#JohnWhitesell

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Mommas Like Father Like Son (2011)

Did I really see Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son twice in one month? What kind of monster have I become? This is one bad movie, but as far as an installment of the cross-dressing comedy trilogy, it might be the best of the bunch by being so undeniably atrocious. It’s ridiculous, contrived, poorly written, not particularly funny, and frequently puzzling. At least it’s never boring.

FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) and his son Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) witness a murder at the hands of Russian mobster Chirkoff (Tony Curran). While they look for a flash drive that contains evidence to put him away, they are forced to go undercover as women at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.

It's almost admirable the way this movie has to be seen to be believed. It’s like an essay on a historical figure done without any research and written on the morning it was due. Not only is the paper oriented in landscape instead of portrait, but the copy is centered, the font is 16 points in size and there’s a large photo taken straight from Wikipedia at the top. It’s almost better than something that tries and fails.

The biggest disappointment with Big Mommas House 2 was that with our protagonist married and happily anticipating a kid (the pregnancy isn't mentioned but I could've sworn that was a thing...) there weren’t as many cross-dressing shenanigans. Here, we get ALL OF THEM. It’s a double bill of men dressed as women. You get Big Momma being hit on by an extremely clingy horny guy while Trent as Charmaine constantly slips and yells “Damn!” at the hot co-eds at this... high school? College? It's unclear. On the one hand, they have dorms and nude models in art class. On the other, Trent is clearly described as underage (Despite the actor playing him being 26 at the time) and they offer beginner’s driving lessons. This film is already starting to fall apart and we haven’t even started examining it!

Like Father, Like Son is utter desperation. it's padded out with several musical numbers that come out of nowhere. I’m not talking about brief numbers either. We hear close to the entirety of Ke$ha’s Tick Tock, complete with impromptu choreographed dancing from the students. The plot with the Russian Mob? an afterthought. It’s simply an excuse for our two heroes to go undercover. Some plot points in that story never even get resolved. The supposed leak in the FBI for example. We never find out what that mole was. Did director John Whiteshell think we wouldn't pay attention? I’ve scrutinized this film to infinity; no detail has escaped me.

I don’t think anyone sitting down with this film expected it to be good (and if you did, I hope some day they manage to surgically remove that pick-ax from your skull). Nonetheless, it takes a lot of bravery to suck this much, and in public. I laughed frequently at Big Mommas House 3. Never in the way that it was intended for me to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. You can’t make a travesty like Big Mommas Like Father, Like Son on purpose, and that makes it fascinating. (Extended Version on DVD, June 3, 2016)

[wherever-i-look-blog]

Holidate (2020) - Review/ Summary (wth Spoilers) For those who like unconventional holiday movies, in this case, with cursing and a dysfunctional family, "Holidate" was made for you. https://wherever-i-look.com/movies/holidate-2020-review-summary-wth-spoilers?feed_id=868

[calzona-ga]

francesfisher And away we go! Table read for #HOLIDATE in Atlanta starring @EmmaRoberts @LukeBracey @KChenoweth @JessicaCapshaw @JakeManley @CynthyWu & Moi. Romantic family comedy written by #TiffanyPaulsen & directed by #JohnWhitesell  🎃🎄🍀🎉💖🎂☃️

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son (2011)

There aren’t enough ‘u’s on Earth to correctly convey how much Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son suuuuuuucks. To be fair, it stood no chance. Big Momma’s House was bad, but I guess it had to happen at some point. The sequel was puzzling but I can at least understand it on a business level. A third film? It’s so insane, so terrible fans of bad movies should sit through it just to say they did.

FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) and his son Trent (Brandon T. Jackson) witness a murder at the hands of a Russian mobster (Tony Curran as Chirkoff). While they look for evidence to put the bad guy away, they are forced to go undercover as women at the Georgia Girls School for the Arts.

It's nothing but the same jokes we’ve seen before regurgitated. Once disguised, Trent has to help his new female best friend try on underwear while hiding an erection powerful enough to punch a hole through steel. Big Momma becomes an unexpected man magnet and plays along with her role until she must do something so outlandish she breaks cover in a resounding “Awww Hell Nah!” These gags and the like are essentially all the "plot" we get. Some plot points, like the fact that there’s a mole in the FBI that is feeding Chirkoff intel are never get resolved. The whole Russian mob thing is introduced at the beginning and then promptly disappears. You forget about it and suddenly, it rears its ugly head again when there are about 15 minutes left.

This is a fascinating mess; the kind of picture that makes less sense the more you think about it. It almost reaches the same level of insanity as 2012's Branded. If you'll permit me to tell you a bit more, here is your

The most cerebral-exploding scene happens once Trent and Malcolm are firmly planted in the school. Trent’s love interest, Haley (Jessica Lucas), walks into the art class and announces that she’s the nude model for the day. Yeah Right. I went to art school. No student would ever volunteer to pose nude for their peers. I don’t care if it’s one of those all-girl schools where no one does anything at night but compare bras, practice making out, and frolic in their nighties. It doesn’t happen! That’s not the crazy part though. The moment that will make you tear off your ears in frustration is when Big Momma offers to take the young woman’s place to shield Trent from seeing a woman naked. Next scene, Big Momma is posing nude. This means when Malcolm put together his fat black woman suit, he put the care and detail, just in case he would have to be naked, of realistic-looking breasts and a vagina as well. It’s madness!

There’s nothing I could do to properly describe the sanity-grinding experience that is Big Mommas House 3. At one point, the plot literally screeches to a halt to show us a full-length music video, complete with choreographed dancing! It's one of those movies that’s better because it’s so much worse than you think it’s going to be. If you're brave enough to look into the abyss, then do it And I checked if the extended version contained any traces of Nia Long it does not. I guess two times was enough for her. (Extended Version on DVD, June 3, 2016)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Big Momma's House 2 (2006)

Sometimes, you hear a movie title and you think it's a joke. I’m not talking about Snakes on a Plane or anything along those lines. I mean something like Big Momma’s House 2. I don’t even know why they made a Big Momma’s House 1!

Now married to Sherry (Nia Long), FBI agent Malcolm Turner (Martin Lawrence) has taken a desk job but misses the excitement of the field. When the FBI discovers a computer worm that will allow anyone into the government’s databases, Malcolm dons his “Big Momma” costume once again, becoming a nanny for Tom Fuller (Mark Moses), the man developing this threat to national security.

Big Momma’s House 2 would be much better if it were a lot worse. I’m saying this movie is good. It isn’t. It’s predictable, full of mindless developments, characters act as logically as a 3-sided square, the comedy is juvenile and obvious. It being a sequel does allow it to avoid some of the worst pratfalls these cross-dressing comedies tend to offer, however. You won't get a scene in which Malcolm has to switch back-and-forth between outfits so he can do a job interview and a date at the same time. There’s no scene in which an attractive woman snuggles up to him and asks Big Momma what it is that’s poking her. They already did those jokes in the first movie. All that was left for this follow-up were the rejected jokes, which makes it unfunny AND bland.

I’ll give the film this much credit. It’s consistent with the first. Once again, the plot is set in the world of comedy idiots. Children jump off of high structures face-first into the ground with no ill effects. Mothers create cartoonish graphs that force their children to be occupied 24/7. FBI agents get so frazzled by dogs they forget to do their jobs. Family men with children forget how to do the laundry, cook, or relate to human beings. Dumb girlfriends turn out to be dumb wives with no memories of how they met their husbands - meaning Nia Long has the unfortunate task of asking her husband if the enormous underwear she’s found under their bed belongs to a woman he’s having an affair with. Of course, he was dropped onto his head daily until he was 12, so he can’t just explain things to her and the contrived comedy continues.

Compare this film to one that’s obvious garbage, like say… White Chicks and it still comes up short. BMH2 is like Big Momma in a bathing suit. You don’t want to see it, hear about it, or even acknowledge that it exists, but it does. Don’t see this movie. (Full-screen version on DVD, April 29, 2016)