I can’t believe I watched them… 47 times each

I’m guessing I’ve seen in the neighborhood of about 1,000 movies. Note I say “movies”- there is a difference between a “movie” and a “film”. “Movies”, to me, are the widespread, “mainstream”, blockbuster types that are made for the sheer entertainment of their particular target audience (and, of course, the sheer dollar value it generates), whereas “films” are the types that appear in about 2 dozen theaters worldwide, are “critical masterpieces”, aren’t concerned with box-office revenue, and that most people have never heard of. Jackie Chan movie, foreign film. “Star Wars” movie, independent film. You get the idea. I’m not knocking “films” or people who enjoy “films”; I’m merely stating that I’m not a big fan of “films” and I typically stick with “movies”.

There have been some really good movies (”The Shawshank Redemption”, “12 Angry Men”) and there have been some really bad movies (”Best in Show”, “White Chicks”). The great majority lie somewhere in between the two.

Now, of course what constitutes a “good” movie and what constitutes a “bad” movie is completely subjective, based on each person’s individual tastes. I don’t like social conscience movies, for example, yet I thought “Boyz N’ the Hood” was very well done. As a rule, I hate musicals, but how can you not like “Grease”? But then, I like really silly, stupid comedies, yet have hated virtually everything I’ve seen starring Will Ferrell, the reigning king of really silly, stupid comedies. Go figure.

What’s my point? There isn’t one. Simple.

There are some movies widely accepted as really, really horrible movies, yet I like them. And these movies are horrible. But here, in no particular order, are some of my favorite really bad movies.

I know almost 10 this time!

I desperately need to start renting movies.

I just can’t bring myself to go to a movie in the theaters. Paying $10 a ticket is idiotic, IMHO. Plus, it would wind up costing me way more, due to the bail money necessary when I get arrested for punching Mr. Cell Phone Talker Guy in the pyloric sphincter (MAN I love the word “sphincter”!!). I absolutely friggin’ despise people who have no common courtesy or respect for other people, especially with regard to their cell phone usage. Maybe I can whine about that in an upcoming post.

Anyway, there really has been nothing in at least the last 6-8 years, if not double that, that I’ve been SO dying to see that it would justify taking out a loan for a night at the movies. I mean, I kinda wish I would have been able to go with Mrs. Johann and L’il Johann #1 when they went to see “Cars” in the theater, but I just don’t feel any less fulfilled for not having seen it, or anything else, “on the big screen”. Mrs. Johann and I saw “Toy Story” at the Esquire dollar theater when we were dating (roughly 1997-ish), but the last movie I saw in the theaters besides that was “Dances With Wolves”. That was 1990. Eighteen years ago. I have been married, divorced, re-married, fathered two children, gone through four cars, and been hired for and consequently left three jobs since the last time I saw a {first-run} movie in the theaters. It’s kind of weird to look at it that way, now that I’ve typed it all out.

Only thing is, I really don’t watch movies period anymore. There are several that, upon seeing them on TV, I’ll watch just because I enjoy them. For example, I’ll usually catch “The Shawshank Redemption” when TNT has one of its semi-annual 72-hour “Shawshank”-a-thons, even though I hate watching movies on TV, not so much because of the commercials but because of the editing. It’s not that I necessarily “enjoy” bad language, graphic violence, or gratuitous naked boobies.

Well, okay, I do really, REALLY like the naked boobies.

Objectivity is so subjective sometimes

The other day, I was watching my new favorite “game show”, called “Cash Cab”, on the Discovery Channel. It’s actually a pretty cool show. Basically, the “Cash Cab” drives around NYC picking up fares. The driver (also your charming host) announces that they’re in the Cash Cab, and they get asked a series of reasonably simple pop-culture-type questions, the right answers providing them with increasing amounts of money corresponding to the “difficulty” of the questions. Bottom line, if they get to their destination without three strikes (wrong answers), they get their ride for free and they keep the money they won, or they can do a video double-or-nothing question. If they get three strikes before they reach their destination, they are dropped off wherever they may be, but they also don’t have to pay for the fare either, so it’s really a win-win regardless.

Anyhoooz, one of the questions they had on one particular episode was to name the five greatest films of all time, as so named by the American Film Institute (AFI). They listed their top five films as Casablanca, Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Godfather. Now something like this, even when compiled by someone (AFI) who presumably is an “expert” in this area (or at least has more credibility than your average person), it’s still completely subjective in that no matter how much data is presented- box office take, widespread popularity, awards won, whatever- it’s still nothing more than one big (albeit well-respected) opinion.

My being slightly opinionated myself, I quickly disagreed with AFI’s choices. Casablanca was grossly overacted, like many in that time; Gone with the Wind, while certainly a “classic”, was just too freakin’ long; and I’ve never seen Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia (nor do I have much desire to). The Godfather (the original, and the only one of the three worth seeing) was most definitely a great flick but I’m not sure it was worthy of Top 5 distinction. Therefore, I’m making my own list of 5 movies- not necessarily my picks for the “Top 5 of All Time”- that I feel rank above most of, if not all of, AFI’s choices. In no particular order…

The Shawshank Redemption (1994): I literally cannot count the number of times I have watched this movie. It’s taken from a Stephen King story (”Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”) about a banker (Andy Dufresne, played wonderfully by Tim Robbins, whom I normally don’t care for) who is wrongly convicted of killing his adulterous wife and her lover and sent to Maine’s Shawshank Prison, where he ultimately finds a way to escape and to expose the money laundering corruption, run by the warden, for which Andy himself runs the books. “I had to go to prison to become a crook”, Andy tells Red (Morgan Freeman, who also narrates the story throughout) while explaining how the laundering scam works. The characters and the actors that play them are outstanding. Most are character actors whose names most people probably don’t know but whose faces they would recognize instantly, due to their “popping up” in every other movie made, it seems. While not a character actor by any stretch of reality, the best is, of course, Morgan Freeman. He is, in my opinion, one of the greatest actors ever. There hasn’t been a bad Morgan Freeman movie yet- that I have seen, anyway. If there is, I really doubt it’s his fault. I also love the surprising number of quotable lines that come from this film (”… you’ll think you’ve been fucked by a train”; “what is your malfunction, you fat barrel of monkey spunk”; nice family friendly lines like that), considering it isn’t a stupid Will Ferrell movie.

“Stupid Will Ferrell movie”… that seems rather redundant. Moving on…

Young Frankenstein (1974): Another movie I have seen way too many times to count. A lot of people don’t like Mel Brooks’ movies because they recycle the same jokes, they’re corny and formulaic, and what not, but considering today’s “funniest” (and I use that term extremely loosely… that’s you, Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Jerry Stiller, Jack Black, Owen Wilson…) actors’ movies recycle the same jokes, are corny and formulaic, and what not, I don’t see how Mel Brooks can be considered anything other than brilliant. Young Frankenstein is a very amusing re-telling of Mary Shelley’s classic novel about a scientist attempting to reanimate a dead body. Being a Mel Brooks movie, it’s naturally infused with vaudeville-esque silliness and gut-wrenchingly bad but still hilarious jokes, puns, and visual gags. Gene Wilder is the scientist Dr. Frederick Frrankenstein (”it’s pronounced Frahnk-en-steen!”), Marty Feldman is wonderful as Igor, Cloris Leachman is terrific as Frau Blücher, Teri Garr is the lab assistant/sex kitten, and the late great Madeline Kahn is, as usual, on her neurotic-character game as Dr. Frankenstein’s fiancée. The quotables from this movie are innumerable, and this is one of the classic comedies of at least the last 40 years. Look closely for Gene Hackman…

12 Angry Men (1957): As a rule, I don’t usually care for movies that were made before about 1960 or so, because I think they are so cheesy and overacted (”I’m in turmoil!!”). I was at Blockbuster one night about 15 years ago and saw this on the shelves. I tend to like courtroom dramas, so I thought, what the hey, let’s give it a whirl. Am I ever glad I did. It’s an intense story about 12 men on a jury in a murder trial that seems fairly cut and dry, but one lone juror (Henry Fonda) is not convinced the defendant is guilty and refuses to betray his ideals and send a potentially innocent man to prison. He then sets out in an attempt to try to convince the 11 other jurors that the defendant just may be innocent. This is an amazing character study with an amazing cast, including Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Ed Begley (Sr., obviously), and Martin Balsam. It was also, incidentally, the debut of John Fiedler, probably best known as the voice of Piglet in the original (i.e., best) Winnie the Pooh feature films. While not outwardly profane or offensive, it might not be a movie for the Politically Corrupt Correct™, based on how the defendant is an 18-year-old Puerto Rican, and how one of the jurors is at least partially driven by bigotry. But considering the time it was made, people must understand that racism and discrimination were different than they are today, while being the same at the same time. That’s all I’ll say about that; just open your mind and look for it on video or on TV.

Fantasia (1940): This is definitely an odd choice for a potential Top 5 movie, but I consider it at least in the running because I credit it as the catalyst for my HUGE love of music as it exists today. I went to see this movie when I was probably around 5 or so and I was simply captivated. First off, something I obviously did not recognize 35 years ago but certainly appreciate today, Walt Disney was a pioneer in filmmaking, not just in animation. The techniques used to make this movie nearly 70 years ago broke the ground for what eventually evolved into digital film, 16-, 32-, and 64-track recording, and CGI. Using symphonic sounds that seamlessly interacted with animation was a major cinematic achievement, and Walt and his staff were the masters. Fantasia consists of several animated sequences set to classical masterpieces, such as Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker Suite”, Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue”, and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. Hippos and ostriches as ballerinas and skaters highlight some of the animated characters. The segment about how sound waves work was spellbinding for a young child, but the penultimate HAS to be the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment, starring Mickey Mouse as, go figure, a sorcerer’s apprentice who quickly gets himself into trouble when he dons his master’s magical hat. All those brooms!! When you’re 5 years old, and Dukas’ intense melody is piping through your skull, watching everything unfold scares the hell out of you. As mentioned above, though, with me, I became completely enamored with music, and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and the Sorcerer Mickey character remain two of my ultimate favorites to this day. (Anyone know the name of the sorcerer and what the name represents?)

I know that’s only four, but it’s hard to limit myself to five really, really great films. There are so many that are good for so many [infinitely different] reasons. Several I could at least give Honorable Mention to are:

• The Godfather- certainly a classic and a masterpiece
• Jaws- the shark’s “theme music” is enough in and of itself to put this movie at the top of any top-movies list.
• Blazing Saddles- another of Mel Brooks’ classic movies with neverending quotes and acting performances that are really good and really bad at the same time.
• GoodFellas- some consider it a very violent two-hour-long giant F-word, and perhaps it is, but Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, and Robert DeNiro are brilliant.
• The Big Lebowski- my brother turned me on to this movie, and I’m glad he did. I can’t even begin to describe it; just watch it.
• This is Spinal Tap- people either love it or they “don’t get it”. It’s friggin’ hilarious, and I bet I know every single word of dialogue.
• Dirty Harry- it’s Clint Eastwood… come on!

Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on movies. I’m sure the four of you reading this have quite differing opinions…

Oh, and my apologies to Nick at Unpainted Huffhines; I do not claim writing reviews as a strong suit.

Why REAL men are “Star Wars” geeks

 

Happy Birthday to Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia Organa from the first three Star Wars movies (not coincidentally, also the only three remotely worth seeing).  This shot comes from Return of the Jedi, the third of the original three.  Of those three, RotJ was the weakest.  It was a pretty dull story– Luke Skywalker (played by a slightly more wrinkled but still babyfaced and therefore hard-to-take-very-seriously Mark Hamill) tries to come to terms with his Jedi-ness, and finding out his father is the enforcer of the evil Empire (I don’t mean Wal-Mart, America Online, or the New York Yankees)– and the Ewoks, which looked like teddy bears on crack, were in my mind a sad attempt to draw potential female viewers with the “aaaawwwwwwwww, they’re so cute!” ploy.  But look at that costume!!

Some people liked the spaceship scenes, some the lightsaber battle scenes, some the “plots”, some just like science fiction in general.  Me, I like hot chicks in bikinis.  I’m funny that way.

Carrie Fisher, who turns 51 today, also has had somewhat smaller roles in such movies as Shampoo, The Blues Brothers, and The ‘Burbs, among others.  She was also in the original Austin Powers movie as the therapist in the scene in which Dr. Evil delivers his fantastic “The details of my life are quite inconsequential…” speech.  She is still as smokin’ hot today as she was roughly 25 years ago when Return of the Jedi came out.  A tip of the ol’ Darth Vader helmet to the wardrobe designer for RotJ, and big birthday wishes to Carrie Fisher.

The reason lots of adolescent (and, likely, adult) males played with their Wookies too much in the early 80’s.

Still funny even after 77 viewings

The L’il-est Johann and I just finished watching the movie Cars.

Again.

Cars just may be the best “children”’s movie ever made. Every kid loves it and it’s one of those movies that adults pick up something new every time they watch it. Trust me on that. Then, of course, there’s the requisite accompanying licensed toy collection that all kids must have, and that all adults must have “for their kids”. Yes, I have my very own Cruisin’ McQueen, and it is off limits to my boys. They have their cars, I have my one.

There aren’t many movies I can watch over and over and still enjoy as much as the first time I watch it. Young Frankenstein and The Shawshank Redemption definitely top that very short list. Well, maybe that list isn’t as short as I am trying to lead you to believe… others include This Is Spinal Tap, The Hunt for Red October, 12 Angry Men, and, of course, Caddyshack, a movie that, until they watch it, no boy can rightly become a man, no matter how hairy be they.

Jeez, how was THAT for shitty sentence structure?

Anyway, what are some movies all y’alls like to watch over and over and over, and why? Do you find them ingeniously funny? Do they scare you every time? Do you like the gratuitous nudity and/or blowing shit up? The endless supply of quotable lines? The cinematography? The fact that (insert name here) is in it? The fact that (insert name here) isn’t in it? Is it a “guilty pleasure”, or a movie that you’d be embarrassed to admit to your friends that you’ve seen it, or worse yet, that you own it?

This blog post brought to you by from whomever I stole the idea (which, this time as well as others, was likely my buddy Nick over at Unpainted Huffhines). Hey, I admit I can’t think for myself. At least that’s what people tell me.

Like there’s any other?

I don’t really understand the hoopla over being named the “official” Springfield, as it relates to The Simpsons and their upcoming feature film.

First of all, it’s not like we’d “get” anything out of being named the Simpsons’ Springfield. I mean, besides bragging rights. But even bragging rights aren’t worth much when you already own said bragging rights. Yeah, the Springfield in the show is said to be “fictional” (yeah, right) but come on… look at all the similarities. The power plant… Shelbyville… Evergreen Terrace… the doughnut factory. Better yet, if you want absolutely irrefutable proof from the TV show itself, check this out.