2020 is a very confusing time for movie lovers. With most theatres closed or at reduced capacity, big studios won’t release movies that won’t at least make their money back. That has left the few cinemas that are open in a bit of a bind – they’ve been hemorrhaging money for months and are desperate to stay afloat, but with no movies being released, it’s hard to attract even the brave few willing to risk the virus. Which has left the door open to quite a few oddities being dusted off and earning releases they may not have otherwise.
Call Me Brother
Lisa (Christina Parrish) and Tony (Andrew Dismukes) are teenage brother and sister who have lived with separate parents ever since they got divorced but they’re reunited under their father’s roof while mom’s away in Cabo. Tony and Lisa even get to share a bedroom since their dad’s new wife has converted the one that might have been Lisa’s into a sitting room – literally an empty room for sitting on the floor, as if such a thing were ever necessary.
Long story short: this is an incestuous comedy. Well not literally. It’s not actually funny. But it is very much incestuous. Lisa and Tony find themselves oddly drawn to each other. They’re both odd ducks, even besides the fact that they spend way too much time together and sit way too close to each other and masturbate to the sound of the other one masturbating in the bed next to theirs. You know, typical brother-sister stuff.
I’m not sure if there’s a world in which I think incest is funny, but this isn’t it. I generally think any topic is tolerable if the jokes are good enough, but this movie’s having an identity crisis if it thinks it’s being funny. And they really have nothing else to offer, it’s incest or bust. Sibling raunchiness just isn’t what I’m into (thank god) and I only blame myself for not turning it off when I should have.
Koko-di Koko-da
It does get weirder, let me tell you.
Koko-di Koko-da is a movie about a family who go on a camping trip in a last-ditch attempt to get back on track after a devastating event has left them emotionally crushed and swiftly growing apart. But they didn’t count on being crashed by a creepy sideshow artist and his shifty gang who’ve been roaming the woods singing chilling songs and generally putting out bad vibes. And that’s before they start terrorizing and brutally murdering the family over and over.
How can you murder someone over and over? Time loop, bitches! It’s the worst Groundhog Day imaginable. It’s a metaphor for grief, an apt one if unsubtle, but in my opinion, it’s just not watchable. It’s hopeless, disturbing, unsatisfying, tasteless, and it makes me think that writer-director Johannes Nyholm has a work crush on David Lynch but not the skill or the mastery to properly mimic him. This one, I turned off. I do learn my lessons.
not been deliberately trying to kill time AND had this particular movie not been playing in the convenient slot. Should YOU see it? Not unless you find yourself in similar circumstances. I mean, it’s not awful. Check it out next year on Netflix, maybe. It’s got a pretty good cast and the odd chuckle, so it’s not a complete waste of space. It just wouldn’t quite make it onto Santa’s Nice list, we’ll say. Is that generous of me? Am I in the holiday spirit? Gross.
non-denominational holiday mixer where Kate McKinnon is stretching out a 3 minute bit and she’s the best thing on screen.
Weirdly, both Bill Murray and Jack Nicholson hoped for the role before committing to other projects. Billy Bob stepped into the title role (which was translated as “Santa is a Pervert” in the Czech Republic) and to this day he lists the filming as one of only 3 time periods he’d care to revisit (the other two being the Alamo, and 1979, when he worked for the Arkansas Highway Department. He’s a weird guy.).
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 