by B. Allan Johnson (Aug. 25, 2024)
My last ranking was a torturous nightmare that I hope no man will have to endure. With a significant batch of films having come out since that article, Kwan thought it imperative for me to return---likely a kind of deranged attempt to maintain power over me after we've gained distance. I stand by that original ranking and will not tamper it. Instead, I will be creating a new list to reflect the tonal differences between these new phases and the originals.
HEADSHOT 3 - HEADS WILL ROLL
A nightmare made better than its predecessors due to its inclusion of Joseph Joseph Joseph. Gave me a headache. Some shitty photos were taken.
FIVE NIGHTS AT KWANZINI'S - THE RETURN
Actually so terrible that I felt physical illness. Filmed by a whispering Kwan trying to meet a deadline arbitrarily set by himself, which I'm sure the Kwanzini filmmakers among you are intimately familiar with. NPC music.
CHEF OLIVER - SURVIVAL OF THE TASTIEST
In my opinion, the Chef Oliver franchise is pretty uninteresting, and I don't know why we continue to make movies about this throwaway character. Oliver has had better roles and certainly will have better roles.
VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL II - RIZZERS OF THE LOVER MOON
Pretty terrible. The variety and looseness of the first special is what made it so much fun. This sequel really is, at this point, a standard Kwanzini affair. A meandering, bullshit plot with a few good jokes and thousands of montages with Kwan's favorite rock songs. That's what the specials have become, and it's really a tragedy because these specials used to be the films we'd look forward to after being subjected to so much crap. And in a spat of irony, they have become the crap.
KWAN-CHI: DON'T BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS
While a solid Kwan-Chi entry, in the grand scope of the KCU (Kwan Cinematic Universe), it's pretty mid.
WEASELS AND MORE FRIENDS
Weasels and Friends was a sleeper hit. Really, the original was a shitpost, and maybe Kwan is trying to capture that here, maybe he isn't. You can never be sure. It hardly matters, though, because it is, again, a formulaic Kwanzini film with the trappings of Kwan's settled style. That experimental feel of his early works was lost somewhere in this new age of the studio.
MILKSHAKE 3 - VAGUELY CUM
Certainly the strangest milkshake in the sense that it is actually a film about people actually drinking a milkshake at some point, which its first installments somehow failed to achieve. At this film's center is a sad, miserable fuck in a transitional period in his existence. Drunken stupors and a general disdain for contemporary existence prevents this fellow from shaving and his insistence on this Charles Manson look certainly kept female companionship away. In an act of self-pity and misery, he decides to force himself into the center of this picture. Troublesome. Someone should fire him.
KWANZINI'S ST. PATRICK'S DAY SPECIAL
Why is he looking into the camera? Why does every actor look into the camera? Why was this creative choice made? Again, we find a mid sequel to a beloved Kwanzini film. It's really a nothing film Kwan made for the sake of comfort in consistency rather than to challenge established notions of his work, which is what the originals were all about. The dynamic between Drew and Kwan is all fucked up now. We're in this post season-three Rick and Morty-like era with these specials where in spite of all of the development these characters have in, the changes made fail to reflect in later films. Drew's victory in Summertime Special feels undermined now that we've returned to this wimpy and dumb character we initially knew him as. Oh, and they didn't kiss on screen.
CHEF OLIVER - SALAD DAYS
Now that we've entered into a recession in Kwan's directorial experimentation, seeing someone else take on established characters is refreshing. And while Salad Days is definitely the most competently put together Chef Oliver film, it's humor leans onto the stuff you expect from Ryderon's comedic outings in filmmaking. His style is about accentuating the vulgar. It's all about the swearing and dirty jokes, and while I'm all for it, it has to be clever. Ryderon's humor, in the filmmaking world, is all about saying and doing gross things because they're funny, and it just doesn't sit right with me.
TROPICANA
Certainly a lot of fun and much more wildness is being put into its screenplay than its visuals and direction. One of the more palatable and rewatchable films from Kwanzini's mid period.
DREW'S HALLOWEEN SPECIAL - KWANZINI NIGHT OF FRIGHTS
Really funny. Lots of fun moments with good performances overall. An interesting way to kickstart the special franchise's dead heart, but it's tragic knowing that it goes nowhere with it.
BUGATTI
It's crazy that in this dry spell of repetitive Kwanzini films that Kwan could pretty casually drop his magnum opus. Bugatti is really good. Kwan really divorced himself from that style I've been talking about through this article. It's edited like a Scorsese film. Every scene flows so well together. Its music isn't overbearing and its cast is collectively good, with George Mattinson's portrayal of the titular Bugatti being the greatest Kwanzini performance to date. Really cannot understate how good this film is and how I hope Kwan can find it in himself to slow down and really focus on making one really good thing at a time because he actually is very good at making movies.
The sum of this article is this:
Phases 8-X are mid, and it's a bummer. It's really telling when an installment of Milkshake beats out a lot of the list. There are, however, a few standouts and Kwan's opus really is a highlight that I can't believe he managed to make in this era. Please, do not make me write another one of these fucking articles or I'll go fucking crazy.
Oh... and this as well
MR. VEGAS (HONORABLE MENTION)
I will not try to rank this because I made it.
From Kwan:
"From disastrous origins, this was a film that was not supposed to be made. Written in a text message chat in the middle of the night, it was considered by Rick Lund to be the “worst script he had ever read”. Mentally ill Allan Johnson decided to pick it up and add his name as director to what was sure to be a train wreck. Turning it into a western, Mr. Vegas ends up being a stylish and fun time despite the mess of a script with some funny performances. James Kwan is also very hot in that suit, so that is a big plus for the movie. Many affiliates and competitors of Kwanzini Studios were racing to make westerns. All failed, but Mr. Vegas succeeded."
From Oliver:
"The godfather part II, 12 Angry Men, and Jurassic world: dominion. These movies can start movements, spark revolutions, and topple governments. Mr Vegas joins the ranks of this elite echelon of perfection and cinematic beauty. Truly epoch changing for 21st century cinema."
From Erik:
“ 'The Western augments the foundational mythology of the U.S.A. It’s of intrinsic interest to its citizens… with its awesome landscapes, intrepid characters, and often tragic, electrifying violence, the Western has been the genre that most defines the concept of America' - Armond White, The Anti-American Anti-Western Poll
"Mr. Vegas, the most recent release from Kwanzini studios at the time of this review being written, is by all accounts a western in pure form. Featuring the fearless Mr. Vegas committing constant horrible acts of violence, we are reminded how close the world once was to nuclear war, and how all of the power of destruction that could have been was confided to specific world leaders. Projected onto the beautiful backdrop of the green and dusty rolling hills of Utah, we are reminded of what is to lose in the high-stakes game of war."
From Lane:
"I busted a big nut on this one."
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