VIDEO: List of movies watched in 2008

TOTAL MOVIES WATCHED: 193

COMEDY: 82 (42%) (National Lampoon:7) (spoof genre:6) (Revenge Of The Nerds:4) (animated:3) (mockumentary:3)
DRAMA: 29 (15%) (animated:1)
ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLER: 28 (15%) (animated:8)
HORROR: 16 (8%)
SCIENCE-FICTION: 13 (6%) (animated:4)
FANTASY: 8 (4%) (animated:2)
MUSICALS: 1 (Sweeney Todd)
DOCUMENTARY: 1 (or 2 if you don’t consider Super High Me a comedy)

ANIMATED: 19 (10%), live: 174
HIGH DEF: 37 (19%), standard def: 156

NOTE: Some of these movies are only reviewed here, while others are reviewed via a link (click the title) to a separate blogpost of mine. Some of these links are not yet valid — they are scheduled for future reviews. Rest assured that every link will ultimately be valid by the end of 2009.

HALF-ASSED AWARDS THAT MAY NOT EVEN REFLECT OUR TRUE BELIEFS:
(I’m going to try to keep better track in 2009)
(and wordpress ate a draft, and I don’t feel like thinking these thoughts a 2nd time when it’s not my fault)

BEST AWKWARD COMEDY: Death At A Funeral
BEST COMEDY, BLACK/DARK COMEDY: Happiness
BEST COMEDY, LAUGH OUT LOUD: Borat, The Onion Movie, Walk Hard:The Dewey Cox Story, Blast From The Past, Flashback
BEST COMEDY, STONER COMEDY: Smiley Face
BEST COMEDY, SEXUAL: Sex & Death 101, A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures, Young People Fucking, Strictly Sexual. I’d put Splendor here, near the top, but it’s more of a drama.
BEST COMEDY, PARANOIA-INDUCING: The Pink Conspiracy
BEST COMEDY, ANIMATED: Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs
BEST DRUG MOVIE: Spun
BEST FANTASY: Stardust
BEST HORROR: Cloverfield, The Signal, I Am Legend
BEST MUSICAL: Sweeney Todd
BEST “SATURDAY NIGHT PARTY” MOVIE: Superbad
MOST-AWAITED SEQUEL: Clerks 2
LEAST CLICHE PORTRAYAL OF ALTERNATE RELATIONSHIPS: Splendor, Strictly Sexual
COULD-HAVE-BEEN-BETTER AWARD: Knocked Up – should have stayed a straight-comedy instead of turning into a romantic comedy
GREATLY EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS: Tideland (thanks Ian), Click

More importantly — see Sex & Death 101. That’s my #1 recommendation for non-mainstream movies. I think.

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***** HD movies watched in 1080p (6 x dvd quality): *****

• Tekkonkinkreet (anime) – better than Carolyn expected. A few very trippy parts. Interesting story about orphans, mobsters, and madness, but in the end, it’s just another anime. Only, seeing it in 1080p really let one appreciate the detail levels in a lot of the artwork.
• Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines (2003) – surprisingly good

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***** HD movies watched in 720p (2.25 x dvd quality): *****

***** ANIMATED:

• Appleseed Ex Machina – alright
• Bee Movie (2007) – kinda funny
• Beowulf – https://clintjcl.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/video-movies-review-beowulf-liked-it/
• Horton Hears A Who (2008)
• Invincible Iron Man, The (2007)
• Justice League: The New Frontier – A NEW Justice League animated interpretation, to go with the incredibly new Superman interpretation in “Superman Doomsday”. This all took place from 1953-1960, and covered the Justice League before they were fully formed. Lois Lane is a reporter — this is basically what you’d read in a comic book in the 1950s. Featuring Neil Patrick Harris (The Flash), Brooke Shields (Ms. Faris), Lucy Lawless (Wonder Woman), Kyle Maclachlan (Superman), Keith David (The Center), this covered the fight against a planetary psychic entity known as “The Center”, which had decided to eliminate all of humanity. Superman “dies” in this movie, and is gone for most of it. The Green Lantern is given his ring, and has to learn how to use his powers. Not nearly as violent as Superman Doomsday (much much lower body count), but just as entertaining. It was great to see new interpretations of old characters, including a more fleshed-out originin of the Martian Justice League member. It ended with a speech from then-president John F. Kennedy, and really kept a 1950s feel to it.
• Kung Fu Panda
• Royal Space Force – The Wings Of Honneamise aka Oritsu Uchuugun – Honneamise no Tsubasa (1987) – Got this basically because it was an HD anime. This was pretty crappy. The movie held our interest for the first half — it seemed to take place in recent-but-not-modern times (steampunk?) — Japan‘s “Space Force” was intended to be the first organization to ever launch a man into orbit. Nevermind that Russia was the actual first country to do this; this is fiction. The problem with the movie is that once the space program gets started — the plot stops. The last 3 minutes of the movie is a pretentious montage with very little redeeming value — a montage which feels like it is 15 minutes long. I was falling asleep during this part, and Carolyn was telling me she didn’t blame me for doing so! The travesty is that there was a very interesting subplot about the government deliberately choosing a flight path that intruded on enemy airspace, in order to goad a neighboring asian country into attacking them and starting a war. Of course, governments profiting by participating in unnecessary wars is something that history repeats over and over and over again — and is currently repeating today. Yet, nothing really came of this interesting subplot, other than an excuse to have the characters chased around by assassins, and to have the rocket launch in the middle of a military skirmish. There was no political moral to give any enjoyment to a subplot that was just an excuse for gratuitous action. While I was mostly entertained throughout 75% of the movie, in the end, I would go back in time and prevent myself from watching this.
• Shrek 3 – a fitting 3rd movie for the series, more of the same stuff.

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***** 720p HD MOVIES THAT ONE OF US HAD SEEN ALREADY:

• Last Starfighter, The – Carolyn hadn’t seen this before, so we watched it again. Important to see, since an entire episode of the Clerks animated series is a parody of this! But this is also a classic movie that I LOVED as a child — mixing my love of astronmy, space, my desire to be an astronaut, and my hobby of video games, as well as fantasy of meeting aliens — how could you go wrong? The funniest moment is when THE WHOLE TRAILER PARK gets excited because the main character is going to break the videogame record. I mean, this was 1984. Videogames were a niche thing. 60 year old trailer trash doesn’t care about videogames played by 8- to 18-year-old kids! But if I was going to whine about the movie not being realistic, I would have to whine about alien civilizations not being known to exist, right? This was actually a good movie, and had a good message as well: Life’s too short to not seize opportunity when it presents itself to you.

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***** LIVE MOVIES WE WATCHED IN 720P HD:

• Aliens Vs. Preadator 2: Requiem
• Cry_Wolf – good horror/thriller, reminded me of Wild Things in some ways
• Dan In Real Life
• Death At A Funeral – Had very little idea going in what this would be, and enjoyed the ride immensely. It reminded me of an extended Fawlty Towers episode. Plus, they were British.
• Eastern Promises – interesting drama. not quite our thing, but it held our interest. One thing that struck me as different was that the ending completely creeped up on me. I’m not sure what this signifies…. Perhaps I felt the story should have gone deeper before concluding. Mafia movies are sort of all the same in a way though… Watch some people fight and try to climb to the top. Throwing in a baby is not enough to make this unique. So far, this is my least favorite David Croenenburg movie, but then again I have only seen a few… Videodrome, Existenz.
• Gladiator
• Grindhouse: Planet Terror – another zombie movie! But this was with Rose McGowan, a cut off leg, and a machine gun where her cut off leg should be. And of course, this was a 2000s movie done in 1970s style — completely with fake film effects added. But we watched it in 720P high definition — so you could REALLY see the grain, haha. This sort of had some of the same spirit that some Troma movies have — a deliberately bad b-movie feel. Good times.
• Hancock (2008)
• Hannibal Rising – not quite your typical Hannibal Lecter-related movie. Don’t watch this movie expecting to see a slasher horror movie — I think that may be why some people had problems with this. This is drawn out, slower, subtler. You get to understand why Hannibal became the way he did, and it is quite disturbing. But this movie was nowhere NEAR as graphic as the other Silence Of The Lambs-related movies, and actually had deeper characters, including Hannibal himself.
• I Am Legend
• My Super Ex-Girlfriend
• No Country For Old Men
• Pan’s Labyrinth – great fantasy/tragedy/war/going-crazy movie. I don’t think Glen‘s explanation of “hours of child torture” really even makes that much sense, now that I’ve seen it. This movie managed to seemingly straddle several genres. There are also similarities between this film and Tideland.
• Run, Fatboy, Run
• Shoot ‘Em Up (2007)
• Spider-Man 3 – great action. met expectations.
• Spiderwick Chronicles, The
• Starship Troopers 3: Marauder – [summary moved to non-HD section below since we watched 1 & 2 in standard definition]
• Superbad – A great saturday night party movie. Then again, we like them all! Think:”The Trojan War“, but with alcohol instead of condoms.
• Superman Returns – Entertaining… Carolyn thinks it’s a lesser one compared to X-Men 3 and Spider-Man 3. “Deadbeat Dad”, she keeps saying. And, “Child out of wedlock!” And, “Superman had sex!” Clint thought it was more up to par with the others, or rather, they were all equally good. Which was not *super* (no pun intended), but decently entertaining.
• Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street – a Tim Burton musical that I heard of from Tabbitha, and then acquired rather rapidly after that. A musical/dry horror/revenge/tragedy movie. And interesting combination combined with the fact that it’s really hard for Tim Burton to do any wrong. Or Johnny Depp, for that matter.
• Transformers – had a movie night – lots of people, shots taken – Ian‘s review says it best: http://lonecellotheory.livejournal.com/390730.html
• Troy
• Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story – amazing comedy / biopic spoof!
• Wanted (2008)

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***** NON-HD MOVIES THAT WE WATCHED: *****

***** 3-D:

• Night Of The Living Dead 3-D (2006)

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***** ANIMATED:

• Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
• Battle Angel – Struck us as an utterly generic anime with very little plot. It was two “episodes”, clocking in at 60 minutes, so it really isn’t quite a movie, as much as an OVA. Did not really find anything redeeming to make this stand out from any of the other mulitude of anime we have watched.
• Flatland (the film, not the movie) (2007)
• Futurama – The Beast With A Billion Backs
• Parasite Dolls (fullscreen) – anime. Not good. Not memorable.
• Rene Laloux – Gandahar aka Light Years
• Rene Laloux – Time Masters (Les Maîtres du temps) (1982)
• Superman Doomsday – I thought this was going to be another dose of the 1990s Superman animated series (which made its way into the 2000s). It was always a shame that the Superman/Batman/Justice League series ultimately all came to an end. However, this turned out to be a COMPLETELY UNIQUE Superman animated movie, a true “one shot” production, with a completely different style of animation, completely different voice actors, and a completely different continuity — Lois & Superman are dating, Lois knows Superman is Clark, but Superman doesn’t know Lois knows this. We got 2 of these “new comic animated movies” this year: “Justice League:The New Frontier” re-did the Justice League with a new interpretation as well! This covers the story of the Death Of Superman, and the rise of the new Superman, with his balck suit. This happened in the comic books around 2000 or so, so these events have never been chronicled in a movie before. THIS WAS VIOLENT. There was major death. I was surprised it was PG-13 and not R, but then I realized PG-13 nowadays is probably what R would be when I was a kid. The body count was high. You don’t see ANY human death in the TV animated series of Superman, Justice League, or anything else for that matter. It just isn’t done. But in movie territory, it was quite save to kill a lot of people. This led a lot of credibility to the realism of these [obviously unreal] events. Also good voice actors: Adam Baldwin (aka Jane from Firefly) as Superman (voiced by Kyle McLaughlan in the Justice League:New Frontiers), Anne Heche as Lois Lane, Ray Wise (aka Leland Palmer from Twin Peaks) as Perry White, Swoozie Kurtz as Martha Kent, Joe DiMaggio (aka Bender from Futurama) as Toyman, Cree Summer (aka Foxy Love from Drawn Together) as Mercy Graves ([highlight for spoilers]→ can’t believe Lex fucking killed her in this!), and an animated cameo by Kevin Smith. Important to consider is that you are probably better off watching the dvd extras before the movie. We watched the movie, then the lengthy (1hr) extra about the comic book death of Superman … Which prompted us to re-watch a lot of the movie again, knowing the deeper meaning of the events in the context of the comic industry. About 1% of movies are better watched with the extras first — I think Gumbo was one of these.
• Ultimate Avengers 1 (2006)
• Wall-E (2008)

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***** NON-HD MOVIES THAT WE HAD BOTH ALREADY SEEN:

• Rules Of Attraction, The – 2nd time for both of us, but neither of us remembered the movie, despite it being just under 4 years. This is a great movie. Very unique feel and pacing. It covers college life — with a lot of parties happening during the movie. The opening scene takes place AFTER the first half of the movie, and goes backwards, then forward, then backward again several times throughout the party. There’s an almost unnoticed minor character that commits suicide in an inredibly powerful scene which has almost nothing to do with the rest of the movie! There are indeed disturbing parts, and the main character, “Sean Bateman”, a self-described emotional vampire … Seems almost sociopathic. Some of the shots of his face looked so incredibly creepy that you could just tell what kind of person this character was supposed to be. Yet, in the movie, he falls in love — or at least, the closest thing to love that someone like him can experience. Also quirky is that the movie starts AND ends in the middle of a sentence — just like the book it is based on. Lots of drug use, lots of sex, lots of parties, love, drama, manipulation … This was even more thoroughly enjoyable the 2nd time than the 1st, though I’m not sure what the final message or synopsis of this movie should be. I even watched it for the 2nd time this year (3rd time ever) with John The Canadien when Carolyn was out of town, and would watch this again.
• Scary Movie 2 – Yay, more Anna Faris! It took us both awhile to realize that we’d both seen this before; we really didn’t remember it, we could not find it in our house, and there was no record of having watched it before. This was indeed funny, but it didn’t strike me as being any more or less funny than Scary Movie 4, which I believe did not involve the Wayans brothers. Basically, I don’t think you can go wrong spoofing horror movies as a form of comedy. It’s not brilliant, and it’s not peak comedy, but spoofing other movies I’ve seen is GUARANTEED to hold my attention and keep me from falling asleep.

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***** NON-HD MOVIES THAT ONE OF US HAD ALREADY SEEN:

• Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes (1978)
• One Crazy Summer – One of 2 mainstream romantic comedies created by Savage Steve Holland (creater of Eek! The Cat, one of the funniest 1990s saturday morning cartoons), the other being How I Got Into College. Both movies are comparable, and have a cast with more fairly well-known people than your average movie. Clint had seen this before, but not Carolyn. John Cusack, Demi Moore (but Carolyn never recognized her?!?!?), Bobcat Goldthwait, douchebags, bazookas, radio contests, and boat races. An enjoyable comedy, though nothing to gush all over.
• How I Got Into College – The other mainstream romantic comedies created by Savage Steve Holland. Clint had seen this before, but not Carolyn. Some of the minor characters had nothing to do with the main characters, which was a slight annoyance. But overall, this was an enjoyable comedy. Nothing super-special, but worth watching on a low-key night.

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***** NON-HD MOVIES WATCHED ONLY BY CLINT AND NOT CAROLYN: ****

• National Lampoon’s Animal House

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***** NON-HD MOVIES WTACHED BY BOTH OF US — LIVE: ****

• A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures (2008)
• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
• Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension, The
• Adventures Of Ford Fairlane, The
• American Pie 5: The Naked Mile
• Amityville Horror, The (2005)
• Be Kind Rewind (2008)
• Beer League – avoid
• Beverly Hills Cop 1
• Beverly Hills Cop 2
• Beverly Hills Cop 3
• Black Snake Moan – You know, if this didn’t have a barely-clad Christina Ricci on screen during most of the movie, and if this didn’t have Samuel L. Jackson…. There’s just no way I’d ever watch a movie like this. We watched this for movie night, with 12-13 people, so we were all quite drunk. And talking smack a bit. (“Must go to home depot. Where do you keep your chains?”) Probably could have done without the blues parts, but totally see how they were necessary. But basically, I stopped paying attention as soon as SLJ started singing, and started paying attention when he stopped. It was a “good” movie, but not anything I’d consider watching again. Horny white trash girl gets redemption forced upon her by black man with chains. I get it.
• Blades Of Glory
• Blast From The Past – OMG! Hilarious!!!!! Christopher Walken plays a paranoid homeowner who builds a huge bomb shelter with 35 years of supplies. A nuclear scare happens, they freak out, and it turns out that, in a freak accident, a military jet crashes into their house while they are in the shelter. They believe there was a nuclear war, and don’t open the door. Decades pass, and a diner is built over them. Then it eventually becomes a biker bar. After 35 years, they send their 35-year-old son up for supplies — and to find a “non-mutant woman”. Suffice to say, when they see the surface world, they still believe a nuke went off! Transvestites? Nuclear mutation — people are both sexes now. People puking in the steet? Society has collapsed! In reality, it was just a bad part of town 35 years later. Alicia Silverstone fills the female lead. Anyway — this movie was HILARIOUS. The son who grew up in a bomb shelter reminds us a lot of French Stuart (Harry from 3rd Rock From The Son — the stupid/weird one), both in appearance, as well as his character … And his innocence regarding the never-before-seen “surface world” reminded us of some of the fun moments in the first season of 3rd Rock From The Sun. Suffice to say, Christopher Walken could have used more screen time — but it was not necessary. This was one of the funniest movies we’d seen so far this year!
• Blindness (2008)
• Bongwater
• Borat – Funny. Duh. Finally. It’s about time. I don’t really need to review this one. It met every possible expectation — and those were VERY high.
• Bridge To Terabithia
• Brothers Solomon, The
• Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007)
• Bourne Ultimatum, The
• Cheech & Chong’s Corsican Brothers
• Chemical Wedding (2008)
• Chocolat – Sitting on our shelf for 2.3yrs, we finally watch it. Not quite our typical movie to watch, but we still enjoyed it. Carolyn:IMDB 8,Netflix 4stars.
• Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)
• Clerks 2 – great to finally get a sequel after so long!! Not quite what was expected, but enjoyed nonetheless!
• Click
• Cloverfield
• Club Dread
• Comic Book: The Movie (2004)
• Coneheads, The (1993)
• Da Vinci Code, The (2006)
• Date Movie
• Dead Man
• Demolition Man
• Donnie Brasco
• Doom (2005)
• Double Jeopardy (1999)
• Dr. Jekyll And Ms. Hyde (1995)
• Epic Movie
• Flashback – Hilarious!! Keifer Sutherland plays a federal agent who has to take Dennis Hopper, an aging hippy, across the country. Hopper convinces Keifer that he has taken acid, and hilarity ensues. And by the end, a real message is sent too. A tribute to the 1960s, and a statement about 1960s culture versus 1980s culture. This was way funnier than any romantic comedy — the 3rd funniest movie out of the last 33 we watched. :)
• Friday The 13th 4: The Final Chapter (1984)
• GamerZ (2005)
• Golden Compass, The
• Grindhouse:Death Proof – Susan was right — Grindhouse:Planet Terror was a lot better than Grindhouse:Death Proof. / This film started off promisingly enough — the throwback 1970’s simulated-B-movie style of both Grindhouse movies is, in and of itself, enough to hold my attention for a bit. But then it stopped in mid-movie! They had some, er, uh, “technical difficultiles” [simulated of course], went black-and-white for awhile, and then came back in color — at which point it mostly just looked like a “normal movie” for the rest of the movie. / That couldn’t have made or broke the movie, however. A good story is a good story, regardless of presentation. But this story was actually pretty boring, and full of pointless details and characterization. I mean, the whole lapdance subplot was entertaining, but ultimately it was just random stuff that happened, and it had no bearing on the movie whatsoever except to increase Kurt Russel’s douchitude level. / When all was said and done, Carolyn called Death Proof “2 movies”. Quite ironic, then, to have a movie that is 2 movies (Death Proof) inside a movie that is already 2 movies (Grindhouse, comprised of Death Proof and Planet Terror). I’ll call it “2 parts”. The first part was the first bar, up to the first “confrontation”, and it was quite entertaining. But it turns out all the characterization was for nothing. The second part takes place 14 months later, and is BORING. The new characters hang around in a cafe talking, until I stopped paying attention, and Carolyn looked over, and said, “I’m bored!” It picked up again at the end — a lot — and then ended abruptly. / This was really a failure for Tarantino after the sheer brilliance of Kill Bill. He could have done so much more with these characters. / And who would have known that Rose McGowan looked better as a blonde?!?!?!?! / I guess there’s good reason that Grindhouse is a double feature! Death Proof without Planet Terror is quite lacking.
• Happiness – messed up black comedy. Child rape is not an easy subject to broach, either. Todd Solondz at his best? Also: Lara Flynn Boyle was really hot, as always. (“I’m so tired of being admired all the time!”) I wasn’t quite sure who the main characters were for the longest time, or why they bothered to include all the non-main-characters at all. I still never got how certain characters had anything to do with other characters. Like, for example: What does Lara Flynn Boyle’s sister have to do with the child molester dad? Nothing?? This was a great movie to watch, experience-wise, but left me wanting afterwards, like many movies do. The DVD, however, sucks, because it is a widescreen 16:9 put onto a 4:3 screen. You get boxes on all 4 sides. You can crop, but the remaining resolution is closer to VHS than DVD. It still looks DVDish, though, thanks to digital being superior to analog.
• Happy Campers
• Harold & Kumar 2: Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanimo Bay
• High Times’ Potluck (2002)
• Homegrown
• Howard The Duck
• Hostel 2 – After seeing Hostel 1, the suspense level was much higher. Everyone was suspect. The ending was anti-climatic, but it was quite a ride. It’s rare that Clint gets completely creeped out and disturbed by something. This was quite, quite disturbing. Carolyn thinks the first one was more disturbing. Clint isn’t sure, but the fact that you knew what you were up against from the very beginning (due to having watched Hostel 1) made the experience much more paranoid.
• Hot Chick, The – Of course this was pretty funny, but we wich that they had focused more on Rachel McAdam’s character being possessed by Rob Schnieder’s character, instead of only focusing on Rob Schnieder possessed by Rachel McAdam’s character. And a big bonus: Anna Faris was in this to!! After seeing her play a squinty-eyed demotivated stoner in Smiley Face, seeing her play a preppy, wide-eyed, in-love-with-a-man-with-a-woman-inside-of-him bop in ‘The Hot Chick’ presented us with the very oppositte of the spectrum. (Her Scary Movie character(s) lies somewhere in between her Hot Chick and Smiley Face characters.) Anyway, as lame as this was made to sound, it was definitely entertaining, definitely funny, and you can’t go wrong staring into Anna Faris‘s wide eyes for an hour or two.
• Hot Fuzz – Had no idea what to expect. It was entertaining, and it was funny — but a straight comedy this is not. Did not realize there would be an ACTUAL police story (and shootout!) in this movie. Did not see the shootout coming. Ironically, this movie may have temporarily given me more respect for the police.
• Hudson Hawk
• I Heart Huckabees / I Love Huckabees
• Idiocracy – Great concept! This was pretty funny. Not laugh-a-minute funny, but definitely a good movie.
• Inland Empire – A 3-hour David Lynch confuse-a-thon, about the cursed production of a movie adaptation of a Gypsy story (among other things). We went about watching this in a completely different manner from all other movies — completely reading, multiple times, the plot summary found in Wikipedia. Expeirence has taught us that we are never ever going to be able to figure out a David Lynch movie on our own, so avoiding spoilers, a normal goal of ours, does not apply here. We read about the movie, the symbolism, and attempted to learn as much as possible before watching it. I also consulted with Ian, to see if it was even worth watching. It actually made as much sense as Mulholland Drive — maybe even more. That is in no small part due to reading the Wikipedia page prior to watching it. And watching “Lost In La Mancha” afterwards made us see some similarities between “Don Quixote” and “47” — both tales are cursed, and productions are not finished.
• Iron Man – duh, obviously good, doesn’t really need to be reviewed…
• Jerky Boys, The / The Jerky Boys Movie
• Joe’s Apartment (1996) – https://clintjcl.wordpress.com/?p=2173
• Judas Kiss
• Julien Donkey-Boy – Another Harmony Korine movie, very much in the same vein as Gummo. Retards, incest, mean fathers on robotussin binges, handicapable bowlers, preaching, pregnancy, and stupid people. Very much like Gummo indeed, yet with a more coherent “plot”, if you could call it that. Carolyn enjoyed it more than Gummo. And WTF was up with the bacon scene? (Actually, the deleted scene #1 explains the bacon scene more.) This movie was done in an intentionally poor, low-resolution style, to simulate Julien’s fragmented schizophrenic mind. They tried to cast Harmony Korine’s schizophrenic uncle, who the story is actually based on, in the movie…. But the mental hospital wouldn’t let him out. The main actor did an excellent job. The movie is very much a set of impressions, without a discernable plot. Yet, a story is somehow told.
• Juno
• Just Friends
• Kids In The Hall:Brain Candy
• Killer Bud
• Knocked Up – Carolyn, me, Mark I, and John The Canadien (and Evan, for the last half) just watched it …. We really liked the first half of the movie, but as it progressed from pure comedy to “romantic comedy”, everyone became increasingly annoyed and disappointed. It was still a good movie, but it fell into the trap that most movies that try to be comedies but involve women & relationships fall into (I’m looking at you, What Women Want) — it becomes sappy during the end, and the level of enjoyment is basically a decreasing diagonal line. Still a good movie. Still some great jokes. But I liked Superbad a way lot better — and even that still had “get the chick”-type plots. But in a much more bearable, less sappy way.
• Krull (1983)
• Lady In The Water – M. Night Shayamalan has the uncanny ability to turn just about any story into a touching and emotional experience. This film almost seemed like a fantasy/mystery hybrid, which was quite unique. Bryce Dallas Howard was good as usual, and Paul Giametti finally got to play someone a very different than his usual roles. This movie definitely had its moments!
• Loaded (2008)
• Mama’s Boy (2007)
• Melvin Goes To Dinner
• Mummy 3, The – Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008)
• My Big Fat Independent Movie
• Mystery Date
• National Lampoon’s Beach Party At The Threshold Of Hell (2006)
• National Lampoon’s Electric Apricot – Quest For Festeroo (2008) (by Les Claypool of Primus)
• National Lampoon’s Favorite Deadly Sins (1995)
• National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon
• National Lampoon’s One, Two, Many
• National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (1995)
• Onion Movie, The – awesome, but mostly sketch comedy for the first half. But a plot really does emerge! Cock Puncher!
• Pink Conspiracy, The (2007)
• Pirates Of The Caribbean 1
• Pirates Of The Caribbean 2 – Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
• Pirates Of The Caribbean 3 – At World’s End (2007)
• Puff, Puff, Pass (2006)
• Rambo 4
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse
• Revenge Of The Nerds 1 (1984)
• Revenge Of The Nerds 2: Nerds In Paradise (1987)
• Revenge of the Nerds 3: The Next Generation (1992) (TV)
• Revenge Of The Nerds 4: Nerds In Love (1994) (TV)
• Right At Your Door
• Rules Of Attraction – a great frickin’ movie. Watched it twice this year! Never reviewed it because it warrants a really good review the likes of which I do not have the energy to do
• Saturday The 14th 1 – Not what I remembered. Apparently Carolyn & I both actually remembered the sequel and not the original.
• Saturday The 14th 2 – better than #1 – QUOTE: “The world is going to end…on my birthday?”
• Saw 4
• Scary Movie 4 – Wrote a blurb about this, and lost it. This spoofed many horror movies that we’d recently seen, such as Saw 2, and The Grudge. It’s always a good time, spoofing movies! Yay Anna Faris! Some people complain that The Wayan Brothers were not involved with this movie, even though they were the driving force behind Scary Movie 1-3. Let me point out that spoofing movies is not rocket science, and we still had Zucker — who has probably been spoofing movies since the Wayans Brothers were born!
• Senior Skip Day
• Senseless
• Sex & Death 101 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Shoot Or Be Shot – with William Shatner, fullscreen, with the boom mic shown at least 13 times .. generic pass, but great to see Shatner as a crazy man holding people at gunpoint
• Shrooms
• Silent Hill – don’t really remember it, but don’t remember it being bad either?
• Signal, The
• Smiley Face – really good! Gregg Araki‘s directing is definitely noticeable, but he seems to have taken a turn for the more positive/hilarious. This is nothing at all like the emotions one feels while watching “The Doom Generation” or “Nowhere”. This movie, at least for me, left me very happy to have seen it. The Doom Generation left me slightly happy and mostly traumatized. I don’t even remember Nowhere. This movie, I will remember for some time. As a stoner movie, I think it’s up there with Dazed & Confused and Half-Baked. Actually I think it’s definitely better than Half-Baked, and possibly better than Dazed & Confused. I’m sure most sensible people would agree. The IMDB rating was a mere 5.7… WTF?!?!?!?!?!?!?! This furthers my lack of faith in humanity.
• Soapdish
• Splendor (1999)
• Spun – good! good drug movie! good speed movie! too bad our copy was bad! it’s about meth so I have to use only exclamation marks!!!!
• Spy Hard – This is what would be expected from a Leslie Neilson James Bond parody movie, and was done decently. This was no Naked Gun, but this was no Robin Hood:Men In Tights either. And it’s only 1h20m, so it’s good for when you get a late start and don’t want to go past your bedtime :). The Weird Al theme was a nice bonus. They spoofed Home Alone, Jurassic Park, Sister Act (thankfully briefly), Pulp Fiction, Speed, etc. As for the format: yet another crappy window-boxed 16:9-on-4:3 “half-res” dvd. That’s 2 two many.
• Stardust – really good! This truly is another movie in the same vein as The Princess Bride, with good visuals to boot. I’d recommend this for ANYBODY who likes fantasy movies. And for the namedroppers: Neil Gaiman, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfieffer, Robert DeNiro.
• Starship Troopers 1 (1997)
• Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004)
• Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008)
• Strictly Sexual (2008)
• SubUrbia
• Sunshine – Thanks for the reccomendation, Ryan. A decent sci-fi movie, but of course it falls into the same fatalistic scenario all space (and horror) movies fall into — people dying, one by one, until you end up with one person. However, the ending was kind of neat, wondering what that guy was experiencing during the climax. (Space and time being blurred?) I think they should have kept in the deleted scene that explains how the payload has the mass of the moon, and it’s own gravity. It explains the gravity, as well as the sheild. We did not realize the shield WAS the payload AND the source of gravity. We were not even sure what the shields were. We could not even tell what shape the spaceship was for half the movie. They should have left these scenes in to clarify things a bit. Also, the alternate ending was strange. Why shoot two endings? Did they not know where they were going? I mean it was a MAJOR plot difference between the two endings. This reminded me a lot of Event Horizon.
• Super High Me
• Superhero Movie (2008)
• Sure Thing, The
• Tapeheads
• Teeth
• Testosteron
• Tideland – Can’t say we agree with the negative reviews. All these people are like “Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and Time Bandits are my favorite movies ever…but I hated this!” There were like 100 netflix reviews, which had like maybe TWO positive ones. I wasn’t going to watch it, until Ian convinced me otherwise — with a link to his DCist review of it. We had just watched Julien Donkey-Boy the night before, and the lobotomized kid in this movie reminded us of Julien. And the night before, we had just watched Pan’s Labyrinth, and the girl’s experiences reminded us a lot of that as well. Bad stuff happening, escape to fantasy, child having innocent fun in the middle of darkness. There’s several similarities. This was actually entertaining, and quite dark indeed. What with the taxidermy and all. I’m going to assume Dickens used his dynamite there. This movie was quite disturbing, yet sweet and innocent at the same time. Also: The crazy one-good-eye bee lady at first reminded us a lot of Hunter S. Thompson as played by Johnny Depp.
• Tomorrow Man, The – 4.7 on IMDB, yet we both liked it. It was definitely a B-movie — the dvd was fullscreen and suffered from interlacing artifacts. Fortunately VLC‘s built-in de-interlacer smoothed those out to be 80% less annoying. Anyway, we love pretty much anything involving time travel, so this was a must see. The main dad, a good guy who was kind of a bad guy at the same time, wore horn-rimmed glasses, so they really minded us of HRG (Horn-Rimmed-Glasses Guy) from “Heroes“. This was a decent father/son reconciliation time travel sci-fi action gunfighting movie. Don’t expect anything profound — if *I* notice bad acting, then it must be really bad, because I usually consider myself immune to noticing bad acting — I am very engrossed when watching movies. But I noticed it a bit here. This movie COULD have been much more than it was. It was a 6 or so, but an enjoyable one.
• Tropic Thunder
• UHF – I can’t believe we never watched this when it came out! Parts of it spoof movies, giving it a “Scary Movie” kind of feel, but for the most part — It’s the story of Weird Al being given a TV station, and triumphing over the big guy. Sadly, a story like this is completely unrealistic in the post-cable 2000s. But in the 1990s, the story is still ever-so-slightly-plausible. It’s sad that nobody could ever pull anything off like this in the present day, due to media conglomeration, and the fact that nobody uses airwaves anymore. As far as comedic value goes, it’s no Borat, but it is WELL worth a night’s entertainment.
• Ultraviolet (2005) – only 4.5 character.. milla, boy, badguy, good vamp scientist, bad vamp scientist(.5)……and then like 500 dead bodies..futuristic
• Universal Remote – sketch comedy, basically – often dull, but some moments of brilliance – the cartoon about jesus and his brother,the most offensive song ever,dvd is obsolete trial
• Wackness, The
• Wasted (2006)
• Weirdsville – I did not realize this was from the director of the excellent movie Empire Records!! Carolyn liked this better than Clint, though we both liked it. Stoners, junkies, prostitutes, overdoses, Satanists, and midgets. A one-night adventure, almost with the feel of a “Saturday night adventure”-type movie, but with dark/black comedy. We had just watched Spun recently, and this struck is as a less intense, less serious version of Spun, more about pot than heroin, though both movies have both. I think the equation is: Spun + more fun – some cinematic goodness + midgets = Weirdsville. One of the extras is a pretty funny short film tangentially relating to the movie (and the midgets) as well. Plus, one of the characters wears a Goatse shirt! Clint had to skim-rewatch the movie to fully appreciate it, because he was a bit tired the first time. It was better than thought.
• Without A Paddle – Thought this was going to be more of a straight comedy, but it turns out this could be described as “Wrong Turn (lite edition with message)”. Which meant it was still fun to watch; an adventure that held interest and had plenty of funny moments. Seth Green centered around many of them. CAST: Abraham Benrubi, the “big guy” (Larry Kubiac) from Parker Lewis Can’t Lose
• You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (2008)
• Y.P.F. aka Young People Fucking (2007)
• Zack & Miri Make A Porno

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Phew. That is WAYYY too long for a bulleted list. This year, we’ve been separating movies by genre, so that there aren’t such huge lists involved!

Anyway, in case you missed it — clicking on any of the titles brings you to MY review of the movie. Enjoy… And I encourage everyone else to maintain similar lists. Screw reading trash mags and watching TV to tell you what movies to watch. Rate movies on Netflix, IMDB, and blog reviews of them!

Mood: full of cereal
Music: Tiamat – The Desolate One