February 2014 Recap

Here it is, my top 5 and bottom 5 of February (reminder this is only for movies that I hadn't seen before now):

My top 5 (in no particular order):
1. Nebraska
2. Here Comes The Devil
3. +1
4. Philomena
5. The Lego Movie
Runner Up: Nurse

The bottom 5 (in no particular order)
1. Scorned
2. Raze
3. Movie 43
4. Stalled
5. Before Sunrise
Runner Up: Nurse

127. RoboCop (2014)

February 28, 2014

Yeah, I saw RoboCop again. I actually liked it better the second time, although the funniest part (as well as the most annoying) was probably the audience. Before the movie started there was a commercial for something and this lady behind me kept talking about it, saying, "What kind of foolishness...?" Then when the trailer for the new Purge movie came on she said, "I hope that never happens for real." While I echo her sentiment, I think most people would agree that we hope a lot of things we see in movies never happens for real, and it made me wonder if she understood what a trailer really was. That was ultimately the funny part of the audience. The annoying part was a group of kids that kept coming and going and talking on their phones for the last 20 minutes. I think one of them was throwing gum because someone started shouting about gum in their hair near the end of the movie. Normally, something like that would drive me crazy, but having seen it already, I wasn't too upset about all the distractions. My friend that was with me hadn't seen it yet, so by the end of the movie he was furious. Which brings up an interesting and unfortunate point - with all the recent theater shootings and violence, neither of us felt comfortable complaining. I guess the lady behind me had a point (in a roundabout way), awful things do happen for real far too often these days.

*Note: If you want to read what I actually thought about the movie, go back a few posts.

126. Electrick Children (2012)

February 27, 2014

Electrick Children was actually pretty good. It started with a young girl (Julia Garner from We Are What We Are) in a strict religious family, who listens to a tape with a cover of Blondie's Hanging On The Telephone and believes it makes her pregnant. When her mother finds her stash of unused pads, she confronts the girl and discovers she may actually be pregnant. The mother buys a pregnancy test which comes back positive. Blaming immaculate conception through the voice on the tape, the girl then sets out for Las Vegas to try to find the father. She has no idea where to begin, so she just starts looking for young guys who play guitar and sing. She meets one and awkwardly tries to convince him to marry her, but the guy just isn't interested. She also meets Rory Culkin, a strange kid with some social issues, and the two of them sort of fall in love. Based on some old stories her mother had told her, she finds a red convertible and follows it. That leads her to her real father (the guy who was also her father in We Are What We Are). Since I do recommend this movie, I'm not inclined to spoil anything, and to tell you anything else would be to spoil the ending, which was pretty strange. I'll just say it is worth seeing.

125. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

February 25, 2014

One of the darkest movies of all time, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is loosely based on the real life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas and his accomplice, Ottis Toole. The real Henry Lee Lucas was known as the Confession Killer because he confessed to killing thousands of people even though it was only proven that he killed eleven people and a lot of the other confessions were coerced by crooked law enforcement agencies who gave him special treatment if he took the blame and closed some old cases of theirs. The Henry in the movie, played by Michael Rooker, was a true, cold-blooded serial killer. He mostly killed women, but did not have any issues killing men as well. The scariest thing about this movie, to me, is that the people involved seemed so real (even despite the fact that it was based on a true story). In the film, Henry and Ottis met in jail and became roommates after they were released. Henry essentially taught Ottis how to kill, explaining how you should never use the same weapon or the same method because then the police will think they're after more than one person. They killed several people together, while Henry killed even more on his own. When Ottis' sister came into town and started living with them, Ottis gradually became more sexually attracted to her which really upset Henry. Eventually things spiraled out of control, leading to a fairly shocking finale. I don't recommend this movie lightly. Even though it is almost 30 years old, it still holds up as an intensely dark true-crime thriller that isn't for everyone, but it really is a good movie.

124. The Goonies (1985)

February 24, 2014

If you grew up with The Goonies, then you probably love this movie. Starring a cast of kids who (for the most part) went on to have relatively successful acting careers, The Goonies is a classic 80s movie. When a developer comes in with plans to destroy the neighborhood they live in, the kids take an old treasure map they found in an attic and try to find the treasure to get enough money to take their town back. The map takes them to an abandoned restaurant by the bay. Meanwhile, a family of murdering thugs named the Fratellis is hiding out in that restaurant. The kids do their best to hide from the thugs and avoid all the booby traps laid by the dread pirate One Eyed Willie, until they find the treasure and save their beloved 'Goondocks'. If you haven't seen The Goonies, I suggest you do see it, but don't expect to have the same enthusiasm for it as those of us who watched it as kids.

123. Paper Mask (1990)

February 23, 2014

I only recently became aware of Paper Mask when Scorpion announced they were releasing it on DVD. As soon as I found out who was in it, I knew I had to see it. It stars Paul McGann (Withnail & I) as an intern in a hospital who yearns for more adventure in his life. When a young doctor who looks similar to him dies in a car crash, McGann takes over his identity and takes a job as a doctor at a different hospital. Amanda Donohoe (Lair of the White Worm) stars as a nurse who helps him out around the hospital. The two fall in love and although she eventually finds out his secret, she continues to help him. This movie came out years before Catch Me If You Can did and it was a pretty decent movie about a guy who dreamed of being more than he was and decided to take things into his own hands to achieve his goals. Unlike Catch Me If You Can, however, McGann was a lot less likable of a person than Leonardo DiCaprio was. I recommend this to anyone interested in a somewhat dark but enjoyable crime thriller.

122. Darkman (1990)

February 23, 2014

Another excellent blu-ray release from Scream Factory, Darkman is a highly underrated cult classic crime film. Sam Raimi directed and produced it with the money he made from Evil Dead 2. It stars Liam Neeson as a brilliant scientist on the verge of developing a liquid-based skin from photographs of body parts. He actually has the formula close to perfected, the only problem is the skin can't be exposed to light after 99 minutes. When his girlfriend, Frances McDormand, gets a memo that implicates some high-profile people in a crime, a gang of tough guys led by Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles, Dark Night of the Scarecrow) goes after the memo. In the process, they destroy Neeson's lab and almost kill him. Struggling to survive, Neeson gathers what is left of his equipment and builds some skin molds of the criminals. Dressing and acting like the criminals, he turns them against each other and is able to infiltrate their organization. There is a lot of action and some trademark Sam Raimi special effects which make Darkman a lot of fun to watch, especially with the beautiful new blu-ray transfer by Scream Factory.

121. The Virgin Suicides (1999)

February 23, 2014

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood to be depressed, but this movie was a bit of a downer. I guess that isn't surprising. When the movie is called The Virgin Suicides, and the title pretty much sums up the plot, a certain amount of despondency should be expected. To start with, a 13 year old girl tries, unsuccessfully, to kill herself. When she gets out of the hospital her family throws her a party and during the party she jumps out of a window and her second attempt proves much more fruitful, leaving her parents and her four older sisters distraught. In an attempt to move on, one of the daughters (Kirsten Dunst) finds a boyfriend (Josh Hartnett) who takes her to the homecoming dance. Her parents had a long-standing rule that the girls could not go out in cars with boys, so to make the daughters feel more appreciated, they lift the rule and allow all the girls to go out. Three of them come home, but Dunst spends the night on the football field with Hartnett. The parents become so infuriated that they force the girls to stay home at all times. This leads to some inevitable rebellion, which ends in a more sincere way than usual. Despite being depressing, this movie was not bad. Maybe it was the soundtrack, or maybe it was the acting, but something about this movie was intriguing. It is definitely my favorite Sofia Coppola movie.

120. Lust in the Dust (1985)

February 23, 2014

Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul) directed this relatively unknown 80's western about a couple of sisters (Divine and the mom from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) who each have half of a map tattooed on their bum. Divine plays a horny drifter who falls in and out with a diverse gang of outlaws and meets up with a gunslinger named Abel Wood. Together they head to a small town with a legend of buried treasure and start to mingle with the locals in a tavern owned by Divine's sister (although they don't find out they're sisters until later). When they eventually discover that their tattoos make a full map, they go looking for the treasure and try to fight off all the other treasure hunters. It was an OK movie that I wouldn't really recommend unless you're a big fan of Divine or Paul Bartel.

119. RoboCop (2014)

February 22, 2014

The new RoboCop will probably never be thought of as a classic, but it was pretty good for a remake. It didn't try to copy the original or add a bunch of new stuff, it just found its own beat and went with it, and I liked that. The one thing I wish it would have had was more blood and gore like the original, but like I said before the original probably couldn't be made today. They started with the same source material - a good cop gets killed by some pretty bad guys, and a multi-billion dollar corporation (Omnicorp), headed by Michael Keaton, instructs their lead scientist (Gary Oldman) to build a human robot to circumvent the country's laws restricting a robot police force. Not wanting RoboCop's human side to interfere with his robot abilities, Omnicorp lowers his dopamine levels to reduce his human emotions. What they weren't counting on was RoboCop's human side to shine through, as he began remembering his past and trying to solve his own murder. Again, this wasn't as good as the original, but it was still better than a lot of the movies getting released these days.

118. RoboCop (1987)

February 22, 2014

The original RoboCop is a classic. It is the kind of movie that couldn't be made today. There is plenty of blood and guts and gore to go around, on top of a pretty cool story. When a good cop (Peter Weller) gets murdered, a team of scientists that work for a corporation called Omnicorp (OCP) save what parts they can from his body and build a part-human, part-machine supercop. As RoboCop gets more accustomed to his new body, he starts to have memories of his former life with his wife and son, and the criminals who murdered him. He uses his new powers to go after the murderers and finds corruption within OCP, which he then has to try to take care of. Full of memorable quotes and interesting characters, RoboCop is the ultimate guy's movie, and despite some dated special effects it still holds up pretty well today in my opinion.

117. Terror in Beverly Hills (1989)

February 21, 2014

Against all reason and good judgment, I've seen Terror in Beverly Hills three times now. It is one of the worst movies ever made. Despite being made in 1989, it looks like it was made many years prior, and still not made well. In the first twenty minutes or so, absolutely nothing happens. We're painfully subjected to people walking, people getting on an airplane, flying, then getting off the airplane, people getting into a car, driving, then getting out of the car. Seriously, nothing happens, and that could've been suggested in one minute rather than 20. Soon we are introduced to our hero, Sylvester Stallone's brother, Frank Stallone. He is a martial arts fighter with a sad story about his friend who was killed. When some terrorists (the guys we saw earlier walking, flying, and driving) kidnap the president's daughter and hold her for ransom, the cops do a pretty poor job of controlling the situation, until Stallone shows up and saves the day. I really can't emphasize how horrible the movie is. The music is atrocious, the acting is worse, and the story is pretty much non-existent. If you're wondering why I've watched it three times, I can only imagine it is because I'm either stupid or sadistic. Actually, it was suggested by a friend who hadn't seen it but heard about how bad it was and wanted to see it. I picked it up for that reason and watched it once on my own, then a friend wanted to see it so I watched it with him, then I watched it this time with the friend who initially wanted to see it. I'm putting my foot down here, though. I can't watch this movie again.

116. The Lego Movie (2014)

February 21, 2014

The Lego Movie was fantastic. With references to a lot of things from the 80s, it was a kids' movie that worked just as well for all the adults watching it. It was about a young lego-man who did his best to fit in and follow the rules until one day he accidentally became involved in an ancient prophecy that would throw out the rules and end the reign of the evil President Business. With the help of his super-lego-friends, including Batman, Superman, a pirate with a metal beard, a spaceman, and a bunch of other fun characters, the young lego-man (I think his name was Emmett) saves their Lego world from being forever frozen in place by the Kragle (Krazy-Glue). I really do recommend this movie to everyone of all ages. It is the perfect family movie that has something for everybody.

115. Beavis and Butt-head Do America (1996)

February 21, 2014

Beavis and Butt-head Do America worked pretty well as an extended episode of the show. In the same way as The Simpsons movie, or any other movie based on an animated TV show goes, it could just as easily have worked as a 3 or 4 part mini-series of episodes instead of a feature length film. Regardless, it was an entertaining movie. In typical Beavis and Butt-head fashion, this movie was centered around their television. Only this time their television was stolen, so they set out on an adventure to get their TV back (or at least watch someone else's). When they show up at a motel that advertises that they have TV, they unwittingly get involved in a man's (Bruce Willis) plot to kill his wife (Demi Moore). He tells them he will pay them to do his wife, and they think they are going to get paid to score with his wife, so they agree and head off to find her. When they do find her, she figures out what they are doing and immediately realizes how stupid they are, so she makes them the mule in her own agenda to carry a terrible virus into Washington D.C. With the police hot on their tails doing cavity searches on everyone who gets in their way, they manage to get to Washington while still hoping to score and watch TV. Eventually everything works out, and although they still never score, they do find their old TV and all goes back to normal.

114. But I'm A Cheerleader (1999)

February 20, 2014

This movie was pretty funny. But I'm A Cheerleader stars Natasha Lyonne as a high school cheerleader whose friends and family stage an intervention and send her to a camp when they think she is gay. Before she went to the camp, Lyonne never knew she was gay, but going to the camp was enough to prove to her that she was. She fell in love with another young girl, and despite her best efforts to get straight as the camp suggest she do, she realized who she really was and eventually succumbed to her true nature. A very clever satire about the way people treat gay people, But I'm A Cheerleader had a good message and was a lot of fun. People of a more conservative or religious viewpoint may not understand or appreciate the movie's message, but I still recommend it to everyone, as it is very good at conveying the message that everyone should be allowed to be who they are.

113. Clueless (1995)

February 20, 2014

Clueless was pretty pointless, but it was still fun in a mindless kind of way. It is the kind of movie that lets you take your brain out and give it a rest while you drool on the couch and laugh at some dated jokes. It takes a little while for anything to really happen, and when it does, it isn't really that impressive. Anyway, Alicia Silverstone stars as one of the popular girls, and when Brittany Murphy shows up as a new student, Silverstone makes it her humanitarian mission to make Murphy popular and pretty. She accomplishes the task a little too well, as Murphy ends up being the popular girl. They stay friends though, and eventually Silverstone manages to date her ex-half-brother, Paul Rudd. I would recommend showing this movie to someone you think is too smart, as their IQ will inevitably drop while watching it.

112. Battle Royale (2000)

February 19, 2014

I've watched Battle Royale a few times now, but this was the first time since the Hunger Games came out. It really is surprising that there aren't law suits in regards to the similarities. Sure, you could say the idea isn't specific to Battle Royale, as similar stories have been told since the beginning of time, but the Hunger Games felt like they took the Battle Royale script and made it PG-13. So what? Big deal. Battle Royale is pretty awesome, though. Especially if you get a sick thrill from watching kids killing each other in ultra-violent ways. Who doesn't, right? Supposedly Quentin Tarentino said it was one of his favorite films, so that should tell you something about how violent it is. It starts with a bunch of kids on a bus who end up at some kind of facility where armed men tell them they have to kill each other until only one is left alive. There isn't a lot of time for character development, but that doesn't matter. There is plenty of time for a bunch of teenagers to brutally annihilate each other. Eventually, some kids try to beat the system, and they sort of do, just like in The Hunger Games.

111. License to Drive (1988)

February 18, 2014

To me, getting my driver's license was never a big deal. I just never thought about it. That's probably why I couldn't really relate to this movie. Corey Haim stars as a kid who fantasizes about having his driver's license so he doesn't have to take the bus anymore and so he can get a car to impress a girl. His dedication is impressive, but circumstances beyond his control (and some poor test-taking skills) cause him to fail the exam and not get his license. Determined to take his new, coincidental girlfriend, Heather Graham, out on a date, he steals his grandfather's car and picks her up. Through an escalating series of bizarre events involving Graham, a drunk car thief, Haim's best friend (Corey Feldman), Haim's pregnant mom (Carol Kane), cops, alcohol, an angry street gang, and an even angrier dad, the car gets destroyed beyond recognition and Haim takes all the blame. License to Drive had some fun scenes and was probably worth watching once, but I don't really care enough to see it again.

110. Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

February 18, 2014

Interview With the Vampire was a pretty awesome vampire movie. It stars Tom Cruise as Lestat, a centuries old vampire who turns Louis (Brad Pitt) and teaches him their ways. Louis initially holds human life as too sacred to kill and lives off the blood of rats for a long time until his hunger gets the better of him and he takes the life of a little girl, Claudia (Kirsten Dunst). Sensing Louis' need for companionship, Lestat turns Claudia into a vampire to essentially be Louis' daughter. As the years go on and Claudia is stuck in the body of a child for eternity, her bitterness for Lestat grows until the point when she tries to kill him. Louis and Claudia then leave on their own and search for others like them to learn more about where they came from, and eventually they find a large group of vampires. The vampires they find are pretty awful though, and without giving anything away, they provoked the wrath of Louis. The whole movie is a narrative being told to a reporter (Christian Slater) by Louis in the present day. Like I said, this is a great movie, so it definitely has my recommendations.

109. Mean Streets (1973)

February 17, 2014

Mean Streets was one of Martin Scorsese's first films, and it was a pretty boring movie that didn't really amount to much, which I'm a little saddened by. I love early Robert DeNiro movies, and Harvey Keitel is always great, so I had my hopes up for this one. Maybe it would have been better without those expectations, but as it was, I wasn't impressed. Keitel stars as an up-and-coming businessman who everybody likes, and he is always standing up for his friend, DeNiro, who plays a degenerate loser who owes money to everyone around. When one of the people he owes money to decides to collect, Keitel keeps making excuses for him, while DeNiro acts like a rebellious teenager who doesn't care what happens to him. Eventually, the $3000 debt has to be paid, and with only $30 in his pocket, DeNiro decides to just be a jerk to the debtor. DeNiro pulls an unloaded gun on the guy and the guy leaves. When Keitel and DeNiro flee the scene, the guy follows them and shoots into their car. That is basically what happens, with a lot of filler thrown in. The best part of the movie was probably the soundtrack, and supposedly they spent half of their small budget getting the rights to the songs, so that is something.

108. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

February 16, 2014

The second part in his ongoing "dead" series, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead is arguably the greatest zombie movie ever made. It involves a group of four survivors who find shelter in an abandoned shopping mall while trying to find the supplies they need to keep going. They get a pretty good system set up too, until a motorcycle gang ruins it by breaking the doors down and looting the shops, letting the zombies in by the hundreds. If you haven't seen Dawn of the Dead, I suggest you do so immediately. You should probably see Night of the Living Dead first, although it is not imperative before seeing this one.

107. Hollow Man (2000)

February 16, 2014

Hollow Man was a pretty intense sci-fi film that follows a morally ambiguous scientist (Kevin Bacon) along his descent into pure evil. Having already discovered the formula for making living creatures invisible, Bacon sets his sights on a formula to make them visible again. His tests prove successful on animals, but before he tells the government about his success, he decides to test it on a human subject first. Since he is the one who invented it, and the leader of the project, he volunteers to be the test subject, and the first stage of the test - invisibility - goes smooth. The second part, however, fails miserably. He remains invisible while losing every last shred of his sanity. Refusing to be caged like one of his lab animals, he leaves the facility and, under the cover of invisibility, attacks a woman who lives near him. His co-workers realize his instability so they decide to contact the government agents in charge, but Bacon remains several steps ahead of them, eventually going on a killing spree to save his reputation. Worth watching if you're into suspenseful sci-fi movies, or if you're just a Paul Verhoeven fan, but not if you're easily offended by portrayals of vivisection (even old CGI animated animal abuse).

106. Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)

February 16, 2014

Bill Murray is so cool, and I really do like Laura Linney, but Hyde Park on Hudson was just boring. Murray played President Franklin Roosevelt, and Linney played a distant cousin of his who also served as one of his many mistresses. The King and Queen of England arrived for a key meeting about England and the U.S. being allies in the upcoming war, but the real story of the movie was Roosevelt's many affairs while in office. Linney was initially shocked to find out she wasn't the only one, but she eventually went along with it and everything was fine after that. Based on a diary found when the person Linney was portraying died, Hyde Park on Hudson was a slow-moving period piece that told a true story I didn't care to know.

105. Bandits (2001)

February 16, 2014

I had wanted to see Bandits since I was in high school and some of my friends saw it and kept quoting it. Bandits was a little too long, but it was still a fun movie. It follows two bank robbers (Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton) as they break out of jail and evade authorities while becoming overnight celebrities with their eccentric bank robbing techniques. They call themselves the Sleepover Bandits, so named because they go to the bank manager's house the night before a heist and spend the night with them, learning all the details about the bank before they rob the place. Eventually, they both fall in love with Cate Blanchett, after she hits Thornton with her car and then drives him to their secret hideout. The movie dragged for a while in the middle, but had a very fitting twist ending that made the movie highly enjoyable and worth the watch.

104. Movie 43 (2013)

February 15, 2014

This movie left me speechless. My friend Patrick told me I would probably hate it but I had to watch it, so I did, and I think he was right. This is one you absolutely have to see to believe, and even then you may not believe what you saw. It was a series of short films solely designed to offend the viewer. Some of them were admittedly pretty funny, while others were just so bizarre and gross. It really had me wondering why such big name actors would allow themselves to be involved (seriously, go take a look at who is in this film). The main point of the movie was a desperate Dennis Quaid was trying to pitch a movie idea to Greg Kinnear and his ideas were absolutely insane and ridiculous. I don't think I can honestly recommend this bewildering film to anyone, unless you just love bizarre, pointless, gross humor.

103. The World's End (2013)

February 15, 2014

The third part of their blood and ice cream trilogy, or Cornetto trilogy, or whatever they're calling it, The World's End gets better every time I see it. I can't honestly decide which of the three films (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, The World's End) is my favorite. I love them all. The World's End follows five school friends as they rally behind their fearless leader, Gary King, and try to complete an epic pub crawl. They fail, but still consider it one of the greatest nights of their lives. Twenty years later, while all the other guys have moved on to successful careers, Gary King (Simon Pegg) is still stuck in those glory days of his past. He wears the same clothes and drives the same car and still fantasizes about making it to the end of the pub crawl. In one last attempt to finish it, he rounds up the old gang and heads back to their old home town to try again, only this time everything is different, and the town is now populated with blanks - some kind of healthier, happier clones filled with blue ink - that try to take over the bodies of the friends. After they find out what is going on with the blanks, the guys decide it would be safer to not let on that they know, and they continue on their pub crawl. The others eventually try to give it up and leave but King is so set on making it because finishing the pub crawl is the only thing in his life worth living for. He makes it to the end, but the end isn't what it seems, and it builds to a catastrophic climax leaving the world in ruins. The World's End is a beautiful movie and a fitting finale to the trilogy.

102. Evil Dead (2013)

February 15, 2014

There was a lot of controversy surrounding the Evil Dead remake before it came out. A lot of people whine and moan about any movie being remade, but the legion of fans of the original Evil Dead trilogy, myself included, made it well known that this was a franchise that shouldn't be touched. Fortunately those feelings were cast aside when we sat in theaters last year and watched this unyieldingly gory and extremely entertaining reboot. It didn't try to be the original movie. It wasn't the exact same story, and it didn't have any comedic relief, just an awful lot of blood. It started with Mia, a drug adict, being brought to a cabin in the woods by a few friends and her brother as a chance to detoxify her system and rid her of her habit. Not long after they arrived, they found a door in the floor to the cellar, where some pretty nasty stuff took place years before. They also found the book of the dead, and one of the friends made the mistake of reading from the book, summoning a demonic, evil spirit that took possession of Mia's body. At first everyone thought Mia was just freaking out because she needed her drugs, but eventually they realized this was something more, when everyone else started dying. The final battle with the demon is what makes this movie awesome. Don't watch it if you have a weak stomache. I'd say this is a worthy addition to the franchise, and hopefully they will continue the new series (as well as possibly making Army of Darkness 2 or Evil Dead 4, or whatever they decide to call it...).

101. Say Anything (1989)

February 15, 2014

Released in 1989, Say Anything felt a bit like a fond farewell to a decade of big hair and partying. It wasn't my favorite of the 80s comedies, but it does stand on its own. I was a bit surprised during the iconic scene with John Cusack and his boom box, playing Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, by how short and inconsequential it was to the story. Ione Skye didn't even get out of bed to see him standing there. I read someone's review about that, and they thought maybe she was dreaming and that is why she didn't get out of bed. No big deal, just a curiosity. In the movie, Cusack plays a lonely underachiever with no plans for his future other than to just be in love with Skye, a brilliant and beautiful girl at the top of her graduating class, with big plans for college and beyond. They do the best to make the most of their short time together despite an impending and most likely permanent separation. They fall so in love with each other, however, that they both refuse to let their relationship end. There was also a sad but interesting side story with Skye's dad, played by the always entertaining John Mahoney. Say Anything is definitely worth seeing at least once.

100. Hanna D The Girl From Vondel Park (1984)

February 15, 2014

This movie wasted no time in getting to the point. A young girl, Hanna, is on a train when an older man walks into her cabin and eyes her creepily as she takes her clothes off and has sex with him. Turns out she is a prostitute trying to make enough money to support her and her crazy mother. One day, she meets a guy who tells her he will take her away from the prostitution life, and he gets her a job as a nude body double for movies. Then she gets hooked on heroin and her boyfriend that promised to take her away becomes her pimp and violently forces her back into the business. Later she meets a new boyfriend who is actually a decent person. At first, Hanna tries to hide her drug habit and prostitution from him, but he eventually finds out and tries to save her. As exploitation films go, this one was pretty good.

99. Notting Hill (1999)

February 14, 2014

Valentine's Day movie part two. This time we picked a movie that we both had already seen and could tolerate. Hugh Grant movies are a guilty pleasure (except for Lair of the White Worm - that movie is just pure awesome, guilt-free), so anytime we need to watch a chick-flick/romantic comedy, my go-to choices always have him in them. Notting Hill follows international superstar actress, Julia Roberts, on a stop in England promoting her movie, when she runs into Hugh Grant and the two start a charmingly befuddled relationship. The problem is, since she is so famous, she tries her best to avoid anyone finding out anything about her personal life. So even though she has a great time with Grant, she refuses to let it get very serious and they end up having an on-again, off-again relationship until the predictable sappy ending. Not my favorite Hugh Grant movie, but still kind of fun. It was written by Richard Curtis, so that helps.

98. Before Sunrise (1995)

February 14, 2014

This isn't my type of movie to begin with, but since it is Valentine's Day my wife and I watched a more "romantic" movie. We were both pretty bored. Ethan Hawke stars as a lovelorn traveller spending his last few days in Europe on a train to Vienna when he meets a girl (Julie Delpy) and spends the greatest night of his life with her, knowing that they will probably never meet again. There was an insufferable amount of pretentious babble which led to an open-ended, maybe we'll see each other again, maybe we won't, conclusion. Spoiler alert: they see each other again (they've made at least two sequels so far).

97. Witchboard (1986)

February 14, 2014

Scream Factory recently released two of Kevin Tenney's films on blu-ray: Night of the Demons and Witchboard. Night of the Demons is easily the better of the two, but Witchboard is still pretty fun. It involves two ex-best friends and the girl who cost them their friendship. One of the guys is still with the girl, and the other guy still occasionally hangs out with them despite them fiercely hating each other. At a party hosted by the girl, the ex-boyfriend brings a Ouija board and summons the ghost of a 10 year old boy who died a long time ago. Everything seems friendly at first, until the ghost becomes inextricably linked to the girl, and people start dying. Turns out it may not be the ghost of a friendly little boy, after all. Worth watching, for sure, but if you're in the mood for a good Kevin Tenney film my highest recommendation is Pinnochio's Revenge.

96. Vamp (1986)

February 14, 2014

Vamp was a better movie than I thought it would be. It was about two kids who are trying to get into a fraternity and promise that they can get a stripper for a frat party. They end up getting a lot more than they bargained for, however, when they go to a strip club run by vampires and have to fight for their lives to survive. It didn't have a whole lot more to offer than that, but that was enough to keep me watching. I would recommend it to fans of campy 80s horror movies.

95. Congo (1995)

February 14, 2014

Congo had three important things going for it: 1. A great story to work off of (based on Michael Crichton's book). 2. A pretty impressive cast of cult movie heroes (including Bruce Campbell, Tim Curry, Ernie Hudson, Laura Linney, and more). 3. The always superb creature effects of Stan Winston. Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten a little too ambitious and somewhere along the way lost sight of what could have been something amazing. I'm not going to say Congo was a bad movie, it does have its charms, but some of the dialogue was just awful. Not to mention giving Ernie Hudson an atrocious British accent and Tim Curry an equally bad Romanian one. Congo tells the stories of three different parties who coincidentally need to go to a certain part of Africa at the exact same time. The first party is made up of an ape named Amy and two guys who invented a way to hear what Amy is trying to say through sign language. When they figured out what Amy was saying, they realized she just wanted to go home. The second party was made up of Tim Curry - a Romanian explorer searching for the diamonds of King Solomon's mines. He promised to front the cash to pay for this expedition. When his check bounced, in came the third party, Laura Linney working on behalf of a billion dollar communications company in search of a powerful diamond and several of her colleagues who went missing in the area. Linney paid for their flight and Tim Curry still came along, because he is Tim Curry. Despite a terrorist attack at the airport, their plane being shot down, and running into some mean, ugly gorillas, they found their destination fairly easily, but those ugly gorillas were pretty angry and according to some hieroglyphics that Tim Curry transcribed, they were trained to eat human flesh. A lot of people died, a few lived, and the weakest volcano ever erupted right below their feet. Watch it for the creature effects and try to look past the outrageous plot holes and scientific inaccuracies.

94. Black Forest (2012)

February 13, 2014

I had never even heard about Black Forest before I watched it, so I didn't have any expectations. It ended up being alright for a SyFy movie. It involved a strange man inviting a random group of people to take a tour of a mystical fantasy world. The cost was free, but you had to open your mind and let yourself believe the unbelievable. When the man brought them to a clearing with stones laid out in a circle, he did some magic and a fairy stole the baby of one of the people in the group, then the man disappeared. The group made their way to a cottage to try to find the baby, and encountered several evil fairy tale creatures on their journey. It was a decent movie, if you're feeling easily entertained.

93. Vanishing on 7th Street (2010)

February 13, 2014

Vanishing on 7th Street is a really underrated movie. Low on special effects, but very high on suspense and creepiness, it features a blanket of darkness that causes people to disappear. A handful of survivors do their best to remain in the light by using flashlights and glow sticks. As their resources diminish, they are forced to scavenge for more supplies, leaving them susceptible to the ever-encroaching darkness. In the end, we never know what the darkness was, or where it came from, and the remaining survivors are left to struggle to remain in light. This was a very interesting movie and one I'd recommend highly.

92. M (1931)

February 12, 2014

Fritz Lang's M is a classic movie that should be seen by everyone interested in film. Peter Lorre stars as a child murderer, and while he is doing his evil deeds, the whole town where he lives goes crazy trying to solve the case. People start to suspect each other, and reward signs serve as a constant reminder that a murderer is loose on the streets. The police set up several searches to catch the murderer, including raiding local businesses. The other criminals in town realize this is bad for their business, so they set up their own search for him. When a blind man recognizes the tune (In the Hall of the Mountain King) another man is whistling, he puts it together that that is the killer and he lets someone know to follow him. The man following him marks his coat with a letter M, setting the stage for his inevitable capture. When he is caught, the townspeople put him on trial and he admits to being unable to control his urge to kill. Like most movies made before the use of CGI, this isn't for those with a short attention span. It is clever, incredibly suspenseful, years ahead of its time, and it actually takes the time to tell us a convincing story.

91. Horrors of Malformed Men (1969)

February 12, 2014

This one was pretty weird, too. A man mysteriously finds himself as a patient in an insane asylum, with no clue as to how he got there. He manages to get out and, with the help of a strange girl and some fractured memories, he makes his way to a remote island to find out more about his past. He meets several people who are not what they seem, and when people start dying around him he starts to look deeper into what is going on, leading him to find a rocky beach where his father is turning regular people into freaks so they can have an army to take over all the normal people. Of course, there was a lot more to it than that, but that is the general idea. It was a fairly decent movie. The guy playing the father kept contorting his body around on the rocks, and I couldn't help but imagine he was posing for a Led Zeppelin album cover.

90. Troll (1986)

February 12, 2014

A little known secret is that Troll is actually a prequel to the first Harry Potter movie. They were going to call it Harry Potter and the Lair of the Troll, but ... Ok, that isn't true. But it is rumored that J.K. Rowling partially got her idea for Harry Potter from the movie Troll. I'm not making that part up. Michael Moriarty plays Harry Potter, the father of a young, dark-haired boy named Harry Potter Jr., who discovers that his sister's body has been taken over by a troll and is now wreaking havoc on the residents of the small apartment complex they just moved in to. Young Harry Potter must find a way to save his sister, and with the help of an old woman who knows more than she lets on about trolls and other magic, he finds a way to save the day. I actually really like this movie. I don't know if it is because of the 80s campiness, or John Carl Buechler's cool creature effects, but something about this movie makes me happy.

89. Hardware (1990)

February 12, 2014

Hardware director Richard Stanley is second to none in his use of desolate landscapes to paint a bleak setting for his stories. Sometime in the distant future, when Earth's atmosphere seems barely fit for humans anymore, Dylan McDermot buys some junk (including a decapitated robot head) from a zone trooper. He brings it home to his girlfriend who is an artist, and she uses the head to build a sculpture which then comes to life and tries to kill everyone. They find out that the robot was actually being designed by the government for "population control" meaning just killing as many people as it could. Hardware also has a pretty fun soundtrack, with songs by PiL, Iggy Pop, Motorhead, and Ministry. I'd recommend it to anyone with steam-punk fantasies or metal heads with an interest in welding and robotics.

88. The Boxer's Omen (1983)

February 12, 2014

The Boxer's Omen was an ultra-bizarre freak out of a movie. I'm really not sure what I just saw. It started off fairly simple, with a boxing match between a man from Hong Kong and a man from Thailand. When the man from Hong Kong was declared the winner, the Thai man took advantage of his back being turned and savagely beat him until he had to go to the hospital. The man from Hong Kong's brother vowed revenge and set up a new match between him and the Thai man. Here's where things got strange. Some kind of evil sorcerer was trapped by a good sorcerer, and the good sorcerer killed his bat, but the bad guy resurrected his bat and a whole bunch of other stuff and sent them after the good guy. There was a bunch of Buddhist symbolism (I think) and some wacky creatures, as well as these guys who kept doing gross stuff like eating each other's vomit to resurrect some lady. There were magic duels between good and evil that involved floating heads and crocodile skulls. And all of that was just the tip of the iceberg. I can't do justice here to the incomprehensible surrealism of this film. For anyone who wants to watch something weird for the sake of being weird, this is about as good as it gets.

87. Vampire's Kiss (1988)

February 10, 2014

Despite the title, Vampire's Kiss should never be considered a vampire movie. Despite the silly poster, Vampire's Kiss should also never be considered a comedy. Vampire's Kiss was more or less a vehicle for Nicolas Cage to showcase just how awful of an actor he is capable of being (or brilliant, depending on how you look at it). Coming off as some kind of surfer-dude stock-broker type of guy (Keanu Reeves with a desk job... and Tourette's), Cage focuses most of his energy throughout the movie on verbally assaulting his secretary who can't find the one record Cage kind of needs to satisfy a client who isn't that concerned about it to begin with. Meanwhile, Cage becomes increasingly deranged after finding a bat in his apartment, and subsequently being bit by a seductive vampire lady. Cage starts to believe he is turning into a vampire, even going as far as to buy costume vampire teeth and then biting a woman at a party. His secretary eventually makes plans to quit, which leads the verbal assault to physical assault. The secretary then tells her brother, who goes out for revenge. I went into it expecting a comedy, and was a little disappointed that it wasn't. It also had several promising features that never really went anywhere, yet the movie was still a few minutes too long. I feel like Cage's craziness should have been reigned in a bit, and maybe under better direction this movie could have been salvaged. As it is, there is a reason this title has mostly been forgotten over the years.

86. The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman (2013)

February 9, 2014

The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman was a pretty interesting movie, that showed another side of the supposedly now retired Shia LeBeouf. LeBeouf starred as Charlie Countryman, a young adult with nowhere to go in life. After his mother dies, he sees a vision of her in which she tells him to go to Bucharest. He does as told, and on the flight to Romania he meets a man named Victor who is bringing his daughter a silly hat. When Victor dies in his sleep on the flight, Charlie once again sees a vision of the recently deceased telling him to give the hat to his daughter. After an awkward run-in with the Romanian authorities, he meets Victor's daughter Gabi (Evan Rachel Wood), and the two become friends. Unfortunately, Gabi is married, and her husband Nigel (Mads Mikkelsen) is a real psycho. Throwing caution to the wind, Charlie decides to get closer to Gabi despite Nigel's sadistic threats, and eventually Charlie gets caught up in a nasty web involving Nigel and a handful of deadly mobsters. Well worth the watch, Charlie Countryman was a surprising coming of age story that kept my attention the whole time.

85. Enough Said (2013)

February 9, 2014

At times, Enough Said was a fantastic movie that was as heartwarming as it was funny, but most of the movie was just uncomfortably awkward. The best parts featured the late James Gandolfini, and I actually found myself missing him as if I had known him. He was a great actor, and his presence made this movie and most everything else he was in all the better. It starred Julia Louise-Dreyfus as a middle-aged divorcee with a teenage daughter about to start college. She met Catherine Keener (another middle-aged divorcee) at a party and the two became really good friends. At the same party she met Gandolfini (yet another middle-aged divorcee, you get the theme?) and they started dating despite some initial hangups about his weight. Through an unfortunate twist, her relationship with Gandolfini becomes strained, and she has to work hard to get back together with him while everything else in her life changes. Like I said, it had some really wonderful moments, but be aware that parts of it did drag on at times. It had a strong enough ending that I would suggest watching it for a date night or something like that.

84. Philomena (2013)

February 9, 2014

Philomena was the last of the nine films nominated for a best picture Academy Award in 2013 that my wife and I had yet to see, and it was really good. My favorite is still Dallas Buyers Club, followed by Nebraska, but I think Philomena might come in at third place for me. Based on a pretty incredible true story, it starred Judi Dench as Philomena, an old woman who had been searching for her son for over 50 years since he was taken from her by the Catholic church and sold to an American family. Steve Coogan also starred as a journalist who decided to help Philomena find her son so he could tell their story. The pair of them took a trip to America and after some digging found out that her son had actually ended up as a top member of the Republican party, serving the Reagan and Bush administration. They also discovered he was a homosexual, and unfortunately he died young of AIDS. Coogan and Dench tracked down his lover, and found out that the son had actually tried finding her too. This movie exposed the Catholic church for their blatant lies and truly evil practices, while a sweet old woman found out the truth about her son. It was a very touching movie, that definitely deserved being nominated for best picture.

83. Cry-Baby (1990)

February 9, 2014

I tried watching Cry-Baby years ago and I don't think I made it more than 15 minutes in. Now that I'm more of a John Waters fan, I decided I'd give it another chance, and I'm glad I did. It wasn't what I might call a 'good' movie, but it definitely had some charm. A lot of the John Waters regulars were there, as well as Johnny Depp in the leading role as Cry-Baby. Cry-Baby leads a gang of drapes, which look like hillbilly greasers, who are just into having fun and making music, until one day when he falls for a square girl. The other squares take offense to Cry-Baby dating one of their own, and start a turf war with the drapes, which ends in Cry-Baby going to jail. When the square girl's square grandma has a change of heart, she basically convinces the Judge to release Cry-Baby, and the two live happily ever after. It was a fun movie, with a fantastic supporting cast including Susan Tyrrell, Iggy Pop, Joe Dallesandro, Traci Lords, and Ricki Lake. On a side note, my wife and I are pretty convinced that we once sat next to John Waters at an Of Montreal concert in Lawrence, KS. If it wasn't him, it was his twin.

82. X-Ray (aka Hospital Massacre) (1982)

February 9, 2014

X-Ray was kind of boring, and I could tell you who the killer was from the second he first showed up, but I still had fun watching it. It featured cameos from two of the kids from Bloody Birthday, which was a nice treat. It started with two kids playing with trains, while another boy watched from the window. The boy at the window left a Valentine's Day card at the door for the girl and watched as she crushed it and made fun of  him. Poor little Harold. Several years later, the girl who crushed the card is all grown up, and going to the doctor to pick up the results of a routine checkup, when someone in the hospital changes her records to make her look really sick and starts killing everyone around who comes close to finding out his secret. The doctors decide to keep her for more tests, and while the body count keeps rising, nobody believes that she is healthy and running away from a murderer. Overall it was a silly movie, but worth seeing if you're into 80s horror movies.

81. Nurse (2013)

February 8, 2014

The only thing I really knew about Nurse before I started watching it was that the lead actress, Paz de la Huerta, really annoys me. She had a short run on Boardwalk Empire as Steve Buscemi's mistress, and her voice almost made me stop watching the show. She was absolutely no less annoying in Nurse. She spoke with a slow, stupid voice that sounded like she was constantly on drugs. Despite that major hangup, I actually really liked Nurse. It was an over-the-top, modern grindhouse film with plenty of blood and nudity. When newcomer nurse Katrina Bowden (Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil) starts to feel like she is not cut out for being a nurse, de la Huerta takes her under her wing and tries to be her mentor. Bowden is a normal person, though, and she can see how crazy de la Huerta really is. Feeling rejected, de la Huerta starts spreading lies about Bowden and making her look like the crazy one, until a violent bloodbath at the end that made the movie pretty awesome. It was worth watching if you can get past that awful voice.

80. King of New York (1990)

February 8, 2014

Christopher Walken has been in some really bad movies but his performance is always so fun that he makes even the worst movie watchable while he is on screen. That is why, when he is in a truly good movie like King of New York, his performance can make a good movie fantastic. Walken stars as Frank White, a drug dealer who just got out of prison and wants to rise back to the top. With his gang of dangerous thugs (including Laurence Fishburne, Giancarlo Esposito, and Steve Buscemi), he starts taking out all of the competition, while talking to people in power about wanting to become the mayor. Meanwhile, some frustrated cops (David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, James Lorinz) take a personal interest in White, and when they can't bring him down with the legal system, they try to play by his rules and take him out in a massive gun fight. Almost everyone dies, but not White, and he goes back to the cops to get his own revenge. King of New York was a really cool movie with some excellent performances.

79. +1 (2013)

February 8, 2014

+1 was a strange movie. It started with the kid from the Purge accidentally kissing a girl who wasn't his girlfriend in front of his girlfriend. She broke up with him and he spent the rest of the movie trying to apologize. After the incident with the kiss, some sort of meteorite or tiny alien spaceship or something fell to earth, and did some funky stuff with the electricity. The kids then went to a big party at a friend's house and the power kept flickering. Whenever it did, a previous version of each person showed up from about 15 minutes earlier. Only a few people noticed at first, but eventually they all figured it out. As the power kept flickering, the previous versions of people started getting closer in time, and the real versions of people got so freaked out that some of them started killing the other them. If it sounds complicated, its because it was. I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would. The cool sci-fi twist far outweighed the teenage chick flick party side, and even made it worth watching the annoying Purge guy for an entire movie.

 

78. Raze (2013)

February 5, 2014

There were a few brief moments during Raze where I felt like it had some potential, and it could have been a contender. Unfortunately, it didn't have any real purpose, and the ending was so deliriously useless that I couldn't help but feel cheated out of an hour and a half of my time. To any up-and-coming filmmakers, I won't try to act like I know all the ins and outs of making a movie, but I will say that I have watched more movies than a lot of people even know exist, so I know a thing or two about what makes a movie worth watching. Spoiler Alert: [The hero of your movie should not be shot in the back by some jerk after she has narrowly escaped with her life.] The movie was pretty nonsensical, ripping off films like Hostel and Saw, and throwing a bunch of young women in cells where they await their chance to beat each other to death with their bare hands so a headless voice can assure them they won't kill their family members. There is also a cliche group of rich people betting on the fights because, why not? When our lone survivor, Sabrina, breaks free and kills the two leaders and a few guards then escapes her perilous fate, they take that one bright spot and turn it into something worthless (see spoiler alert above). This is one I would suggest avoiding. I'm sure you can find plenty of better ways to waste your time.