I love bad movies, but even I have my limits.
22. The Antichrist rises to power in this truly awful Christsploitation flick starring Michael York. Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (2001) takes classic American Evangelical fixations and fears surrounding their beliefs about the End Times and makes it inconceivably boring. There are a few things so poorly executed that they elicit laughter, but the acting isn’t that bad and the filming itself (directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith) is competent enough, so what we’re left with is just a very bad script that doesn’t know who the main the characters are or what the actual themes are – there aren’t any themes; it’s literally just supposed to be Evangelical paranoid eschatology committed to film. One thing’s for sure: they have a hard on for America and some vague notion of freedom. Somehow they also managed to rope in Franco Nero, R. Lee Ermey, and Udo Kier.
21. I think director John Frankenheimer got the script and saw it was a cheesy eco-horror about an evil lumber mill inadvertently creating a giant mutant bear and just gave up before he started. Most of the choices in Prophecy (1979) are lazy and tedious, and that’s sad because I really think, had this been filmed with some love and care, it could have been a fun mutant bear movie. Not much is set up and even less is paid off. It’s a meandering bramble through the woods of Maine with Talia Shire, Richard Dysart, and Armand Assante… and then a mutant bear. The bear is fun and cheesy, but he’s not in it much. (We expected that going in.) The highlight was when the bear attacks a family of campers and launches a boy in a down sleeping bag into a boulder where he explodes into a plume of goose feathers. See? *chef’s kiss* More of that and less of everything else this was doing.
20. I am such a hopeless fan of Richard Lester’s Three Musketeers (1973) and Four Musketeers (1974). They are a funny, star-studded, irreverent, swashbuckling extravaganzas that stay extremely close to the source material. The third entry in Lester’s adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’ work is decidedly… less good. The Return of the Musketeers (1989) reunites all of the original cast (even bringing Christopher Lee’s Rochefort back from the dead and giving him a revenge-obsessed daughter played by Kim Cattrall). However, whatever wisps of steam this period saga had left quickly evaporated with the tragic on-set death of Roy Kinnear (who wonderfully played D’Artagnon’s comic valet, Planchet). Sadly, not much magic or fun to be salvaged here.
19. The Trollenberg Terror (aka The Crawling Eye) (1958) is a classic British sci-fi flick featuring a psychic girl, Forrest Tucker, and a popular Swiss mountain shrouded in a mysterious cloud. Just what could this cloud be hiding? Well, if you didn’t guess murder and aliens then you need to brush up on this genre. I had seen this as a really little kid on TV and remembered it being mostly slow and very boring, but with kind of a creepy hook, decent ending, and an interesting monster design. Not great, but not the worst. Even the movie has a character mutter the phrase, “cute little things”, at the sight of the adorably cheesy aliens. The animated 90s show Freakazoid! even parodied this movie. Any movie that makes me remember Freakazoid! can’t be all bad.
18. Apparently Cabin Boy (1994) sunk Chris Elliott’s film career. Here he plays an obnoxious fop who winds up on a salty fishermen’s boat. This movie is pretty bad from the start. The jokes are so broad and cartoony and it just doesn’t work. But then it did something I’ve never seen before. It kept getting weirder and weirder until it goes full Spongebob and actually won me over in the end. Will I watch Cabin Boy again or recommend it? Probably not, but I gotta say, if you can stick it out until the last act, you may find yourself actually having some fun. Wish it had worked all the way through. When it tries to be funny, it usually falls flat. But when it goes for weird fantasy/fever dream, it actually works.
17. On paper, David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees (2004) should be something I absolutely love. I love the all-star cast and making a screwball comedy about existentialism sounds utterly tantalizing to me. Maybe I’ve just been in the wrong headspace every time I’ve seen it, but I find the proceedings rather tedious. Anyways, an idealistic conservationist and activist (played by Jason Schwartzman) hires existential detectives and lovers, Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman, to solve a coincidence for him, but gets sucked into a deeper exploration into the meaning of existence. I love the idea. I just don’t think I love what they did with existentialism. It’s all just so blunt and literal. And everything is just so brightly lit. For whatever reason, I cannot get on this film’s wavelength. Which is not to say that people like Isabelle Huppert, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, and Jude Law aren’t doing great work here. It’s one of those movies where I’m convinced it’s better than my experiences of it.
16. Schlockmeister, Stuart Gordon, delivers a rare straight-up sci-fi action flick without any horror, sexual assault, or gore. Robot Jox (1989) is a low-budget mech-suit flick where war is fought in the fighting arena. Athletes representing their countries battle in giant robot suits for control of key territories. Even the movie knows how low stakes Alaska is and kind of drops that by the end. Because this match is personal! Look, it’s dumb. It’s cheap looking. It’s a shoestring Pacific Rim without the monsters. But for what it is, Robot Jox delivers everything it sets out to do.
15. Look, this movie was big and dumb and overstuffed and ridiculous, but somewhere inside me is a little British girl who loves steampunk YA novels, and Mortal Engines (2018), for all its nonsense, weirdly scratched an itch I didn’t know I had. I cannot defend enjoying this. I didn’t even like it most of the time. But something about marrying Howl’s Moving Castle with Mad Max: Fury Road and giving it some inelegantly blunt political commentary about imperialism simplified for an audience too young for Snowpiercer, somehow helped me overcome most of its shortcomings. It feels like pulpy fan-fiction that just gets a little too boring and schmaltzy (but again, this was made for an 11 year old nerdy white preteen and not exactly me). At the end of the day, I admired the special effects and craft that went into building this obnoxious world. And I liked the zombie guy. It’s only been a day and I’ve already forgotten most of the characters and plot, but I could say the same for Robot Jox.
14. Quirk marches on. Jared Hess made a cult classic with Napoleon Dynamite and nobody would let him succeed ever again. Gentlemen Broncos (2009) was universally panned, and, while not perfect and perhaps a bit too reliant on barf, balls, and characters just looking weird or ugly for most of its comedy, the story of a boy who wants to write science-fiction novels and gets plagiarized by his idol is itself clever and sweet (in that awkward Mormon/Christian/Midwestern sort of way), and the sci-fi/fantasy segments have such a powerful, assured kitsch style that I did find myself smiling and laughing more than I expected to. Germaine Clement and Sam Rockwell absolutely steal the show in spectacularly absurd fashion. Like Cabin Boy, Gentlemen Broncos is best when it’s just being weird.
13. This next one is hacked for me. I’m a sucker for creative monsters and goopy makeup. Steven Kostanski’s Pyscho Goreman (2020) is a comedy that uses the tropes of sci-fi horror to skewer Power Rangers, E.T., and half a dozen other nostalgia properties and gimmicks. Two kids find a glowing space thingy that allows them to control the most evil space lord in the universe. They name him Psycho Goreman, or PG for short. Everything is a joke in this bad boy. And most of those jokes work.
12. I re-watched Gangs of New York (2002) and I feel just about the same about it as when I first saw it. Amazing bits of NYC history, beautifully realized sets and historical detail that simply transports you to the past, and Daniel Day Lewis is smashing it up as top hatted villain, Bill the Butcher. But, like a lot of later Scorsese films, something feels off. I think most of it can be attributed to me and my inability to give a shit about Leonardo DiCaprio. People keep telling me he’s great. And maybe he is. But his presence, for whatever reason, hurts my movie experience. I’m sorry, Leo. I know you work hard. Anyway, when the movie’s about New York, it’s awesome. When it’s about Amsterdam Vallon, it’s pretty meh.
11. The 80s seemed to perfect the remake. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (technically 1978), The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), and The Blob (1988) are all remakes that arguably surpass their source material. Admittedly, I haven’t seen the 1953 original, but Cannon’s Invaders from Mars (1986) is like the perfect scary alien movie for kids (not exactly in the same class as the other remakes listed, but solid nonetheless). Little David Garner sees a UFO land in his backyard, but when his dad goes over the hill to investigate he returns…changed. Fun, slimy creatures and classic extraterrestrial assimilation paranoia. It gets a little sloppy towards the end, but really likable overall. With Tobe Hooper, Dan O’Bannon, Stan Winston, and John Dykstra behind the scenes, you’re gonna get something fun.
10. Nostalgia watch. I remember seeing Muppet Treasure Island (1996) in the theaters. After Jim Henson’s death in 1990, Henson Studios headed in a different stylistic direction and began adapting classic novels. While not nearly as strong as Muppet Christmas Carol, this Brian Henson film gets a lot of comic mileage just out of casting Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate yarn with frogs and pigs and bears and monsters. The songs are good and Tim Curry chews the scenery deliciously as Long John Silver. The tone does shift a little awkwardly between wacky Muppet shenanigans and the more serious story of cabin boy Jim Hawkins (Kevin Bishop), but it maintains its own breezy air of whimsical adventure on the high seas.
9. Colin Firth has to defend a literal swine accused of murder in a podunk 15th century French town in The Hour of the Pig (1993). It’s not a dour period drama. It’s actually pretty funny, and sexy too. And it grapples with the ludicrousness of clerical law, hypocrisy, power, and Dark Age belief in a refreshingly sober – if a bit cheeky – way. It’s no The Devils (but perhaps far more nuanced than The Name of the Rose), but it’s doing its thing. Ian Holm, Nicol Williamson (that voice!), and Michael Gough stand out as memorable characters, and Donald Pleasence, in one of his last roles, shines as a lead prosecutor. Lysette Anthony and Sophie Dix take their thankless roles as sex objects and add some welcome comedy to the parts. And Amina Annabi makes one hot gypsy.
8. I also re-watched Christopher Guest’s classic Best in Show (2000) and it holds up. This might the first one I saw of his. I definitely saw it before I ever saw This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting for Guffman. This mockumentary tussles the hair of self-important show dog owners and is so funny because you believe all of these characters. The cast (comprised of Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Parker Posey, Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock, and so many more) is pitch perfect. They deftly straddle that line between grating and endearing.
7. Finally. A weird horror take on the classic fairytale. This Czech adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (1978), directed by Juraj Herz, is a bit more like a cold, European nightmare than a nice, cute Disney cartoon. This time, Beast is a bird man (this cannot be stressed enough: he is a bird) who lives with a demon who tells him to embrace his animal side and just kill people already. The familiar story beats are there, but what I really like here is that the beast’s castle is decrepit and gross and that the Beast’s self-loathing and struggle with literally being overcome with animal instincts is at the forefront. Most versions focus on Beauty’s story and her Stockholm Syndrome and kind of forget that the Beast is literally losing his humanity to some kind of Cronenbergian body horror witch magic. While it lacks the charm and whimsy of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 French version, this movie looks great, and, by underscoring the horrific elements, it really makes it its own thing.
6. Some Kind of Heaven (2020) is a documentary that takes a peek behind the gates of a Floridian retirement community. It shows us a bizarro elderly utopia we all sort of suspected always was going on, and it takes us into the lives of some of its less-than-enthused denizens. Beautifully shot, funny, and human. Highly recommended.
5. It’s honestly probably best if you don’t know too much about Tyler Cornack’s Butt Boy (2019) going in. It’s a police procedural. It’s about addiction. It’s a movie that plays its absolutely wackadoo premise so stone-cold straight-faced that it actually becomes one of the more brilliant comedies of the absurd. It creeps up on you and, if you let it, will take you to where you’ve never gone before.
4. Agnès Varda is one of those filmmakers whose work I need to experience more. Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) is the story of a French popstar (Corinne Marchand) who is waiting for the results of a biopsy. The film starts with her at a psychic showing her some bad cards about her future and follows her as she kills two hours until her doctor can tell her what’s what. What makes this nontraditional narrative so captivating is the freestyle direction from Varda and how she uses any excuse possible to showcase the beauty, whimsy, and daily life of Paris. Perhaps it deals in existentialism in a way I just found more appealing and less literally than I Heart Huckabees. It’s a film I found myself thinking about and appreciating more the following day.
3. I had never seen Friday (1995) and it was good to be back in the 90s for a bit. Ice Cube and Chris Tucker are two slacker buddies in South Central LA who spend the day checking out girls, smoking weed, and trying to find $200 to pay a local bully so they don’t get killed. Tiny Lister, Jr. is a scary bruiser on a comically small stolen bicycle, Nia Long is the unbelievably perfect girl next door, and John Witherspoon is a grumbly dad who knows when to drop some wisdom and when to pass gas. Ice Cube and DJ Pooh wrote the very funny slice-of-life script.
2. Learning about the Labor Movement in America? Or perhaps just looking for a quality drama with tension and historical detail? Might I suggest watching Matewan (1987), directed by John Sayles and starring Chris Cooper, David Strathairn, Mary McDonell, and James Earl Jones? Based on the true events of the 1920 West Virginia coal miner strike and Matewan Massacre, the film follows a labor union organizer (Cooper) who tries to unite the miners while the company thugs employ any tactics they can to divide and intimidate. Matewan is a masterful film about an important – and oft times overlooked – part of American history. You should definitely watch it.
- Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (2020) is one of the most beautiful American films of recent memory. It captures the independent spirit and the hardness of life with poetry and humanity. Frances McDormand gives another fantastically understated performance as Fern, a woman who has lost her husband, her job, and her town, and so sets out onto the open roads of Middle America. She meets many other fascinating characters – many of whom are played by real life nomad non-actors, giving the film a deep richness that is hard to duplicate. David Strathairn shows up again in this movie as well. Sometimes what drives people to become roving van-bound nomads is economic uncertainty, sometimes it feels like they’re being chased by sorrows of the past, but for many others it is the idea of freedom and independence and community at its purest. Gorgeously shot and incredibly intimate. Nomadland is hauntingly beautiful that I definitely recommend.
BONUS SHORT:
I’ve been a casual fan of Canadian indie musician, Chad Vangaalen, for awhile, but I hadn’t seen his concept album short film, Tarboz (Translated Log of Inhabitants) (2015). Vangaalen’s electronic folk music frequently narrates bizarre ballads that seem plucked from another realm, and his sci-fi animated music videos (which he also does himself) generally recall the surreal illustrated worlds of Moebius, Jesse Jacobs, and Bwana Spoons (all of whom you should also most definitely acquaint yourself with if you are not already familiar). I may be a sucker for this particular brand of grimly whimsical creativity, but I thought this was sublime. It just hit me right.
This Won't Be For Everyone 