{"id":18882,"date":"2019-02-05T14:35:19","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T19:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=18882"},"modified":"2019-03-11T02:14:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T06:14:28","slug":"stinkers-of-2018-mile-22-peppermint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=18882","title":{"rendered":"Stinkers of 2018: Mile 22 + Peppermint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part of my Xmas was spent catching up on some of 2018\u2019s releases, and I chose to kill time with two of the worst action productions of the year.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

\"\"Because Peter Berg\u2019s Mile 22<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(on Blu from VVS) almost enraged a colleague, and I needed to know Why. Several years ago What Dreams May Come<\/strong> (1998) caused a colleague to react in a similar fashion, and after I sampled it for myself, I agreed that while a beautiful production, it was treacly, manipulative rabbit rubbish that didn’t honor the tone of Richard Matheson’s novel.<\/p>\n

I also sampled Forrest Gump <\/strong>(1994), the much-lauded drama about a simple man who manages to steer through important historical events and nudge iconic figures. I didn’t hate it as much as said colleague – it’s a meandering, vapid, time-wasting homage to an amiable idiot spouting folksy nonsense -but his trouncing in print resulted in an outraged reader shoving him in a music store.<\/p>\n

\"\"Now, neither Berg\u2019s Mile 22 <\/strong>nor Pierre Morel\u2019s Peppermint<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0(on Blu via Universal) are attempts at sensitive, drippy dramas inflated with stale Wonderment Gas, but these two disasters of 2018 share wholly amateurish scripts, with the former boasting an expletive-packed bark that would\u2019ve won a Golden Turkey Award<\/a> had the Medved Bros. resuscitated their tally of cinematic awfulness.<\/p>\n

The strange thing is, the stories in each film aren\u2019t awful, but no one seemed to care about logic and quality, and where Mark Wahlberg seemed to have tasted contemporary Shakespeare in Mile 22<\/strong>, Garner filled out her character as best as possible, saving a complete banality to a slight degree.<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> producer Walter Wanger\u2019s fanciful colour fables set in the expansive desert – Arabian Nights <\/strong>(1942), still restricted to DVD via Universal, and Adventures of Hajji Baba <\/strong>(1954), new on Blu in a gorgeous release from Twilight Time, and sporting one of Dimitri Tiomkin\u2019s most ridiculous theme songs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of 2018’s action stinkers are reviewed this week: Peter Berg’s MILE 22 + Pierre Morel’s PEPPERMINT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2562,2563,5979,5983,5982,5980,5984,4104,5985],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Mile_22_featured_final.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-4Uy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18882"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18999,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18882\/revisions\/18999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}