Look. Not everything in here is good. In fact, a lot of it isn’t. BUT, all of them have at least some redeeming qualities, and I found something to enjoy in each and every one of them. And some of it’s great! That’s why we do this. As always, in order of how much I dug it.
23. I like Stuart Gordon. He’s the depraved guy behind schlocky masterpieces like Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak, Robot Jox, Dagon, and, weirdly, the story for Disney’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Space Truckers (1996), a sci-fi comedy starring Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorff, is easily the worst thing he’s done that I’ve seen. It’s a little too colorful and goofy and no real sense of danger. Hopper feels too old and just generally miscast as the lead, really pulling an already obnoxious looking movie down several more pegs. Most of the comedy falls flat. The pluses: some fun miniatures and effects; derivative but practical evil robots army; Debi Mazar is in a space brassiere almost the whole movie; and Charles Dance appears to be having fun as a villainous cyborg.
22. I appreciate a solid single location flick (this list will have a few more of those). The Pool (2018) is a Thai survival horror about a dude who finds himself stuck in an empty pool for several days with no food, his severely injured girlfriend, and a crocodile that escaped from a zoo. That’s a fun premise and, while not all bad, it really rests on characters making some dumb decisions to get into that premise. Wished it was a little crazier.
21. Finally saw the notoriously bad Tank Girl (1995). I absolutely loved the first 45 minutes or so. It’s so over-the-top and stylized, I lamented that more graphic novel adaptations were not as fearless and unabashed. Lori Petty’s Tank Girl is like a proto-Margot-Robbie-Harley-Quinn, but more of a badass than a ditz; Malcolm McDowell is a standard businessman bad guy but brings campy gravitas; and Naomi Watts is a mousey introvert who goes along for the ride. There’s some kickass animated sequences and wild comic book action… and then… oh boy… the kangaroo people show up. That’s when the movie starts to suck. The story goes completely off the rails, things stop making sense, the stakes are chucked to the wind, and I absolutely despised just looking at these repulsive hairless kangaroo monstrosities (which I’m sure were very expensive). Ice-T, even buried under the most upsetting full-body makeup, plays it so stone-facedly, no-nonsense straight that it’s kind of amazing.
20. Terry Gilliam’s first movie foray outside of Monty Python was Jabberwocky (1977), a film I thought deserved a second chance. It has a rich visual style that Gilliam would perfect throughout the 80s, but most of the cartoon style violence comes off as more interesting than funny. The way the plot becomes very complicated and gets sidetracked by the politics and socioeconomic situations of the kingdom, but in a distant, mocking sort of way reminded me of Terry Pratchett. It’s not a great film, but it has a few moments. Sadly, the eponymous Lewis Carroll creature is the least present and least interesting aspect of the film. I do believe a movie could be made out of Carroll’s nonsense poem, but this doesn’t feel like the one. Check it out to see early Gilliam finding his voice independent from the Python crew.
19. Everyone seemed to hate Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (2021). Dr. Strangelove, this is not. As a metaphor for climate change, it’s not a perfect fit and the comedy feels a bit too broad and basic. Think lesser SNL. I do think this is how America would act if there literally was a comet on a collision course with Earth however. Everyone’s made their cases for and against this movie. It’s fine. Some things work. Others don’t. It does have the subtlety of a sledgehammer and most of the characters are impossible to like (I did appreciate Rob Morgan, Jennifer Lawrence, and Mark Rylance’s performances), but I have a hard time completely hating a film that tries to tackle the end of the world (and also dumps on the ego of tech bros with God complexes). It’s always going to have a few moments of humanity peeking through.
18. A couple of old-fashioned southern entertainers and their manager go to a spooky house that has cobwebs, a gorilla, and some dusty old horror actors. I have a lot of questions concerning Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967). Like why is it “hillbillys” and not “hillbillies”? Was there ever a time where a 90 year old Basil Rathbone appealed to Southerners? Does Boots Malone (Joi Lansing) qualify as a hillbilly? I enjoyed this as a bizarre cultural artifact. It’s dumb and weird and strangely cozy. The songs are not great and it’s depressing seeing old Lon Chaney, Jr. in this, although not as depressing as seeing an even older John Carradine trying so hard with the material. Also features Linda Ho for some reason.
17. I re-watched Walter Murch’s Return to Oz (1985), and I feel just about the same as I did the first time I watched it. Fun puppets and creepiness, but kinda plodding and not particularly magical (especially when compared to 1939’s The Wizard of Oz) and I hate everything about the Wheelers. Reasons to watch it anyway: cool puppets and stop-motion effects, Fairuza Balk’s first movie, the original Tik-Tok.
16. Amir Shervan came to America with a vision: to make the worst American action movies he could. Hollywood Cop (1987) has a lot of the hallmarks we look for in this type of thing (like an infant’s understanding of the mafia, for instance), and it falls above Killing American Style but below Samurai Cop (both Shervan films). Like a lot of movies of this ilk, there’s a cop who doesn’t play by anybody’s rules but his own and the ending is just 30 minutes of incomprehensible gun action that just meanders around stupidly with no sense of geography.
15. L.A. Wars (1994) follows in a similar vein as Hollywood Cop. A lot of the movie is gangs going back and forth killing members of the other gang. There’s also a cop who doesn’t play by anybody’s rules but his own (this time with unnervingly large teeth), who infiltrates the mafia sort of begrudgingly and sort of by accident and it’s all very stupid. Lots of shooting, sex, and car explosions. You will feel the brain cells leaving your body.
14. Zoltan Korda was a Hungarian filmmaker who I was introduced to through his films he made with Indian actor, Sabu (like Thief of Bagdad and Jungle Book). The Four Feathers (1939) is a sweeping epic of British imperialism of how one disillusioned Englishman (John Clements) refuses to take part in it and chooses to go to Egypt and rescue his friend (Sir Ralph Richardson) who has gone blind at the front. In order to do it, however, he goes in disguise as an Egyptian guy. Kinda weird watching a movie that’s sort of trying to fight British imperialism through the power of brownface, but this was the late 30s depicting the early 1900s. If you can get past the stuffy, casual British racism, you might enjoy the peeks into the culture of weird stuffy British militarism. I do actually find that aspect of it fascinating. The movie is colorful and a handsome production, but the only parts I found really fun were C. Aubrey Smith’s portrayal of an old English general bullshitting his way through past battles with the aid of various fruits. It’s very much of a time and a place, and, while I didn’t dislike it, it’s no Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
13. The Ghost of Peter Sellers (2018) is director Peter Medak’s attempt to salvage some dignity decades after an undercooked comedy was sabotaged by weather, a destructive Peter Sellers, and an incomprehensible Spike Milligan script. I love Spike and Sellers and pirates, and even a few things Medak did, but the footage of the ghosted film looks unwatchably bad. Where I take issue is director Peter Medak’s Eeyore-esque sad-sack routine, trying to gain sympathy from all these old producers and agents he tracks down. Some of them don’t sugarcoat it, and good on them for telling him to get the fuck over it. I just kept thinking, this guy let one failed movie eat at him for years. I feel for the guy. Really. But Werner Herzog or Terry Gilliam would have harnessed that failure into greater resolve. Art is often riddled with failures and successes. Both have to give you the energy to move forward.
12. A guy who looks like Panama Hitler has a gang of embarrassingly dressed goons abduct prostitutes to take to a secret island run by a cult of cannibal monks who eat women to give them the power to summon the ghosts of disgraced warriors in Raw Force (1982). Why does Hitler man do this? Because he trades it for jade, a semiprecious mineral, that he can sell to tourists for dirt cheap. His plan is stupid and needlessly complicated and cruel. But then a boatload of shipwrecked karate champions and Cameron Mitchell washes up and fights for their survival. I’ve made this movie sound way more exciting than it really is. It’s got some fun high kicks and plenty of skin, but the highlight, for me, of this movie is Steve’s birthday party on the ship. It features like 200 new characters who all burn to death when the ship gets attacked. What a crop of wacky faces and personas.
11. Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop is absolute masterpiece of satire and action. Irvin Kershner’s RoboCop 2 (1990) is a shadow of its predecessor, but it’s still an entertaining watch. Peter Weller is back as the title character but the movie is less concerned with Murphy’s tragic struggle with the loss of his humanity. The real stars of this movie are Dan O’Herlihy’s corporate villain and Phil Tippett’s stop-motion hell-machines are marvelous to look at and the movie does have some laughs as well as copious amounts of bloody squibs. Tom Noonan plays a criminal whose brain gets placed into a massive robot, and it was on the set of this movie where he got inspired to switch gears and eventually write a play that would become a film appearing further down on this list.
10. Chloé Mazlo’s Skies of Lebanon (2020) blends live action, bright color palettes, stage backgrounds, animation, and other whimsically stylized touches to tell the story of a Swiss woman moving to Beirut and falling love and starting a family in the 1950s. When the civil war begins, her perfect life is in peril. It’s a sweet little film with some visual inventiveness to help the heavier subject matter go down easier.
9. I can’t believe I didn’t appreciate Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist (2007) enough when I first saw it a few years ago. Set and setting, I guess. This time, while I still don’t love that early 2000s sheen, I was totally hooked into the story and the building tension and all the new monsters being introduced. It’s a perfectly structured monster movie, but with the added element of groupthink and human dogma being just as dangerous. After a few years in a global pandemic, I feel this movie that much stronger.
8. I haven’t seen much of Alfred Hitchcock’s later films, so I gave Frenzy (1972). It does have that clunky feeling of a guy who might not be keeping up with the changing face of horror (the man got his start in silent cinema and really hit his stride in the 50s and 60s, but it’s a fun watch as a Hitchcock suspense comedy. This movie does possess a more pronounced perverse glee surrounding the act of murdering women, but the running gag of normal married life being so horrible is a humorous counterpoint.
7. Erin Derham’s documentary on the world of taxidermy, Stuffed (2019), was more elegant and interesting than I was prepared for. It truly captures the complexity and beauty of this unique artform, as well as the various philosophies and approaches to it. More to its credit, for a film about mounting dead animals, it is never morbid or grim.
6. Set in one house on one momentous evening, Sally Potter’s The Party (2017) brings together several great actors and gives them one bombshell after another to react to. It’s a breezy, efficient little dark comedy that’s smartly shot and fun to watch. Starring Timothy Spall, Kristen Scott Thomas, Cillian Murphy, Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Emily Mortimer, and Cherry Jones.
5. No one makes love look like such a miserable prison of hormones and happenstance like François Truffaut. Jules and Jim (1962) is a haunting French New Wave classic that starts bubbly and effervescent before descending into the tragedy that is being in love. Beyond the story itself, however, the film’s cheeky style and editing flare give it a life that was altogether new back in the early 60s and still enjoyable to observe now. Today, we take it for granted that some films draw attention to the fact that they are films.
4. Roger Ebert was an important figure to anyone who grew up in the 90s loving movies. This touchingly human portrait the legendary film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times chronicles his life as well as his death in exceedingly immediate fashion. What Steve James’ documentary, Life Itself (2014), does best however, is capture Ebert’s infectious worldview, optimism, and humanity, even in the face of death itself. Ultimately, a life affirming and beautiful tribute.
3. Tom Noonan wrote, directed, and starred in What Happened Was (1994), a wryly humorous and cringey first date drama set in one room. Even though this movie doesn’t have a crocodile in it, I still found it far more captivating than The Pool. It’s painful and funny and frustrating and sad. Noonan is great and Karen Sillas gives a wonderful performance as the woman who invites her coworker over for a date. Joe DeSalvo’s cinematography uses the limited space very well.
2. This next one was tailor-made for me, so I may not be the most reliable person to recommend it, but I immensely enjoyed The House (2022). It’s a creepy and clever international stop-motion anthology film helmed by three different animation teams using different styles so I was doomed to love it. Emma de Swaef & Marc James Roels directed the first segment that chronicles the mysterious origins of the house and the first humans who lived them. The second – and my favorite – segment, directed by Niki Lindroth von Bahr, shows the house in present where a modern rat is trying to sell it while dealing with an encroaching bug problem. The final excursion of the house, directed by Paloma Baeza, is a wistful but more hopeful entry that places the house within the context of climate change. Oh, and everyone is cats in that one.
1. I’ve seen the old silent The Phantom of the Opera (1925) many times, but this was my first time watching with someone who had never seen it, and I was reminded why it’s so great. There is the plus of experiencing an almost 100 year old movie like time travel and observing the different acting styles and film techniques, but the movie itself is fun. The grim, perverse melodrama pulls you in. The lavish sets and creepy atmosphere are sumptuous. But the real star is, of course, Lon Chaney, Sr.’s deranged performance and his amazing makeup (which he did himself). I’m a big fan of Chaney’s acting, and if you’re ever looking for a gateway into silent cinema, horror and comedy are the best entry points.
SHORTS
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Harold Lloyd. Over the Fence (1917) has changed nothing.
Along the Moonbeam Trail (1920) is a fascinating curio about a fantastical voyage involving fairies, airships, and some early stop-motion dino work by Willis O’Brien over a decade before his crowning achievement of King Kong.
Porn back in the day was weird. Anyway. How to Take a Bath (1937).
Hairat (2016) provides a snapshot into one Ethiopian man’s weird 35 year relationship with a pack of hyenas.
Charlie Chaplin plus a doggie? What’s not to love. A Dog’s Life (1918) also has some nice old timey runaway from the cops hijinks.
This German short is allegedly the first documentary on prehistoric life. Fifty Million Years Ago (1925) may be wildly scientifically outdated by now, but it’s a wonderful glimpse into the understanding of paleontology of almost 100 years ago.
My introduction to Niki Lindroth von Bahr (The House) was Something to Remember (2019), a haunting musical about the end of the world and the smallness of our little problems.
This Won't Be For Everyone 