Top 10 Movies Ever... Except Not Really

Alex J Cavanaugh hosted this amazing top 10 movie countdown today. I'm a bit late to the party. Some unexpected things happened late last week that prevented me from even doing an almost awesome version of this. I had intended on doing this as the Top 10 moments from crappy movies (Because I accidentally gave a real top 10 countdown a few weeks ago. Don't know why), with clips of scenes and all that sort of stuff. But after spending the last several days knee deep in emergency home improvements I’m going to have to give you plan ‘B’, The top 10 movies I like that most people seem to hate.

10: Waterworld – Look, I didn’t love this movie, but I did kinda like it. The jet-ski baddies led by Dennis Hopper were a bit cheesy, but I think this movie was more the victim of its budget than what appeared on screen.

9: Green Lantern – Yes, it sucked. But it sucked awesomely. I was pulling my hair out watching this, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy it anyway. I loved that the Lantern Corp begged Hal to take up the ring and use it and he refused. Then he traveled x number of lightyears later to ask their permission to use the ring… which they had been begging him to use. Not much of this movie made sense. But Awesome!

8: Transformers – Anyone besides me remember when people spoke fondly of this movie? It seems like people have turned on this franchise in a major way. I don’t know what folks expect, it’s about robots that turn into cars and planes and cassette players, then fight robot wars here on earth… they aren’t remaking Casablanca with each installment. So, there is a lot of hate for people over the age of 8 for these movies, but again… fun – even if they tend to be 45 minutes too long.

7: Matrix 2 and 3 – I know, I’m cheating. Look, the first movie was pretty great. It was an original film – they pioneered that bullet time thing, they took a pretty sci-fi concept and didn’t dumb it down (much). The humans are Duracell batteries rationale seemed very stupid to me, but with that aside, great movie…. Everyone agreed (weird that it came out around the same time as Existenz and The Thirteenth Floor, movies that had a similar concept), so the sequels came out and the Wachowski’s were given blank checks to go and create whatever their 'vision' dictated. The movies suffered for it. They were under no pressure to please anyone and I think it showed. Really long spells of exposition punctuated by really long action sequences… both of which were convoluted and unnecessarily… well, long . But despite that, I enjoyed the movies. Again, they did try to give a truly science fictional story its due. These movies were ambitious, and they barely failed in my opinion. I’d like to reward that type of risk-taking when I can. So they make my list.

6: Constantine – Actually, do people like hate this? It’s more like a movie that disappeared than people actually hated. I really like it, and it might be one of my favorites on this list. I’m a bit of a sucker for any heaven vs hell flick, rogue angels and all that sort of stuff – I liked the Prophecy movies with Christopher Walken. I even liked that one that came out a couple of years ago about the biblical apocalypse happening at that diner in the southwest.  I think this is the best of the bunch when it comes to this sort of thing though. It made me want to read the comic.

5: Electra – They took a movie that very few people liked, Daredevil, and spun off a movie from that. Wow. The hate for Electra is pretty thick. Me, I liked it. It was like an episode of a television show that I love. It was familiar, not too ambitious, and felt very episodic. I think it worked. I personally feel like so much of the hate comes from people who enjoy the source material, I’ve gotten pretty zen about that sort of thing over the years and try not to hold it against a movie that goes off course in that area – as long as it seems to work.

4: The Last Action Hero – this Auh-nuld flick followed up T2 and had some high expectations. It was about an action movie icon that got pulled straight from the movie screen into real life. I thought it was awesome. I think the gritty, ‘real’ world contrasted too much with the quippy, ‘movie’ world for most… it was a jarring change. But it was unique. Worth watching.

3: Dylan Dog – I saw this in the theater when it came out and hated it. But I kept kicking it around in my head afterwards, I think the premise got me excited enough that I eventually forgave it’s multitude of sins and started to enjoy it for what it is: a cheaply made crapfest of awesome. It’s on Netflix now, so have a few drinks to lower your critical thinking skills, lower your expectations… a lot… then enjoy.

2: Mortal Combat – I don’t know if this is hated as much as forgotten, or never noticed. But this video game movie from the 90’s was the best American made kung fu movie of its time (pre-matrix). Like a few others on this list, technically, it’s stupid. Stupid characters do stupid things for stupid reasons. But, also like other movies on this list, it was awesome. It was also notable that, in an ensemble film, the clear leading man was Asian…. I can’t recall seeing that in many American movies before then (I’m being kind, I couldn’t think of any since Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon). It’s something I didn’t notice at the time, but have realized upon reflection. I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, so I’m sure my memories are fuzzy, but I can’t recall if he had a love interest, I think that there was one given to Johnny Cage, which was bad, because that character had no charisma at all… I can’t actually remember though, so I should probably just stop typing about that. Also, there has been a youtube series that has revived the Mortal Combat franchise in live action. It’s truly epic.*

1: John Carter – I’m actually not sure what public opinion on this movie is, really, but I think this is the best film of the bunch. It works in all the ways an action movie should. It’s great fun, and it’s another one that’s a beauty to look at. Like Waterworld, its budget was a bigger story than the movie itself, and a series of marketing missteps that are almost worthy if their own movie, doomed this thing from right after production began. The studio did nothing to quash rumors that this had a ballooning budget and were knee deep in desperate reshoots to try to fix the story – despite the fact that the production kept to its budget (granted, it was $250 mil) and all those reshoots were planned (because Stanton, the number 2 guy at Pixar, who directed this, believed the first round of shoots were a rough draft, and reshoots were where you really get to see the movie become great – the Pixar way!) – and so it was labeled a disaster long before anyone had a chance to see it.

How badly did Disney screw John Carter? So much that a whole book was written about it. It will leave you befuddled at the perfect storm of events that conspired to make this a flop.

And there you have it…

*The recent Mortal Combat series stars Michael Jai White, who is responsible for the greatest single kung fu kick I think I’ve ever seen on film, granted, I may have been drinking heavily when I saw it, but it appeared in one of those Universal Soldier movies… it was the one that starred him.

Prometheus!

I generally don't review movies here. Mostly because I generally have no real opinions about movies other than either liking them or not. I also realize that I'm a bit late to the game on this one, but I didn't get to see this the weekend it came out because I was in this little town in Texas that, while awesome, wasn't exactly brimming with movie theaters.

Regardless of when I saw the movie, in this case, well, I actually have thoughts about it, real thoughts.

Pretty

1) This movie was awesome.

2) This movie makes no sense.

Well, that's about it. Thanks for reading. Actually, I do think it makes some sense, but not enough of it. I did read this article/blog post the other day about how at one point in an earlier draft of the script, Jesus was an emissary from the aliens and his crucifixion somehow psychically made the alien monsters from the Alien movies... or something. It's fair to say that there was some really weird religious motifs throughout the movie as it was presented. I recommend everyone that's seen the movie and has thought about its bizarreness read it.

Click...HERE ... to read the article.

Chronicle

I'm not around today... weird, I know. But I'm out of town and my internet access is not entirely reliable. Well, that and the last time I went out of town for work I ended up consuming way too much alcohol to try to write. So, I'm just tossing this out here.

I saw Chronicle last weekend, and I must say, I was stunned by how much I enjoyed the movie. Stunned. I went home after and checked it out on Boxofficemojo and saw that it's production budget was... are you ready for this?

$12 million.

Huh? That should have gone on Steven Tremp's list of low budget movies he did for Alex J Cavanaugh's blog on Monday. Because that was money very well spent. 

That's a lot of money, but when $200 million is more or less the new standard for a blockbuster, and some films getting way higher then I'm doubly impressed. Hell, I watched some movie a year or so ago and was wowed by it's use of fx for cheap and I found out later it was something like $40 million. That surprised me. 

So, making a movie like this on that kind of budget was incredibly impressive to me. However, passable fx isn't what made me enjoy the movie. I liked it because it was well done all round. I loved the found footage concept. I'm not a horror fan, so I've missed out on that huge slate of that type movie, Cloverfield was my only real frame of reference, and that flick made me feel like I'd just spent the day on a roller coaster. 

This one kept the shaky cam to a minimum and instead made the brilliant decision to have the story's main character more or less be a videographer. Carefully documenting his life as things go crazy. Later, when things get real crazy, we see lots of security cam footage and bystanders phone vids. Again loved how it was all put together. 

And the story was a pretty good one. It's not really a superhero movie, it's just people who can do crazy things.  Giving folks, especially troubled folks, godlike powers is probably not a good idea. This movie shows how a good kid can snap. I kept thinking how awesome it would have been if Anakin Skywalker's fall from grace had been son wonderfully done in the Star Wars prequels.

I'm impressed. I generally don't do movie reviews, but I liked this one a lot. Good, fun, and felt much more real that the subject matter would have suggested. 

Summer Movies: Part Deux!

Previously, I mentioned some of my Netflix movies I'd seen recently that were either flat out bizarre, or just so awful I feel like I could have hastened the Apocalypse just by watching them. But now I wanted to share a few gems I found hidden deep within the bowels of the Netflix colon.

And they're all Kung Fu movies. Awesome.

First, I know what you're thinking, of course they were awesome, they're Kung Fu. But I have to tell you that they're not all created equal. Some aren't so good.

Ip Man & Ip Man 2 stunned me with... well, they are kung fu movies, you do know what you're getting into with that, right?

These are based on the real life master of kung fu... Ip, I guess, I didn't bother to look anything up about him on the internet, as I learned all that was necessary by watching the movies. Essentially, he defeated the Japanese occupying forces in WWII and then moved to Hong Kong, where he then defeated all the Kung Fu masters there, and then the toughest British boxing champion in the world... and just to make it fair, he agreed to... well, I won't give it away.

Oh, then he decided to train Bruce Lee.

Okay, if you haven't seen a kung fu movie before you may not realize this, but typically, the heroes tend to be larger than life, so some of the exploits may get slightly exaggerated. Still, these movies do have heart. My wife watched them and really liked them.

The filmmakers do a good job of making an invincible hero vulnerable. He's too proud to beg, but hasn't the money to survive. He takes menial jobs and refuses help from those who could provide. He tolerates his wife bickering about how much time he spends kung fuing. These are very enjoyable movies. Please watch.

Moving on.

Next up is Chocolate, look, this movie isn't great, it isn't awful mind you, but it wasn't one of my favorites. What it did have though, is the best stunt choreography I've ever seen. I still don't know how they did some of the things they did in that movie.

Anyway, it's about an autistic girl who has a real gift for kung fu. Watch the clip and see some of the greatness for yourself.

Finally, I watched The Man from Nowhere. Holy cow. This isn't a kung fu movie per se, it's more of a revenge tale. But I really enjoyed it. The plot made sense, not perfect sense, but nothing that was so distracting that I was rolling my eyes. It's a story about a guy with a mysterious and troubled past that is doing his best avoid the world. But a little girl forces him to step up and be a hero. Damn good movie.

So, when you're tinkering around and looking for something actiony - you could do worse than some of these flicks.

Okay, I'll try to not talk about movies for a while.

Toodles

Summer Movies!

Transformers comes out today, and I thought I would celebrate by looking over my Netflix queue and impart some hard earned wisdom. So, here is a quick look at what I've seen recently and how I feel about it.

When I was a kid my favorite show was The Incredible Hulk, at least it was during it's run on TV. As a side note, I thought Lou Ferrigno was the greatest actor of the 20th century. So, when he graced the silver screen as Hercules in the early 80's I was pretty much the first, and only kid, lined up to go see it.

What could make this better? I know, lasers!

Ah, memories. Anyway, when I found it on Netflix I sat my poor wife down and told her to prepare for an afternoon of awesome.

Wow. I can't begin to describe this movie. You have to watch it to understand. But I'm pretty sure there were lots of drugs involved in the making of this film. There had to be. At one point when some king wanted Hercules slain, he called some goddess (I should know who it was, I just forgot), and she showed her machines of death - which were all about 6 inches tall.The wicked king says, "These will obviously grow to enormous size upon entering earth's atmosphere."

Obviously.

That pretty much is as about as dramatic as it gets, but man, what a trip. When we were done I turned to my wife and said, "Did that just happen?"

She shrugged and said we can never discuss what we just saw again. Do yourself a favor and see it for yourself. I feel stoned just thinking about it.

Next, I turned my attention to another of the gods, this one from my Norse brothers, The Mighty Thor. I can't say too much about this except that it might be the worst thing possible if it weren't for Richard Grieco rocking the screen as Loki.

Honestly, there may have been a plot, maybe, but  I don't know what it may have been. Thor is a big sissy, he has an older brother that's cool and tough, and when Odin and Thor's unnamed older bro get murdered by Loki, sissy Thor has to run around and... um... well, I'm not sure what he does, I think I fell asleep. 

I watched the second half a few weeks later, still unsure of the plot, Loki wants the hammer of invincibility, which he has no problem taking from Thor, Thor can't get it back so he makes his own hammer, um, with his bare hands... out of Lava... while in Hell!

Geez, this one has it all, bad acting, bad directing, crappy fx, but if just doesn't feel as drug influenced as Hercules did, it's more like the director wanted you to think he was high the whole time, but he really wasn't. It's fun enough I suppose, but not a must see. I'd skip it.

However, for the love of all that is good and beautiful in this world, never, ever, no matter how much you might want to, no matter how much your friend swears it can't be that bad, should you ever watch Valhalla Rising.

I've seen bad movies, sometimes they're charming and fun in their awfulness. This mess is the most god awful dreck I've ever seen. It's about a guy that... wait. It's about a kid that hangs out with a guy... hold on, that isn't it either. 

Okay, these guys are going to fight in the crusades, they pick up a one eyed pit fighter and then get lost, they run around all these beautiful landscapes and moan about how scary it is, then they die. There probably is about 5 minutes of dialog in the whole movie. The rest is slow mo shots of people staring. Seriously, just staring. I can't believe I considered stopping that crappy Thor movie but still managed to sit through this.

Yes, I just gave a spoiler, trust me, if you're pissed about that then I don't like you. I'm doing you all a favor by telling you about it all now. If you ever see this you'll be like, "Damn, nothing I've ever seen before could prepare for how awful this is. I'm going to make a bunch of tracts to hand out to people warning them of the dangers of this movie."

Never. Ever. See. This. Movie.

Whew. I feel awful just thinking about those last couple. Ugh. I'll stop here, let you percolate on it for a bit and get back to you for part 2 in a couple of days. A few I actually like are in there.

Cheerio

I couldn't find an embeddable YouTube trailer for Hercules - but here's one for Hercules II

Better Than the Comics!

I divide my childhood into blocs of time based on what superhero I was most enamored with at the time. For example, my earliest memories of even being aware of superheroes was the old black and white George Reeves Superman shows I would watch every afternoon after school - Kindergarten I suppose - most likely around '76 or so.

I would try to tuck towels inside my t-shirts and jump around the furniture pretending I could fly. He could bend steel bars, see through walls. He did it all. My mom or dad would come home with the occasional Superman comic and I would read them over and over. Reliving each panel, trying to draw him in various poses and otherwise try to be him - I probably got more of a sense of my adult values from him than real person I ever knew.

Of course the movie came out around that time, after I was exposed to him for sure, but not too much longer. I'd suspect that the TV show was airing at that time in a mischievous plot by studio execs to get me excited about the movie before I knew it was coming out.

Not so long afterwards though I moved on to bigger and better things. I don't know when the Incredible Hulk television show hit the airwaves. But that was all it took for me to have a new favorite hero. I must have been six or seven and found that when my parents would bring home a comic book version of the show that I loved that the comics were even more awesome. From that point on I think I actually preferred the comic book version of all my heroes.

So went the second era of my life, reading the Hulk led me to other marvel characters, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and eventually... Thor!

Thor was my favorite comic book character for years, I felt so anti-establishment. I mean, he had long hair, had a big hammer that he beat people with. He spoke in Jacobian english and he drank alcohol. He was a bad man. I suppose he was Superman with an attitude.

One could probably learn a lot about my personal issues considering I chose the most powerful heroes ever imagined to idolize growing up. But still, Thor was my third era of childhood, and lasted probably from the age of 10 or 11 up until I quit comics all together when I was around 15.

So now that I'm an adult and special effects in movies have gotten several orders of magnitude better superheroes have really gotten their due in the past decade. The child in me rejoices. Imagine my unmitigated joy upon seeing the trailer of the upcoming epic based on Marvel's Thor.