The Unwatchable Movie Challenge: Reel 2

Movie: Teenape Goes to Camp
Tagline: No more teachers, no more books …only Teenape’s dirty looks!
Director: Chris Seaver
Starring: Meredith Host, Casey Bowker, Jesse Ames, A.J. Stabone, Josh Suire
Released: 2008 
This film has no rating.
Runtime: 61 min
Genre: Comedy | Horror
Writer: Chris Seaver

Length of Movie I Watched:
I sat through every terrible minute of it.

Verdict: As bad as this poster makes this move look, it is worse. If you have an ounce of decency in your soul, spare yourself and anyone else the pain of having to watch this.

 

Here’s the trailer. Watch at your own risk.

So Reel 2 finally happened. This time around I was the one issuing the challenge. I started to miss “Teeth” a little bit while watching this. At least in Reel 1 the production values were existent, but with a company name like “Low Budget Productions” I shouldn’t have expected anything great. This movie definitely tested our ability to watch a bad movie and really amped up the challenge from Reel 1. I think as far as the “Unwatchable Movie Challenge” goes, if you think to yourself, “Maybe I shouldn’t have picked this movie after all” throughout the film, it was a good challenge.

This movie opens for no reason with a Pirates of the Caribbean parody. It then changes to follow the 80’s raunchy comedies path for the majority of the movie and eventually switches again to slasher and action parodies.
The acting is subpar, no, that doesn’t describe it well enough. When I was in high school I produced a half hour television pilot with some friends. We all were decent high-school actors, but we cast additional people who had no idea what acting was. Instead of coaching and directing the less experienced up to match our levels, everybody just seemed to suck worse. I loved to watch that show after we made it, coming back to it now, I despise it. It is absolutely atrocious. THIS MOVIE IS WORSE THAN THAT! It honestly just seems like a bunch of friends wanted to make something silly, they did, and somehow they are distributing this film and several more all over the place. I picked this up off of Netflix. While browsing their website I discovered that they have received a nod from Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman. www.dorkswithoutfaces.com/lowbudgetpictures/index.html 

The writing is forced, they want to offend you in the style that South Park or Family Guy has offensive humor just to offend everyone. It doesn’t come off as offensive or funny. Perhaps I am biased, because I am a comedy writer and don’t really enjoy that kind of style of forcing dirty words into lines because of the “Ha Ha, you said poopy!” type of humor. But going back as far as the original “Scary Movie” and the ridiculous amounts of crap that monster has spawned I have hated them. I think humor should be more layered than poop jokes. And just because they have several layers of poop, doesn’t make it a layered joke.

Obviously, Teenape will have his followers, he will have people that think his gorilla mask that barely covers his face is part of the “feel” of the film. I have no problem with low budget raunchy comedies. I love Troma. I love camp, and that’s not the log cabins in the woods kind of camp, I mean campy humor. Over the top, obviously fake gore also has no problems in my book. But there is a way to do it right. There are cheap ways to make your title character not sound like he is talking inside a mask for an hour. There are cheap ways to cast your production with competent actors. And the cheapest thing of all is writing decent material to work with. I like low budget indie films. I think they can find a place and now and then even contend with the big budget Hollywood blockbusters. “Teenape goes to Camp” fails on all levels as a film. I have not seen any of their other productions, but I hope that they are much better. For the sake of all humanity.

I don’t even want to think where Reel 3 is going to take us…

Until next time, may god have mercy on your soul,
-- “The Erik” Sanburn

P.S. Coming next week I will be releasing the 5-part short story chronicling my recent adventures in life. I know a lot of you aren’t up with the full story, but all will be revealed soon.

My Money, We Hardly Knew Ye.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I will be spending some time delving into why I picked each of those resolutions. Rather than conventionally starting at the top of the list, I'm going to cover items 2 and 3 first.
"WHAT! How can he not start at the top of the list!? What madness is this?"
"Madness? THIS IS MY BLOG!"
...

Well, I've definitely seen more humorous references to the movie 300 and that so often quoted line. Actually, looking back a paragraph, that joke is very contrived and illogical. Why does a blog about my budget need a 300 reference? I don't know. Don't look at me.

Regardless of the validity of the movie reference, I'm here to discuss my budget. At the beginning of every year, I set a monthly budget for spending. I have been doing this as far back as I can remember. Which is about 3 days, which conveniently is when I started setting a monthly budget. How's that for a crazy random happenstance!?

I'm hoping that budgeting will, if nothing else, make me aware of how badly misappropriated my hard earned money has been.
Article no. 2 of the aforementioned resolution list states, "I will eat out less." This item will have impacts on Article no. 1 and Article no. 3 on said aforementioned resolution list. I will get to Article no. 1 at a later date. I will be discussing the impact on Article no. 3, which states, "I will alleviate myself from much debt."
Fast food and restaurants can have an impact on your weight if you don't monitor your intake, and they have an impact on your wallet if you don't watch the outtake.
I recently reviewed my financial analysis for the 2008 fiscal year.

(I do this because I crave knowledge and like a true nerd, numbers give me thrills, but also because Bank of America provides this online for free.)

After reviewing this analysis for the year of 2008, I realized that I had spent a whopping $1817.10 eating at restaurants and fast food. $1817!! I can't even imagine how much food that provided. However, a good chunk of that was eating with my girlfriend, Stef, which means I paid for two and ate for one. So at least I didn't engorge myself as much as that number makes me think. I know that there is alot of Chinese buffets included in that number, as well as a good portion of Old Chicago in Wichita. Also the other insane bit is that the $1817 only counts for purchases made with my debit or credit card. Cash is not accounted for, and I know I spent alot with cash as well. Moral of the story... I eat out way too frickin' much!

It's just easier sometimes. However, when I think of that number, I realize change must be made. The other nifty thing about my financial report is that it constantly keeps tabs on my net worth. My current networth... embarrassing as it is... -$22,315.66. Ouch!

However, that includes the little bit of money in my savings and checking, (it's right before payday so the till is almost dry) as well as taking into account my brand new 2008 Chevy Aveo car loan for $14,500, and about $6,000 in student loan debt that I irresponsibly avoided for 2 years before attempting to make payments. I have another $500 loan out, as well as the credit card debt which is about $2000.

I know, I know... it's not a good place to be for a 22 year old college dropout. Believe me, I know. I'm actively fighting this debt though. As 2008 closed its doors, I closed a 4 year old outstanding credit card bill. So now I have $1200 less debt, and they will stop dragging my credit score down.

That is a different credit card than the one I currently owe on through Bank of America. It was some small company I've never heard of called Clout Financial. They gave me the card and I activated it and never used it. There was a $500 credit limit. No big deal right? Well, after I dropped out of college and drifted from job to job, I used the card to buy gas once or twice and bought some food with it now and then. I decided not to spend any more on the card since I wasn't earning anything to pay off the money I was spending. Well, then I lost track of where to send my payments, I moved like 4 or 5 times, and they lost track of me. Then that card sat there and late payments and overage fees stacked up to about $1200, they sold the debt. Several companies owned the debt since 2005, and now and then one would track me down. I would send them money, and the checks would come back, because the debt had already been passed on. However, last November we finally found eachother and I agreed to pay it off by the end of the year and they reduced it to a clean $900. It's all taken care of now and it feels good to have that burden off of my shoulders.

Back to the topic of my budget. -$22K seems like alot, well, because it is alot. However, as of about six to nine months ago it was in excess of -$27K, so I'm obviously making some great progress. Throughout 2009, I intend on greatly reducing my student loan debt, which is the other dark spot on my credit score. I'm paid ahead so much that my next payment isn't actually due until May 20th... of 2010.

Now, I may have a daunting task ahead of me with this debt. I created this problem for myself and am paying for my misdeeds and irresponsibilities. However, I am nearing financial stability and have allocated funds for fun and entertainment. I also will be returning to the ZLB Plasma center to start donating on a regular basis again. At $65 a week, that's an estimated $260/month and $3120/year in cash. Save lives, get cash... I'm a regular superhero!

This also means I will be in Wichita twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, so if anyone is in or around Wichita some night, we'll go hit up the Palace West theater for $2.50 movie tickets! My favorite theater in Wichita. I should get paid for that advertisement...

Budget Goals for 2009: Reduce spending on dining out and re-allocate funds to paying off debt. Let's hope for the best, obviously I got a lot of work ahead of me.

Keep looking to the skies, true believers!

-- "The Erik" Sanburn