The following movies and songs were all released this year, 2005, and bear a strong resemblance to certain other films and songs that we long ago realized were 100% government cheez. We must learn that cheez is not relegated to the last few decades, but rather is a continuous cycle. Sit back and enjoy the dairy feast.
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Then |
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| Coach Carter | Dangerous Minds | |
| Dangerous Minds was sooo cool when it first came out. It had that great music video by Coolio (he must be cool, he has "Cool" in his name!), and was all about an inspirational teacher reaching out to inner city kids. Let's be frank. It didn't take us all that long to realize how cheezy Dangerous Minds truly is, so it should take us even less time to realize that Coach Carter is equally cheezy. | ||
| Cursed | Teen Wolf Too | |
| Wes Craven should know better after making the Scream moves. Cursed is basically one big cliché. Pound for pound, it's one of the oldest monster stories in Hollywood, but this one is worst than most. The last movie to take the idea of a werewolf and run with it so poorly was the ill-conceived flop Teen Wolf Too. Cursed was only slightly scarier, and, dare I say, even cheezier, for taking itself seriously as a horror movie. | ||
| Dark Water | Poltergeist III | |
| Family moves to a new place only to find that it is haunted by a dark and malevolent spirit! Death and violence ensue. The plot of Dark Water of Poltergeist III? Who can tell? The fact that there is a Poltergeist III, and it is so unbelievably cheezy, should be enough to let us know that the old haunted house story is dead as a covered-up murder victim, but still, two or three movies a year come out with the same exact tired plot. Surely we can laugh this entire genre out of existence? | ||
| Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo | Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise | |
| These two movies have a lot in common. First of all, they're both sequels that should have never been made. Second, they're both retarded, cheezy, gross-out comedies. Third, just saying either title makes you feel automatically dumber. I'm honestly shocked that Deuce Bigalow 2 is even being produced, and appalled that anybody would consider seeing it. | ||
| Elektra | Barb Wire | |
| Sexy female puts on leather suit and fights crime! Pam Anderson was very 1990s just like Jennifer Garner is very 2000s, but the basic premise is the same. Elektra just proves that no matter how big a budget you give a cheezy movie, it's still cheezy. At least Barb Wire had some nudity. | ||
| Fantastic 4 | Batman Forever | |
| Throw some actors in spandex and we'll line up at the box office. Both of these movies prove it. Batman Forever had some decent star power, but the entire thing was basically a joke. The same quality of awful one-liners, loose plotting, and overblown visuals make the Fantastic 4 the same big box office winner but enormous cultural wasteland that Batman Forever was. | ||
| Madagascar | Disney's Hunchback of Notre dame | |
| Most people realized that Disney's Hunchback was a terrible family movie when it came out, but in retrospect it's clear that it was also a major indicator of Disney's decline. With the emergence of Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and other Pixar productions, it seemed like a new chapter in children's movies was being written and quality was improving. And then came the hacks. Ice Age, Robots, and, this year, Madagascar. This computer-animated waste of theater space should be recognized for what it is: 21st century cheez, no better than The Hunchback of Notre dame was a decade ago. | ||
| Monster-in-Law | Man of the House | |
| Monster-in-Law is like Man of the House for middle aged women instead of 12-year-old boys. You take a young upstart (Jennifer Lopez (J. Lo)/Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT)) and square them off vs. an old fogy (Fonda/Chase). They take turns playing pranks on each other in stupid ways. Most adults with any sense can see the cheeziness in both movies. One can only hope that we'll start to show our good sense with our wallets. | ||
| Star Wars Episode III | Krull | |
| They're the same movie. Trust me. | ||
| XXX: State of the Union | Out For Justice | |
| It says a lot when Vin Diesel as the good sense to stay out of a movie sequel. Like the ungodly Out For Justice, XXX: State of the Union features plenty of action (ass kicking, shooting, and blowing shit up) as well as a healthy dose of action clichés, bad acting, directing, writing etc. | ||
| Guess Who | Good Burger | |
| Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac are about equivalent to Keenan and Cal, and these two movies have about the same wit, aplomb, and cultural significance. I'm ashamed to think that anybody could see Guess Who as anything but what it is: Good Burger with Extra Cheez. | ||
MusicHere you'll see today's top 40 juxtaposed with its cheezy equivalent from the 80s and 90s. We already recognize the Cheez of the latter. Don't fool yourself into believing the former is any less Cheezy. |
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Now |
Then |
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| Lonely No More (Rob Thomas) | (The Cardigans) Lovefool |
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| Music has the tendency to be immensely popular right before people realize that what their listening to is cheezy shit. This is very much the case with Lovefool by the Cardigans. And since Lonely No More by Rob Thomas sounds more or less exactly like Lovefool, I can only imagine that his name will be hoisted up next to theirs in the foreseeable future. Listen to both songs back to back. You know it in your heart to be true. | ||
| Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day) | Wonderwall (Oasis) |
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| Amazing how Green Day has gone from Cool to Cheezy and back over the span of two decades without actually ever changing the way they sound. If only Oasis could do that, they'd be on top of the world. Since they were at their popular height around the same time, it's no surprise that Green Day's brainless, cheezy punk rock resembles Oasis's big hit Wonderwall. | ||
| Sunday Morning (Maroon5) | Virtual Insanity (Jamiraqui) |
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| Now, I know what you might be thinking, I liked that song! and maybe you still do. But try walking down the street singing Virtual Insanity and you'll quickly see that America has realized just how cheezy the guy who calls himself Jamiraqui really is. I mean, that hat. Now that's what I call cheez. Maroon5 has a lot in common with old 'qui, but, for the time being, you can still walk down the street whistling "Sunday Morning" without inducing too many dirty looks from the people around you. | ||
| Inside Your Heaven (Carrie Underwood) | Endless Love (Lionel Ritchie/Diana Ross) |
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| Nothing more than a cheezy love song. I never hear Endless Love mentioned in any context other than a joke anymore, but it'll probably have more staying power than this crap (#1 on the top 40!). | ||
| Hollaback Girl (Gwen Stefani) | Heart of Glass (Blondie) |
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| Both pretty blondes with upbeat, rhythm-based tunes. Hollaback Girl even had the same futuristic "Boowweeeem" noise at the end of each measure. We can see that Blondie is cheezy, so why not Stefani? Are we blinded by her thighs? | ||
| Speed of Sound (Coldplay) | Sail Away (Enya) |
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| Soothing, mellow grooves. Blink-bloo-blink sail away, speed of sound, speed away… They're the same exact song. Enya makes us want to shoot ourselves, but Coldplay is at the top of the charts? Apparently our cheez-detector is on a 5 year delay. | ||
| Don't Cha (The Pussycat Dolls) | I'm Your Boogie Man (KC and the Sunshine Band) |
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| Over-sexed and over-funked. Both songs are equally cheezy. The only difference is you can't get away with blaring "I'm Your Boogie Man" on your ghetto blaster in the 'hood. | ||
| Switch (Will Smith) | Parents Just Don't Understand (Will Smith) |
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| It's the same guy, people! Just cause he's not called The Fresh Prince anymore doesn't mean he's not still cheezy! Men in Black II anybody? Wild, Wild West? Are you even paying attention? I wonder what Jazzy DJ Jeff is up to these days… | ||