173 - Wet Hot American Summer

    The last day of the Summer at Camp Firewood, in 1981.  There are romances, action, personal development, musical numbers, and Skylab falling on the camp.  It defies a traditional summary.
    I have no idea how many times I've watched this.  I remember that when I first saw it, I didn't have the same enthusiasm for it that I now have.  It was a confusing movie at first.  It was surreal, but I didn't always get the joke in the same way.  And the jokes sometimes move into really strange areas.  There's a gay romance that seems to come out of nowhere.  Some of the scenes - like Coop and Katie by the stable - seem unusually long.
    But as I got used to the movie, I found that it's like a lot of my favorite comedies.  The performances are great.  The direction is just strange enough to keep my interest.  And the script is weird, but very memorable.
    It's a bit annoying that the movie isn't available on Blu-ray.  According to the wiki article on it, David Wain has tried to get Universal to release it, but they aren't interested.

172 - Sheltered

    A handful of people on a vacation stop by a bar when a huge storm comes.  The bartender offers that they can come ride out the storm at his place.  They go there, where people behave strangely, eventually leading to some deaths.
    Usually, if a movie is bad - legitimately bad - I find myself more angry at the movie.  This means that it made blatant missteps, ones that I was upset that they took.  There are seriously bad movies, ones that I can't actually sit through.  But usually that requires being technically deficient in at least one way.  In this case, the movie is bad, but I have a hard time mustering any strong feelings about it.
    In a weird way, the movie is a ripoff of Psycho.  The politeness, the mannerisms of the killer, all scream that they wanted him to be a Norman Bates-like character.  He's got issues with his parents, although it seems to be more of a relationship with the house, and cleanliness.  But that never seems to matter too much.
    The movie suffers from problems with having very little plot, combined with very little tension, and it's all compounded by a script that seems irrelevant.  None of the characters take any actions that make sense.  They get invited to a stranger's house?  Why not go?  Instead of staying in a public establishment that they also know is safe.  When they enter a stranger's house - as a guest - the first thing someone does is find some alcohol and start drinking it.  These people aren't teens.  They decide that they should just party their way through the storm.  All of this is made without the consent or blessing of their host.  Of course, he doesn't seem to care, which doesn't make much sense either.
    At one point, the killer has killed a token character who showed up to add to the body count.  When the other people discover her, they freak out a bit, which makes sense.  They believe the idea that she slit her own wrists.  No one seems to notice that she seems to have left a lot of blood around the place.  The concern about her seems to disappear pretty fast as well.
    The sound on the movie is pretty badly mixed.  There are some fairly fun original songs used, which is nice.  But then there are plenty of storm sounds.  And then characters alternate between screaming, and whispering dialogue.  I missed plenty of lines because of the poor mixing.
    Near the end, the killer shoots his brother.  It looks like he's been shot in the heart (although this could just be the upper chest, on the heart side).  He collapses.  After some other stuff happens, the killer's brother returns in the last moments to save the girl.  He stabs the killer in the back.  He seems to be doing pretty well for having just been shot.
    After he yells at the girl to get out of the house, while he holds his dying brother, the girl exits, into the storm.  She washes herself in the rain in slow motion.  This is taking place about… 10 feet away from where the killer is being held.
    Huh?

    I can't pretend to understand a message to the movie.  Most of the scenes that tried to explain some sort of motivation for the killer were told in whispers.  I think I followed some of it, but it still didn't seem to explain anything.
    Still - this was one of 8 movies that I got for $5!  How could I go wrong?

171 - The Wrong Guy

    A man discovers his boss, murdered.  After covering himself in blood, the man is convinced that the police are looking for him, and he has to prove his innocence.  Except, the police have surveillance footage, proving the main character innocent.  Instead, the man winds up inadvertently tracking the actual killer.
    This was mentioned in an A/V Club article about "Wrong-man movies."  It stars Dave Foley, one of the team behind Kids In The Hall.  It doesn't have quite the same sensibilities as Kids In The Hall did, but it's still very funny.  I kept thinking that it was like a toned-down version of the Naked Gun movies.
    There's a lot of strange stuff in the movie, gags that don't seem like they're needed, but they still contribute a little to the overall feeling of the whole thing.  There's a great cameo by Barenaked Ladies, and they contributed a nice short song for the soundtrack.
    This could develop a nice cult following, particularly if people got to see it when they were young.  But as it is, it's not available on DVD, and it seems to only be available on Netflix streaming.
    I liked it, and I'd suggest that anyone get to see it at least once.  The opening isn't great, but it gets better as it goes along.  And many of the jokes feel like very Simpsons-like gags.
    I also wonder if the main character's name was borrowed - "Nelson Hibbert."

170 - The Avengers

    I've summarized this twice so far this year, so I don't think I should bother.
    After a nice Thanksgiving meal, Cathy and I were kind of tired, and really full.  So we sat back, and watched this.
    I don't have many new observations.  I noticed that some more of the dialogue was more comic-book-like than I had remembered.  I also felt like more of the effects work was more fluffy looking than I had remembered.
    Still, it hits all the right spots.  Although I did feel a little like Captain America got the short shrift in this movie.  Maybe it's just that Iron Man is a more aggressive character.

169 - The Innkeepers

    A pair of hotel employees are working the last weekend that their hotel is open.  There are very few guests, and they use the opportunity to investigate the ghost they think haunts the place.
    Obviously, this is the second time I watched this.  This time, it was on Blu-ray, and I showed it to Cathy.  There were chunks of the movie that I remembered very well, but I was a little surprised that some of the parts completely slipped from my memory.
    It remains very creepy.  And I still really enjoyed the character building between the leads.  I found myself much more engrossed in certain details, and picked up on much more that I missed the first time through.
    In particular, I actually noticed two scenes that gave enough background to establish what the end result of the movie is.  There's much more foreshadowing than I had noticed before.
    I still feel the connections to The Shining.  But the question of the evilness of that hotel is never in question.  In this movie, I realized that it's possible to interpret it as having a non-threatening ghostly atmosphere.
    Anyway, the pacing is still slow, but it never feels like nothing is happening.

168 - The Traveler

    On Christmas Eve, a small crew of six at the police station are confronted by a man who walks in wanting to confess.  He acts very mysteriously.  It's gradually revealed that all of the crew working at the station that evening were involved in the beating/torture of a man who was left in a coma.  Now the police officers are being picked off.
    I'm dreading writing this up.  It's not a horrible movie.  It had a lot of potential to be really good.  It reminded me a lot of Identity.  But the acting isn't quite up to snuff.  Of course, the acting isn't terrible, just not as interesting.  What hurts the movie is the ending of it.
    We get a message that the stranger who comes in is obviously connected to the drifter that the cops beat.  The exact nature of that connection remains to be revealed.  However, the reveal - that the drifter actually did commit the crime they accused him of - isn't expected.  It doesn't add more depth to the movie, and it actually hurts our perception of it.  It turns from a justified revenge movie to being an unjustified revenge.
    From that point on, the movie gets even weirder.  Somehow, the power of this manifestation of the drifter is cancelled out if they call him by his name?
    I don't know what to say about the movie.  I admire that they were a bit willing to try a direction they normally wouldn't, but… I suppose that the message is just that sometimes the path less taken is less taken because it sucks.

167 - The Onion Movie

    There isn't too much of a plot to this movie.  It's a collection of sketches, and gags, loosely following a story about two fictional nations nearing war, a terrorist cell plotting an attack, and the Onion's news anchor being annoyed that his program has ads for the parent company's forthcoming movie interrupting the news.
    I would say that this is similar to Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube.  Except both of those have less of a plot.  But this has a similar vibe to it.  If you don't care for the joke, it will be over soon.  And some of the jokes that don't seem worthwhile actually pay off much better down the road.
    This is actually the real benefit of the movie.  Most of the sequences have a layered reality to them.  We see references to gags in unrelated stories.  In some cases, it's something trivial, like seeing an ad on a TV in the background.  But this approach gives a peculiar sense of an alternate reality.
    You see, in Kentucky Fried Movie or The Groove Tube, each sequence is mostly self-contained.  We never see an ad for Catholic High School Girls In Trouble later in the movie.  The only thing I can think of that repeats in Kentucky Fried Movie is the director's name that is attached to every project.  Since everything ties together in this picture, the world building gives everything an extra sheen of being strange.
    I also have a deeper appreciation for Steven Seagal's role in this movie.
    I'll leave you with some enjoyable Melissa Cherry.

166 - Deadfall Trail

    Three guys go into the wilderness on an extreme camping trip - very few supplies, and no directions.  Two of the guys have done this before.  It's the first trip for the third guy.  After an accident happens in the woods, it's down to two of them to try to care for the other.
    This is another of the cheap movies I got on one of the 8-movie DVDs.  And this one has a 4.1 on IMDB.  But I'm glad to say that it's pretty decent.  It's shot fairly well.  It's technically competent, except that the dialogue has a hard time competing with the soundtrack.  It would also help if the disc had subtitles.
    Part of what made this movie interesting was the structure.  It actually took a long time for the first major event to happen - a bit over half an hour.  Then it still didn't move forward until a bit past an hour.  This could be trimmed down without losing anything important, but the unusual pacing actually helps make the movie less predictable.  It's unclear how anything is going to work out, making the whole picture much more compelling.
    I wish I could say that the movie had something interesting to say, but it didn't seem to break any new ground.  There wasn't much of a sense of horror to it.  Most of it was mild drama, but maybe a touch of thriller to it.
    Still, for a movie that cost me about $0.63, I'd say it was pretty good.

165 - Ed Wood

    A slightly fictionalized biography of Ed Wood, covering his time making movies from Glen or Glenda through Plan 9 From Outer Space.  We see a variety of his friends, and developments in his personal life, with a special focus on his relationship with Bela Lugosi.
    I don't know how many times I've seen this movie, but it gets better every time.  And this is pretty clearly the best work that Tim Burton has done.  Some of his earlier work was really good - Pee Wee, Beetlejuice, Batman… those were very good, but have some distinct weaknesses.  This movie has Burton's style all over it, but it feels much more restrained.
    But the direction isn't the highlight of this movie, it's the script.  Everything about this movie feels a little cartoonish, but it doesn't feel fake at all.  It's created by Ed Wood's optimism, and his perseverance in the face of every possible problem that comes with making a movie.  As well as his difficulties in his relationships.
    There's a wonderful scene, when he goes out on a date, and takes the opportunity to explain to the girl that he's a transvestite.  He's not confident in telling her about it, but it's one of the best decisions that he makes.
    I associate this movie with Bowfinger.  They're both comedies, and they take a very different approach, but they're both about the love of making movies.  Maybe Cinema Paradiso falls into the same category.  It's hard to blame Ed Wood for making bad movies.  He just loved movies so much, it would be hard to cancel the project just because he wasn't talented enough.

164 - Tenebre (also titled Tenebrae)

    A writer takes a trip to Rome, and is followed by a series of murders, at least some partly based on his book, titled Tenebre.  He works with police to try to solve the mystery.
    This is a movie I had heard about for about fifteen years at least.  And I never brought myself to watch it.  I don't think I ever saw it for rental anywhere, and I wasn't about to blind buy it.  It's a giallo, and I haven't cared for many of those.  I usually find the pacing to be intolerably slow, and the acting to be overdone.
    This one wasn't nearly as good as it had been made out to be, but it is interesting.  There is some very clever camerawork, and some very nicely staged shots.
    However, this is offset by the awkward script, which would be better if the actors weren't trying so hard.  The pacing is acceptable, although it could use some more tightening.
    There is a decent twist to the story, but all of it seems to be stated outright at the end.  This doesn't quite work.
    The one thing that I'll really remember from this is a strange part where a girl is chased by a dog.  The dog barks at her from behind a fence.  She decides to provoke it for some reason, then walks off.  The dog jumps the fence and chases her.  We see this dog jump fences more than once, and it's an incredible jumper.

    Also, I found the music by Goblin to be really distracting.  I have no idea why their work was so popular.

163 - The Gingerdead Man

    A criminal holds up some family's bakery.  After they lead to his arrest, prosecution, and execution, his ashes are disguised as gingerbread seasoning.  He is brought back to life as a gingerbread man, and goes after the surviving bakers.
    I know that a good movie can't be expected from that synopsis.  This was another one on one of those multiple movie DVDs that I picked up from Best Buy.  Since I can compare this to Doll Graveyard, I'd have to say that they're on around the same level.
    This movie suffers from a few problems in direction.  I noticed that the director seems to like using tilted shots.  This isn't horrible, but it was conspicuous.  There were some strange problems with lighting.  The shot would be fairly well lit, and then the characters would be complaining about the lights being out.  Near the end, there were several shots that didn't match the lighting or the clarity of other shots, and since all of the action seems to take place in about two or three rooms, this is really noticeable.
    Most egregious though, is that there's a shot where a guy steps out to get something from his car, and we see a crew member standing at the side of the shot.  The crew member isn't only partly in the shot - his entire body makes it into the shot.  And this shot doesn't just show up during the movie - they reuse it at the end, when they go through the credits.
    I can't complain about the plot.  It isn't intended to be taken seriously.  There are plenty of problems with it, mostly that the characters seem to be interested in staying around, or they feel like they're trapped there, even though if they really wanted to leave, there are several options for that.
    Meh.  If I saw this in high school, with my friends, I think we'd be entertained.

162 - Skyfall

    A hard drive containing a list of all field agents has fallen into the wrong hands.  Bond has been shot, and is presumed dead.  An explosion puts MI6's headquarters at risk.  Bond reappears to go back to work, to hopefully put things back in place.  The villain is an ex-agent who is going after M.
    I had read plenty of good reviews.  I was actually pretty excited to see this.  And it lived up to my expectations.  I still have a few complaints, but they are things that will probably go away with repeated viewings.
    The action is excellent.  The opening chase and fight is perfectly executed.  Every step of the sequence ramps up the tension wonderfully.  And it's shot well!  I never felt confused about what was happening.  Bond isn't on his own, either.  He works co-operatively very well.
    I didn't care for Adele's theme.  I don't like her voice very much.  But the credit sequence was very interesting, and had darker imagery than I'm used to.
    The themes of the movie are laid out in clever ways.  Bond's relationship with his parents, his childhood.  His relationship with MI6, and his relationship with M in particular.  The entire organization's relationship with England as a whole.
    Bond is a little closer to the traditional Bond model here, since he's more of a smooth operator, seducing several women over the course of the picture.  But he's a little more distant in his relationship with them.  When one of them is shot, he never seems to dwell on it.
    The sequences of the movie all feel very disconnected.  There is a plot that ties everything together, but when Bond is fighting a guy on a tower in Shanghai, there are lots of neon lights and things swirling around.  It's nothing like any of the other parts of the movie.
    I actually liked the last act of the movie quite a bit.  It reminded me a little of the farm in the first Bourne, in that it isn't a massive showdown, but it feels like… a home invasion battle.
    I'm very happy with this movie, and I look forward to seeing it a few more times.

161 - Casino Royale

    Having just achieved his 00 status, Bond uncovers a peculiar plot, which involves shorting the stock of an airline, and a man who acts as an investment banker for organized crime and terrorists.  Bond has to beat him at poker to force him to lose his client's money.
    I've never been a big Bond fan.  I saw Goldeneye when that came out.  I enjoyed it.  Then I tried to watch it a second time, and I found it intolerable.  I think I saw the next one (The World is Not Enough?) and didn't remember anything about it.  When Casino Royale came out, I didn't really give it any attention.  I saw it sometime after it came out on DVD, and I really liked it.  I was enthusiastic enough that I went to see Quantum of Solace in theaters, and I really liked that as well.
    Casino Royale is balanced very well.  There's some great action, but there's a lot of Bond fumbling and figuring out what he can do.  He doesn't make perfect decisions.  In contrast though, there are also plenty of sequences of Bond doing very clever things, and acting like a superb agent.
    What makes the movie noteworthy is the emotional depth that Bond gets to enjoy.  He has a romance, one that he feels involved in.  He's willing to leave his work for her.  And he never gets the resolution he would like from it.  This makes Bond more fleshed out than prior movies let him get.
    Like the Bourne movies, I like to revisit Casino Royale now and then.  It's such a satisfying watch.

160 - Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

    Some religious group is trying to prevent the evil entity (actually a fallen angel, who seems to be filling in for the devil) from getting the means of utilizing it's power by using a young boy as a vessel (or something like this).  They approach Johnny Blaze with the offer that if he helps out, they'll lift the Ghost Rider curse from him.
    This movie isn't especially good.  It was mostly inoffensively fun, but I found that as the story wore on, and especially by the time the movie ended, I felt like there were some really big problems.
    This type of story has been done several times.  Protecting the "chosen one" to prevent some massive supernatural power change from happening.  In this movie, there's a really huge hurdle to jump.  They made Ghost Rider way too powerful.  He incinerates those that touch his chain.  His chain also seems to have no particular length to it - it changes as needed.
    There's also a big change in how his penance stare works.  In the comics, it's a little more torturous, and it serves as a punishment.  He looks at the victim, and they are forced to experience the pain they have inflicted on others.  In this, the stare seems to be a method of extracting the victim's soul, killing them.  All of this is to say that they have a hard time giving him any meaningful opposition.
    The direction is really strange.  Much of it is competent, but now and then there are really bizarre bits.  Like the strange shot of Ghost Rider in the air, spinning around.
    And this is also the weirdest, most over-the-top performance Nicolas Cage has ever given.  There's a scene, around 32 minutes in, which I really wanted to post with this review.  Cage goes completely crazy, and changes his type of delivery with every line.  Luckily, I found it.

    So…it's not a great movie.  But it's watchable.