Movie ABC's: Part 2
Best: Ghost Town (2008)
My second favorite comedy movie, Ghost Town is essentially The Sixth Sense as a romantic comedy and there ain't nothing wrong with that. Starring Ricky Gervais, it also features Kristen Wiig and Aaron Tveit as small roles and why aren't you already watching this movie?
The only film that is guaranteed to make me cry every time. Don't ask. It's weird.
Worst: Graduation Day (1981)
Another godawful Troma release. You'd think a company famous for making bad movies would have settled on a formula to at least make them cheesily entertaining by this point, but Graduation Day with its boring exposition, shoddy execution, and eight minute rock n roll roller skating break is a behemoth of monotony.
Best: Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Now, both Halloween and Hatchet are in this category so you know I'm taking this seriously. Plus, I wanted to avoid this being a laundry list of horror pictures you already knew I liked. Hedwig is directed by and stars John Cameron Mitchell, who wrote the original stage musical. It is over-the-top, gender bending, and is very handsomely directed.
Worst: Halloween II (2009)
Basically, Rob Zombie can go die in a hole. Where his 2007 remake of Halloween merely graffitied the franchise's tombstone, Halloween II drags its mangled corpse into the poorly maintained bathroom of a back alley strip club and stomps its bones into dust.
I hated this movie.
Best: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
C'mon, it's Steven Spielberg in his prime, having adventures with Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. The Holy Grail scene scarred me for life as a young buck.
Worst: Is It Just Me? (2010)
The most ridiculously contrived plot in all of contemporary gay cinema (and I've watched a movie where a magic Christmas ornament causes two men to switch sexualities). It's one of those sitcom plots where the entire conflict could be resolved by having one two-minute conversation. The characters are idiots, and while it's pretty fun to watch, it's just plain embarrassing from a screenwriting standpoint.
Best: Julie & Julia (2009)
This is solely for Meryl Streep's flawless performance as Julia Child. A+
Worst: Jack Frost (1997)
In a snowy mountain town, a serial killer is hit by a truck full of toxic waste and becomes a murderous evil snowman. His design is not nearly as scary as the poster, it was clearly shot in the middle of summer (fake snow was put around the edges of buildings halfheartedly), and he rapes a girl with his carrot. So bad it's good, yes. But let's be real.
Best: Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012)
Seriously. This movie was so great. I went to see it with Cassidy on a trip to the mall expecting a piece of sugary fluff, and while it delivered on confectionary sweetness, there's a hard candy center. I'm not ashamed to admit that this movie made me cry. It earned it. This film cemented my hatred for Russell Brand, not that it needed help.
Worst: Killers (2010)
Although Killers is mostly harmless, it made the mistake of being a subpar movie in a letter with very few options to choose from and got caught in the crossfire. I mean, honestly. With these two in charge, what could go right?
Wasting Tom Selleck (who is really showing his age) in a throwaway bit part, Killers is a bland communion wafer of a movie.
Best: La Femme Nikita (1990)
Second only to Run Lola Run as my favorite foreign action movie. This French flick proves once and for all that Europeans can do everything we can do, only 20 times better.
Worst: The Last Exorcism Part II (2013)
Look at that poster! Cool exorcisty fun, right? Wrong.
Dropping the found footage aspect of the original film (if you can call it that with its multiple camera angles and background score), this film focuses on the girl's recovery in a halfway home for young women. And then nothing happens for an hour. And then she becomes a demon. And nobody cares. Also nobody gets bent nearly as awesomely as the poster.
Best: Modern Times (1936)
A comedy classic. We watched this in my film history class, and honestly it's one of the funniest films I've ever seen. There's a reason Chaplin has such a high reputation. Filmed right on the cusp of film's transfer from silent to sound pictures, this is an incisive satire of the social, political, and economic upheavals of the "modern times" that still rings true today.
Worst: Memorial Day (1999)
No, stop. Filmed on prosumer tools and featuring the most predictable and yet weirdest twist ending imaginable, this film is muddy, dark, and pointlessly cruel but without the gore effects to back it up.
Word Count: 803
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