My Questionable Taste In Movies: A Critical Retrospective
Continuing my long-standing tradition of being behind the curve when it comes to trends, I signed up for Netflix six months ago (in about a week I plan on changing my SG profile picture to a Photoshopped image of the late Peter Cushing portraying the sinister Star Wars villain Grand Moff Tarkin).
To celebrate this milestone, here are capsule reviews of my Netflixed movies. This list will be dramatized in an upcoming VH1 10-part series entitled "I Love The First Six Months Of 2007, Part Deux!"
The Bourne Supremacy: I find Matt Damon oddly endearing, until I recall Good Will Hunting. Then I cry, and do some math problems while cleaning my bathroom. I then get into a stupid argument with my wife about the car chase in The French Connection. Things blow up, on screen at least.
Beerfest: Hey, Super Troopers was really funny. Shut up.
Syriana: I revel in the schadenfreude of a fat George Clooney until I realize that he's still several orders of magnitude more handsome than me even with extra CIA-inspired pounds. It takes me an hour to recover, during which time I wonder when Benecio Del Toro's going to show up to play night baseball. I am inspired to buy a coal-powered SUV.
An Inconvenient Truth: Rented to indulge my penchant for former Vice Presidents on cranes, which has gone unindulged since the PBS miniseries "Walter Mondale Fixes A Series Of Traffic Lights". I'm inspired to replace the dashboard light in my coal-powered SUV with a compact florescent bulb, and look into converting the engine to run on the blood of ritualistically slaughtered babies.
Jackass Number Two: Because Netflix doesn't rent gay porn.
Snakes On A Plane: I revel in the stale fumes of an internet trend, and reflect wistfully on previous efforts to drum up pre-release publicity for dramatic works, dating back to Christopher Marlowe's infamous play The Peasant Girl Who Fucked A Donkey. I say "motherfucker" a lot, then realize how white I am.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: My wife recounts at length how dreamy Johnny Depp is. "At length" describes the rest of the movie. I no longer regret not owning a home theater system. I am inspired to watch Domino again, mainly because at least that movie rewarded viewers willing to cope with it's utter incoherence with the sight of Kiera Knightley naked.
The Illusionist: Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti are unwitting pawns in a bizarre competition between rival Hollywood casting agents to see who can provide the actor least likely to call to mind the phrase "turn of the century Vienna". Rufus Sewell and Ed Norton compare moustaches. There's a twist ending. Yay.
Capote: I realize I've never read In Cold Blood, and then console myself by saying I didn't read the Snakes On A Plane book, either. I consider watching this in a double feature with Boogie Nights for the full "Phillip Seymour Hoffman as troubled homosexual" experience.
Hollywoodland: I find myself oddly aroused by Adrien Brody. This leads me to conflate him with Adam Brody, and ponder watching The O.C. again. I enjoy the daring casting of Ben Affleck as a marginally talented actor reaching the twilight of his career, and Bob Hoskins as a scary gangster with a British accent.
The Prestige: Turn of the century magicians. Plot twists. Hey, they made two movies about Truman Capote in one year, so why the fuck not? David Bowie IS Nikolai Tesla. I pine for a sequel, "Ride The Lightning: The Nikolai Tesla Story", if only to confuse old-school Metallica fans.
Feast: Like the third season of Project Greenlight, only it wasn't funny and it wasn't scary.
Let's Go To Prison: Hey, Arrested Development and Mr. Show were really funny. Shut up.
Running With Scissors: I ponder how awesome it'd be to be adopted by Brian Cox, which I don't think was the intended message of the movie. I spend the next hour trading Super Troopers quotes with my wife, and threaten to pistol-whip the next person who says "shenanigans".
Little Miss Sunshine: My wife has a gay best friend who has a thing for much older men. He thinks that Alan Arkin is "dreamy". I am forced to agree with him.
Casino Royale: Officially the tenth Bond film to promise not to suck as badly as the other recent ones, honestly. I realize how jarring it is to watch Texas Hold 'Em and not hear Dave Foley explaining what the hands mean. I console myself that at least there's not an invisible car and/or Madonna in this one.
Superman Returns: Winner of this year's "Diminished Expectations" award for the film I least expected to wind up enjoying. Also the winner of the "Jesus Fucking Christ" award for most ham-handed Biblical allusions.
National Lampoon's Van Wilder: Rise Of The Taj: Hey, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle was funny. Shut up. Nothing you say to me can be as painful as sitting through this movie.
The Black Dahlia: Ever wonder what L.A. Confidential would have been like if they spent most of the film setting up the plot and the characters and then realized they had about 15 minutes to resolve everything? Yeah, and replace Guy Pearce with Josh Hartnett. Or better still, don't.
Children Of Men: I want to have Clive Owen's babies, but then decide to remain a childless cat-owner, since you can't kick a baby off the bed when you want to have sex, or leave a baby alone in your apartment with a bowl full of cat food and fresh water when you want to go away for a weekend.
Borat: I ponder growing a moustache for the first time since watching The Illusionist. I reconsider after a week, and console myself by overusing the catchphrase "sexytime!" and goading passersby into making antisemitic comments while I film them surreptitiously.
The Good Shepherd: Continuing my Matt Damon: Boy Secret Agent marathon. I admire Robert DeNiro's ability to combine the fascinating true story of the early years of the CIA with a layer of boredom so thick that even a sex scene with Angelina Jolie can't wake me up.
The Fog Of War: Once I get over the seething rage I feel when I discover this is not a documentary about WarCraft, I learn the important lesson that nothing in the history of warfare ever repeats, ever.
Smokin' Aces: It takes a truly monumental filmmaking talent to make a movie featuring a coked-up Jeremy Piven and a trio of chainsaw-wielding assassins this fucking boring. I impress my wife by recognizing the actor who plays Jack on Lost. I tremble in barely contained agony watching Ryan Reynolds attempt to act. I then try and one-up this movie by paying a motley assortment of hitmen $1M to assassinate Sammy Davis Junior, only to be told he died in 1990. I weep openly.
The Good German: It's like a gripping 40's film noir movie, only with George Clooney playing the Cary Grant role, and "not really all that gripping" playing the part of the plot.
Stacked on my TV, as yet unseen, taunting me: The Last King Of Scotland and Run Ronnie Run.
Continuing my long-standing tradition of being behind the curve when it comes to trends, I signed up for Netflix six months ago (in about a week I plan on changing my SG profile picture to a Photoshopped image of the late Peter Cushing portraying the sinister Star Wars villain Grand Moff Tarkin).
To celebrate this milestone, here are capsule reviews of my Netflixed movies. This list will be dramatized in an upcoming VH1 10-part series entitled "I Love The First Six Months Of 2007, Part Deux!"
The Bourne Supremacy: I find Matt Damon oddly endearing, until I recall Good Will Hunting. Then I cry, and do some math problems while cleaning my bathroom. I then get into a stupid argument with my wife about the car chase in The French Connection. Things blow up, on screen at least.
Beerfest: Hey, Super Troopers was really funny. Shut up.
Syriana: I revel in the schadenfreude of a fat George Clooney until I realize that he's still several orders of magnitude more handsome than me even with extra CIA-inspired pounds. It takes me an hour to recover, during which time I wonder when Benecio Del Toro's going to show up to play night baseball. I am inspired to buy a coal-powered SUV.
An Inconvenient Truth: Rented to indulge my penchant for former Vice Presidents on cranes, which has gone unindulged since the PBS miniseries "Walter Mondale Fixes A Series Of Traffic Lights". I'm inspired to replace the dashboard light in my coal-powered SUV with a compact florescent bulb, and look into converting the engine to run on the blood of ritualistically slaughtered babies.
Jackass Number Two: Because Netflix doesn't rent gay porn.
Snakes On A Plane: I revel in the stale fumes of an internet trend, and reflect wistfully on previous efforts to drum up pre-release publicity for dramatic works, dating back to Christopher Marlowe's infamous play The Peasant Girl Who Fucked A Donkey. I say "motherfucker" a lot, then realize how white I am.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: My wife recounts at length how dreamy Johnny Depp is. "At length" describes the rest of the movie. I no longer regret not owning a home theater system. I am inspired to watch Domino again, mainly because at least that movie rewarded viewers willing to cope with it's utter incoherence with the sight of Kiera Knightley naked.
The Illusionist: Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti are unwitting pawns in a bizarre competition between rival Hollywood casting agents to see who can provide the actor least likely to call to mind the phrase "turn of the century Vienna". Rufus Sewell and Ed Norton compare moustaches. There's a twist ending. Yay.
Capote: I realize I've never read In Cold Blood, and then console myself by saying I didn't read the Snakes On A Plane book, either. I consider watching this in a double feature with Boogie Nights for the full "Phillip Seymour Hoffman as troubled homosexual" experience.
Hollywoodland: I find myself oddly aroused by Adrien Brody. This leads me to conflate him with Adam Brody, and ponder watching The O.C. again. I enjoy the daring casting of Ben Affleck as a marginally talented actor reaching the twilight of his career, and Bob Hoskins as a scary gangster with a British accent.
The Prestige: Turn of the century magicians. Plot twists. Hey, they made two movies about Truman Capote in one year, so why the fuck not? David Bowie IS Nikolai Tesla. I pine for a sequel, "Ride The Lightning: The Nikolai Tesla Story", if only to confuse old-school Metallica fans.
Feast: Like the third season of Project Greenlight, only it wasn't funny and it wasn't scary.
Let's Go To Prison: Hey, Arrested Development and Mr. Show were really funny. Shut up.
Running With Scissors: I ponder how awesome it'd be to be adopted by Brian Cox, which I don't think was the intended message of the movie. I spend the next hour trading Super Troopers quotes with my wife, and threaten to pistol-whip the next person who says "shenanigans".
Little Miss Sunshine: My wife has a gay best friend who has a thing for much older men. He thinks that Alan Arkin is "dreamy". I am forced to agree with him.
Casino Royale: Officially the tenth Bond film to promise not to suck as badly as the other recent ones, honestly. I realize how jarring it is to watch Texas Hold 'Em and not hear Dave Foley explaining what the hands mean. I console myself that at least there's not an invisible car and/or Madonna in this one.
Superman Returns: Winner of this year's "Diminished Expectations" award for the film I least expected to wind up enjoying. Also the winner of the "Jesus Fucking Christ" award for most ham-handed Biblical allusions.
National Lampoon's Van Wilder: Rise Of The Taj: Hey, Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle was funny. Shut up. Nothing you say to me can be as painful as sitting through this movie.
The Black Dahlia: Ever wonder what L.A. Confidential would have been like if they spent most of the film setting up the plot and the characters and then realized they had about 15 minutes to resolve everything? Yeah, and replace Guy Pearce with Josh Hartnett. Or better still, don't.
Children Of Men: I want to have Clive Owen's babies, but then decide to remain a childless cat-owner, since you can't kick a baby off the bed when you want to have sex, or leave a baby alone in your apartment with a bowl full of cat food and fresh water when you want to go away for a weekend.
Borat: I ponder growing a moustache for the first time since watching The Illusionist. I reconsider after a week, and console myself by overusing the catchphrase "sexytime!" and goading passersby into making antisemitic comments while I film them surreptitiously.
The Good Shepherd: Continuing my Matt Damon: Boy Secret Agent marathon. I admire Robert DeNiro's ability to combine the fascinating true story of the early years of the CIA with a layer of boredom so thick that even a sex scene with Angelina Jolie can't wake me up.
The Fog Of War: Once I get over the seething rage I feel when I discover this is not a documentary about WarCraft, I learn the important lesson that nothing in the history of warfare ever repeats, ever.
Smokin' Aces: It takes a truly monumental filmmaking talent to make a movie featuring a coked-up Jeremy Piven and a trio of chainsaw-wielding assassins this fucking boring. I impress my wife by recognizing the actor who plays Jack on Lost. I tremble in barely contained agony watching Ryan Reynolds attempt to act. I then try and one-up this movie by paying a motley assortment of hitmen $1M to assassinate Sammy Davis Junior, only to be told he died in 1990. I weep openly.
The Good German: It's like a gripping 40's film noir movie, only with George Clooney playing the Cary Grant role, and "not really all that gripping" playing the part of the plot.
Stacked on my TV, as yet unseen, taunting me: The Last King Of Scotland and Run Ronnie Run.
VIEW 25 of 48 COMMENTS
shesinparties:
good lord, what have you done to yourself now?
shesinparties:
i hope you go the whole weekend without hurting yourself!! 