s a hero. Here’s the villain they’re against. Or protagonist and antagonist, if you want to look at it that way. Not too many franchises, outside of the Fast and Furious franchise, turn the villains into the hero. More likely, they turn a hero into a villain because of love, grief, loss, or power. Puppet Master took that hero and villain dynamic and flipped it by making the villain the hero and finding a worse villain for them to fight against. The franchise went against the typical conventions, growing into something most than humans trying not to die at the hands of puppets. The dynamic was changed.

Here at Sunday “Bad” Movie, I like to give some notes about the cast and crew of what I just watched:

• David DeCoteau directed Puppet Master: Axis of Evil. He was previously featured as the director of A Talking Cat!?! and an actor in Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust, Evil Bong 420, and Evil Bong: High Five. He also popped up on screen in Puppet Master: Axis Termination.
• Charles Band directed both Puppet Master X: Axis Rising and Puppet Master: Axis of Termination. He previously directed Evil Bong, The Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong 2: King Bong, Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, Evil Bong 420, Evil Bong: High Five, and Evil Bong 666.
• Robin Sydney made her tenth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Puppet Master: Axis Termination. Her other appearances were in Evil Bong, The Gingerdead Man, Evil Bong 2: King Bong, Evil Bong 3D: The Wrath of Bong, Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong, Evil Bong 420, Evil Bong: High Five, and Evil Bong 666.
• David Del Valle has been in four Sunday “Bad” Movies. They were Chopping Mall, Evil Bong 420, Evil Bong: High Five, and Puppet Master: Axis Termination.
• Tonya Kay was in Puppet Master: Axis Termination. She was also in Evil Bong 666 and The Amityville Terror.
• Jean Louise O’Sullivan was in Puppet Master X: Axis Rising, Puppet Master: Axis Termination, and Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver.
• Peter Frankland, William Hickey, and Andrew Kimbrough were in Puppet Master. Archive footage of their Puppet Master performances was used in Puppet Master: Axis of Evil.
• Kip Canyon was in Puppet Master X: Axis Rising and Puppet Master: Axis Termination.
• Danielle Stewart returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Puppet Master X: Axis Rising after first appearing in Evil Bong 420.
• Three more actors from Puppet Master: Axis Termination were in the Evil Bong franchise. Rob Vardaro was in Evil Bong: High Five, while both Jessica Morris and Diana Prince were in Evil Bong 666.
• If you noticed Taylor M. Graham in Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, it might be because they were in Chicks Dig Gay Guys. I hope it wasn’t.
• Jesse Hlubik made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Puppet Master X: Axis Rising after originally appearing in Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance.
• Finally, there was Paul Logan. He played one of the main characters in Puppet Master: Axis Termination. He also had a role in The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time.
• Have you seen the Axis Trilogy of Puppet Master movies? What were your thoughts? Do you like how the franchise switched the puppets to heroes instead of villains? Let me know what you think in the comments or on Bluesky or Threads.
• If there’s a movie you think I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know. Threads, Bluesky, the comments. Hit me up.
• I have a plan for the next movie I’ll be writing about. I’ve already watched it. I was holding back on writing until I finished this post. There was a night a while back where I was in the mood for direct-to-video 90s action. Something similar to a Snake Eater or a Street Corner Justice. I found out that Martial Law was on Tubi, so I gave it a watch. I’ll be writing about Martial Law next. See you with that post when it’s done.

LOL (2012)

It has been fifteen years since I was in high school. That’s nearly half my life ago, though it doesn’t feel like it. Sure, I’ve got the basic aches and pains of getting older. I have a full-time job that pays me to be there, rather than school I had to pay for. Things are much different than when I was a teenager. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that teenagers treat every inconvenience, whether major or minor, as the most catastrophic disaster to ever happen. Many adults often do that, as well, but it’s more a stereotypical teenager thing.

One movie that was built around that teenage stereotype was LOL. The 2012 teenage sort-of-romance movie was directed by Lisa Azuelos and was a remake of her 2008 French movie LOL (Laughing Out Loud). Lola (Miley Cyrus) returned to school after summer break to find that her boyfriend Chad (George Finn) cheated on her with Ashley (Ashley Greene). She broke it off with him and began pursuing Kyle (Douglas Booth) after they realized they had feelings for each other. Lola’s mom, Anne (Demi Moore), wasn’t doing any better with her love life. She was sleeping with her ex-husband, Allen (Thomas Jane), while falling for a police officer, James (Jay Hernandez). One other blossoming relationship was between Emily (Ashley Hinshaw), Lola’s best friend, and Wen (Adam Sevani), the guy that any of the teenage girls would be embarrassed to be seen with. It was a lot of romance that might not have been romance and might have just been horniness.

There wasn’t much of a story arc to LOL. It was a movie built around the romantic lives of teenagers without leading to anything. The audience was brought into the teenage drama, watched everyone overreact to everything, and was taken back out without any sort of satisfaction about what unfolded. It felt like watching a teenager’s life unfold, rather than watching a compelling cinematic story.

LOL felt like it was written about teenagers by teenagers. Those stereotypical young whipper-snappers that the older generations, mine included now, complain about. Their hormones ran rampant. Their stances on anything never truly lasted. They rebelled for the simple sake of always putting their own desires over everyone else’s. They hadn’t yet learned to adult. They hadn’t matured beyond their selfish, teenage selves.

All those traits could be seen in Lola. She was an impulsive person, not a girl, not yet a woman. Her young romance with Chad caused her to graffiti the girls’ washroom at school. She immediately scratched over that when she found out Chad cheated on her. It was understandable, but still impulsive. Both sides of the graffiti were impulsive. As was her choice to essentially roofie her grandmother so she could throw a party while her mom was out of the apartment. Or there was the part where she made out with a childhood friend to make Kyle jealous after a misunderstanding. One that I will now get into.

The most apparent impulsive, self-centered part of the character, however, involved a little trip to the school washroom that didn’t involve graffiti. Lola was looking for Kyle and was told he might be in the washroom. She walked in and heard two people having sex. She immediately thought one of the two was Kyle, and she assumed the other was Ashley for three reasons. One, Ashley had been who Chad cheated on her with. Two, there was a bag that looked like Ashley’s. Three, she asked Ashley if she had been in the washroom and Ashley said yes. All signs pointed to Ashley. But it wasn’t Ashley. It was Emily who owned the bag in that stall.

Emily was embarrassed to be caught in the stall because she was having sex with Wen, and didn’t tell Lola. Lola broke up with Kyle, ten seconds after leaving the washroom, even though he didn’t even come from the washroom, because Ashley said she was in there. Kyle’s abusive father stole his phone, which Lola didn’t know. She assumed he was ghosting her. This infuriated her more.

Everyone soon went on a school trip to Paris, which was actually not quite Paris but some farmland outside the city, and Emily fessed up to being the one in the washroom. Lola immediately got mad. Then Emily said she was embarrassed because it was Wen, and the two immediately made up. It was a whiplash of emotions. Lola then hooked up with Kyle as quickly as she could in some not-quite-Paris host’s guest bedroom. That was a lot of teenage impulse and horniness within two scenes.

The rest of the movie was Anne finding Lola’s diary and seeing a condom wrapper in it, getting in a fight with Lola, realizing she liked sex too, and being okay with Lola having sex. It was no less whiplash than the Paris stuff. By the end of the movie, I could only throw my hands up in the air in an exaggerated shrug as the credits rolled. What was the point? Nothing really happened. Nothing of importance.

Before getting into the plot and how insufferable of an impulsive character Lola was, I mentioned that there wasn’t really an arc to the story of LOL. When I say that, I don’t mean the story. There was a point a and a point b and the movie went from a to b. Lola was in love then wasn’t then was and had sex. Anne was in an on-and-off relationship of meaningless sex, then found meaning in a relationship with a police officer (I didn’t really dive into that part of the movie all that much). There wasn’t really a character arc for Lola, the main character and narrator. She didn’t grow as a character. She just did things.

If I had to give a quick, succinct description of LOL, it would be that it was a movie told through the lens of a teenage girl’s diary. I don’t even know where to start on explaining what that means. I’ve never read a teenage girl’s diary. I’ve never seen a teenage girl’s diary in the wild and, if I had, it would be a massive invasion of privacy to read through it. I’m not going to do that. This diary just happened to belong to one of the most selfish, stereotypical teenagers who thought their relationship problems were the most important thing in the world.

LOL wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It was competently filmed, directed, and edited. The only real faults were the characters and the overall writing. There should be some growth to a main character, something they learn, something that changes them. That wasn’t apparent while watching the movie. Other movies that have tackled the idea of teenage girls wanting to be sexually active have done so in a way where it (not necessarily the act, but the pursuit of it or the aftermath) had consequences. There weren’t any consequences in this one. The relationship drama was presented as super important, but had no real substance. I guess that’s like the real teenage stereotype.

I don’t know what the life of a teenager is like in 2024. Again, it’s been fifteen years since I was in high school. That’s the entire lifetime of some of the kids going through that right now. I do think that teenagers probably still act kind of like the ones in this movie, though maybe not in the same sort of Chicago big-city way if they’re not in Chicago. I’m not one hundred percent sure, though. What I do know is that it doesn’t make for a very entertaining movie.

It’s time to finish this post off with some notes:

• LOL was the third Sunday “Bad” Movie to feature Fisher Stevens. He was previously in Movie 43 and Super Mario Bros.
• The other three-timer this week was Thomas Jane, who has previously been in Money Plane and Breach.
• Four actors from Alex Cross were in LOL. They were Elias Bahri, Ron Causey, Pennie-Marie Hawkins, and Eric Tuchelske.
• Marlo Thomas was in both LOL and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
• Loretta Higgins returned from Crossover to appear in LOL.
• LOL was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Jay Hernandez. He was also in Torque.
• Gina Gershon had a small role in LOL after having a major role in Showgirls.
• You might have noticed that Demi Moore made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance this week, after already being in Nothing But Trouble.
• Sex and the City 2 featured Miley Cyrus, the star of LOL.
• Nora Dunn made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in LOL. She was previously seen in Southland Tales.
• Finally, Ashley Greene appeared in both LOL and Yoga Hosers.
• Have you seen LOL? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments, or find me on BlueSky or Threads.
• If you have an idea for something I should watch for Sunday “Bad” Movies, hit me up in the comments or on social media. I’m always open to suggestions.
• Alright. Up next will be a franchise post, since it will be official post 540. I’m going to take a quick look at three movies in the Puppet Master franchise that form a sort of trilogy. Puppet Master: Axis of Evil, Puppet Master: Axis Rising, and Puppet Master: Axis Termination. I may touch on a few of the others, since I’ve seen them all in the past year or so. But the post will be for those three, specifically. I’ll see you when I get that one up and out.