Finishing the Complete Eleventh Season (2022)

Well! when it came to the 2nd half of our 5th anniversairy celebrations, I decided to try and do a bit of everything. Part of me wanted to cover movies i’d wanted to do for years (“Flight to Hell“, “Cannibal Girls“, “Camp Blood“) Some were movies i’d promised id do in the future, and then totally forgot to do in the future (“The American Ninja 4“, “Cyborg Cop 2“, “Alien Species“) and some were first time watches that arrived on short notice and genuinely caught me off guard (“Gatwick Gangsters“, “Night of the Demon“, “Dont go in the house“). Hell, we even rounded off the TYTD Reviews episodes by revisiting our very FIRST video for the channel “The Dragon Lives Again” hopefully finally doing justice to a film I’ve long admired and wished my review of could have been better.

It was a celebration of the old, and a look forward to the future of the channel. With this series marking a few milestones, it being the last season edited in 1080p,the last season edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, The last to use the branding we’ve been using now since 2020 across all fronts and the last season predominantly recorded on my focusrite condensor mic, a mic thats pretty much been what you’ve heard me through since AT LEAST 2020, which also made a few on and off appearences between 2017 and 2019 too.

What does the new season hold? well as seen in the review for “Dont go in the house” i’ve had a systems and kit upgrade on almost all fronts! including a new machine, a new mic, new lights for the packaging shots, new editing software and some other new tools to help give a bit more variety. As such we have new branding across all our main shows, we’ll be solely uploading in 4k going forward with better quality sound and visuals, faster processing power means it takes less time to export and convert reviews now, and as such it means we’ll be able to *hopefully* turn things around a bit quicker which’ll give me some time back to be able to enjoy a sunset or eat a well prepared meal!

There have also been some changes that are not quite as pleasent to announce, but here we are. After 2 years or so of monthly uploads and over 50 feature length commentaries, “The Comedy Dining Experience” will be swapping back to an irregular upload schedule, as it was when we first launched in 2018. Part of this is down to the amount of time it takes to edit the commentaries, part of it’s down to lower uptake than our other shows (we’ve had some episodes record less than 20 views after 3 weeks of being live in some cases) and part of it’s down to both myself and Ben just being absolutely ram jammed with stuff going on at the minute. Im in the middle of writing/recording and editing next years episodes (and I still have stuff to finish with Season 12!) and Bens recently had several good news stories that means he’s a lot busier than he was at the moment.

What this means in practical terms is that the Comedy Dining experience isnt going anywhere, it just means that, for the moment at least, it’s going to be on pause while we sort life stuff out, and when it does come back it’ll be likely an “As and when” affair rather than a regularly scheduled “thing” which will allow me more time to work on and refine our reviews, and it means we wont be oversaturating the channel too.

What it ALSO means is that we can do other fun things like monthly game night streams (we’ve done 3 so far and a pilot) AND it’s meant I can start an official Discord from which we’ll be hosting various watchalongs, games nights and other good stuff, alongside chats on everything from good and bad movies to music and weird youtube oddities, so do please tag along for that!

Season 11 marked a change in the wind for the channel, and with Season 12 currently rolling out weekly, I hope your enjoying the direction we’re taking the channel in, I had an absolute blast working on this season, I think it’s one of my favourites i’ve worked on alongside Season 10 and the chance to work and hang out with so many interesting people in collaboration has been an absolute delight. I couldnt have asked for a better 5th year on the platform.

Kill Keith (2011)

Life can be a funny thing sometimes. Im not really one who believes in fate. But even I’ll conceed that its too coincidental that “Sods law” happens as often as it does. For those unfamiliar with this film or Keith Chegwin specifically the the short story is that he was a childrens entertainer on UK television in the mid 70’s to the mid 80’s who sadly died in 2017 at the age of 60.

Why do I bring his death up in talking about this film? Well because 2 months earlier I’d sat down to watch “Kill Keith” for the first time. And I did not care for it…I didnt care for it at all. Keiths pretty much fine in this film…He actually has quite a good acting presence about him and shows a really good range. It’s literally almost everything else about this film thats dire. naturally I wrote my honest opinions on the film, edited it and stored it away ready for upload (At the time) in Late November/Early January…However scheduling conflicts meant I had to rearrange a few episodes so Kill Keith got jostled out of season 2 and into season 3…and then Keith Chegwin Dies and my review of this bad film is due up pretty much a week after his funeral.

That made things feel a bit difficult for me. in fact at one point I was legitimately considering just holding onto the review and releasing it later down the line. But ultimately I decided that whether this sad incident had happened or not I dont really have anything bad to say about Keith Chegwins performance in this movie…I really dont. So I decided to upload it anyway…

While it is hardly the most successful review on my channel It has been the talking point for a few people. I’ve had at least 3 people privately message me just to ask firstly if “Kill Keith” is a real movie and secondly from people who’ve usually seen the film who want to talk about it because they cant believe someone thought this was a good idea either. So in many respects I kind of have to hand it to the makers of this film…it may not be the best movie in the world but you have united people with a common ground feeling of total bewilderment.

As a closing anecdote I’d also like to say that after watching this film for the first time I posted my thoughts on facebook in a veild way (I said something like “I’ve just sat through the worst film I’ve seen in a long time! EEEESH!”) a few minutes later a friend of mine left a comment saying “I thought you liked bad movies?” I said I did like them but that “Kill Keith” was just insufferable and I went through each section of the film making process and why it was no good…there was a very long pause and my friend responded “…My best mate worked as a camera operator and an extra on that film…” … The Pain was real ladies and gents…the conversation ended very shortly thereafter.

 

(Also full credit to Stephen Chance! a very underrated actor who does a cracking job in this movie.)

Dot and Spots Magical Christmas Adventure (1996)

Here we have the most watched video on my channel…At least as of the time of writing it is…it’s currently my most watched video by a country mile. Quite how it’s achieved over 1000 views in less than 6 months I cant say…Before my youtube analytics decided to cark it I was able to find out that the majority of the traffic that was going to it was coming from Brazil. So I have to assume that either this forgotten christmas kids movie has had a second life out in Brazil or theres something in my SEO that is driving traffic to this video in the same way that Im driven to the cake section of an all you can eat buffet.

It’s not even particularly an all that great movie. Out of all the films I’ve spoken about on my youtube channel I could pick half a dozen movies that haven’t broke 50 views on my channel that have little to no recognition and desperately should be seen…and yet the 90’s kids movie thats just trying to cash in on 101 Dalmations is the one thats the most well received…I mean; Im glad that one of my videos has been viewed that much, but at the same time I do have to say “Why!?”

I found this movie in a charity shop along with the next film I reviewed (Santa and the three bears) and I paid 50p for it. I’d never heard of it before then and it took me a ridiculously long period of time to try and find it on amazon because its mislabeled on there…at least it was at the time when I was writing my review.

The company who produced this short went on to produce another animated kids short which Im considering talking about this Christmas just so I can have the set. It was a bit of a weird time during the christmas period last year because the first week of December fell on a friday that meant it was the 1st/2nd of December and because it was so early in the month I didnt want to just jump right in with the christmas cheer right out of the gate. so this came out a bit later in the month than was initially scheduled but It formed the opening part of my Christmas specials which would run right up to the 2nd series finale which I believe was a few days before new years day.

This isnt the best christmas film ever made but I could very easily see how people could be nostalgic for a movie like this…even though I dont get it myself. I can empathize with the people who do have those fond memories of sitting with the family during winter and sinking this with the christmas feeling in full force.

(I still cant quite believe that the people who animated this did the original concept art for Crash Bandicoot and Spyro…its a crazy world my friends…)

Let’s Ruin Dads Day (Coming Unglued) – 1999

The Words “Worst movie ever made” are thrown around a lot these days…sure there are some people out there who’ll rag on the latest blockbuster or who’ll go onto netflix and find some new release that “Sucks harder than anything thats ever sucked before” and in there world it must be nice to watch the new Marvel film or some indie piece of cinema and think “This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen”…

I wish I could relive those days…I really do. I wish I could go back to a time when I could watch “A Nightmare on elm street 4” and think it was the worst movie in the world. they seem like the “Good old days” comparitively. in 2009 I saw what I thought at the time was the worst movie ever made “Dolla Morte” a Production by Bill Z. Bub. And I hated myself for having it as the worst film i’d ever seen. for multiple reasons, but mainly because it was intentionally trying to be a bad movie. something that nowadays I disqualify films aiming for the “Worst movie ever” title for. Its not so bad it’s good. it’s not even so bad it’s bad…it’s so bad it’s boring. boring, and edgelord-esq with all of the bark and non of the bite. I was ashamed that I had to tell people this was the worst movie I’d ever seen because I felt it gave it some kind of mythical “Challenge” status which it really didnt deserve.

But in 2017 quite by chance I stumbled upon “Let’s ruin Dads day” and it fundamentally changed my opinions on film and the viewing experience forever. Y’see, Let’s ruin dads day isnt just a “So bad it’s bad” movie…it’s a “So bad it could actually harm you” movie. Completely unbeknownst to me I discovered that Kids movies are effectively a portal to actual Hell. when they’re good kid’s films are charming nostalgia trips that are entertaining and amusing in there own right…theres a reason why the Disney movies and films like “The Pagemaster” and “The Goonies” stay in the public conciousness as much as they do. But Bad kids films? Bad kids films are almost the opposite of that. irritating insufferable nightmare rides that purposfully Cauterize parts of your soul and mind to the point that you genuinely lose all faith and love in the craft of film.

Since starting these videos I’ve only explored a handful of kids movies and every one thats been bad has far FAR outweighed any adult oriented bad movie 10 fold. I would happily sit through “Dolla morte” or “Jesus: the total douchebag” or any of the american pie spin off movies for hours and hours and hours rather than watch even 5 minutes of a genuinely bad kids movie. And “Let’s ruin Dad’s day” to me at least at this point in time is the absolute worst kids film of all kids films. Not only because it actually irritates from a scripting, directing, acting, cinematography, musically, editing, lighting, animation and sound design standpoint. But because it actively promotes ideas and scenarios that in real life would typically end with your kids either kidnapped, on drugs or molested. This film both actively and subconciously is telling your children that it’s okay to take rides from strangers and that meeting up with people on the internet is a perfectly okay thing to do. And I have to assume that the reason this film is the way it is is because its produced with the angle of opening up a dialogue for parents to talk to there kids about stranger danger…But the DVD gives no hints that this is the case and any parent buying this for there kids would have no idea that this was its intended purpose unless they watched it, understood and took on board why some of these plot elements are dodgey, wrote a plan of action of how to broach the subject with there kids. And thats all before the sprogs even set eyes on the film.

What im saying is its unrealistic to assume that parents would pre-watch this and that even if they did it would be unlikely that they would think anything of the plot points in this film. But to a wide eyed child this could well be the movie that makes them get in a car with strangers, or agree to meet someone they dont know in real life…and thats horrific. combined with the frankly atrocious technical aspects of this and the rehashed trite script work. Let’s ruin dads day is not just a bad movie. it’s a dangerous movie. And I seriously cannot emphisise that enough.

(Even the DVD cover is obnoxious, generic and poor quality…jesus.)

 

Also; Because im a nice person, I realised a while ago that Let’s ruin dads day has absolutely shocking representation in google images…the highest resolution image of the cover was frankly insultingly low. So I bought a copy, scanned it into my computer at 8k and tweaked it on photoshop so there would be a hi res copy of the cover people could use going forward…See below…your welcome.

Lets Ruin Dads day - Fixed

The Descendents of Wing Chun (Fo Shan Zan xian sheng) (1978)

This was one of the biggest fake out’s I think i’ve had on my channel to date. I picked this movie up expecting basically a very straight laced Kung-fu movie. And in many ways I think in its original dub this film probably was a lot more straight played than the english dubbed version is. Popping the disc in however I felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. It became very clear very quickly that all the mysticism, philosphy and general profoundness found in the original dub had been completely binned in favour of funny voice acting and playing the film down. Im not saying that this film was intended to be completely without humour; there are moments here that defiantely have that vibe both physically and in the dub. But here it makes “On the Busses” look like “The Kings Speech” rediculously over the top but one I can ultimately reccommend in terms of just how weird tonally it is.

(My only regret is that the character “Fatty the Kung-fu Yorkshireman” never made it into another movie #Sadtimes)