July 2014 Recap

When I was going over the list of movies I watched this month I realized that most of it was garbage...
Here's my top 5 and bottom 5 for July, 2014:

My top 5 (in no particular order):
1. The Carrier
2. Bates Motel
3. I Am Divine
4. All Cheerleaders Die
5. Bad Grandpa .5
Runner Up: Non-Stop

The bottom 5 (in no particular order)
1. Muppets Most Wanted
2. The Breakfast Club
3. The Right Kind of Wrong
4. Flashdance
5. Time of the Apes
Runner Up: Neighbors, The Fabulous Journey to the Center of the Earth

319. All Cheerleaders Die (2013)

July 27, 2014

My introduction to 'All Cheerleaders Die' was a friend of mine telling me he didn't like it. That actually helps, to be honest, to lower my expectations (even if I didn't have any to begin with) before I watch something. I almost didn't watch it due to that one negative review, but I'm a fan of Lucky McKee and ModernCine, so I gave it a shot and found it pretty entertaining. It seemed a bit like a ripoff of 'Jennifer's Body' mixed with 'The Craft', but it actually is a remake of a film McKee and Chris Sivertson made in 2001, long before 'Jennifer's Body'. There were a few parts that were annoying, like the jock guys and their uninspired reactions to finding their friends murdered and the main girl making a movie at the beginning that has almost no bearing on the plot except for one bit that could have been approached better, but overall it was a fun movie and one I'd recommend watching.

318. Hick (2011)

July 27, 2014

'Hick' was a decent coming of age movie. Starring Chloë Grace Moretz as a lonely kid who decides to run away from her trailer park home and her awful parents to try to make a better life for herself in the big city. Immediately things get hairy when she starts hitch-hiking and gets picked up by a seemingly nice guy. Once she ditches him she meets a nice woman who takes her under her wing and introduces her to drugs and gets her into all kinds of precarious situations, including re-introducing her to the creepy guy who first offered her a ride. The movie spirals slowly out of control but never goes all the way and never seems as dark as it probably would if it was real life. I'd say it is worth watching for a lazy afternoon when you've got nothing else going on.

317. 13 Sins (2014)

July 26, 2014

Similar to 'Cheap Thrills' or 'Would You Rather', '13 Sins' features a down-on-his-luck guy who stands to make lots of money if he can complete the tasks put in front of him by a lunatic. In this movie, the guy gets a phone call asking him to kill the fly in his car. After he completes the task, money gets deposited in his bank account and he decides to continue with the game. The tasks gradually get more complicated and quickly get more sadistic, leaving him to question his sanity and moral values. Ultimately not a very original idea, but not necessarily a bad movie. I guess I'd recommend it, but not before watching a bunch of other movies first.

316. Spookies (1986)

July 25, 2014

'Spookies' is... different. Originally titled 'Twisted Souls', several legal issues caused the production and crew to go separate ways until someone was able to come in and film more scenes with a totally different cast and story. They called their patchwork gallimaufry 'Spookies' and to the surprise of no one it flopped miserably. That isn't to say it wasn't without merit. I found it strangely entertaining even though it doesn't make a single bit of sense. Some folks show up at a haunted old mansion where a lonely boy just celebrated a birthday party (thrown by ghosts, maybe?). A cat-like man creature tries to tempt the boy for some reason. Several creatures and special effects (some good, some not-so-good) made by a long list of FX artists including Gabe Bartalos, padded the run-time. Then, for some reason, there were flatulent mummy creatures that attacked people. To be honest, I don't have a clue what was happening or why. This movie needed a lot of help. Worth watching if you want to see some cool creatures and don't mind being thoroughly confused for about an hour and a half.

315. I Am Divine (2013)

July 25, 2014

I really love John Waters' movies, and I've always been intrigued by his muse and star, Divine, but I've never known that much about him. This documentary, 'I Am Divine' gave a very revealing and loving glimpse into the life of this amazing person and one of, if not the most iconic figures in the history of underground cinema. The man who would come to be known as Divine was born Harris Glenn Milstead, a shy, rotund little boy in Baltimore in the mid-1940's. He met John Waters in high school and the two became inseparable, making films about shocking subject material just for the fun of it. When they made their breakthrough hit film, 'Pink Flamingos', about the trashiest family ever, Divine shot to superstar status and partied with the biggest names in the business. Sadly, he died at the very young age of 42 at the pinnacle of his acting career. I highly recommend this film, as it is a very endearing portrait of a truly unique individual.

314. Coneheads (1993)

July 24, 2014

Based on the Saturday Night Live skit and starring pretty much everyone who was on Saturday Night Live at the time, 'Coneheads' is a hilarious movie. When aliens (Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin) crash land on Earth, they try to make the most of their situation while finding a means to fix their spaceship and return home while giving the impression to their home planet that they're planning on conquering Earth and ruling the planet. They grow accustomed to life on our planet, however, and over time become almost completely human. With immigration police breathing down their necks and their home planet demanding results before bringing them back home, they form a plan to stay on Earth and not kill the humans. Well worth watching if you've never seen it before.

313. Bates Motel (1987)

July 20, 2014

I've always loved Bud Cort, and despite having been interested in seeing 'Bates Motel' for many years, I had never watched it until now. It was decent. It felt like it could have been much better, though. I haven't looked into the making of 'Bates Motel', but it seemed like it had to have been a TV pilot that didn't get picked up so they made it into a feature. Cort played Alex, a young man in a mental asylum who met and befriended Norman Bates. When Bates died, he left his motel to Alex who, upon release from the institution, decided to reopen for business. He met Lori Petty, a drifter who broke in to the motel, and the two of them worked together to get the place back up and running. Things went smooth for a while, although there may or may not have been a ghost in the main building. Then things got weird and took on a whole different feeling. Jason Bateman and a bunch of other kids showed up to the motel and had a party but they all turned out to have a different agenda which I won't spoil here. To say the least, it felt like the second episode of a TV show, not a complete movie. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did.

312. The Right Kind Of Wrong (2013)

July 20, 2014

Directed by the same guy who brought us such classics as 'Christmas Vacation' and 'Benny & Joon' (Jeremiah Chechik), 'The Right Kind of Wrong' should have been a good movie. I felt safe in that assumption and I took for granted that Chechik hadn't directed a feature film since 1998's 'The Avengers' which could hardly be called a classic. I realized I had made a mistake pretty quickly, but like a train wreck I couldn't look away. This movie seemed like it took place in the fantasy of some self-absorbed, delusional brain, but not in the usual fun way. Ryan Kwanten stars as a seemingly regular guy whose wife leaves him and makes herself a star when she writes a book about how much of a loser Kwanten is. Instead of suing her or getting depressed, he tries to break up the wedding of another woman he has never met because he thinks she is the girl of his dreams, and when she rejects him he spends the rest of his time trying to get with her. Those things seem fairly common for a romantic comedy, but there were so many other stupid things that happened along the way that made this movie stand out as a special kind of awful. I don't really recommend it.

311. The Breakfast Club (1985)

July 20, 2014

I'm going to make a couple admissions here that may surprise and upset some people: 1. I had previously never seen 'The Breakfast Club'. 2. I didn't like it. Now, maybe if I had seen it as a kid when something like Saturday school was relevant I would be more interested in it. Or, maybe I still would have thought it was extremely boring. I do enjoy some of the 80's 'brat pack' movies, like 'Weird Science', but 'The Breakfast Club' was so uninteresting that I just didn't care what happened (and I'm pretty sure nothing did happen). A handful of pretty white kids with problems find themselves holed up in a really nice library for detention one Saturday, and at the behest of the school's biggest social reject (Judd Nelson) they exchange stories about how awful they have it and smoke pot and try to make the most out of their predicament until they can go home. I know some people are going to hold it against me that I didn't enjoy this beloved 80's 'classic' but oh well. It was as entertaining to me as watching paint dry and not as rewarding, so I won't say I recommend this to anyone once they're past their angsty, teenage years.

310. The Intruder (1986)

July 19, 2014

Last, but not least, the Indonesian rip-off of the Rambo franchise, 'The Intruder', served as our final bad movie of the evening. Fitting, because it was truly terrible. I'm not really sure what happened in this movie. People came and went with hardly any character development and I'm pretty sure some people who died came back later as different people. Most important though, is that the hero's name was John Rambu. Every time someone said the word Rambu we couldn't stop laughing. There was the part where Rambu's girlfriend gave him a red headband before he dove into the ocean, emerging to find his girlfriend killed by the bad guys who wanted Rambu dead and could have easily dispatched him then but chose to kill the girl instead. Then there was a scene where Rambu organized a bunch of people in Mr. Bean cars to drive around shooting at other people. There was also a scene where a couple bad guys beat Rambu to a pulp and left him lying on the ground clearly defeated as they ran away exclaiming they were going to kill him. There were so many incomprehensibly stupid scenes that I really don't know what was going on. Rambu just showed up and killed a bunch of people who were supposedly criminals and I guess he saved the day from something. This film was spectacularly bad and deservedly fits in anyone's bad movie night.

309. The Carrier (1988)

July 19, 2014

The second film of the Bad Movie Club's inaugural bad movie night was the AID's scare analogy, 'The Carrier'. In it, a small town turns against each other after a furry bear-like creature scratched a man, infecting him with some sort of deadly virus that caused everything he touched to become infected as well. Anytime anyone touched anything that had been infected by the carrier, the thing melted the person's body parts and eventually the whole person. The town broke into two warring factions, half of them wearing white or light colored fabric over their heads and arms and the other half wearing all black. Someone discovered that cats were able to sniff out the infected objects, so cats became the most precious commodity of which both sides were willing to kill for. I didn't think 'The Carrier' was actually a bad movie. Mostly it was just incredibly strange, and I liked it.

308. Uninvited (1988)

July 19, 2014

'Uninvited' was the first of a triple feature this evening with a large group of close friends that will be henceforth known as the Bad Movie Club. For our first Bad Movie Club bad movie night, I decided to make it cat themed (mostly) and start the evening with Greydon Clark's horrendous tale about a cat that somehow has a demonic-looking creature living inside of it that comes out and kills whoever it feels like (usually people who have wronged it or wronged someone who was nice to it). Meanwhile, some criminals with the potential to make loads of cash invite some young girls they've never met before to party on their boat ostensibly to have a good time but honestly to give the authorities the impression that they're just fun-loving guys and girls having a party on a boat while they sail off to wherever it was they were planning on going. Those authorities aren't in the movie, so that is an unnecessary detail (like everything else in the movie). Anyway, the girls invite some other guys they have also never met before and one of those guys brings along the weird cat he just found and they all get on a boat heading nowhere in particular with strangers and a wicked little cat creature. It was absolutely awful in such a good way. There were scenes that were clearly shot in someone's bathtub with black plastic trash bags lining the walls and a toy boat thrashing about in the water. Watching it with the Bad Movie Club was the only way to make a movie this terrible worth watching, and it was loads of fun. So I suggest getting a group of your friends together and forcing this film on them. If they still like you after it's over, you've got good friends.

307. Crocodile Dundee (1986)

July 18, 2014

When I was a kid I was mesmerized by 'Crocodile Dundee'. Maybe it was something about Paul Hogan's easy-going tough-guy act, or maybe it was the idea that an illegal crocodile poacher could be such a good guy, or maybe it was just that fresh 80's vibe we've all become so nostalgic for. I don't know. I do know that watching it today was still just as mesmerizing, although for slightly different reasons. I noticed things I had never noticed before, like how chauvinistic Mick Dundee is, and I could finally appreciate some of the jokes that didn't resonate with me as a child. When a reporter from New York travels to Australia to get an interview with Dundee, she is immediately enthralled by his way of life and follows him into the rugged outback where she inevitably falls in love with him and persuades him to come back to America with her. He does and is a stereotypical 'fish-out-of-water' character who doesn't know how to function in modern society, but he knows right from wrong, which makes him charming I suppose. I probably sound like I'm not a fan, but oddly enough and despite any flaws it may have, this movie is very endearing to me. I highly recommend watching it and even its two sequels.

306. Lake Placid (1999)

July 17, 2014

As today marks the 15 year anniversary of the theatrical release of 'Lake Placid' it seems only fitting to pop in the brand new Scream Factory blu-ray release and give it another watch. It is admittedly pretty terrible, but I do have a predilection for Bill Pullman movies as well as giant creature movies. An old lady (Betty White) starts feeding crocodiles in a lake, causing those crocodiles to somehow grow to prodigious sizes and then devour anything or anyone that happens to cross their path. A fish and game officer (Pullman), the local sheriff (Brendan Gleeson), a paleontologist (Bridget Fonda), and a professor (Oliver Platt) set out to solve the mystery of the lake and quickly realize they are up against something much more formidable than they could have imagined. If you haven't seen it, give it a watch, but don't expect much. With the dated special effects and corny dialogue, it is just a few pegs above the level of a SyFy channel original.

305. Muppets Most Wanted (2014)

July 16, 2014

'Muppets Most Wanted' was inexcusably awful. When the Muppets couldn't figure out what to do after the success of their first film, they decided to take their show on the road with the assistance of their dastardly new manager, Ricky Gervais. An evil frog that looked just like Kermit broke out of prison and took Kermit's place as leader of the Muppets, while Kermit was forced to serve time in a Siberian prison. Rife with unfunny moments, unnecessary celebrity cameos, and terrible CGI effects, 'Muppets Most Wanted' was an ignominious waste of time and something I feel Jim Henson would be ashamed of. The only remotely funny scenes featured Ty Burrell (but he is always funny). Don't watch this movie.

304. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (2011)

July 14, 2014

A co-worker strongly recommended I watch 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' as it is her favorite movie, so I did, and it was actually pretty good. Ewan McGregor plays a fishing expert who gets recruited by Emily Blunt to develop a plan to bring salmon fishing to a desert in Yemen at the behest of a magnanimous Sheikh who believes people will be able to find peace in fishing. There is a lot of banter between McGregor and Blunt and the two eventually fall in love despite Blunt already having a boyfriend and McGregor already having a wife. It wasn't a bad movie, so I suppose I'd recommend it for when you're in the mood for a light-hearted chick-flick type of a movie.

303. Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa .5 (2014)

July 13, 2014

'Bad Grandpa' is probably the single greatest "guilty pleasure" movie I've ever watched. 'Bad Grandpa .5' was a hilarious extension to that movie, featuring outtakes, interviews, and deleted scenes, all of which were hysterically funny. I highly recommend watching 'Bad Grandpa' and then immediately watching 'Bad Grandpa .5' as it is a very fitting companion piece and both left me laughing harder than I have in ages.

302. Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes (2014)

July 12, 2014

I still prefer 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' to 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes', but this one was still really good. It would've benefited from being about half an hour shorter, and a little darker, but the special effects and acting were all excellent. Some time after the first movie, the human population has been drastically decreased by a widespread virus. Caesar has created a colony of apes who live in harmony and happiness in the forest until one day, a few meddling human survivors show up and things go south in a hurry. One of the apes, Koba, wants to destroy the humans, but Caesar insists they remain peaceful and diligent. Of course, a few of the humans get antsy and don't feel comfortable with talking apes walking around, so they pick a fight and Koba is more than happy to oblige them. The ensuing battle between apes and humans was pretty epic, and worth seeing primarily for that alone. Like I said, not as good as the first one, but not a bad sequel.

301. Time Of The Apes (1987)

July 9, 2014

Another of the Alamo Drafthouse's Video Vortex series, 'Time of the Apes' was a weirdly cut together and horribly dubbed film version of what was supposedly a really good Japanese TV show that ripped off the 'Planet of the Apes' franchise, and I got to enjoy it on VHS on the big screen with my buddy Rob. Feeling like at least a five hour movie, this 97 minute monstrosity was truly a test of patience, but more than that it was a really easy way to kill brain cells. Some kids and a lady accidentally ended up in cryogenic freezers and woke up in the future in a land inhabited by talking apes with a serious hatred of all hairless creatures. They stumble around, aided by a nice little androgynous ape, looking for other humans until they are able to be transported back in time. Or maybe they dreamed it all? Or maybe they didn't transport in time? Or maybe they are all crazy? It kept going, bringing up all these questions when the only question I had was when would it be over? It was fun for a few laughs, but not worth watching all the way through. Just stick to the MST3K version and you'll have everything you need.

300. Primal Rage (1988)

July 8, 2014

From the opening credits to 'Primal Rage' I was hooked. A guy on a bike who clearly doesn't understand how a camera works rides around taking pictures of kids on a college campus doing decidedly stereotypical 80's things while an even more decidedly stereotypical 80's song plays until he meets and saves a girl from a tow truck driver just doing his job. The guy's sleazy friend and co-worker at the school newspaper borrows his camera to help him get pictures of the inside of a scientific research lab and blow the lid off a scandal rife with illegal vivisection and corrupt scientists. When the animal he takes a picture of scratches him, the sleazy guy starts going crazy and turns into some kind of slimy, lunatic, zombie thing and ends up biting and scratching other people, turning them into what he is. Pretty gnarly nonsense, really, but I had a good time.

299. Jaws (1975)

July 7, 2014

Imitated countless times but never matched, 'Jaws' still holds up as one of the most terrifying 'stay out of the water' films to date. Watching a 35mm print of 'Jaws' on the big screen with my friends Joe and Aaron was a very humbling experience, and we were all able to notice things we'd never seen before. If you're unfamiliar with this film, I recommend you stop reading and go watch it. If you are familiar with it, watch it again, because you know how great it is.

298. The Fabulous Journey To The Center Of The Earth (aka Where Time Began) (1977)

July 6, 2014

Let me begin by saying 'The Fabulous Journey To The Center Of The Earth' is not the kind of movie you want to start when it's late and you're tired (unless you want to take a fabulous journey to sleep, and then it's perfect). Most people know the story by Jules Verne, or at least have heard of it. The title pretty much sums up the plot. There were some fun effects and terrible acting, which kept me entertained enough to see it through even though the movie itself was kind of boring. I think it may have been fun for a child to watch when it came out in the late 70's, but I don't think it holds up that well to watch today and I can't recommend it for anything more than a sleep aid.

297. Stunt Rock (1980)

July 6, 2014

My friend Patrick came over to watch some bad movies, and boy did we ever. 'Stunt Rock' literally lived up to its title by being long scenes of a rock 'n' roll magic show followed by scenes of one of the coolest stunt guys ever. There wasn't really a plot, just concert footage of the band Sorcery, where the band and a couple actors performed daring magic tricks on stage to an astonished and enthusiastic audience, and stunt footage, semi-documentary style, of an Australian stunt man willing to go all the way to get the stunts right. Somewhere along the way the two stories try to mix, finishing with a spectacular 'Stunt Rock' concert featuring our very own Australian stunt man as part of the band's magic act. Was it good? Absolutely not. Was I entertained? You better believe it.

296. Gothic (1986)

July 6, 2014

I'm usually a huge fan of Ken Russell's work (Lair of the White Worm, Altered States, The Devils), but Gothic didn't really do it for me. It had a great cast and a cool idea and a really creepy poster, but it played more like a semi-homoerotic period piece with occasional bits of genuine worth. Natasha Richardson plays Mary Shelley, supposedly on the night she came up with the idea for Frankenstein, and together with her husband, Julian Sands, and his sister, they visit Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) and his biographer, Timothy Spall, for a chance to tell spooky stories and sexual fantasies until the two became so intertwined and real that everyone freaked out. I won't not recommend it, simply because the worst Ken Russell film is still better than most films made today, but it was a little on the weak side.

295. Raising Arizona (1987)

July 5, 2014

Possibly the Coen brothers' finest cinematic achievement, 'Raising Arizona' tells the story of frequent con, Hi (Nicolas Cage), who falls madly in love with Ed (Holly Hunter), the officer who keeps taking his booking photos. The two get married and when they find themselves unable to have children they hatch a plan to kidnap one of the babies of Nathan Arizona, a wealthy furniture salesman with quintuplets. They do their best to raise the baby right until a guilty conscience comes over Ed and they decide to return the baby, but not before some of Hi's old buddies from jail (John Goodman and William Forsythe) figure out what they've done and decide to take the baby and collect the reward money all the while being hunted down by a vicious bounty hunter on a motorcycle. If you haven't seen it, you really should.

294. Non-Stop (2014)

July 4, 2014

Liam Neeson can do anything. Without him, 'Non-Stop' would have been total rubbish, but he managed to take a ridiculous story about an air marshal with a drinking problem who may or may not be responsible for putting a bomb on a plane and is fully responsible for keeping the passengers safe on board said plane and make it quite entertaining. It was well worth the watch for Neeson alone, but the supporting cast was top notch as well, including Linus Roache, Julianne Moore, and Lupita Nyong'o. Directed by the same guy whose last feature film, 'Unknown', was unfortunately not even good enough for Liam Neeson to save, but he fully redeemed himself here.

293. Uncle Sam (1996)

July 4, 2014

For Independence Day this year, my wife and I celebrated in style with William Lustig's Fourth of July zombie-slasher spectacular. After a soldier gets killed in combat, his body gets sent home and weirdly displayed in a living room. When the town's patriotism level spirals, culminating in the burning of the American flag, the soldier's decaying corpse reanimates and begins taking out all of the unpatriotic garbage on the streets. I highly recommend seeing this one, especially around the Fourth. It is basically the most patriotic thing since fireworks and watching it is the strongest way to show support for this fine country we live in. Go watch it and then watch everything else Larry Cohen and William Lustig have made.

292. Flashdance (1983)

July 3, 2014

Another one of the supposed classic dancing movies of the 80's that I hadn't seen before, 'Flashdance' was also one of the most insignificant movies I've ever watched. There was virtually no point to anything that happened. A woman who worked as a welder by day and an exotic dancer by night dreamed of becoming a ballerina, so she worked at it and I suppose it paid off. The problem was it was even less exciting than that sounded. Maybe I was just tired from having watched two dancing movies in a row. Maybe.

291. Dirty Dancing (1987)

July 3, 2014

I made the mistake of admitting to my wife that I hadn't seen any of the 80's dancing movies. She decided that I needed to and that the first one we had to watch was 'Dirty Dancing'. I would not say I had the time of my life (sorry) but I had a pretty good time watching it. Patrick Swayze was awesome. For people like me who hadn't seen it, it is about some dance instructors at an expensive country club who practice more modern, hip styles of dance by night when all the old rich snobs are asleep. When one of the best dancers gets knocked up before a big dance, it's up to Swayze to teach Jerry Orbach's daughter, Baby, to learn how to dance, teach those crusty old rich folks that the young folks need to dance, and save the day. I guess it was entertaining enough to watch it once, but I don't understand why anyone would call it a classic. Maybe if I had seen it as a kid it would have meant more. Maybe.

290. Neighbors (2014)

July 2, 2014

Not to be confused with the far superior 1981 film of the same name starring Dan Akroyd and John Belushi, 2014's 'Neighbors' stars Rose Byrne, Seth Rogen, and Zac Efron. It takes place in a quiet, middle class neighborhood, when a fraternity moves into a house next door to a young couple (Byrne and Rogen) and their new baby. Hoping for continued peace and quiet but not wanting to offend anyone, Rogen and Byrne try their best to politely tell the fraternity leader (Efron) to keep it down. It all goes south from there though, and the rest of the movie is basically an escalating battle between neighbors for status in the neighborhood. I laughed a couple times, so I guess it was effective as a comedy, but I would not call it a good movie, and I would probably not recommend it. I'm sure a lot of people would find it absolutely hilarious, I'm just not one of those people.