2022: Movies, Somewhat Chronologically
REWATCHES
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Extended Edition
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Extended Edition
UHF
A Fish Called Wanda
Beetlejuice
My Winnipeg
Guy Maddin is the greatest living director working today. Also, fuck the NHL.
The Fisher King
Dr. No
From Russia with Love
Goldfinger
I'm not sure this is the best James Bond film, but it is definitely the most James Bond film.
Thunderball
Starship Troopers
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Diamonds Are Forever
Live and Let Die
Roger Moore's first James Bond film is also the most racist!
The Man with the Golden Gun
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
Favorite Bond Movie (it's shit).
For Your Eyes Only
Southland Tales (Cannes Cut)
I would recommend the Cannes cut a lot! Southland Tales is a great movie, one that I didn't fully understand the first time I watched it, but can see how much it predicted our future with every rewatch. Also, this version doesn't have the video package in the beginning with the insanely 2000s-era video graphics, nor does it have the line "It's fluid Karma, bitch." however you feel about either of those things will affect your viewing of the Cannes Cut.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
The Omen
Wrongfully Accused
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
The Exorcist
Beetlejuice
Q: The Winged Serpent
Airplane!
Airplane II! The Sequel
Spaceballs
Big Trouble in Little China
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Blazing Saddles
You couldn't make this movie today. Most of the principal cast is dead.
Near Dark
Deep Red
Brain Damage
Blood Feast
Two Thousand Maniacs!
The Shining
The Exorcist III
Halloween
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
Simply the best!
Home Alone
I realize that I've watched the second movie a lot more. Frankly, there's not enough slapstick violence going on. I always forget that. What I guess I'm saying is that Macauly Culkin should be executed.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
NEW TO ME
Battles without Honor and Humanity: Hiroshima Death Match
Battles without Honor and Humanity: Proxy War
Battles without Honor and Humanity: Police Tactics
Battles without Honor and Humanity: Final Episode
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Keep it in your pants, Roger Ebert. Have to say that the "villain?" of the film gives a great performance.
The Comic
What a strange movie this is. A post-apocalyptic film about being a murderous stand-up comedian. Credit where it's due, it looks very unique. I never got the sense that our title character was much of a comedian. I don't know, it feels like a rejected 2000 AD comic and there just isn't much to it.
Jour de fête
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday
Mon Oncle
PlayTime
After sitting through most of Jacques Teti's work, I can safely say that I don't think it's for me. There are some great moments in all of it, but this slapstick just doesn't work for me. It's possible I'm just a soulless moron, idk.
The Green Fog
A love letter to the movies themselves! It features so many of them!
Polyester
Personally, I think of this is the worst of John Waters early works. It still contains a nice amount of psychotic stuff, but not enough for my tastes. Although, I never did use the Odor-Rama card that came with it, so I'm probably missing out in a major way. Divine is still divine, in spite of everything.
Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge Song
Honestly, this would be a fine movie if the other Female Prisoner Scorpion movies didn't exist. Unfortunately, that isn't the case.
Au Hasard Balthazar
We love the donkey. It is a much more humble animal as opposed to the hated, arrogant horse.
Crumbs
I love this movie. I've often thought of what will be left behind after an extinction level event, and Crumbs inhabits the world of our current-day detritus. Teenage Mutant Ninja Figurines, plastic swords, and a vinyl record of Dangerous by Michael Jackson feature in the plot, but separated entirely from their context, only given meaning by an enigmatic pawn shop owner.
As weird and funny as any of this may seem at the outset, there's a real emotional core to this movie. Daniel Tadesse and Selam Tesfayie are playing thier roles completely seriously. You feel that Tesfayie really cares for Tadesse, despite how often others question her love. Of course, Tadesse steals the show, protraying a vulnerable man going through a strange and dangerous world for the sake of trying to bring as much happiness to himself and his woman. It doesn't hurt that Tadesse's specific form of disability makes him seem much more vulnerable than an able-bodied person would be. The movie theater scene, in particular, is downright devastating.
It's an easy recommendation for just about anyone, and I would encourage you to seek it out as best as you can.
Diary of a Mad Black Woman
I can say with some confidence that Tyler Perry is a dangerous psychopath and when whatever he's hiding comes out, it's going to be the most scandalous thing to come out of Hollywood in years. Also, the titular "Mad Black Woman" isn't Madea! Even thought that's what the entire marketing campaign would lead you to believe that it is!
Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song
Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway
Just like Crumbs on this list, Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway is another Miguel Llanso film starring Daniel Tadesse. This one is more of a straight-up comedy in the shape of a cold war spy thriller. You see the CIA (which appears to be located in Addis Ababa) is in the midst of a cyber warfare campaign against the Soviet Union, but problems arise as one of the agents gets stuck in the computer program.
This one doesn't have as much substance to it, and the 80s sheen to it doesn't seem as meaningful as it did in Crumbs. But, it is still a fun time and a visual treat. The stop-motion cyber warfare scenes all look great, and it doesn't look like anything else.
Here Come the Problems (A.K.A. Chigger Ale)
Night in the Wild Garden
Everything Is Terrible! Presents: Kidz Klub!
Don't Be a Menace to South Central while Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
My Scientology Movie
Oh that Louis Theroux, up to his old tricks once again. This documentary sees him team up with an ex-Scientologist guy of some importance (don't remember what, who cares) in an attempt to recreate scenes that the Scientologist guy allegedly witnessed firsthand. I'll at least say the guy they got to play Miscavige did a great job, but the actual documentary aspect of it seems kind of weak. The guy that Louis teams up with seems like a bit of an asshole, and still seems to actually believe in the teachings of L. Ron Hubbard making the whole thing seem kind of… weird. The inner workings of Scientology have always been a fascinating subject, but Alex Gibney's Going Clear still exists, so who cares.
Scum of the Earth!
For some reason I bought the Herschell Gordon Lewis box set. For some other reason, I was determined to watch all the films in the box set and make myself miserable. I am stupid.
Fatal Instinct
Morbius
Honestly, not nearly as bad as the (very clearly manufactured) hype would have you believe. Jared Leto was actually completely fine in the role, but Matt Smith shouldn't be allowed to step in front of a video camera for the rest of his life.
The Batman
I remember liking this movie at the time, but now I don't know why. Paul Dano was there.
Moonshine Mountain
One of the weaker Herschell Gordon Lewis films. And that's saying something.
Something Weird
This movie fucking rocks. Psychic powers, witches, serial killers. What else could you ever want? Definitely one of those movies where they just stick in whatever idea they came up with to keep the movie going.
The Gruesome Twosome
Sucks! I don't really like Herschell Gordon Lewis in "gore mode." Especially when it's "funny gore." He never really nailed it.
A Taste of Blood
Stupid! But the main guy's voice is hilarious. Also, it's funny that Van Helsing seems to be killed by being gently pushed over. The best character is of course the guy walking his dog late at night.
She-Devils on Wheels
Fun stuff. Clearly, these are not proper actors, but just whatever women they could find that knew how to ride a motorbike. I also appreciate that their biker jackets seem to be made of felt.
Just for the Hell of It
At one point it literally repeats an entire sequence; like, I mean an entire set of scenes and the order that they're in are just shown in their entirety twice.
How to Make a Doll
Another one of those "We have to keep the movie going somehow, just throw it in" type of movies, but my favorite Lewis movie. What if you made Weird Science, but that part only lasted like thirty minutes? And then what if you moved on from that to The Nutty Professor? And then what if you just sort of gave up entirely and made it a comedy about two awkward people falling in love? And what if instead of ending, it just sort of stopped. Inept in every way, but fun enough. Also, the main guy drives an Isetta? In Florida. In the 60s.
The Wizard of Gore
Sucks! Also, that magic show seems like shit. Fuck you, Diablo Cody, for giving this movie more culture cache than it ever deserved.
The Gore Gore Girls
Another one of Lewis's "gore comedy" movies. I don't much care for it at all, but the lead actor is giving some big "closeted guy" vibes and that's fun regardless.
This Stuff'll Kill Ya!
Awful!
48 Hrs.
Jacob's Ladder
The Northman
Yeah, it's good. Probably wouldn't watch it again. Not enough Defoe.
The Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy
Fritz the Cat
Weird, not entirely great, but worth watching.
Pitch Black
Elvis
If you didn't give a shit about Elvis before this movie, you will after. It seems like a no-brainer to Luhrman's maximalist style with the one of the most flamboyant Americans to ever live, and it pays off in spades.
Tom Hanks is giving a career low performance as The Penguin from Batman Returns Col. Tom Parker with an inscrutable accent and penchant for saying the word "snowjob" over and over again. It'd be easier to ignore if he weren't narrating the film.
Some of the Elvis remixes are okay, but others seem like a desperate attempt to connect Elvis to modern-day hip-hop in a way that feels like a little bit of stretch.
It's a ridiculous Shakespearean tragedy writ large, and my favorite film released in 2022. It may be the most important film about America ever made. That's probably not true.
The Lighthouse
Just like in The Batman, you don't even get to see Robert Pattinson's penis. This is bullshit!
Chameleon Street
Shatter Dead
Daddy and the Muscle Academy
Basically gay porn, which for me is a plus. Glosses over some of the Nazi and racial stuff, but also Tom of Finland has been dead for a long time, so it all balances out in the end. But his brand lives on!
World of Tomorrow episodes 1-3
Don Hertzfeldt is just the absolute best, isn't he?
A League of Their Own
Final Flesh
So, one of the Wonder Showzen guys decided to hire four custom porn companies to complete his weird screenplay and it feels like you, as a viewer, are supposed to find this fact so funny that it carries you throughout the entire film. I didn't really feel one way or the other about this movies until I saw Vernon Chatman's interviews about it. He comes off as smug and as if he thought he "got one over" on these companies that clearly know exactly what he's doing. There's a larger conversation to be had about properly crediting these actors and production companies along with properly sending them royalties, but I'd be surprised if this has made much money to begin with. Has its moments, and is definitely worth watching only once.
Elvis Presley: The Searcher
The Hunger
I was lead to believe there was a lot more David Bowie in this film than there actually is. But good news: all you Dan Hedaya fans will be pleasantly surprised!
Exorcist II: The Heretic
A movie about rejecting the old ways that divide the world and forging a new path free from the shackles of the Christian church in order to fight the evil that is coming to the world.
A very strange movie. The world was not ready for John Boorman's message.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Unflinching brutal. There is nothing to savor in the deaths in this movie, no "nice kills" or bombastic sprays of blood, just unflinchingly realistic murder by someone who doesn't even seem to enjoy it. Not that it would be a good thing for him to. Almost an anti-slasher and a film that will stick with you.
Dracula
Frankenstein
The Mummy
Drácula
The Invisible Man
For my money, this is the best of the original Universal Horror movies. The Invisible just kind of becomes an asshole for no reason and everyone has to suffer for it.
The Black Cat
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Raven
The Wolf Man
The Creature from the Black Lagoon
Inferno
As far as a straight-up sequel to Suspiria, it's a bit… off. There are still some good setpieces and far too much bisexual lighting, but it feels unfocused. No one seems to be driving the plot forward as much as they just sort of stumble backwards into it.
Also, it feels like at one point Argento got tired of filming some of the kills. There are two different instances of someone being killed in a fantastical way only for a black-gloved killer to come in and stab them to death. Personally though, I think that hot dog vendor wasn't really involved in the actual plot, he was just annoyed by the screams. Only in New York, baby!
Basket Case
Hot Shots!
Tee hee hee.
Hot Shots! Part Deux
Oh ho ho.
Young Frankenstein
Yet another film too afraid to show a gigantic penis. Prudish: that's what I call this.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne
Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa
This is, somewhat embarrassingly, the first Alan Partridge thing I've watched. Steve Coogan is great at playing the character. He'd fucking better be, he's been doing for over 30 years now. At the end of the day it's all about the community that only a local radio station and a shotgun can bring.
Dead & Buried
The House by the Cemetery
A Return to Salem's Lot
I didn't know what to expect from this as I had only a vague understanding of the original and the Stephen King Novel. It turns into Michael Moriarty being roped into a PR man for vampire but then everyone is saved by Samuel Fuller: Nazi Hunter.
The Funhouse
Strange Behavior (A.K.A. Dead Kids)
Wolfen
A great movie about indigenous genocide and indifference to the homeless. Not only is there a supernatural wolf creature that feeds on the forsaken people of the world, but there's nothing you can do to stop it: it has always been, and will continue long after you're gone. But as Edward James Olmos goes out of his way to explain: "Don't even think about believing any of this shit. It's the twentieth century."
Blade
Best Marvel movie. Suck my dick, Logan.
Scanners
Roadgames
So much of this movie is just Stacy Keach muttering to himself, but you know what? It works. America Australia has spoken: more Keach!
The Fan
Lauren Bacall knocks it out of the park in this drama about a Broadway theater actress's midlife crisis. And then Kyle Reese, playing the most closeted man in history, starts to stalk her. Features a great "reddit moment" where Michael Biehn's character writes to Lauren Bacall to tell her about how he told his boss off and that everyone in the store cheered for him. Hilarious.
Next of Kin
Cat People
The Slumber Party Massacre
The Keep
Oh you think I can't click a Tangerine Dream soundtrack the second I hear it? Nice try Mikey Mann. I really enjoyed this movie! The rubber suit is a bit much, but everyone is turning in great performances. At some point everyone's neck widths get insane. Don't read too much into why I noticed that.
Prince of Darkness
This one got me. I've only read heard about this film as just "the part of the Carpenter Apocalypse trilogy that isn't The Thing or The Mouth of Madness." Indeed, the premise that the Devil is a real guy and is contained in a weird green goop in a church in California is a little much and there's definitely too much front-loading of a love story, but it's a great horror movie.
Part of what works so well is it's not just a lot of mystic Catholic nonsense, but much of the film revolves around university students trying to understand this idea on a scientific level; the scene where Victor Wong talks through his deductions of the existence of the Anti-God being a high point int his way. Even when the Catholic mysticism element comes in, the Catholic archdiocese is presented as someone who's not just knowledgeable of the situation, but completely fucking terrified about what would happen if they failed. He even suffers an existential crisis about the how all of Catholicism is basically a lie. This isn't even getting into any of the actual horror aspects, all of which are effective and creepy. The body horror, the impregnation, the mind control: all of it is great.
The thing that gets me more than anything else is the broadcast stuff. If you're unfamiliar with the film, at a certain point the characters all start having the same dream, a broadcast of someone trying to give a warning from the future that starts out "This is not a dream." It's the same reason found footage freaks me out. When the broadcast plays out in full at the end, it's incredibly effective and leaves you wondering about what will happen after the movie ends.
White of the Eye
First off, if you ever meet someone who refers to anything as "American Giallo," you should never trust them. The first murder in this film definitely has big Dario Argento vibes to it, but I think it'd be incorrect to refer to it as "Giallo." It's more about how living in Arizona will drive you insane.
Even though it's not overly obvious who the killer is, you can figure it out pretty early, the drama at the heart of the movie plays out in a compelling way, and makes you uneasy just through interpersonal conflict. When the killer calmly and rationally tries to explain the motivations behind the spree, it's a genuinely uncomfortable scene. All through the film is some great imagery that I haven't seen anywhere else. I especially the scenes of David Keith (not Keith David) demonstrating how he sizes up where Hi-Fi equipment should be installed.
Dream Demon
Siouxsie Sioux and Florence Welch team up to fight off British Tabloid Journalism and childhood trauma. If you're not on board after the first bombastic dream sequence, there's something deeply wrong with you.
Striking imagery and terrifying dream sequences come out of the wazoo in this film. I'm surprised more British writers (N___ G_____, for example) haven't been accused of ripping things off from this movie wholesale.
The Hidden
The Blob
The Lair of the White Worm
Great freakout movie about how threatening a woman with a strap-on threatening to peg you can be. Amanda Donohoe gives a hell of a performance, and hey, Hugh Grant is here? Personally, my highlight of the film was like all the hallucinations that look like FMV cutscenes from a weird early-90s Phantasmagoria sequel that never got made.
The Vanishing
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
A touching film about a man who's life turns upside down as he deals with and eventually accepts his sexual attraction to another man. I mean, if you dig hard enough and put all the body horror and jamming metal into your dick aside or whatever, that's what the film is about.
The only thing I knew about this film going into it was that it was, according to my high school friends, the film where a guy's dick turns into a power drill. Which is true, but I don't think it gives the movie enough credit.
Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary
Look, Guy Maddin is untouchable, okay? His adaptation of the Winnipeg Ballet Company's Dracula is a wonderful sight to behold. He captures the beauty of the dance that preserves the feel of the stage play, but it has enough weird Guy Maddin touches that make it truly great. The mother being confined to a weird giant glass tube seems like a distinctly Maddinesque detail.
The portrayal of Dracula as a character is probably the most empathetic version I've ever seen on screen, and this is without any audible dialogue. By the end he just seems like a hapless foreigner who is being punished for coming to England and falling in love with a white woman. I mean, he's still Dracula, but you get what I mean.
Wait Until Dark
Alan Arkin is really menacing for a guy with that haircut.
When a Stranger Calls
The movie is fine, but really I just have to complain about the sound mix. The streaming version of this has some of the worst sound mastering I've heard in a long time, everything is crunched and muffled and it seems like there wasn't any work done to make it sound any better. It's almost as poorly-mixed as most modern blockbuster movies.
The Blair Witch Project
I've had this weird thing about found footage movies for a long time where I had struggled to watch them; I find them to be much more frightening and unsettling than regular horror movies (at least when done right, anyway). There's a built-in violation of the usual fiction, blending reality and fiction in a way that has always succeeding in making me uncomfortable. This is part of the reason I had avoided seeing this movie for so long.
I would say, even having very little perspective on the found footage genre, that The Blair Witch still stands as the best American example of the film (I've heard Noroi: The Curse is the best ever, which is why I added that "American" qualifier). It still feels so grounded and real; there are no crazy FX shots or even really a corporeal threat to the characters in the movie, it's just the unease of being lost and alone in the woods while something is clearly out there.
It also doesn't help that I hate camping.
Messiah of Evil
The thing I got hung up on more than anything else was the hanging bed. The seventies were such a wild time.
Smiles of Summer Night
Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm
I am against any attempts to resurrect a dead franchise; it has only worked out for Beavis and Butt-Head and Twin Peaks. But I thought the ATHF formula was so simple that it would be difficult to fuck it up too badly. I was wrong.
I don't know what happened, but I guess this is just natural for any creators who left a franchise years ago trying to recapture the magic. The opening sequence should've been a big enough warning; it features the aqua teens in space facing off against Carl who has become John Carpenter's The Thing as Carl also spouts off some of the more memetic lines from the TV series. It's too referential for no real reason and with a sound mastering that sounded strange.
For a quick tangent, I saw this movie on a 4K UHD Blu-ray with Dobly ATMOS sound. I have a soundbar that can process Dolby ATMOS and it usually works alright, but her it just sounded horrible. The dialogue had an odd muffled effect and the music was mixed way louder than anything else. I was struggling to hear anything during some of the more bombastic sequences.
The plot concerns, mostly, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and his amazon-like company in some of the most obvious social commentary that could be made a long with new alien species characters that feel like they belong in Rick and Morty. It feels like an attempt to "modernize" the humor for the people who became fans of Adult swim because of Rick and Morty. Instead of a group of assholes doing their best to ignore a world-threatening problem, the characters have too active a role in the story.
There are moments that are pretty good, the stuff with the Mooninites messing with how the movie plays is actually pretty good and is in keeping with the attitude of the TV show a bit more and I have to admit that the Space Jam-style opening got me. But if this is the starting point for a new series, than I don't want to see it. Let it die; let it stay dead.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
The Stooge
Oddly seems to mirror Martin and Lewis's real vaudeville act in that it portrays Dean Martin as holding back Jerry Lewis's comedy career. Maybe that's just my reading of it, idk.