Critical Mess Podcast

Bumblebee Tuna!  Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls is a comedy film from 1995 starring Jim Carrey, Ian McNeice, Simon Callow, Maynard Eziashi, Bob Gunton, Sophie Okonedo, and Tommy Davidson. It’s about a pet detective, bat turds, and a bird named Tinky. It also involves a rhinoceros giving birth to a man. Ace Ventura 2: When Nature Calls has a 23% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 72% ra...

10 days? Munch some garlic anchovies and he’ll be gone in 10 seconds, amarite?  How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is a 2003 romantic comedy starring Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Adam Goldberg, Michael Michele, Shalom Harlow, Bebe Neuwirth, and Robert Klein. It’s about a guy and a girl who manipulate and lie and obfuscate until they fall in love. How quaint.  How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days has a 42%...

Remember when people actually liked Ryan Reynolds? National Lampoon’s Van Wilder is a 2002 comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, Tara Reid, Kal Penn, Tim Matheson, Paul Gleason, Daniel Cosgrove, and Sophia Bush. It’s basically a documentary about “the raddest f’n dude alive.” Does it hold up? Does it suck? We get to the bottom of it. National Lampoon’s Van Wilder has an 18% rating with critics on Rotten...

The Wizard is a 1989 adventure/comedy starring Fred Savage, Beau Bridges, Christian Slater, Luke Edwards, Jenny Lewis, Wendy Phillips, and Frank McRae. It’s a Nintendo advertisement with the occasional “plot point.” We also “enjoyed it.” The Wizard has a 29% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 60% rating with audiences (aka popcorn) people.  Check out criticalmesspodcast.com and give us m...

If only we could go back in time to change this film. The Butterfly Effect is 2004 sci-fi/thriller starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Eric Stoltz, William Lee Scott, Elden Henson, and Logan Lerman. It’s about a guy who can time travel back to traumatic moments in his youth to right the wrongs of the past. It’s a pretty cool idea on paper, but—according to the critics at least—ain’t working too we...

$150 to see the butt? We’ll show you ours for free. Coyote Ugly is a 2000 comedy/drama starring Piper Perabo, Adam Garcia, Mario Bello, Tyra Banks, and (are you f*ing kidding me) John Goodman. It’s mostly just girls dancing on a bar, and yet the plot description on Wikipedia is inexplicably five paragraphs long. But seriously, butt shaking on a bartop is at least 80% of the film. Coyote Ugly has a...

If Optimus Prime had bad credit, would he be Optimus Subprime?  Transformers is a 2007 sci-fi/action movie starring Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Jon Voight, Rachael Taylor, and lots of CGI. It’s directed by Michael Bay, so obviously we had to talk about it. The film is mostly about big robots from space that do lots of punching and shooting. As you might exp...

🎃This counts as a Halloween movie, right? 🎃 Under the Skin  is a 2013 sci-fi/horror film starring Scarlett Johansson, Adam Pearson, Marius Bincu, Joe Szula, and Paul Brannigan. It’s really ambiguous, there’s not much talking, and it’s not for everybody. But it most certainly leaves an impression. This one was directed by Jonathan Glazer.  Under the Skin  has an 83% rating with critics and a 55%...

Smash-y, smash, boom, boom, punch, punch, punch.  Man of Steel  is a superhero/action movie starring Henry Cavill, Diane Lane, Amy Adams, Russel Crowe, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Laurence Fishburn, and Ayelet Zurer. It was directed by Zach Snyder.  This one’s a Superman origin story. Capeesh?  Man of Steel  has a 57% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 75% rating with audiences (aka...

The Snake Plissken origin story.  Captain Ron  is an adventure/comedy film starring Kurt Russell, Martin Short, Mary Kay Place, Meadow Sisto, and Benjamin Salisbury. This one was directed by Thom Eberhardt.  So, back to the Snake Plissken thing. Is it just the eyepatch? No, no it’s not. Because there’s also the mysterious military backstory. The total disdain for authority. The parallels between t...

Cage in a bird. Con Air  is an action film from 1997 that you should really watch. It stars Nicolas Cage, John Malkovich, John Cusack, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Colm Meaney, Danny Trejo, and of course, Tyrone Biggums. It’s about some convicts that take over a prison with wings. This one’s directed by Simon West.  Con Air  has a 58% rating with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 75% rating with aud...

What if  Interstellar  and  Hellraiser  had a baby?   Event Horizon  is a sci-fi/horror film from 1997 starring Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburn, Cathleen Quinaln, and Joely Richardson. The film was directed by Paul Anderson. It tells the story of a spaceship that accidentally opens a portal to a sinister place—a place that gets Sam Neill so hot to trot you could’ve sworn it was full of Velociraptors....

We offer the truth. Nothing more. The Matrix Revolutions is a sci-fi/action film from 2007, and is the third movie in The Matrix franchise. It stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Lawrence Fishburn, and Jada Pinkett-Smith. The title of this film is disturbingly close to the 2021 movie, The Matrix Resurrections. Why would they do that? These movies are so easy to confuse. It’s been p...

Back in 2004, Chads were called Wades.  You Got Served  is a dance battle/drama film starring Marques Houston, Omari Grandberry, Jarrell Houston, Steve Harvery, Lil’ Kim, Meagan Good, and De’Mario Thornton. The movie technically has a plot, but it’s mostly just an excuse to dance, which we think is pretty cool. There are backflips, knee slides, head spins, air pistols, hat twirls, and a guy even a...

Starring Angelina Jolie as The Predator.  Gone in 60 Seconds  is an action/thriller/chase movie starring Nicolas Cage in top form. You’ve also got Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Delroy Lindo, Will Patton, Robert Duvall, Scott Caan, Timothy Olymphant, and Bullet-Tooth Tony. Oh, and the Ice Cream Man himself, Master P. This movie is about stealing cars. Lots of very expensive ones in a very unreal...

ChiiiYYYicKeN JaWKeY!!! A Minecraft Movie  is a fantasy/adventure film starring Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, Jennifer Cooledge, and Sebastian Hansen. You may be shocked to hear it’s based on the Minecraft video game. The film extols the virtues of creativity while being aggressively uncreative in terms of story, characters, and plot. But it’s not without its moments. Liste...

This cast really slaps. Bad Boys is a 1995 action film directed by Michael Bay starring Will Smith (Mike Lowrey) and Martin Lawrence (Marcus Burnett). The film includes large amounts of cursing, explosions, shooting, fast cars, palm trees, drug lords, skimpy clothes, hard drugs, soft drugs, medium drugs, one-liners, and Tropical Fruit Bubblicious. In other words, it’s peak cinema if you have the a...

Ever seen a Braille  Playboy ?  Robin Hood: Men in Tights  is a Mel Brooks comedy starring Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Amy Yasbeck, Roger Rees, Dave Chappelle, Isaac Hayes, and Tracey Ullman. It’s a parody of that very mediocre Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie. Since this is a Mel Brooks joint, the jokes are pretty stupid. But they can also be pretty funny. Listen in as Brian, Nick, and Gris discuss...

It's a sleeper. You probably haven't heard of Come True. But now, praise be, you have. It's a fine indie film created with a crew of just five people starring Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron, Tiffany Helm, Chantal Perron, and Orin McCusker. The movie explores the idea of dreaming, what dreams mean, and how we interpret them (quite literally) as our protagonist Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) particip...

Emilio. Emilio! EMILIO!  EMILIOOOOOOOOO!!! Watch as the boys dissect A Night at the Roxbury, the 1998 comedy/90's dance music homage starring Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon, and Dan Hedaya. We know Saturday Night Live movies have a mixed legacy. Does this one hold up? Are two guys hump-thrusting to Haddaway tracks still funny? Were they ever? Let's head bob our way through this one. A N...

Is this not about the Mighty Ducks’ coach? Brian, Gris, and Nick discuss Emilio Estevez, a movie that’s less about youth hockey and more about drug cartels and sex changes. Which, on paper, does sound interesting. But alas. This film stars Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, and some dancing doctors. It’s nominated for 54 Oscars even though it has a 16% rating with audiences (and a 72%...

Alternate title for 2025:  Pirates of the Gulf of America: Deadass Man’s Chest.    Brian, Gris, and Nick discuss  Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,  a documentary film about a young Keith Richards starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley, and Kraken. There’s swashbuckling, rum, cannons, peglegs, glass eyeballs, cannibals, a guy who smokes a pipe using face tentacles, a pirate...

Please lambast (or commend) our opinions in the comments.    For this very special 50th episode of Critical Mess, the boys talk about the best films of all time. At least, according to them. Do you agree with Brian, Gris, Nick, and Ben? Do they have great taste? Or is their taste level more of the Cracker-Barrel variety? Does that analogy even work? Get your questions answered in this week’s episo...

*reclining seductively* Do you lahhhhhk it?    The Saint is a thriller from 1997 about a microchip/sex bandit named Simon (Val Kilmer) with 30 wildly different personalities—each accompanied by appropriate garb and accent. His love interest is the brilliant nuclear scientist Emma (Elisabeth Shue), who is very easily fooled for someone who’s supposed to be super smart. Boris the Blade (Rade Serbedz...

That Teriyaki Boyz song still slaps. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is an action film from 2006 about Eminem’s younger brother (Lucas Black) who moves to Tokyo to learn how to use a parking brake. He’s an American—and therefore an outsider—but manages to become friends with Lil Bow Wow (Lil Bow Wow) and some cool Asians who love to race. There’s a love interest (Nathalie Kelley), and also o...