Faint Praise

In Eric's first time joining in a Faint Praise Extra episode, we talk about Justice League, and if it's as bad as we both think it's going to be.

In honor of the release of the new Punisher Netflix series, we watched all 3 of the Punisher movies to see which is the best one, and the results may be surprising given general public opinion about these generally forgotten films.

It's a Halloween miracle, Toni actually watched a horror movie for fun! In the last of the Eric-free FPX series, Toni talks about Happy Death Day and other movies and shows with the Groundhog Day theme.

What was originally supposed to be a matchup of remakes of The Mummy instead morphed into a comparison of The Mummy (2017) and Gods of Egypt, due to the fact that in the 21st century there's no good reason to make yourself watch a Brendan Frasier movie.

Remember when Clive Owen played King Arthur, but like in Roman times? Neither did we! But we wanted to talk about the impressively bad Guy Ritchie King Arthur movie from this year, so we had to find something to compare it to. So listen to us struggle to make it through both King Arthur from 2004 and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.

We live!! Sorry about the long absence - there were many things that contributed to it, and it turned out to just be a better idea to wait until they all passed before resuming the podcast. But from now on we shouldn't have too many issues keeping to our weekly schedule. Our triumphant return is to examine a couple 80's movies about heavily muscled masters, with Masters of the Universe vs. Beastmaster. Hear Eric get really upset about the "aggressive bastardization" of He-Man! Hear Toni have a cute attack over ferrets!

Sorry we've been absent for a few weeks. Computer/internet troubles have been plaguing the production, but we are back with a second Faint Praise Extra episode, this time reviewing the Duffer Brothers movie Hidden.

This week we're back on track with an episode proper, and boy are we back! It's a real doozie, looking at two of the worst movies of 2002 (and maybe all time?) with Rollerball and Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever. If you want to enhance your podcast listening experience, after we start talking about the night vision scene in Rollerball do yourself a favor and watch this clip: https://youtu.be/d7Dfi-b-qns?t=35s.

Sorry that we've missed a couple weeks recently. This episode is a little different than our usual fare and includes a quick explanation at the beginning of what's been going on and our plans for the future. So enjoy the first of what we're calling Faint Praise Extras, with a longer-than-expected review of Dunkirk.

This week we go back to 1994 with Terminal Velocity and Drop Zone, two movies that desperately try to convince us that skydiving could be an effective way of either perpetrating or fighting crime. All they really convince us of is that we'd rather be watching Point Break.

If nothing else came of the year 2014, we can at least rest assured that likely Eva Green was paid handsomely for getting her boobs out for not one, but two belated Frank Miller sequels, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For and 300: Rise of an Empire. Listen to Toni nerd out a little over ancient Greek history and Eric nerd out a lot over Eva Green.

This week Toni and Eric are comparing possibly the most indistinguishably-named movies to have come out within a few months of each other, with Twisted and Taking Lives. Which one gets more sexually involved with the serial killings she's investigating, Ashley Judd or Angelina Jolie? Wait, weren't both of them in serial killer movies before?

After getting a little bit of a break last week with decent movies, we get back on track with our whole reason for being by comparing two bad Stephen King movies. And since there are so many to choose from, we went with the Stephen King sub-genre of alien horror and watched The Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher. Experience Toni's disappointment as the one thing she remembers from The Tommyknockers book doesn't appear in the movie, and ruins the true connection between the two stories which was why she made Eric watch these terrible movies in the first place.

After suffering through the worst combination of movies we've done so far with last week's westerns, we decided to treat ourselves with a couple good movies for a change with 12 Monkeys and Looper. Be prepared to hear Bruce Willis' name a lot in this episode, including several times when we meant to say Brad Pitt. Be prepared to also hear Toni and Eric unable to keep Jeff Daniels and Jeff Bridges straight. Names are apparently hard, guys.

This was a tough one, guys. We watched The Lone Ranger and Wild Wild West within 24 hours of each other. Naming one of them the best was possibly the faintest praise we have yet doled out. But, at least we got to reminisce about this moment in obscure pop culture history: https://twitter.com/barrypepper/status/631960391745183744

There are a lot of Young Adult book series, many of which don't translate well into movies, but that doesn't stop Hollywood from desperately trying for the next Twilight. We examine a couple of the failed attempts with The 5th Wave and I Am Number Four. And Toni may have managed to make it through the second episode in a row without getting any obvious facts wrong, what a treat!

Do you still believe that humans only use 10% of our brains? Then we've got 2 movies you may find very intriguing. But for the rest of us, Limitless and Lucy will not help us eke out that last 90% capacity we've been looking to utilize.

Two Frankenstein movies came out within a year of each other that nobody asked for and nobody saw, and it's not as obvious as you may think as to which is better. Toni stays true to her tradition of getting easy facts wrong by saying that Aaron Eckhart was in Battlefield Earth, when of course it was Battle Los Angeles. Whoops!

They tried pretty hard to make it a thing to add monsters into the stories of classic 19th century figures, but again audiences across the globe declined to participate. Come listen to us decide if Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is better than Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and find out if Toni messed up any more obvious facts!

In a future where a virus threatens humanity's very existence, which raven-haired vixen would you rather have save the day, Milla Jovovich or Charlize Theron? Hollywood asked this question of the general public circa 2005/2006 with Ultraviolet and Aeon Flux, to which the public promptly answered "neither" by avoiding these movies in droves. Eric and Toni try out a couple different pronunciations of Milla Jovovich's name, and probably still don't get it right.