225. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

May 13, 2014

I didn't really care about seeing this movie, and now that I have, I don't really care about seeing any of the sequels. It felt so similar to the Sam Raimi Spider-Man that I just wasn't interested in what it had to offer. They say it was closer to the comics, but who really cares about that anymore? The object should be to take the subject matter and make a good movie, and this one was just OK. The back story was the same, Peter Parker's parents died and he went to live with his aunt and uncle, then he was bit by a radioactive spider in a laboratory which gave him super powers. When his uncle died he wanted revenge, so he started picking off bad guys while he was learning to harness his potential. The cops chased after him and called him a public nuisance. The scientist that created the radioactive spiders then accidentally turned himself into a lizard-man and became a super-villain, giving Spider-Man a purpose. Chaos ensued, Spider-Man won, the end. Nothing new here.

224. Winter's Tale (2014)

May 12, 2014

Based on its polished exterior, and the century spanning love story that may or may not have involved a flying horse and angels, Winter's Tale seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be a movie that I would never have enjoyed. However, I kinda liked it. It was a lot weirder than I would have imagined it to be from watching the trailers, and Russell Crowe's performance as a demon was pretty great. There was also a weird cameo from Will Smith as the devil, which was odd but entertaining. The whole movie felt like it should have been made with a smaller budget and lesser known talent and that may have made it a cult classic. It started with a burglar, Colin Ferrell, running from Crowe, finding the flying horse, and falling in love with a red haired girl who was dying. Ferrell thought it was supposed to be his miracle to save the girl, but it wasn't, and despite his efforts she still passed away. Then he sort of died and reappeared several decades later with no memory until a woman helped him figure out who he was and together they found out who he needed to save. I'm not doing it any justice describing it, so I'll just suggest you watch it and see what you think. It was pretty cheesy and definitely a date movie, but it was intriguing enough to finish.

223. Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999)

May 11, 2014

I remember thinking this movie looked like a knock off of The Faculty when it came out, and I wasn't that interested in watching it. Seeing it now, I realize I was dead wrong, and besides having the same distinct late-90's look, feel, and smell, the two movies were nothing alike. In Teaching Mrs. Tingle, a straight-A student (Katie Holmes) desperate to become Valedictorian hits an uncompromising road block in the form of her history teacher, Mrs. Tingle (Helen Mirren), who seems to want nothing more than to make her students miserable. We all had teachers like that, so it's not too hard to relate, although Mrs. Tingle is a bit of an extremist. One of Katie Holmes' friends brings the answers to an upcoming exam to her and suggests they cheat, but they are inevitably caught by Mrs. Tingle who threatens to expel them. With their backs against the wall, the kids go to Mrs. Tingle's house to plead with her not to expel them. Then when she refuses they break into her house, almost kill her, and tie her to a bed for a few days. I'm not saying you shouldn't do that, but you probably shouldn't do that. The rest of the time is spent trying to figure out a way out of the terrible situation they ended up in while also trying to convince Mrs. Tingle to reconsider. Written and directed by Kevin Williamson (the guy who wrote Scream), Teaching Mrs. Tingle is one I would recommend for posterity sake, but keep it at arm's distance and don't expect to be blown away.

222. The Haunting of Helena (2012)

May 10, 2014

I thought The Haunting of Helena was pretty good. It was an interesting and somewhat refreshing new take on a ghost story, which can be difficult to find these days, as well as a creepy rendition of the tooth fairy story. Helena and her mother moved into an old apartment with a sordid past that involved a man ripping out his wife's teeth and killing her. When Helena lost a tooth, the ghost of the toothless woman gave her some old coins in exchange for the teeth, but also started making Helena do strange things. At the peak of the haunting, Helena's mother got them out of the house but the spirit followed them and they had to find the lady's teeth to hopefully put an end to the haunting. Sounds fairly straight-forward, but there were some interesting twists along the way as well as a surprising ending.

221. The Visitor (1979)

May 9, 2014

The Visitor was pretty awesome. It was another movie where I wasn't always sure what was happening, but I had a good time being confused. Supposedly it was about a battle between god and the devil over the soul of a little girl with telekinetic powers. That is a better explanation than I could've come up with on my own, since what I got out of it was while some creepy alien child-molester types were exchanging worried stares with one another, some other evil forces with privileged and supernatural information that us regular folks wouldn't understand (similar to Mrs. Baylock in The Omen) were seeing to the mental and physical well-being of a disturbed young girl with telekinetic powers. At least I got the telekinetic part right. Either way, it was pretty cool in a very bizarre 70's kind of way, so if you get a chance to check it out it is worth it.

220. Nail Gun Massacre (1985)

May 9, 2014

Nail Gun Massacre had one of the most annoying killers of all time. They shouldn't have spoken at all, yet in pretty much every scene they had some stupid line to get out. Maybe the problem was that without all the killer's dialogue they wouldn't have had enough to make a feature film. Regardless, I found them extremely annoying. The movie starts with a woman being raped by a construction crew. After that anyone who happens to work in construction is not safe from the garrulous, nail-gun wielding maniac. As the bodies piled up the killer found more and more ways to sneak in idiotic puns for nobody to hear but the audience (not sure if that was a conscious choice or if they even gave it any thought at all). The only way I could recommend this to anyone is if you've already seen all the other slasher movies and don't mind being bored for an hour and a half.

219. Doom Asylum (1987)

May 8, 2014

If you watch a movie like Doom Asylum and try to point out all the things wrong with it, you're doing it wrong. With a paper-thin plot that didn't matter at all, Doom Asylum was pretty great. From what I could tell, a guy got in a car wreck that killed his wife. He didn't die, but then, maybe he did? Some teenagers went out to an old mental asylum where a terrible band was practicing. The guy from the car woke up on a slab in the morgue of the asylum and started knocking off the teens with the mortician's tools. The teens and the band started fighting. Turns out one of the teens (Patty Mullen, Frankenhooker) was related to the couple from the crash. Terrible acting, cool effects, no coherent story line... what more could you ask for?

218. Super Xuxa Versus Satan (1988)

May 8, 2014

I don't remember how I heard about Super Xuxa Versus Satan, but I do remember that it was pretty messed up. I'm not sure if it is any less bizarre if you are from Brazil where the film was made, but round these parts movies like this don't make all that much sense. Xuxa is the host of a children's show, and she has magical powers that stem from her innate proclivity for goodness. When an evil creature (maybe the devil, maybe a demon, maybe an eccentric vagrant?) and his two evil subjects that live underground become aware of the pure good that is Xuxa, they take offense and try to coax her to the dark side. Xuxa can't be swayed by conventional means, so the evil thing resorts to drastic measures and steals her dog, sending Xuxa on an extraordinary adventure to get her little pal back. Along the way she obtains a magical crystal with powers of light and happiness or something like that and she uses it in her efforts to defeat the bad guys. It was pretty weird, and I guess I did like it, but I don't know who I would ever recommend it to.

217. Hawk Jones (1986)

May 7, 2014

HAWK JONES! Apparently Hawk Jones is the fourth most sought after VHS on the internet. Fortunately for us the Alamo Drafthouse had a copy and showed it as part of their ongoing Video Vortex series. Our hero, Hawk Jones, is a cop with an attitude. He has been around the block a few times and he doesn't take nothing from nobody. Saddled with a new partner he didn't want, Jones has to take down a notorious crime-ring led by the ruthless Antonio. First he teaches some dames what's what, then he works on cleaning up the streets until Antonio calls in The Destroyer, his preternatural henchman with superhuman strengths and abilities. Can Hawk Jones muster what it takes to defeat The Destroyer and put an end to Antonio for good? You'll have to find out for yourself, because this movie is so awesome that anyone who doesn't see it is truly missing out.

216. The Last Polka (1985)

May 3, 2014

Watching The Last Polka was a fantastic experience. Libby and I were visiting some friends near Nashville and they told us about someone's basement that had been transformed into a cool little theater where they showed rare and bizarre films. To make a long story short, the owner of the basement/theater had found a bootleg DVD of a VHS transfer of the made for TV movie The Last Polka, which was basically an extended version of the SCTV skit mockumentary about the Shmenge's brothers, Stan (Eugene Levy) and Yosh (John Candy). Stan and Yosh Shmenge grew up in Leutonia (a small country with a curious lack of trees), where they danced, sang, played music, did magic tricks, and served as all-round performers for their parents and fellow countrymen until they were discovered and became one of the world's most cherished polka acts of all time. Together with Linsk Minyk (Rick Moranis) and the Lemon Twins (Catherine O'Hara, Mary Margaret O'Hara, and Robin Duke), the Shmenge's delivered a galvanic performance the likes of which the polka world had never seen before nor since. It isn't on DVD yet, which is sad, but if you are lucky enough to track down a copy somewhere it is absolutely worth it.

Speaking of tracking down a copy, the full movie is available to watch on YouTube. Here ya go: