PLUS ONE AT AN AMISH WEDDING (2022)

New Yorker Dr. April Monroe has been dating Dr. Jesse Hardin for six months and yet she knows nothing about him. Ends up his big secret is he was raised Amish. And not only that, but Jesse is going to his little bro’s big fat Amish wedding this weekend and he wants April to come along! How romantic.

PLUS ONE AT AN AMISH WEDDING was fascinating to me in many ways. First off, why was this movie even made? Is there an audience for films with literally zero ups or downs? Was it was extremely bland and predictable and safe on purpose? What is this sub-genre even called? What could the budget on something like this even be? Do they not care about people staring at the camera or glaring continuity errors? Is this some kind of niche (safe) movie genre for extremely depressed people? And most importantly: where can I find more films like this?!

PLUS ONE AT AN AMISH WEDDING is not “so bad, it’s good”, it’s more like “so bland, it’s fucking impossible to turn away”. Pretty scenery, shockingly bland and predictable story, one dude with a confusing beard that I couldn’t tell if it was real or fake, multiple different levels of acting ability, a cute dog, a goat penis, good chemistry between the two leads, more than one person overacting (but maybe that was on purpose?), an almost bottomless well of reasons to yell at your TV (I had so much material that I had to watch the movie twice, just to get all my jokes in), nowhere near enough Amish stuff going on, a picture on a phone that doesn’t match at all with what was really taken (dude, even the wall's on the other side!).

But the one thing that drove me completely nuts and I could not get over was the info at the beginning of the movie where it said they’d been dating for “six months”, but yet April doesn’t know anything about Jesse. That shit drove me up the fucking wall. That info was 100% unneeded and literally fucked the entire story up, cause what the fuck have these motherfuckers been talking about for the last 182 days? Instead, have them meet at the beginning of the film and while they’re getting to know each other, the fact that he was raised Amish comes up. Keep it simple, stupid. Hell, you're already writing the most spiritless shit known to man so might as well water it down even more.

That said, I'm fucking hooked on this tripe and I need some more! And I'm not making any suggestions, buuuuut...Gay Plus One at an Amish Wedding does have a certain ring to it. Just sayin'. As does Fifth-Wave Feminist Hardcore Punk Singer Plus One at an Amish Wedding. Plus One at an Amish Human Centipide Wedding?

BRING HER BACK (2025)

[I don’t have an actual copy of the movie yet to take screenshots, since I just got home from the movie theater. I’ll fix that once I do. And watch the movie again to update the review. Can’t wait! Yawn.]

Is there even one single shot in this movie that doesn’t have an object or an actor within 10 feet (or less) of the camera? I’m fucking serious. I’m sitting there in the movie theater, gracing my favorite seat with my amazing buns, and within 10 minutes (if not less) you already know the entire story, so now in my boredom I start hyperfocusing on the camera placement and it’s driving me nuts. It’s like we’re stuck in a Bourne Identity fight scene for 7 hours or however long this movie is. What? It’s only 104 minutes long? Oh, fuck me.

Anyway, if you’ve never seen a movie before or a TV show and never read a book or maybe even don’t know how to read…perhaps you’ve been punched in the skull a few dozen times by a donkey, if so, then you might find BRING HER BACK to be original. Everybody else, I would hope, would just find it to be lazy and below average.

Middle of the road acting, minor blood, zero gore, zero scares, up close and personal camera shots for like 98% of the movie, lackluster script, unoriginal story, slow pace, dumb…fucking dumb as fuck characters, multiple plots holes. I hate to admit it, but that disappointing as fuck CUCKOO was better than this turkey.

Jesus Fucking Harry Potter Christ, I forgot to give a brief synopsis of the story: A woman, who is clearly as crazy as a shithouse rat, is in deep mourning over the death of her tween daughter. So, she acquires a bootleg “Soul Transference for Dummies” VHS tape (probably from iOffer) and kidnaps a young boy to use as a soul vessel until she can find a fresh tween girl corpse to permanently house her dead daughter’s soul. Lucky for her, the State seems to have performed literally zero investigation into her and her fucked up house and delivers a young orphan girl right to her front door. (I might've got a few minor details of the story incorrect. Or maybe I was just confusing it with the dozens of other times we've seen this same story.)

DIVINE INFLUENCER (2023)

[Warning: DIVINE INFLUENCER is advertised as a Christian film, but at one point in the film one of the main characters, a supposed Christian, blasphemes by saying “jeez”. (Exodus 20:7) And at another point in the film, we see two nipples. Even worse, a woman who is not married to the topless man also sees his sinful raised breast tissue. (Genesis 3:7)]

Twenty-nine year old influencer Olivia is a simpleton who cannot even do the simplest task without messing it up somehow. Eating food? She gets it all over her face and cannot figure out how to get it off. Put a bag of trash in a dumpster? She rips the bag and spins around like an infomercial actor spreading trash all over the place. Told to close a door? She leaves it open and walks off. Honestly, I don’t know how she lived to be 29. Then you meet her parents and it all begins to make sense. They are horrible parents and have been enabling her failures by paying her bills for her. Now though, just to further cement their poor parenting skillz, they decide that since she is such a failure that they are going to financially cut her off cold turkey. Around this same time, she makes a foolish mistake while streaming and loses her biggest (and I guess only) client. Because of all of this, she ends up homeless. So now while literally laying on her back on a sidewalk, a handsome (and single) dude she used to ignore in high school comes walking up and guess what? He runs a local homeless shelter that has a world-renowned chef working there. He gives Olivia a job at the shelter and after a montage of her failing at sweeping, scrubbing and cleaning, she’s now broadcasting inspiring messages about our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. My favorite being, “You know I spent so much time trying to gain followers, but I’m realizing in order to truly influence people, I must first know the one worth truly following, Jesus.” Amen, sister!

Despite its more sinful moments (mentioned above), DIVINE INFLUENCER does a good job of spreading the Word of God and realistically explaining how if you become homeless all you have to do is sweep a floor or two and God will provide by having your brain-dead parents start giving you money again, the handsome guy who runs the world’s cleanest homeless shelter will fall in love with you and “all the best designers and high end fashion stores” will donate enough goods for you to open your own retail store.

The not often seen double-layer subtitle.

I don't know if this was on purpose or not, but I really enjoyed this brief shot of our young hero sitting in a waiting room dorking it up on her phone while some old white lady sits nearby quietly reading a book. (Sadly, not the Bible.) I like to believe that this shot was meant as an insult towards young versus old.