Nilbog is Goblin Spelled Backwards

Contrary to the clues in the fairly blunt title, let us just tell you upfront: There is no Troll 1 associated with this movie, and there are no trolls.

You may think that a movie that follows the journey of a family to the noble city of Nilbog (population 26!) for a month of vacation where they intend to be farmers (um?) would be slightly boring, but you would be oh-so-wrong, my friend. Because I forgot to mention that the small boy, Joshua, can see his dead grandfather. And that his sister is a body-building, no-nonsense, "It's me or your stupid friends!" type of girlfriend. And that his mother is bland but has good fashion sense. And that his Dad has a secret southern accent. Also. Goblins want to eat them.

The thing that's really interesting and also equally confusing about said goblins is that they're actually vegetarians. Think about it. Do you see why this is a problem? They sidestep this problem by taking extra, painstaking steps to turn humans into plants. Now, if they were living in a desert, for instance, this would make complete sense. After all, they would have to make something to eat. In this movie, however, they live in a forest. They live in a forest amongst acres and acres of vegetation. In fact, in the opening sequence, they are physically tripping over fauna as they chase a human.

Analogy time: My favorite food is a chocolate chip cookie. Sometimes I don't have a chocolate chip cookie, so I eat an Oreo. Goblins' favorite food is vegetables; even when they do have vegetables, they find it more organic to turn humans into leaves. It makes no sense. It makes no sense and I honestly can't wrap my head around it.

How does one explain this movie? Okay. Picture this. You have a son with an overactive imagination. He is seven years old. He has a preoccupation with vegetables. And he displays schizophrenic tendencies. Imagine he wrote a script and that script was Troll 2. The end.

Now, I have never written a script. Well, that's false; one time I wrote a script for my English class which featured Dorian Grey and a blackberry. But for the sake of my criticism, I will admit that I have never written a script. That being said, I think I understand basic things that a viewer expects to see. At the top of this list is the ever troubling issue of bad parenting. I'd say almost half of our reviews feature this problem. Attention academy: start looking at this a bit more carefully.

The parenting here not only features insensitivity to a childhood trauma ("Banish your grandfather from your mind, but keep him from your soul"), examples of extreme vacationing (A monthlong vacation? Do people even do that anymore?), and evidence of previous child abuse ("Please don't hit him!"), but there is also a startling lack of discipline.

In the most memorable scene of the movie, Joshua must stop his family from eating an unexpected feast because, obviously, it will turn them into plants if they consume it. To stop them, he decides to take a giant pee on the food. Ignore the obvious question of how he had that much urine inside of him, and skip forward to the part where he isn't punished at all! He is carried to his room, given a stern warning about hospitality ("This is hospitality, and you can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!"), and that's it. There is no punishment whatsoever. Now, as much as I question the other gaping plot-holes that appear in Troll 2, it is this one that absolutely befuddles me. If my child whipped out his penis and relieved himself on a home cooked meal, you had better believe there would have been some kind of consequence. This kind of lax parenting is something I cannot get behind.

In all fairness, there was a good learning lesson somewhere in there, from father to son. In his old age, whenever he hasn't been able to eat his fill, Joshua will know the proper way to stop the very real threat of HUNGERPAINS. You tighten your belt "JUST ONE LOOP", and the hugnerpains will be easier to bear. Especially if you have had a hungry childhood, which Joshua's father absolutely has, as shown by the fact that he challenges his only son to a starving contest completely unprovoked.

That's the kind of workmanship we're dealing with here. What we're trying to tell you is that this movie is unmatched in every department. Brilliance. Absolute brilliance. The severe plot holes (that we somehow didn't mind), inexplicable forest music, the goblin witch with a severe case of herpes, the way in which we questioned whether or not the movie skipped parts, the seemingly impossible magical abilities of the goblins, and the seamless way the writers explore both phobia and fetish of everything vegetable, all collided together perfectly in a medley of wonder.

But wait, what happened to that popcorn guy?

We just will never know. And that's surprisingly alright with us.


Disclaimer: Sometimes we accidentally see movies that must be written about, and we cannot always collect all members of the blogging crew to write about them. We apologize for being without Lauren. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words...

Have you ever been to a popular clothing store in the mall and been asked to donate a dollar to help prevent cyber bullying? Did you say "YES!" ? If you watched Abc Family's "Cyberbully," you would. note: true story.

Emily Osmet stars as Taylor, a seemingly normal seventeen year old high school girl with an overprotective mother and annoying younger brother. However, her life takes a dramatic change when her mother gets her her own laptop and she joins the new, popular social networking site, "Cliqusters" ("it's so raw!") for the purpose of getting closer to Scott, the guy she likes. She quickly discovers that what is put on the internet cannot be taken back. Soon there are rumors circulating around Cliqusters as well as school about Taylor and…ahem.. her honor. Taylor's two best friends, Samantha and Cheyenne, offer their loyal support by ditching her in her time of need and telling the world she has chlamydia.

It is assumed that Lindsay, the real life, as well as internet, bully is the one that has created a fake profile to ruin Taylor's life…but no… that was her best friend.  She has been doing some extra curricular activity on the world wide web and caused this whole ruckus. Taylor feels she has no one else to turn to and no where to go, she makes a drastic choice to end her agony. We, the three dedicated members of LexiConErrick, sat in agonizing suspense wondering which way she would decide to end her life (yeah, probably a little morbid and insensitive of us, but it is a movie, not real life). She settled on over-dosing on a mysterious prescription, however, she didn't get that far... Thank goodness for child proof lids! She was stopped from making this terrible mistake because "I CAN'T GET THE CAP OFF!" A good cry in the laundry room, a brief stay in the hospital, group therapy, and her loving family help heal Taylor's emotional wounds. Soon Taylor and her mother are taking action and by introducing her story to the local paper. She soon realizes that she is not alone in her stand against bullies and finds herself backed by schoolmates when she confronts Lindsay.

We were especially fond of the stellar cast. We were faced with a misty haze of the shadows of Disney Channel past. Who were those Panabakers anyway? They weren't even in any seasoned show. I recall a few DComs…but really…where did they come from? Poor Emily Osment…this is her life now. At least she also gets to be teen activist. And boy! Were we pleased when we saw Kirsten Cohen's crooked chin!

We were a fan of the way the movie took on the role of an advice column. We feel we can't laugh too much at this movie, on account of the serious issues presented, but just let us tell you, it's funny. Between Kirsten Cohen's mom shirts, poorly expressed cyber slander ("you nekkid whore!"), and home decor reminiscent of a nice garage sale haul, we couldn't help but snicker on occasion. Call us insensitive, we already know. Lexie is perfecting her cyber bully persona.

This is LexiConErrick singing off of another Cinemazing adventure!

If there's a typo on the back cover, you HAVE to rent it.

For the first time, the bloggers at LexiConErrick were left looking for more. The romantic comedy, Say Goodnight, left our minds reeling. Though, to be genre-correct, it would be appropriate to point out that there is very little that is romantic or comedic about it. Who would have thought that a movie revolving solely around three guys' sexual (and not so sexual) exploits would have appealed to us in such bewildering ways.

As for flow, we like to think that the cliffhanger ending was just a fancy, artistic way to keep us conversing about the film long after its credits had rolled. By the way, there is a whole section of credits expressly devoted to "rejected girls." We invite you to make the necessary conclusions about the movie from this small tidbit of information. In retrospect, there is something refreshing about having NO plot lines tied up, NO conflicts resolved, and NO questions answered. It is a special day when we realize that the writers trusted us enough to leave the ending up to our imaginations. Thank you. Also really innovative were the absolutely confusing date scenes where the conversations are not only unrealistic, but also full of overlapping, intercalary stories making it impossible to follow. We viewed it as more of a challenge than a discrepancy.

We must now address the plot. What started as three friends' racist game of "how many races can we nail" soon became three friends' stories of "how we screwed up all our lasting relationships": As told by men. Here's a fun game for those of our viewers who are of age: take a shot every time the character Victor brings up an obscure sex position. You will be completely wasted. Completely.

The majority of our reflection upon this movie consisted of character analysis of Mason, played by Christopher Gessner. The character falls in love with a Korean! bartender who he then alienates after having "like a 102 day vibe going here."In the pivotal apartment scene, when he asks her to get tested for STDs, we realize what a fragile and complex life he must lead. How does one analyze such a character? There is really no one way. Our opinions on the matter have become such a reason for discord, that heated words have been exchanged several times. To avoid having to blend such conflicting opinions into one cohesive resolution, here are each of our takes:

Lexie: "He is a douche-bag, gay virgin who is over obsessed about cleanliness, but has a troubled past. So, I can understand his reservations."

Lauren: "He is afraid of commitment and runs away whenever anything gets serious so he's trying to prevent a serious relationship by not fully committing and not having sex with her. I mean, he obviously has deep down issues, otherwise he wouldn't make her shower and then ask her if she's been tested. That's it."

Megan: "I don't know. He is a character reading a script. I don't think there's much more to talk about."

So there you have it.

Until our next Cinemazing adventure this is LexiConErrick signing off.

"This isn't about SKIN, it's about SIN"

What we thought was going to be a trashy but exciting adventure of a sleazy duo turned out to be an amateur, melodramatic piece with exactly one camera angle. Preachin' To the Sistas proved to be exactly what we should have expected.  Two hardened criminals rip off a Georgian church and the clothing of every woman they meet. And in the meantime, the main woman character explores the hard truths of sexism, racism and rape. Almost rape.

Instead of giving you an extensive play-by-play of the movie, we thought it would be more helpful to you to just give you a list of things we would rather do than ever watch this movie again.

1. Megan would rather build a cuckoo clock with her bare hands and leaves.

2. Lexie would rather watch Megan build a cuckoo clock with her bare hands and leaves.

3. Lauren would rather watch Lexie watch Megan build said clock.

4. Watch a pig throw up its dinner.

5. Eat eighteen chicken pot pies. And then bathe in a vat of chicken pot pies.

6. Get hair cut into bowl cut and then permed.

7. Read War and Peace.

8. Go on a scavenger hunt for a dead person's rotting skull.

9. Watch Megan's dog eat cat feces.

10. Smell Megan's dog.

11. Find a dead skunk in the toilet.

12. Makeout with Lord Voldemort.


We aren't going to lie to you. After watching this movie, our egos grew tenfold. We have made better movies than this in the past for high school english projects. We especially loved the closeup of the glass of orange juice, the fact that there were moments where we could only see the back of a character's head as they talked, the part where the one guy pauses a phone call to take off his tie, and the fantastic fade ins and outs. The full frontal nudity was a little more than we could handle, but oh-so-tasteful, especially during the tiger-assed stripper dance scene.

Alcohol was present in mostly every scene. You may notice this is a reoccurring theme throughout our selections. This is unintentional, we assure you.

We have concluded the budget for this film was exactly $228.27. Between the bare white walls, unlit candles, Goodwill wardrobe, and mediocre video camera it was clear that they used all that money to pay the salary of the one good actor, the five-year-old boy, and to make the cover which features none of the actors and all of the excitement the movie lacked.

Throughout the majority of the movie we felt like we were prying in on private conversations, and instead of stealthy, we felt completely unnerved.

Probably the best part of the movie was the credits when we finally realized the song playing throughout the entire movie was called "Too Much Booty in Da Pants" by Soundmaster T.

Don't watch this movie. The end.

Until our next Cinemazing adventure, this is LexiConErrick singing off.

Smells Like Fish

When is the best time to meet a god, you've probably been wondering? According to Thomas Bradley, "The best time for a human to meet a god or goddess would be at noon." At noon, things shimmer and break down the barrier between man and beast and god. And after watching Fishtales, we believe it. One Hundred Percent.

Professor Thomas Bradley is a favorite among the students in the Oxford community where he is a visiting professor of ancient Greek mythology and language. He and his bratty and upfront daughter, Serena, are given the opportunity to spend the summer at the one of the kind, old British professor's summer home on one of the Greek Isles where he will be able to finish his paper about Ancient Greek love poems. 

Because her father spends most of his time working (and drinking), Serena spends most of her time listening to angsty music on her iPod and swimming in the forbidden cove. Here, she suddenly meets a mermaid who takes her snorkeling with a bubbly shell breathing apparatus which she places on her face without any prompting. She soon inexplicably learns that the mermaid is the mysteriously missing daughter of the professor who has offered his home to Serena and her father. Neried, our gorgeous mermaid with rather large breasts as a well as voluptuous, bodacious ass booty, speaks fluent ancient Greek. Because of her skills for the dead language, Serena thinks Neried can help her father with his translations to finish his paper. Luckily, Neried turns into a human when the sun sets at night so she can walk on land and into their lives forever. Serena uses this to her advantage to trick her father into meeting her and the rest is history--complicated ancient greek history. With fireworks and creepy Russian spies.

We were overwhelmed by the number of plot lines in this should-be Oscar winner. You have Professor Bradley and his job at Oxford, a Greek vacation, Serena's dead mother, Mythology, Love, small Dimitri and his thieving father, old Greek woman matchmakers, gay rights, "a-hole" grandparents, and random wedding parties gone up in flames. Literally. Like "disco inferno". 

This movie is undoubtably an underdog and we are sure we are the only ones to ever rent it from the video store.  We cannot however, pretend we do not understand why. While you do have Billy Zane,  Cal from Titanic, he is about the only recognizable and remotely talented actor in the cast. The horrible acting skills put forth by the rest of the small cast, most memorably, Serena, are quite painful to watch. Her character is also, if we do say so ourselves, a bitch. While she is only 12 ("and a half"!) years old, she is constantly ordering her father and other adults around like she is a princess. When really, she should just be ordering him to take her to the nearest Victoria's Secret to buy her a proper bra. Another element we could not look past was Billy Zane's obviously ill-fitting hair piece which is never properly groomed. However, the beautiful, classy, gorgeous (we have a thesaurus just like she does) mermaid likes the way his hair curls just above his eyebrow. Then there is the repetitive soundtrack that consists of about two songs just replayed throughout the entire movie.

The one redeemable plot point was small Dimitri (mentioned above). His unidentifiable accent coupled with his extreme courting of young Serena was enough to make our hearts melt. Though a victim of child neglect and minor abuse, he seems to have defied all odds and become a true romantic. Why Serena turned him down is the biggest mystery of the entire movie (and that's saying something). After all, age is just a number.

Though it is clear the budget was quite limited, we have learned a few valuable lessons from this great tale. First, we now know that even though the ancients described love as a sickness, it is nothing of the sort. In fact, love is hard work. And even if you are under a spell, true love will have to take it's place eventually. Second, toupees are never the answer. And lastly, if you are planning on filming a movie, you should plan wardrobe ahead of time, so as to not repeat ugly monkey shirts more than three times.

So. We highly recommend a trip to Amazon.com to buy Fishtales for $10.29. If you like uncomfortable moments full of intended humor, this movie is for you. And worth the cash.

Until our next Cinemazing Adventure, this is LexiConErrick signing out.

Not Another Apocalyptic Alien Movie

… Oh wait, it is. 

Knowing delivered to us, in a tidy Nicolas Cage package, all the traditional aspects of an apocalyptic movie. IMbD rated this movie 6.4/10. We, however, would like to give it a -6.3/10. Where does this put it on our scale? Good question. 

The plot line is, upsettingly, not specifically revolved around Nicolas Cage. It starts off with the creepy image of a young girl with straight black hair staring at the sun. We were concerned about the health of her retinas after this, but decided to let it slide. The next scene incorporated two things that We (or more specifically, Megan) hate: a child, and numbers. The same young girl is furiously scribbling digits to put into a time capsule. She becomes upset when the teacher cuts her short, and is found later with bloody fingers, scratching numbers into the door. This becomes relevant, as we all knew it would.

ENTER NICOLAS CAGE! The plot continues with the following things: Nicolas Cage at MIT, Nicolas Cage very concerned about his son doing his homework, Nicolas Cage dissecting numbers on a whiteboard, Nicolas Cage predicting the future, Nicolas Cage drinking copious amounts of alcohol, Nicolas Cage assaulting a tree with a baseball bat. As we watched, we figured that this movie would continue in a typical apocalyptic fashion. What we didn't see coming—spoiler alert!— were the aliens. The waxy faced creeps who kept whispering into Nicolas Cage's son's ear turn out to be aliens who plan on taking said son and said son's friend off to a new land to repopulate the earth, with bunnies (?). Biblical enthusiasts will easily make allusion to Adam and Eve. In fact, now that we think about it, it seems like something Harold Camping would stand behind. Make sure to watch for the epic moment when Nicolas Cage falls to his knees in anguish— it won't disappoint.

We have problems with this movie: Nicolas Cage's receding hairline, Nicolas Cage's monotone voice, and Nicolas Cage's never-changing facial expression ("When he tried to act surprised, I just dun believe it."—Lexie). Besides Nicolas Cage, we have aesthetic problems. For instance, the aliens' hair. We like to compare it to Guy Fieri or Dog the Bounty Hunter or Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Jay Manuel: a strange blonde/white mixture. We don't think that Joan Rivers would approve of this fashion faux-pas. We also dislike the rude gas station attendant. Our biggest and most fundamental problem with this film, however, is the example of very bad parenting. The climactic scene shows Nicolas Cage, tears brimming at his eyes, urging his son to go and find a better life. When we say that he urges his son to go find a better life, we mean he urges him to go with aliens (?!?!), ascending into a spikey spaceship. "Go be with the creepy aliens who have been whispering into your head for the whole movie."—Nicolas Cage to his son.  It may not be a direct quote, but it is essentially what he said. We would like Child Services to come onto the scene at this point— it would have been more real. 

In closing, we recommend that everyone go out and find a shiny black pebble. Why? We're not sure, but it seems like it was important. Would have been nice to be let in on that secret. 

This is LexiConErrick signing out until our next cinemazing adventure.

Our second favorite scene:

Dragon BALLIN' Z

With a mixture of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Power Rangers, Pokemon, The Karate Kid, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, Dragon Ball Z: Evolution amazed us in ways we could have never predicted. Based off of the animated TV series, which we stumbled upon on NickToons (channel 104), this adaptation may have been only rated 3.2 stars out of 10 on IMDb, but we have rated it 10 thousand stars and two thumbs way WAY up.

We start off with a shot of a drop of angsty sweat falling from the nose of non-asian Goku (great cinematic shots by the way) balancing on two tight ropes facing off against his Asian grandfather(?) who is training him to become a master of the elements. But why? That was never explained. THEN he places a glowing orb full of stars in his hand. Little did we know that this orb, this DRAGON BALL would lead to an epic journey full of determination, battles of doom and true love. The perfect balance of humor and violence (but rated PG for our youngsters) make it easy to overlook the various cliches and predictable plot lines. UNTIL the end when you discover, in a mega plot twist, why they were over-preoccupied with this never before seen character, Ozaru. We were fully impressed with the outcome and you will be too.

Not only were we pleased with the storyline, but we also give props the high-profile cast consisting of Emmy Rossum, Justin Chatwin and that guy from Pirates 3. We are curious as to how they had room in the budget for them, but we do not question it further because, in short, they were amazing.

Overall, we highly recommend this movie to all age groups, at all times, in all places, in any situation. Date night! Our only real problem is their decision to omit the original theme song from the TV series, to which we strongly suggest you listen. We've provided the link for your viewing pleasure. Dragon Ball Z

This has been LexiConErrick signing off until our next Cinemazing adventure.