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.