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.