Review: Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 24 (of 2014) by Leroy Douresseaux

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery (2014) – Video
Running time:  84 minutes (1 hour, 24 minutes)
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR:   Brandon Vietti
WRITER:  Michael Ryan
EDITOR:  Kyle Stafford
COMPOSER:  Ryan Shore
ANIMATION STUDIO:  Digital eMation, Inc.

ANIMATION/FANTASY/FAMILY and ACTION/COMEDY/MYSTERY

Starring:  (voices) Frank Welker, Matthew Lillard, Grey DeLisle, Mindy Cohn, Charles S. Dutton, Bumper Robinson, Mary McCormack, Corey Burton, and Fred Tatasciore; from WWE: John Cena, Kane, Brodus Clay, AJ Lee, The Miz, Triple H, Michael Cole, Santino Marella, and Vince McMahon

Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery is the 21st animated movie in the Scooby-Doo straight-to-video series from Warner Bros. Animation.  This series began in 1998 with Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.  In WrestleMania Mystery, Mystery Inc. joins WWE wrestling superstars to solve the mystery of a marauding ghost bear.  This film is also a co-production between WWE Studios and Warner Bros. Animation.

Early in Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, Shaggy Rogers (Matthew Lillard) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) win tickets to WrestleMania.  The two then cajole the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang:  Fred Jones (Frank Welker), Daphne Blake (Grey DeLisle), and Velma Dinkley (Mindy Cohn), into taking them to the event.  The entire gang boards the Mystery Machine and heads to WWE City, the site of WrestleMania.

An accident on the way gives the friends the chance to meet WWE (Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment) superstar, John Cena (John Cena).  They even meet WWE boss, Mr. McMahon (Vince McMahon), and the gang gets an invite to visit the WWE training camp.  The good times are interrupted, however, by Vicious, a ghost bear whose attacks threaten to ruin WrestleMania.  WWE stars join Mystery, Inc. to solve the case and to also protect the health and freedom of Shaggy and Scooby.

I actually did not expect much from Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, because I am not a fan of professional wrestling.  I was when I was a child (and I was huge fan of it, then).  However, I liked this movie … a lot.  In fact, I found myself wishing for a sequel as soon as I finished watching WrestleMania Mystery.

There are a few reasons.  First, WrestleMania Mystery is one of the better recent Scooby-Doo direct-to-DVD movies, with the animation, production values, and voice acting being mostly good.  John Cena, or at least the cartoon version of him, comes across as a nice guy, the kind of fella who would make a good mystery-solving pal.  The Miz (regular name: Mike Mizanin) is funny in a small role, and I think that he’d also make a good sleuthing buddy.  WWE star, Sin Cara, is fantastic in a non-speaking role.

At 84 minutes in length, WrestleMania Mystery is more like a full-length movie than most of the Scooby-Doo movies of the last several years.  For the most part, the story does not seem padded.  Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery works.  It is genuinely good and funny, and it has a nice, action-filled last act.  I like it enough that it almost makes me want to watch some real-life WWE action … almost.

7 of 10
A-

Saturday, May 17, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Happy Birthday, Albert Avilla

Happy Birthday to my longtime friend and comics collaborator, Albert Avilla.  Al is also a contributor at Negromancer's sister blog, I Reads You.  Have a Happy Birthday and many, many, many more ... pal o' mine!

by Leroy

Review: "Club Dread" is an Awkward Mix of Horror and Comedy (Happy B'day, Bill Paxton)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 93 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Broken Lizard’s Club Dread (2004)
Running time:  104 minutes (1 hour, 44 minutes)
MPAA – R for violence/gore, sexual content, language and drug use
DIRECTOR:  Jay Chandrasekhar
WRITERS:  Broken Lizard (Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, and Jay Chandrasekhar)
PRODUCER:  Richard Perello
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Lawrence Sher
EDITOR:  Ryan Folsey
COMPOSER:  Nathan Barr

COMEDY/HORROR/THRILLER

Starring:  Bill Paxton, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Brittany Daniel, Jordan Ladd, M.C. Gainey, Samm Levine, Lindsay Price, and Michael Yurchak

The subject of this movie review is Club Dread, a 2004 comic horror-thriller directed by Jay Chandrasekhar.  The film stars and is written by the comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, of which Chandrasekhar is a member.  Club Dread focuses on the staff members of an island resort, as they try to stop a serial killer’s rampage ... or at least hide bodies.

Broken Lizard, the comedy troupe who gave us the hilarious Super Troopers, returns with a new film decidedly different from Super Troopers, and it is entitled Club Dread.  Coconut Pete’s Coconut Beach Resort is an island retreat off the coast of Costa Rica for swinging singles i.e. people who want to have lots of recreational sex.  The owner is Coconut Pete (Bill Paxton), a burnt out rock singer/songwriter who is a low rent version of Jimmy Buffet.

As the movie begins, a machete-wielding maniac starts killing Pete’s employees.  After destroying the only two boats on the island, the killer threatens Coconut Pete and his staff:  keep it business as usual; do not tell the tourists about his murderous escapades or he will kill them all.  Of course, he keeps on killing; hilarity and paranoia ensue.

On the surface, Club Dread is a strange film, and it would be incorrect to call it a horror comedy.  It’s more a comic slasher flick, and it pulls off a rare trick – the horror film that is genuinely funny, not ironic and self-referential funny like the Scream franchise.  Amazingly, the film has all the elements that are absolutely required to make a slasher flick.  What makes it funny?  The answer would be the actions of the characters.  Although the players are virtually to a man nothing but wispy caricatures, the things they do and say are outrageous, silly, ridiculous, and sometimes hilarious.

The main reason this film doesn’t become a disaster is director Jay Chandrasekhar, a member of Broken Lizard.  He has a deft comic touch, and, for the most part, it works.  He manages to take his troupe’s peculiar brand of comedy and make it at least palatable to a broader audience.  Club Dread isn’t by any means a really good film.  It’s a decent horror flick with lots of laughs.  But taken as a whole Chandrasekhar had made a film that will be a good video rental for horror fans.  And in an odd way, there is something about Club Dread that makes it hard to stop watching.

5 of 10
C+

Updated:  Saturday, May 17, 2014

The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

2014 Student Academy Award Winners Announced

Academy Announces 2014 Student Academy Award® Winners

Beverly Hills, CA – Fifteen students have been selected as winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 41st Student Academy Awards® competition.  They will arrive in Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony on Saturday, June 7, at 6 p.m., at the DGA Theater in Hollywood.  The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in the five award categories will be announced at the ceremony.

The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):

Alternative
“Oscillate,” Daniel Sierra, School of Visual Arts, New York
“Person,” Drew Brown, The Art Institute of Jacksonville, Florida


Animation
“Higher Sky,” Teng Cheng, University of Southern California
“Owned,” Daniel Clark and Wesley Tippetts, Brigham Young University, Utah
“Yamashita,” Hayley Foster, Loyola Marymount University, California

Documentary
“The Apothecary,” Helen Hood Scheer, Stanford University
“One Child,” Zijian Mu, New York University
“White Earth,” J. Christian Jensen, Stanford University

Narrative
“Above the Sea,” Keola Racela, Columbia University, New York
“Door God,” Yulin Liu, New York University
“Interstate,” Camille Stochitch, American Film Institute, California


Foreign Film
“Border Patrol,” Peter Baumann, The Northern Film School, United Kingdom
“Nocebo,” Lennart Ruff, University of Television and Film Munich, Germany
“Paris on the Water,” Hadas Ayalon, Tel Aviv University, Israel


This year saw first-time honors go to Tel Aviv University, Israel, and The Northern Film School, United Kingdom, in the foreign competition.  Academy members voted the winners from a field of 49 finalists, announced earlier this month.

The Academy established the Student Academy Awards in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 46 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared eight awards. They include John Lasseter, Pete Docter, Robert Zemeckis, Trey Parker and Spike Lee.

The 41st Student Academy Awards ceremony on June 7 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required.  Tickets may be obtained online at www.oscars.org or by mail.  Any remaining tickets will be made available at the door on the evening of the event. The DGA Theater is located at 7920 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.  For more information, call (310) 247-2677.

Chris Rock to Host 2014 BET Awards

Emmy and GRAMMY® Award Winner Chris Rock to Host “BET Awards” 2014

Awards to air LIVE on Sunday, June 29th on BET from Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BET’s “106 & PARK” today revealed Emmy and GRAMMY® Award winning comedian Chris Rock as the host for this year’s “BET Awards” 2014 airing live on Sunday, June 29th at 8pm ET on BET from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA.

    “Mr. Rock is a comedic genius with a rapier wit who is a keen observer of pop culture. We’re looking forward to what he is to unleash on June 29th. You will definitely want to meet us at the BET Awards.”

“I watch the BET Awards every year. It’s one of my favorite award shows combining people from movies, sports, TV and music,” said Chris Rock. “Where else can you get Rick Ross and Michelle Obama in the same room?! The BET Awards is like a party where nothing is off-limits. My peers have done the show, now it’s my turn.”

“We’ve been trying to make this happen for a VERY long while, and we’re ecstatic that Chris Rock will be the host of the BET Awards for the first time,” Stephen Hill, President of Music Programming and Specials at BET, said. “Mr. Rock is a comedic genius with a rapier wit who is a keen observer of pop culture. We’re looking forward to what he is to unleash on June 29th. You will definitely want to meet us at the BET Awards.”

Lauded by awards and critics alike, Chris Rock is one of our generation’s strongest comedic voices. The Brooklyn-raised comedian has garnered four Emmy Awards, three GRAMMY® Awards, is listed as number five on Comedy Central’s “100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time” and was honored in 2006 with HBO’s esteemed “Comedian Award.”

Rock’s film credits include “Madagascar,” “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” and “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” “Grown Ups,” “2 Days In New York,” “Death at a Funeral,” “Nurse Betty,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Boomerang,” “Panther,” “New Jack City,” “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka!,” “Lethal Weapon 4,” “Dogma,” “Bad Company,” “Down to Earth,” “I Think I Love My Wife,” “The Longest Yard” and “Dr. Doolittle.” Rock competed at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival as a first-time documentary filmmaker for his film, “Good Hair.” The critically-acclaimed film won the Sundance “Special Jury Prize,” the NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Documentary” and was named “Top Five Documentaries of 2009” by the National Board of Review.

In 2011, Rock made his Broadway debut starring in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Motherf**ker With The Hat. Rock hosted the 77th Annual Academy Awards in 2005, as well as the MTV Video Music Awards in 1999 and 2003. Rock’s debut book, Rock This, spent time on both The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists.

The BET Experience VIP Package offers the only way to purchase a “BET Awards" ticket, great seats to 3 nights of concerts at the Staples Center, and exclusive access to events at the free Fan Fest. For more information, including exclusive hotel rates, and to purchase tickets, go to BET.com/BETX.

A full list of the BET Award 2014 nominations is now available at www.BET.com.

Stephen G. Hill, BET’s President of Music Programming and Specials, and Lynne Harris Taylor, BET’s Vice President of Specials, will serve as Executive Producers for the “BET Awards,” along with Jesse Collins, CEO of Jesse Collins Entertainment.

The “BET Awards” 2014 will broadcast live on Sunday, June 29th at 8pm ET on BET from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA. The BET Awards 2014 will premiere internationally on BET’s international network on July 1st, 2014 at 8:00pm GMT (Check local listings).

The “BET Awards” will take place along with the BET Experience in Los Angeles from June 27-29th. BET.com/Awards is the official site for the “BET Awards” and will have all the latest news and updates about this year's show. All information about the BET Experience at L.A. LIVE presented by Coca-Cola® can be found at BETExperience.com. The BET Experience VIP Package offers the only way to purchase a BET Awards ticket, great seats to 3 nights of concerts at the Staples Center, and exclusive access to events at the free Fan Fest. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to BET.com/BETX. Follow the Experience on Twitter @betexperience.

ABOUT BET NETWORKS
BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET channel reaches more than 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and sub-Saharan Africa. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black entertainment, music, culture, and news; CENTRIC, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the 25- to 54-year-old African-American audience; BET Digital Networks - BET Gospel and BET Hip Hop, attractive alternatives for cutting-edge entertainment tastes; BET Home Entertainment, a collection of BET-branded offerings for the home environment including DVDs and video-on-demand; BET Event Productions, a full-scale event management and production company with festivals and live events spanning the globe; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET in the United Kingdom and oversees the extension of BET network programming for global distribution.

BET EXPERIENCE AT L.A. LIVE
BET Networks, an entertainment powerhouse, and AEG, one of the leading entertainment companies in the world and developer/operator of L.A. LIVE, have teamed up once again to create the BET EXPERIENCE AT L.A. LIVE (BETX), June 27 - 29, 2014 presented by Coca-Cola®. This three-day festival will be filled with music and comedy concerts taking place at Club Nokia and STAPLES Center; “106 & PARK” tapings in Nokia Plaza L.A. LIVE; BET Fan Fest at the Los Angeles Convention Center including seminars, celebrity basketball games, celebrity meet & greets; GRAMMY® Museum exhibits and other special appearances. The weekend will be capped off with the “BET Awards” on Sunday, June 29, 2014 at Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE.

ABOUT “BET AWARDS”
The BET AWARDS is one of the most watched award shows on cable television according to the Nielsen Company. The BET AWARDS franchise remains as the #1 program in cable TV history among African-Americans, and it is BET's #1 telecast every year. It recognizes the triumphs and successes of artists, entertainers, and athletes in a variety of categories.

ABOUT JESSE COLLINS ENTERTAINMENT:
Jesse Collins Entertainment is a full service television and film production company founded by entertainment industry veteran Jesse Collins. For more than a decade, Collins, the company’s CEO, has played an integral role in producing some of television’s most memorable moments in music entertainment. Formerly Executive Producer/EVP of Cossette Productions, Collins has produced ground-breaking and award-winning television programming including the BET Awards, the GRAMMY Awards, BET Honors, The UNCF Evening of Stars and the BET Hip Hop Awards. Collins currently Exec. Produces “The Real Husbands of Hollywood,” (now going into its 4th hit season) alongside industry Icons Stan Lathan and Ralph Farquhar; and has worked with superstar talent such as Will Smith, Chris Rock, Jay-Z, Rihanna, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, Prince, Mariah Carey and many more.

About AEG
AEG is one of the leading sports and entertainment presenters in the world. AEG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Anschutz Company, owns or is affiliated with a collection of companies including over 100 of the world’s preeminent facilities such as STAPLES Center (Los Angeles, CA), StubHub Center (Carson, CA), Best Buy Theater (Times Square, New York), Mercedes-Benz Arena (Shanghai, China), Allphones Arena (Sydney, Australia), Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Center and The O2 arena and entertainment district (London, England). Developed by AEG, L.A. LIVE is a 4 million square foot / $3 billion downtown Los Angeles sports, & entertainment district featuring Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE, Club Nokia, the Regal Cinemas L.A. LIVE Stadium 14 theater, 19 restaurants the GRAMMY Museum and a 54-story, 1001-room convention "headquarters" hotel/destination. In addition to overseeing privately held management shares of the Los Angeles Lakers, assets of AEG Sports include franchises such as the LA Kings, LA Galaxy and Houston Dynamo and the Amgen Tour of California cycling stage race. Along with AEG Facilities, other global divisions include AEG Live, the world’s second largest concert promotion and touring companies comprised of touring, festival, exhibition, broadcast, merchandise and special event divisions and AEG Global Partnerships, responsible for worldwide sales and servicing of sponsorships, naming rights and other strategic partnerships. In 2010, AEG launched its AEG 1EARTH environmental program featuring the industry's first sustainability report while in 2011, AEG introduced AXS a comprehensive entertainment platform serving as the company’s primary consumer brand including AXS Ticketing which provides fans the opportunity to purchase tickets directly from their favorite venues via a user-friendly ticketing interface, Examiner.com and the AXS TV network. For additional information, visit www.aegworldwide.com

Review: "Delta Farce" Tries (Happy B'day, Danny Trejo)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 134 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

Delta Farce (2007)
Running time:  89 minutes (1 hour, 29 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for crude and sexual humor
DIRECTOR:  CB Harding
WRITERS:  Bear Aderhold and Thomas F.X. Sullivan
PRODUCERS:  Alan Blomquist and J.P. Williams
CINEMATOGRAPHER:  Tom Priestley, Jr.
EDITOR:  Mark Conte
COMPOSER:  James S. Levin

COMEDY/ACTION

Starring:  Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall, DJ Qualls, Keith David, Marisol Nichols, Glenn Morshower, Michael Papajohn, and Danny Trejo

The subject of this movie review is Delta Farce, a 2007 action-comedy starring comedians, Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall.  The film follows three bumbling Army reservists who are bound for Iraq, but instead are accidentally dropped near a Mexican village besieged by bandits.

After being mistaken for Army reserve troops, Larry (Larry the Cable Guy), Bill (Bill Engvall), and Everett (DJ Qualls), three small-town losers who are also National Guardsmen, find themselves introduced to angry Sgt. Kilgore (Keith David).  After berating them for their slovenliness, Kilgore eventually hustles the trio onto a transport plane bound for Iraq.

During the flight, the pilots unwittingly drop Larry, Bill, Everett, and Kilgore in Mexico.  After burying Kilgore whom they believe was killed by the drop, Larry, Bill, and Everett begin liberating what they think are Iraqi civilians.  When they discover that they are in Mexico, the trio finds itself saving the small Mexican village of La Miranda from a gang of bandits led by the man who calls himself the “real Carlos Santana” (Danny Trejo).

How do you take two funny comedians and turn them into listless joke machines delivering dry one-liners?  You try to make them actors, which is what the film Delta Farce does.  Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall are best known as part of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, although Larry the Cable Guy, as a solo act, is currently the most successful touring comedian in terms of tickets sold.  They’re funny guys, and Larry is especially talented.  But turn them into actors, and their comedy becomes strained.

The film Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector played to Larry’s strengths by fashioning a flimsy movie scenario and basically letting him perform his stage act with the rest of the movie’s cast playing off him.  His voiceover performance in Disney/Pixar’s Cars was basically Larry being Larry.

In Delta Farce, Larry and Bill not only have to play characters; they also have to move the narrative.  That requires a performer to do more acting than just pretending.  It’s more than telling jokes, performing skits and routines, and saying silly things.  Larry and Engvall are good at delivering one-liners and saying a few funny things, but this comic duo often seems out of place in the context of film narrative.  Ultimately, they’re not bad, and what they do in Delta Farce should appease their fan base.

On the other hand, DJ Qualls, a pretty good comic actor, and Keith David, a fine and under-utilized character actor, fit comfortably.  Qualls and David actually play comic characters and when they perform, it’s like acting and not a stand-up comedy routine.

Delta Farce is harmless and is for the most part funny.  It actually could have been much better, but the directing by C.B. Harding, who helmed Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie and the TV follow ups, is abysmal.  The film is largely apolitical, though odd “support the troops” comments pop up here and there.  As is, Delta Farce is decent entertainment for fans of the various cast members, especially Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall.

4 of 10
C

Updated: Friday, May 16, 2014


The text is copyright © 2014 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this site for syndication rights and fees.

Negromancer News Bits and Bites for May 15, 2014

Variety is reporting that Harrison Ford has been offered a role in Alcon Entertainment's Blade Runner sequel, which is being directed by Ridley Scott, who also directed the original film.

Speaking of Ridley Scott films, H.R. Giger, the famed 20th century surrealist painter, died Monday, May 12, 2014.  He won a visual effects Oscar in 1980 for his work on Scott's legendary film, Alien.  Giger was 74.  According to confirmed reports, Giger died after sustaining falls from an injury.

In miscasting news, Channing Tatum will play the Marvel Comics mutant character, "Gambit," in an X-Men spinoff movie.