66 - Pool Party

    I've been watching a bunch of '80s teen comedies.  I've been leaning toward the sleazy end of the spectrum, but I also have taken in some cleaner fare as well.  Because of my interest in this genre, Netflix suggested that I watch Pool Party, a 2007 romp that looked like it would be my sort of thing.  Even if Netflix offered a prediction of 1.3 as my most likely rating.  Even if it holds a 2.5 on IMDB.
    This was quite possibly, the worst movie I've ever seen.

    I loved The Room.  I've seen that about five times.  I've watched Birdemic.  That one wasn't as charming as The Room, but I still enjoyed it.  I often enjoy bad movies more.  I'm impressed with the work that was accomplished with a limited budget.  The one thing that is not improved by a massive budget is the script.

    Pool Party's protagonist is a spineless guy, who seems to with in some law office.  He's failed the bar exam twice, and is scheduled to take it again soon.  His boss, an absurdly sleazy character, makes our hero house-sit for a week.  In that time, he's supposed to study, feed the dog, and make sure that no one holds any parties, and no one goes in the pool.
    And you can feel the wacky coming on.

    Our hero goes through a bunch of bizarre sequences, dealing with the daughter of his boss, who is trying to seduce him, and the son of his boss, who is trying to hold a pool party.  This is set against some strange homoerotic overtones.  I'm not really sure what the point was.
    There's a clown wearing a gorilla suit, under the name "Bingo, The Monkey Clown."  There are plenty of girls in bikinis.  There's an uncharacteristically aggressive tiny dog.  There's a flashy sports car, with a girl in a bikini posing in it.

    I'm not making it clear.  This movie is so incredibly bad, no one should have worked on it.  Every effort at humor in this production is desperately forced.  No one has the appropriate comedic timing.  There is a "heart" to the story, dealing with the hero trying to reconcile with his estranged girlfriend, but it comes across as a waste of time.  Every single thing in this movie is trying so hard to be wacky that I came out of this movie hating everything.
    I cracked a smile once during the movie, it was during a scene where someone has lost their towel, and calls out for it, "towelie!"

    This movie wasn't offensive on some moral or ethical level.  It was technically acceptable, but just barely on the cusp of being acceptable.  There were sound issues, editing issues, and picture issues as well.  None of these were so bad that they rendered the movie unwatchable.  But the movie would have been better off if it were technically worse.  I might have felt more forgiving about it.

65 - Mission: Impossible 3

I've been watching a lot of Mission: Impossible.  I watched the second series, which ran from '88-'89 over two seasons.  I've been watching a bunch of episodes from the original series, and I still have most of those DVDs to get through.

What makes Mission; Impossible work is the core premise.  The team is covert.  They don't make a big splash.  Ideally, they complete their mission without giving any clues that they were involved.

The Mission: Impossible movies are M:I in name only.  They're action movies.  They aren't even really good ones, like the Bourne movies.

I watched the first M:I movie last year, and I was thoroughly disappointed.  That movie has so many problems, and has aged horribly.  I watched the second M:I movie in the theater, but I don't remember anything besides a lot of birds.

So this movie was a pleasant surprise.  It's actually pretty fun.

Cruise's Ethan Hunt has decided to get married.  He's no longer a field agent, but he trains new agents.  He gets pulled out of 'retirement' to go rescue a captured agent.  This leads to him being pulled for another mission, and before you know it, he's being hunted by his own organization (although not his team, they still stick with him.

Since that plot seems pretty similar to the plot of the first movie, be glad that the plot is mostly irrelevant.

The middle third of this movie is the really good part.  The team works together to break into the Vatican, impersonate someone, steal a briefcase, kidnap someone, and fake their death, all without being caught or detected.

Then the last third of the movie moves back to being just an action movie.  Not a bad one, just not a special one.

I absolutely loved Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain.  He doesn't play aggression that often, but when he does, I believe it.

There was one main complaint I have, and it's that the ending gets wrapped up too fast.  There's nothing to exonerate the heroes, so it comes across as lazy writing.

64 - One Crazy Summer

    1986 teen comedy.  Just out of high school, a couple guys go off to Nantucket for the summer.  A variety of summer fun happens.
    This movie feels like a strange mashup of other teen summer movies.  We get a boat race, raising money to save someone's house, and crashing the rich kid's party.  This movie is noteworthy because of the cast - we have John Cusack and Demi Moore.  Then we have a bunch of others - Bobcat Goldthwait, Curtis Armstrong, Joe Flaherty.  Plus a few more familiar faces.
    It's really very family-friendly for a teen comedy.  It's rated PG, I don't think there was any nudity.  The jokes are mostly very clean.  This isn't bad… it just doesn't feel like it should.  Bobcat is really strange.  I don't understand his appeal.  He says "Thank you very much" a whole lot.




    There are a few inspired gags.  One of them involves Bobcat getting stuck in a Godzilla Costume, and wrecking a party.

The other gag is really creepy.
    Two girls are warned that if they make faces, and someone hits them on their back, they'll stay like that.  This happens.  And the two girls with creepy faces return a few times throughout the movie.

    Overall, this reminded me a lot of Better Off Dead, which I enjoyed, but it didn't work for me the way it does for others.