Podcast: Pinocchio (2022)

Here we go again! Your Stupid Minds covers another much maligned Pinocchio movie, this time the 2022 Pinocchio directed by Robert Zemeckis and instantly dumped on Disney+.

Geppetto (Tom Hanks) is a sad old man who makes a wooden boy named, you guessed it, Pinocchio (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth). Jiminy Cricket (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is there, there’s the fox and the cat, Pleasure Island, Luke Evans appears, there’s a whale. You’ve seen the 1940 Pinocchio. You know the deal.

Added to this one: a puppet love interest, some forgettable songs, some lines about “influencers” for the Zoomers, and lots of opportunities for 3D things that you’ll probably never see since this never went to theaters. Lorraine Bracco is a seagull.

Podcast: Cats (2019)

Direct download.

We're sealing up our loosey-goosey Worst of 2019 series with the most notorious big budget movie of the year: Cats! Featuring special guest Sarah Richard (née Dobson).

Victoria (Francesca Hayward) is a cat abandoned by her owners on the mean streets of Cat London. There she meets up with a musical bunch of Jellicle cats who show her the ropes of what it means to be Jellicle. They all sing their silly songs as proof that they are the Jellicle Choice™.

Meanwhile, the evil cat Macavity (Idris Elba), kidnaps all the Jellicles using magic and sends them to a boat on the Thames in order to secure his spot as the Jellicle Choice™ to go to the Heaviside Layer.

That's the plot.

Rebel Wilson eats a humanoid cockroach at some point.

Podcast: Titanic: The Legend Goes On (2000)

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Your Stupid Minds delves into well-trodden bad movie territory with the notoriously terrible animated Italian film Titanic: The Legend Goes On. We may not have the annoying falsetto screech of The Nostalgia Critic, or the deep-seated racism of JonTron, but we do have notable animal lover and Chris’s sister Sarah Dobson back on the podcast.

Angelica (Lisa Russo) is a lowly beautiful servant who looks strikingly like Anastasia. She meets the rich and handsome William (Mark Thompson-Ashworth) who gropes her laundry and they fall in love. meanwhile, a menagerie of obnoxious talking animals, including a rapping dog, a noble French mouse who looks like Fievel, and a trio of horrible Mexican mice stereotypes, sing tonally inappropriate songs about partying and dancing. Then the boat sinks and almost no one dies, thus tarnishing the legacy of the 1,500 actual people who perished in this real life tragedy.

We should also note some discrepancy in iceberg sizes and presentation.

The shot when the lookouts discover the iceberg in Titanic. Notice the darkness of the frame helps the theory that they're not complete idiots.

...And the brightly lit Mount Kilimanjarian iceberg featured in Titanic: The Legend Goes On.

Some Notes:

• Do you know any Gastons? Are they douchebags or not?
• Dogs invented rap in 1912. This is not up for debate.
• Unfortunately this drawing exists. Thanks DeviantArt.
• And, of course, the famous and hotly debated scene from Pokémon: The First Movie.

Podcast: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (2009)

A surprising number of good comedic actors star in this big budget squeakeuel. Alvin and the gang send Dave (Jason Lee) to the hospital with what I assume is an irreversible spinal injury, so they go off to high school to complete in some charity concert. Meanwhile their conniving former manager Ian (David Cross) uses his new act the Chipettes, a demographically equal female version of the Chipmunks, to sabotage the brothers. Also there's a football game and I think they pilot an RC helicopter.

Watch this trailer and try not to puke.

Notes:

• Watching a live concert of 4 inch tall rodents is somehow more infuriating than a regular large venue musical performance.
• Possible title for the fourth movie: Alvin and the Chipmunk: Munkford and Sons.
• David Cross on the horrible experience that was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.
• The romantic lead discusses Taco Cabana's Shrimp Tampico (and a bunch of other TC menu items).
• Just what you wanted to see: animals with children's voices sexualized for profit.
• You should see Wreck It Ralph instead.

Kazaam (1996)

1996 was in many ways a simpler time. Apple pies were 10% more delicious, our country wasn't bogged down with idiotic political bickering, and basketball players were routinely given lead roles in major motion pictures. Not only did 1996 give us the incomparable Space Jam, it combined that with Kazaam, a gritty re-telling of Aladdin featuring a rapping genie and promising "slam dunk fun."

Even the font is slam-dunk fun!

The Apple (1980)

In our previous discussion of Camp vs. Irony, we tried to distinguish if there was a difference between the two, and what that difference was. In many ways the two intersect, and nowhere is this more obvious than in 1980's glam-disco dystopian musical The Apple. The film knows it's bad, and all the characters act and sing in a predictably overblown camp fashion.

The problem is, unlike other musical camp classics like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, the songs are unimaginably terrible. They are badly written, poorly performed, inadequately choreographed, and downright obnoxious. Reportedly, audience members at the film's premiere threw their complimentary soundtracks at the screen in anger and frustration.