02-05-2005

97) Psycho Beach Party. See, I have problems with movies like this. I'm sure the people that made Highlander considered it a good movie and expected it to be a conventional success, and instead were successful by spawning an obsessive and cult following. But the people behind this had to know it wouldn't be a hit and instead designed it to be a cult movie. It's the same problem I had with Buckaroo Banzai. By purposefully gearing the movie to a certain ironic subset it's like they are cheating or something. Whatever.

98) Mom and Dad Save the World. If Terri Garr had a nickel for every time she was forced to save the planet from an evil space tyrant, she'd have five cents.

99) The Family Man. Surprisingly, Lee owns this DVD. Standard and sappy. Whatever.

100) Dawn of the Dead. I'm not going to get all "sanctity of the holy trinity" about this, because Night is the only real gem of the three anyway, but at a certain point it stops being a remake and just starts being a zombie movie with a few things in common with the original Dawn. And as far as that goes, you have to really mess up to mess up a zombie movie cause no matter how well they are done they are never "good". I mean, God bless, they're about zombies. So I liked that this one didn't have the silliness of the first one (the zombie pie fight? really?) , the cameos by original cast members were well done and overall it's a good watch. I did miss the hillbilly target practice scene from the first one though. That was pretty funny.

I stopped in the middle of Dawn of the Dead to go eat and go to the UAB game. Even if I was dissapointed by the outcome, it was a hell of a game. I'm glad I went. I'm going to start The Order, but I'm sure I'll fall asleep before it's over.

100 down, 900 to go.

02-04-2005

95) Vengeance Valley. Yeah, this was kind of dull. Its rare when I see a western that I don't like (and I've seen Bad Girls, people), but this was just boring.

96) Intolerable Cruelty. Normally I love the Coens, but when this came out I was violently anti-Clooney (I don't really remember why, but I think it had something to do with Solaris sucking so hard) so I managed to resist the siren call of Catherine Zeta Jones and stay away. But if I can sit through Haiku Tunnel and Hard Promises for the sake of seeing 1000 movies, I figured I could get over a little Clooney hatred and watch this too. Now the list of crap movies that Clooney has made since his last good one (Ocean's Eleven) has grown by one. What was I supposed to get from this? That the dissolution of the sacred institution of marriage is good comic fodder? That even the morally reprehensible need love too? Give me a break. Not even Edward Herman or the suprise cameo by Bruce Campbell was enough to redeem it. Coens, what the crap happened? You're better than this.

96 down, 904 to go.

02-03-2005

93) She Couldn't Say No. Remember when Hollywood made movies about small towns populated by lovably eccentric and kind hearted folk instead of murderous bigots? And they wonder why they've lost their grip on flyover country.

94) Tall in the Saddle. I liked it. I mean, it's got John Wayne and Gabby Hayes, what more do you need? I've seen most of the Wayne westerns, but there's still a few black and whites that I need to catch up on.

94 down, 906 to go.

You know who's awesome?

02-02-2005

I've had this crazy headache all day, it feels like someone is squeezing the sides of my head together, but they are putting the most pressure on the left side. It sucks. I didn't even bother watching the State of the Union tonight, I just took a nap and then went to the grocery store.

91) The Grudge. There were a lot of things I wanted to say about this movie, but I just don't really know where to start. Anyway, this is where you can all see how completely crazy and weird I am with my obsessions, but the whole time I was watching it and Sarah Michelle Gellar was on I kept getting the same feeling I get thinking about my ex-girlfriend. Like it made me totally sad and I would keep noticing all the stupid little things that I thought were so cute about her on Buffy and then I'd come to my senses and be all "you jackass, she's an actress, Buffy is a character, and you're a freakshow" but everytime she was onscreen I'd fall in love with her all over again. Most people know about my long and tumultous relationship with Britney and my on again off again thing with the Lohan and even my new crush on Marcia Cross, but SMG was my first true celebrity love and she'll always have a very special place in my heart, even if she is married to the Jr. Prinze. And that's another thing, I can't even hate Freddie! The times I've seen him on talk shows or whatever he's seemed like a really nice guy so there's nothing to hate him for other than being married to SMG! So yeah, if you can't tell I'm a total psycho. Anyway, I was going to try and be all funny and do an imaginary conversation with SMG, like "Hey, funny seeing you here. You look great. How's what's his name? Ha Ha, yeah, I know his name..." but I just don't really have the strength or patience with the whole headache and all, and then I was going to carry on about how SMG is the perfect example of why cute girls are way better than hot girls because hot girls are always just hot, but cute girls are always cute but can also be hot, but I just don't feel like getting into that either. This gave me the same feeling I had after watching The Ring, namely that it was a lot of build up and work for not a lot of pay off. Seeing the Japanese original of horror movies is the new film snobby thing to do, so I've kind of resisted seeing Ju-on and Ringu because I don't want to be that guy. Apparently The Grudge is almost an exact remake of Ju-on (down to the director and crew), just with American characters to appeal to an American audience, so I get the feeling I probably will feel the same about the original as well. I don't know, I guess it was good and there was some really creepy stuff in it, but I just wasn't all that...moved I guess? Academically I can say the direction and acting and storytelling were all good, but whatever.

92) Final Destination. Dear Ali, Bangs are not your friend. Love, Todd.

92 down, 908 to go.

02-01-2005

One month down, eleven to go!

89) Affair With a Stranger. I really liked the idea of telling the story of a marriage through the recollections of their friends, and Jean Simmons was the raven haired picture of feminine grace and sensual modesty, but I HATE Victor Mature so it's kind of a wash.

90) Escape From L.A. Oh John Carpenter. Why couldn't you have waited 5 or 6 years to make this? Then you could have gone on all the talk shows and spun a lot of BS about it being a terrifying vision of the American future under the tyrannical leadership of the illegitimate BushCo neocon junta and made Michael Moore kind of money off of gullible leftist conspiracy theorists who would have hailed it as a true masterpiece and enshrined it right along side Fahrenheit 9/11 as the damning evidence they need to prove that once and for all Republicans are fascists, but instead you released it during the Clinton administration when Americans were so disgusted by politics and the national leadership that they just couldn't care anymore and subsequently remained merely a legend in the world of horror and science fiction. Timing, John. Timing. But for real, watching this I was completely amazed. It's like Carpenter took a bunch of posts from Moveon.org and the Democratic Underground and turned it into a script. Except it was released ten years ago! Does he have a time machine? If so, can I use it? Cause man, that would be freaking awesome!

90 down, 910 to go.

TV Related Aside: Curse you Sophia Bush! Why did you have to be all cute and funny in your little crab costume on the commercials and suck me right back in after I swore I wouldn't watch One Tree Hill again? WHY?

01-31-2005

87) The Actress. It must be Jean Simmon's birthday or something because TCM is showing her movies all day long. Spencer Tracy is hilarious as her unbelievably grumpy father, but everything else is done at such a hysterical and frenetic pace that it just gets old after awhile.

88) Ong-Bak. After The House of Flying Daggers debacle, Sarah took it upon herself to restore my faith in Asian cinema. She and Charity saw the trailers for this while they were still in Korea, and when they got back she bought the DVD off Ebay. Apparently this guy is the Thai Jackie Chan, and this whole movie is definetely something Chan would do, but he doesn't have that same humor that Chan does and it makes it different, but not in a good way. The comic relief is still provided by a goofball sidekick, but in Chan's movies he's always the one with the good natured sense of humor while this guy is all business. I think in Chan's fight scenes it's always him fighting for his life and all the crazy high flying stunts and prop fighting is out of desperation, while in this it's done out of skill and purpose. Like when Chan does it you kind of see it as "hey, his back's to the wall and there are twenty guys coming after him, of course he's going to use a toaster for a weapon" whereas this guy is all "I'm so skilled that even a common toaster is a deadly weapon in my hands." I don't know, it was still 1000 times better than that Flying Daggers BS, but I would have rather watched Rumble in the Bronx.

88 down, 912 to go.

01-31-2005 **Mid-Morning Update Edition**

Extra thoughts for the day.

1) No new Desperate Housewives last night. Curses!

2) It's freaking cold out there.

3) I finally watched last week's OC last night, and I think the magic is beginning to wear off there too. Maybe it's just this whole Alex/Bony Girl lesbian thing that's bugging me, but I didn't really care for this weeks. And maybe it's telling that I can remember the side character's names better than the main character's.

4) So NASA is all excited about a new shuttle. What an excitable bunch. It's like they've never seen one before or something!

5) And now we can lay the charge of sexism at Big Tobacco's feet. Crikey!

01-30-2005

81) The Hidden Fortress. I've actually owned this DVD for about two years now and had only watched the first five or ten minutes before falling asleep. I bought it because it was really cheap somewhere, and I had always heard that it was a big influence on Lucas and Star Wars. I can definetely see that influence, from blueprints of characters like R2 and C3PO, and even shades of Ben Kenobi and Vader, plus locations and sequences from Tatooine and Endor. This was a lot of fun to watch. Way more comedic than the other Kurosawas I've seen that are either serious action or heavy with message.

82) American Outlaws. You know who's hot? Ali Larter.

83) Between Heaven and Hell. I think it was Abraham Lincoln that said "You can make a solid war picture, or you can make a socially conscious character piece about changing cultural norms in the mid-twentieth century south, but you can't make both." I could be wrong though.

84) Blow Up. One of those "I've always meant to see" kind of movies, more for the Yardbirds cameo than anything. The only other Antonioni movie I've seen is L'Avventura, and they both have the same "emptiness of the privileged life" theme, but I liked that this one went a step further with the whole arrogance and pretension that necessarily grows from the isolation of a frivolous existance aspect. I know I'm getting all arty here, and there were parts of this one that were just silly because of their artiness, but I liked it anyway.

85) Black Dog. Nobody puts Randy Travis in a corner! Dude, this is the best worst movie ever. It was just so awful, I loved every freaking minute of it! I'm totally going to have to buy it.

86) Flirting With Disaster. There wasn't just flirting going on here, the movie and disaster totally hooked up in the bathroom and then disaster didn't call the next day like it said it would.

86 down, 914 to go.