May 2014 Recap

I didn't watch very many bad movies this month and compared to the bad movies I normally see each month, the ones I listed below would be considered classics. I did watch a lot of awesome movies though. Here's my top 5 and bottom 5 for May, 2014:

My top 5 (in no particular order):
1. The Last Polka
2. Hawk Jones
3. The Psychopath
4. Neon Maniacs
5. Lurkers
Runner Up: Ghost Story & Rituals

The bottom 5 (in no particular order)
1. Nail Gun Massacre
2. The Amazing Spider-Man
3. The Undertaker
4. Wild Malibu Weekend
5. Galactic Gigolo
Runner Up: Son of Dracula

249. Taken 2 (2012)

May 31, 2014

While Taken 2 was nowhere near as good as the first Taken, it wasn't as bad as a lot of the reviews I heard said it was. It was a continuation of the story from the first film, in which the families of the bad guys Liam Neeson killed started seeking revenge for their lost loved ones (even though they were all dirtbags). When the bad guys families find out that Neeson and his family were in Istanbul, they took Neeson and his wife, Famke Janssen. Using his particular set of skills to remember every detail even while he had a bag over his head, Neeson was able to determine where he ended up, and was able to get a message to his daughter to try to save them. Then, once saved, Neeson swiftly delivered justice and got his family home safe again. I heard they are making Taken 3. While part 2 was implausible, a part 3 is really inconceivable. I don't think they have any pets, and if any of the family members get taken again it would just become a parody of itself.

248. Pitch Perfect (2012)

May 31, 2014

My friend Patrick pretty much had to force me to watch Pitch Perfect. It didn't sound like a movie I would just not like, it sounded like a movie I would absolutely hate. To my surprise, I laughed through almost the whole movie (laughed with, not at). It was about some college kids who performed in a cappella tournaments and the funny things that happened along the way to the championships. They hit all the right notes for me, with vomit humor, a girl who whispered hilariously horrible secrets, and a bunch of other surprises. Similar to Mean Girls, it was the kind of movie where I felt bad for having pre-judged it. I'll try not to make that mistake again.

247. Event Horizon (1997)

May 29, 2014

Set in the not too distant future, Event Horizon tells the story of a mission to try to rescue the crew of a spaceship that disappeared seven years prior. There were some cool effects and some not-so-cool effects, but all in all I'd call it a decent movie. Probably the best movie Paul W.S. Anderson has directed so far. It reminded me a little bit of the beginning of Lifeforce. In Event Horizon, things inevitably go wrong during the mission when they find the missing craft and discover that something sinister and inhuman is on board. It was pretty good - not great - but worth watching.

246. Sweet 16 (1983)

May 29, 2014

I'm not entirely sure why they called this movie 'Sweet 16'. There was a sweet sixteen birthday party near the end of the movie, and they sort of tied it to the plot, but really this movie was just a straight-forward slasher film where a few people get murdered and everyone else has to wonder who did it. Racial tension in a small bar lead some to believe it was a local Native American man. Despite the evidence, the Sheriff knows better, and he suspects the parents of a girl whose boyfriend was one of the people killed. During the aforementioned party, we're shown the true killer and fed a fairly bogus story as to why. Recommended for slasher completists but not really anyone else.

245. Galactic Gigolo (1987)

May 28, 2014

Galactic Gigolo was pretty awful. It started with a game show on some planet where everyone was a vegetable. The host, a giant carrot, was asking questions to a broccoli, who ended up winning a trip to somewhere in New Jersey where he was supposed to sleep with all the women in the town. He made it to the town and had no problems getting with the women, but he kept getting chased by some hunters who wanted to kill him, and some mobsters who wanted to hire him to help rob banks. It was a really stupid concept executed with unmitigated fatuousness and everyone involved in any shape or form (including myself for having watched it) is now dumber.

244. The Painting (2011)

May 25, 2014

The Painting was just a random Netflix selection that my wife and I decided to watch instead of being productive, and it turned out to be a decent little film. It was a French film that was mostly animated but had some live action sequences. It was set in a world within an unfinished painting where some people were finished, some where half-finished, and some were just sketches. They had formed a class system among themselves that was based solely on how finished they were, and for the most part, the finished people were snobs who looked down on everyone below them. One of the finished people was in love with a half-finished person, and the two had to keep their relationship a secret. They set out on a quest to go find the painter and have him finish the painting and they ended up going in and out of several paintings and seeing all sorts of different people and situations. We liked it, and it was soothing enough to wake up to on a Saturday morning, so I'd recommend it.

243. 976-EVIL (1988)

May 24, 2014

I don't know how many times I've seen 976-EVIL, but it is an awesome movie. Directed by Robert Englund and starring Stephen Geoffreys, it starts with a guy named Spike who finds an advertisement for an evil psychic hotline in a magazine and gives it a call. The calls start off pretty vague but end up turning evil as they go. Spike thinks it is a joke, but when his loner cousin, Hoax (Geoffreys), finds the number and starts calling it he gets supernatural powers that help him go after the people who've mistreated him and he ends up turning into some kind of a demon. I've always loved this movie. The sequel wasn't great, but the original was a lot of fun. My wife and I and some of our friends were lucky enough to go to dinner with Stephen Geoffreys once, and he was a really cool person!

242. Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

May 24, 2014

Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon was about as cool as movies come. It was about a guy who ran a bridal shop and killed some of the new brides after they tried on his wedding dresses. Each time he killed one of the brides-to-be, he grew closer in his own mind to figuring out who killed his mother. His last person to kill was his own wife, but she came back as a ghost and haunted him. There was a cop who was onto him from the start, but it was ultimately the ghost of his wife that was his undoing. I thought it was a great movie. Very suspenseful, with an interesting story.

241. Pompeii (2014)

May 24, 2014

Pompeii will probably compete with I, Frankenstein or 300: Rise of an Empire for my least favorite movie of 2014. I, Frankenstein still beats the others for being the worst, but Pompeii was pretty awful. It was essentially a Gladiator rip-off with a volcano about to erupt and kill everyone (but Gladiator was awesome and this was garbage). Pompeii starred Kit Harrington (John Snow from Game of Thrones), which is probably the only reason anyone anywhere saw it, and had some surprisingly bad cameos by good actors (Keifer Sutherland and Jared Harris). Since it was (loosely) based on real events, we all knew what had to happen at the end of the movie but they drew it out and made it weak. They had a good story to work with and they blew it.