110 - Bulworth

    A senator up for re-election suffers a peculiar breakdown, leading to him hiring a hitman to kill him, along with speaking his mind in public.
    I saw this back about ten years ago.  I liked it then, although not as much as some other political comedies of the period.  Now, this one doesn’t hold up nearly as well.
    The novelty of the story comes from seeing Warren Beatty playing an awkward white senator, deciding to rap things, as well as speak his mind in a blunt way about political issues.  There’s a humor to that.  But the movie has a serious problem with indulging in stereotypes.  Just about every black person in the movie is a stereotype.  There are a few rare moments where they break those molds, but they usually reinforce them.
    There is a strong core to the message, mostly about the negative role that money plays in politics.  This is fine, but it gets muddied by the focus on his behavior.
    This belongs in a family of other political movies - Bob Roberts, Wag the Dog, Primary Colors, all of which use some pretty bleak messages to make a point.  I’ve grown out of these movies, in a strange way.  I still enjoy them, but I don’t think they’re achieving much.  They draw attention to problems, but they don’t actually offer any solutions.  If anything, they reinforce how hopeless real political change is.

92 - Leon: The Professional

    A hitman takes in a young girl whose family has been killed.  She decides that she wants to follow in his footsteps.
    The first thing that I’ve noticed about this movie is the title.  Many sources seem to call it Leon: The Professional.  IMDB says that the original title was Leon.  The title card of the movie calls it The Professional.
    Anyway, it’s an interesting movie, but I somehow felt unsatisfied at the end.  There’s a moodiness to it, which is engrossing, but there’s also mix of other elements that feel like it’s a bit of a hack movie.
    A good comparison would be The Boondock Saints, which was released five years later.  Both of these movies revel in a degree of violence, they use some colorful characters, the protagonist is strangely captivating.  But this movie also borrows little bits from Taxi Driver.
    What drives the movie is a curiosity.  You want to know how things are going to turn out.  That can usually make a pretty good movie.  But here, I just felt like the ending didn’t accomplish anything.  I saw most of the ending coming, and I felt like the movie avoided one of more interesting possible directions by making Mathilda not kill anyone.  Even the action isn’t all that interesting.  It doesn’t live up to the promise established at the start of the movie.
    I know this sounds like I didn’t like it.  I did enjoy it, and it’s certainly a worthwhile viewing.  But it just isn’t as good as I thought it would be.

91 - Troll 2

    A family vacations at the small town of Nilbog, unaware that it is populated by goblins.
    I’ve intended to watch this for a long time, but somehow it never seemed to be important enough to bump it up to the top of my queue.  Sure, it’s a bad movie, but I can’t really say that it’s the Best Worst Movie.
    The Room is far more notable, far more interesting, and worse on more levels.  This is bad, silly, cheap, but also more technically competent.  It’s also a foreign production, even if it was made in the US.  It brought Italian sensibilities to the direction.  This is pretty obvious for anyone who has seen Italian horror.
    It’s hard to pick on the acting, since everyone involved seems to be at roughly the same level.  No one stands out as being too good for the production.  And since I’ve seen Best Worst Movie, I know that most of the cast was pretty new to acting.
    What crowns the weird badness of this movie is the story.  It starts off with a certain ridiculousness, then it just gets worse from there.  Nearly every step on the way gets progressively worse.  We’ve got goblins that are vegetarians.  They want to eat people, so they get the people to eat weird, green-tainted food, which turns the people into plant matter.  Then the goblins eat them.  This has so many problems with it, it’s hard to ignore.  Why do the goblins want to eat people?  It seems like more effort than just eating vegetables.  The food is obviously tainted.  Cake with green icing makes sense.  The weird green spread on every other food is so bizarre that it makes you question why the actors aren’t reacting to it.
    There’s a plot point later in the movie where someone makes himself inedible to the goblins by eating a “double decker bologna sandwich.”  Was everyone else a vegetarian before they came to town?
    There are a handful of sequences that are wonderful in their badness.  Most of them are up on youtube.  My personal favorite was the weird corn-on-the-cob seduction.  I’m a sucker for a terrible soundalike recording of “You Can Keep Your Hat On.”

85 - Soapdish

    The cast of a soap opera is thrown into a soap opera of their own as an effort is underway to eliminate a main character.
    I used to see the box for this at the video store, and it never called to me.  But it seemed so ridiculous looking that I’ve always had this mild curiosity about it.  It has a terrible title.  I don’t know what a better title would be, but this seems like one of the least interesting choices.
    This is… a work of genius.  But it is seriously flawed.  It’s a fantastic idea.  The story comes together really well.  The cast is exceptional.  But there’s something wrong.  I can’t tell what it is.  It’s almost like the direction was aiming to straddle a line between straight drama and straight comedy.  I can’t point to anything specific.
    What’s remarkable about this story is how gradually it weaves everything together.  You don’t see the big twist coming until it lands, and then you realize that the players are living in their own unintentional soap opera.
    It’s a hard movie to recommend, because it requires a particular sense of humor.  A lot of the jokes are just going to slip past most viewers.  But once you get it, there’s a very classic-comedy feeling it creates.

71 - Leap of Faith

    A faith healer and his road show are stranded in a small rural town, along with a sheriff that doesn’t appreciate their efforts to fundraise off the community.
    I’ve seen this a few times, and I’ve always enjoyed it.  But there’s something missing.  I forget about the movie pretty quickly, and I have a hard time remembering many of the plot points.  I enjoy Steve Martin’s performance.  I noticed a number of notable people in the cast.  Everyone does a good job, and the structure is actually pretty good.
    I think where the movie fails is that the message seems a little unclear.  Martin doesn’t have a strong arc, and it’s hard to feel like learns anything.  The event that really twists things around is when a miracle occurs that Martin knows he didn’t perform.  This is the catalyst that would have made for a much more effective story.  Instead, it’s the event that ends things.
    Another problem is that Martin isn’t exactly villainous enough.  He’s a sleazy guy, but he makes a reasonable justification for his actions.  He’s an entertainer.  The fact that people seem to regard “faith healers” as something other than entertainment is a problem, but I wouldn’t expect the argument for restriction of religious freedom to have much weight.
    As it is, the movie seems more like a backstory to a more interesting story that takes place afterward.

63 - That Thing You Do!

    A garage band records a hit record and enjoys fast success.
    I’m counting this as a first viewing, because this is the first time I’ve seen this cut of the movie.  The original cut of the movie was 108 minutes.  The director’s cut is 149 minutes.  This feels like a completely different movie.
    If I had been more familiar with the original edit, I probably could have pointed out exactly which material was new.  Somehow, the whole thing felt new.  There were still a handful of scenes that I remembered being exactly the same, but there was so much more development of minor plots, little additional lines that fleshed out characters.
    I like the movie much more in this form.  I felt more firmly invested in the characters.  Their fandom for music seemed more completely developed.  I especially liked the addition of the relationship between the bass player and the girl in the girl group.
    I still have two problems with this movie, and they aren’t as serious as they might sound.  First, I don’t feel like there was enough of a development of the relationship between the drummer and Faye.  I don’t know what I expect, because I still pick up on the need for that relationship to happen, but they both seem completely willing to let it pass by.
    The second problem is that Jimmy, the cocky singer, has a happy ending.  He loses the girl, and he loses out on his record deal.  But neither of these things bother him.  Again, I’m not sure what I wanted, but it was something else.

52 - Dogfight

    On a brief leave before shipping out, a group of marines have a dogfight party, wherein all participants compete to see who can bring the ugliest girl to a party.  One guy comes with his girl, but gradually relents as he comes to like her.
    This one was suggested to me, and it’s an unusual movie.  It moves slowly, and the roots it has with a stage play is evident.  It’s mostly notable for being one of the few performances that River Phoenix turned in.  Honestly, I don’t care much about him, but it’s a good performance from Lili Taylor that makes the story work.
    There’s one thing that bugged me about this movie, and it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it was a bit annoying.  Lili Taylor wears some padding to make her look a bit fatter.  Since this takes place in 1963, the standard of beauty was a little different - she probably would have been more attractive this way than her normal, skinny self.
    It’s a nice story.  It’s good, but not great.  As pleasant as Lili’s character is, the story doesn’t resonate with me.  I find the main character to be dislikable, even when he has supposedly matured.

42 - Ravenous

    During the Mexican-American War, a soldier is reassigned to a remote outpost.  There, he deals with a wendigo - a cannibal that gains in strength as it eats others.
    This is one of the rare horror movies that feels so completely classy, but I haven’t run into anyone who feels the same as I do.  The period elements are really wonderful.  The photography and locations are fantastic.  The music is really remarkable.  It captures a sense of the period, but uses a few modern flourishes that give a sense of wooziness to things.
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen another cannibal movie with a similar premise (the exception might be an episode of Fear Itself, called Skin And Bones) and setting the story in a period really makes things interesting.
    The acting is generally good, although the lead is one of the least interesting characters.  The villain is played by Robert Carlyle, who pulls off some wonderfully crazy stuff leading up to his initial attack.  Jeffrey Jones is charming, of course.
    I read up on the production, and watched a little interview with Jeffery Jones that was on the disc, and it sounds like it was a real mess.  One director was fired, another took over, there were budgetary issues, regular rewrites, and the studio included stuff that the director didn’t want used.  It’s remarkable, because I feel like it’s a really solid movie. 

33 - L.A. Story

     An unhappy LA weatherman is guided through a correction in his life by a signpost, as he leaves his relationship, his job, and strikes up a new romance.
     My favorite movie.  Over time, I've wondered how much that description still applies.  I still think this is a wonderfully paced movie.  It's layered in many different ways.  The writing is fantastic.  There's just enough oddity to make things curious.  The performances are all great.  Even some of the trivial bits, like the woman that Steve Martin eyes in the dressing room.
     I met Steve Martin a few years ago.  I told him that L.A. Story has been my favorite movie, and I got a picture with him.  I think he was pleased that I wasn't going to talk about The Jerk or something like that.
     There are weaknesses to this movie, but they're all issues that have to do with an audience that doesn't pay close attention.  The movie rewards multiple viewings, as the themes are easier to fit together.
     Even now, after probably dozens of viewings, I felt like I noticed a few new things.  The direction is really interesting.  There are these fast-cut sequences establishing new locations, and most of them are really nicely framed.  Then I also noticed a few hand-held shots that follow characters around in some really interesting ways.  This isn't the same as the round meal scene, which is fairly obvious, but scenes like Harris trying to talk Sara into staying.  The camera starts at one point, moves around with the characters, turns around, follows them up the stairs... it's well blocked.

31 - The Ref

     A thief takes a bickering couple hostage on Christmas Eve.
     I saw this a long time ago, and I remembered it mostly as a three-person show.  Now, it reminds me a little of an effort to cash in on Home Alone by making a touching, offbeat Christmas story.
     It's an ensemble cast, and most of the characters are defined in narrow ways.  No single performance stands out as being especially good or bad.  It's broadly good, but not noteworthy or memorable at all.
     I found myself thinking of Mixed Nuts, which probably is written about as well, but was saved by some strong performances.

15 - Living in Oblivion

     An independent film production struggles with all sorts of problems.
         I’ve seen this several times, and it gets better every time.  This time, it wasn’t just the performances, although I’ve been completely amazed by Catherine Keener’s performance.  Her work is some of the trickiest stuff I’ve seen.  She’s playing a character who is an actress.  Her character isn’t a bad actress, but just needs the right motivation to get the best performance.  As she goes through take after take of a single scene, her performance starts off acceptable, then gets worse with successive takes.  It’s exceptional to see this level of nuance, and the very slight changes she uses to create a smooth flow from quality to garbage without feeling forced at all.
      I'm also completely impressed with the script.  I found myself wondering about how the different layers of reality would be explained.  There are lots of wonderful little setups that happen, and it pays well to keep a good focus on everything that happens.
     My favorite moment is still the fantasy of the crew member who thinks about getting a hamburger at a diner.

9 - Nick Fury: Agent of Shield

    After Baron Von Strucker’s corpse is stolen by Hydra, Fury is pulled out of retirement to foil a plot.
    I’ve been reading a fair amount of Captain America comics, and I had looked up Strucker on Wikipedia.  There, I saw that Strucker had been portrayed in this movie, which I had no idea existed.  This is remarkable.  It was straight to TV, released in May of 1998.  While Blade is usually credited with kicking off Marvel’s movie success, Blade was released theatrically in August.  Even more amazing is that both of these movies were written by David S. Goyer, who went on to write Batman Begins, the story for Dark Knight, Ghost Rider, and strangely, Dark City.
    This movie continues the tradition of superhero movies that started back with the 80s Captain America movie.  It’s disappointing for the fans of the subject.  But it’s actually a bridge between that point, and the fan service and budget needed to safely realize the subject matter.  There are supporting characters - Dugan, Viper, Strucker, Arnim Zola.  We get to see the Helicarrier.  Life Model Decoys!  But the weakness is that the story focuses on pleasing the cheap action flick fans, but doesn’t have the budget to do that.
    The plot has to do with Hydra wanting to release a biological weapon in New York.  Fury has to track down the Hydra headquarters while another group has to find where the weapon is being transported into NY from.
    It’s deeply flawed, but it hits all of the expected beats, so it’s strangely satisfying, even as it struggles to be interesting.  The highlight of the movie comes near the end, as the action gets a little more satisfying, even though the pacing is still very slow.
    I’m amazed this movie exists, and I’m surprised it isn’t more widely known.  It isn’t a high point for Marvel, but it’s probably more watchable than the 80s Captain America movie.
    And I love the tagline “The Last Superhero!”

200 - RoboCop 3

    OCP has a plan to redevelop part of Detroit.  They do this by taking over the neighborhoods, and forcefully evicting everyone there.  Robocop winds up getting involved, joining forces with the resistance to prevent them from losing their homes.
    It’s a bad sign when I start watching a movie, and immediately think that something is wrong with the plot.  The city has clearly made a deal with OCP.  Why do they have to go in and round people up?  They aren’t actually homeless there, some of them clearly own and rent.  I shouldn’t start the movie by thinking that the bad guys are in the right.
    To make matters worse, Robocop overreacts.  He threatens the forces looking to evict people.  Even if we agree with him, if this were real life… I would consider the cop to be out of control.
    Like the second movie, Robocop is out of commission for much of the movie.  In this one, I’m not really positive why he is.  Yes, he was damaged, but his problem seems to be electrical.  How does he get enough power to remain functioning?  Why does Robocop seem to prefer absurdly destructive methods of doing things?  Instead of driving up to assist his fellow officers, he drives to the top of a building, then drives the car off the edge so that he can land nearby.
    The story has a bunch of weird little turns, even as the core of the plot is very simplistic.  It’s not very rewarding either.  The specialized baddie that Robocop has to fight in the last reel is bizarre, but doesn’t have much personality.  It seems to be some kind of sword-fighting robot.
    What the movie has going for it is a pretty notable cast.  In particular, it’s great to see Stephen Root in an earlier role.  Lots of familiar faces sprinkled throughout.
    There’s a tone throughout the movie, and it becomes more obvious near the end, that this movie was adjusted in order to sell toys.  Robocop gets to fly around with a jetpack near the end.  It’s absurd.  There’s a cameo by ED-209, again, strangely conspicuous.  And even with these kid-centric developments, the movie is violent.  It’s really violent, just less gory.  It’s a strange distinction, but Robocop sprays bullets all over the place, unlike his usual method of careful targeting.
    A pretty bad movie.  At least it’s out of my queue now.

197 - Quick Change

    After robbing a bank in disguise, three friends struggle to escape New York, fighting against typical New York difficulties.
    This is part of a small family of comedies that I really love, that are under-appreciated, and don’t get decent video releases.  I’ve seen this several times, and it holds up really well, but seems to struggle to find an audience.
    Most of the credit for how good this movie is can be attributed to Bill Murray.  It’s a little more straight than most of his roles, but he delivers almost all of his jokes with a dryness.  Occasionally, a hint of a smirk.  It reminds me a little of how he performed in What About Bob?
    The story is really solid, but it somehow seems almost understated.  The most memorable sequence of the movie is the opening bank robbery, and after that, there’s this calming feeling.  Maybe the problem is that the leads don’t feel like they’re any closer to being captured.  Even the close calls don’t seem like there’s a real sense of risk.  But this brings up another issue that holds this movie back.  There aren’t any real bad guys.  The cop that’s trying to catch them isn’t a mean guy.  He’s a little gruff, and he’s concerned with his reputation, but he doesn’t do anything wrong.  In fact, he tells a more aggressive cop to back off later on in the movie.
    So the ending makes sense - everyone comes out of this well.  But it’s hard to feel like it’s an effective movie.
    Oh, it’s good.  And I’d suggest that anyone watch it.  It’s nice that it’s a bit different.  But this might be why it hasn’t attracted the full audience it deserves.

194 - Robocop 2

    Detroit has difficulties with the city’s relationship with OCP, as well as a popular new drug called Nuke.  Robocop is on the case.
    The first Robocop is a really fun movie.  It slows down a little now and then, but it’s delightfully satirical, violent, and it has some real thought put into it.  Paul Verhoven wanted to put more time into developing the sequel, but Orion wanted to rush right into it.  The result is that there’s a story that could have been good, and still hits a few interesting notes, but it misses a lot of things that the story really needed.  Robocop doesn’t have an arc.  He has one thing that he has to overcome, he does it, then he fights the bad guy.  In fact, none of the characters seem to have arcs.  Maybe Hob does, but that’s a little hard to tell.
    An effort is made to retain some of the surreal commercial elements that sprinkle the original movie, but the ones that appear here seem to be mostly irrelevant.  They appear as bumpers, but they don’t provide any useful information - or even useful cultural information.  (To be fair, the opening with the car alarm system is pretty fun, and it does establish tone, but the other one(s) are just padding.)
    There are a few improvements.  Most of the effects shots are a bit more interesting, and they do a decent job of using them.  There’s a bigger cast.
    The bad stuff… Detroit is portrayed as such a hellhole, it seems like there’s no purpose in attempting to police it.  There’s no one worth protecting.  This idea is pushed so hard that it’s hard to feel like there was any point.  When there’s only crime, and no innocent civilians… there doesn’t seem to be a use for Robocop.  The story is enjoyable, but it doesn’t leave much space for character development.  The primary villain, Cain, is supposed to be an interesting villain, but he doesn’t get a chance to do much to define himself, except take drugs, and occasionally deliver some pseudo-philosophy about drugs and mankind.
    The body count is much higher in this movie.  And yet, it’s meaningless.  The especially violent sequences in Robocop were effective because of the context.  Here, they seem like they’re just being included for the sake of trying to up the action.
    But I didn’t leave this feeling like it was a terrible movie.  It’s flawed, and seriously so, but it’s still enjoyable enough for a single viewing.

    One little thing that I’m not sure about.  I know that the costume for Robocop was made of lighter material, and he was able to move around better.  But it was strange.  It had a blueish tint, and it seemed bulkier, especially around the torso.  Sometimes, his movements looked weird or comical.  I think I preferred the thinner, more chrome look of the first movie.

192 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    Four mutated turtles and their mutated rat master fight a crime wave run by the mysterious Foot organization.
    I would have been nine years old when this came out, but I never cared that much about the turtles.  I was aware that the movies came out, but they weren’t even ones that I wanted to see, unlike Masters of the Universe.  That’s a long way of saying that this is the first time I’ve watched this movie.
    This movie is firmly aimed at kids.  There are very few lines that might appeal to adults, and the story seems focused on delivering what kids want to see - the turtles goofing off, and the turtles fighting.  For what it is, it’s fairly successful.  It moves along, it delivers enough laughs.  They don’t skimp on the action.
    That’s the most remarkable thing about the movie.  There’s action all over the place, and they aren’t shooting it poorly.  Most of the sequences are built from modest-length shots that show a clear action.  There aren’t these tight-closeup shots of a swinging arm and weapon, or a connecting hit.  These are choreographed fight sequences.  They’re made more impressive by knowing that these are four guys in layered costumes having to jump around.
    The story is pretty weak, but it seems appropriate for the audience.  There’s just about nothing for adults, maybe one or two jokes.  But I did find the costumes interesting.  Logistically, they were a difficult thing to pull off smoothly, but they managed to do it.
    The weirdest thing is how unbalanced the characters are.  Through most of the movie, Raphael is angry for some reason.  The other turtles aren’t developed in any meaningful way.  April and Casey Jones are developed more than the other turtles.  It isn’t a terrible thing, but it’s a little puzzling.  Seeing most of the turtles pal around, they came across more like Bill & Ted than anything else.

189 - Good Will Hunting

    Will Hunting is a blue-collar janitor who solves a publicly posted math problem, making his mathematical genius known to MIT.  As the professor tries to take him under his wing, he finds that Will has some personal issues to work through.
    I have no idea why this is 129 on IMDB’s top 250.  It’s an enjoyable movie, but it feels like something’s missing.
    I felt like the movie was opening with a caricature of Boston.  I lived there for four years.  I didn’t grow up there, and I wasn’t nearly the blue-collar type that is focused on, but I felt like this was a strangely dated picture of Boston.  It was released in 1997, but something feels like a relic from the 80s.
    The good things are out there.  Matt Damon is a pleasure to watch, although he isn’t as charming as some of his later roles.  The script is fun, but it also feels a bit padded.  There are scenes that are there solely to add flavor, and they become a little conspicuous.  Sometimes I can like these kinds of things, but when they show up around the middle of the movie, they tend to drag the pacing down a little.
    After the setup has gone through, it seemed like a pleasant movie… something inoffensively good.  Like Shawshank Redemption, which also has a strangely high ranking.
    It’s hard for me to point to specific problems, but I guess it might be that I expect really good movies to be a little conflicting.  There should be a sense of mystery to the proceedings, something that would reward multiple viewings and cause you to recognize genius.  I just don’t get that with this one.

158 - The Birdcage

    The son of a gay couple has his fiancée and her family over to meet his family.  The fiancée’s family is centered around a conservative senator.
    I know this movie has gotten a good reception, and I know I saw it when I was in high school.  I remember enjoying it, but not too enthusiastically.  This time, I like it, but I have a lot more reservations than I expected.
    My complaints boil down to two core issues.  First, the movie relies on extreme stereotypes.  In some cases, a caricature of types is appropriate.  The problem is that nearly everyone fits this bill.  The second issue is that there’s no lesson learned.  The entire movie feels like the setup to a punchline, which is the last scene.  The senator - who should obviously have a lesson learned - doesn’t seem to learn anything.  He has plenty of opportunity for improvement, but he never takes it.  Even Nathan Lane’s character seems like he should have learned something, but he mostly just stops being whiny for a little while.
    Normally, these problems would be a death knell for a movie.  But this is a special case.  What this has going for it is… the cast.  Everyone is hamming it up, everyone is putting the most outrageous spin on everything.  It’s remarkable, it’s engrossing, it’s funny.  Even Robin Williams, who would normally push the part in a direction that I would find distasteful, plays his part a little restrained, and this gives a bit of an emotional core to the movie.  Not a big one, but it’s there, and it helps the movie work.
    The more I think about this, I kind of like that there’s no lesson learned.  People stay the same.  Political philosophies are not easily challenged.

136 - As Good As it Gets

    A compulsive, misanthropic writer gets wound into the lives of his gay neighbor and his waitress.
    I’m certain I’ve written about this movie before.  I know I’ve been clear about how much I enjoy it.  This time, I watched it for research purposes.  I’ve been writing a romance, and I know that I’m pretty light on the comedy part of things, but I wanted to see exactly how a movie like this is structured.  So this time, I made an outline of the movie, focusing on the way that the plot and character development worked.
    What I realized was actually that the movie has a few traits that I had a hard time getting past.  I counted about 45-46 scenes.  For the amount of time spent focusing on Carol the waitress, I would expect more development, but she actually doesn’t learn much.  She mostly learns that Melvin isn’t entirely a jerk.  But she remains a jerk throughout.  In fact, later in the movie, she handles much smaller things much worse.  When Melvin grumbles that the restaurant requires him to wear a jacket and tie, and they let her in wearing a housedress, she’s somehow seriously offended and ready to leave.  The comment wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t specifically mean to her.  She’s had plenty of experience with Melvin by that point, and should probably be able to handle his mistake more smoothly.  She handles much worse behavior during that scene perfectly fine.  Regardless, in response to this, she demands a compliment.
    Is she supposed to be torn because Melvin is attractive, and kind sometimes, and a jerk other times?  I don’t get a sense of her personal conflict.  I get a sense that she is only attracted to his generosity, but she makes no reasonable effort to train Melvin to be a good person.
    In watching it while taking these notes, I realized that the first act is a story of his relationship with the dog, at least primarily.
    What stands out on repeated viewings is that the last act is pretty weak.  The writing remains good, but the roadblock to their relationship is so forced.  It requires her acting unreasonable, even in the face of Melvin behaving better and better.  It requires her being more and more of a jerk on her own.
    What makes this movie work, and work really well, is that every scene has a joke to it.  Even the more serious scenes have substantial laughs in them.

135 - Scream 2

    Sidney, the surviving protagonist of Scream, is off at college.  The story of the murders in Scream have been released as a book, which has been adapted into a movie, which a new killer is using as a prompt to start their own spree.
    I know that I saw this - and Scream 3 - in theaters.  Beyond the opening sequence, I didn’t remember anything about it.  The only thing I remember about Scream 3 is that Heather Matarazzo is in it.
    It’s just boring.  The opening sequence is the most enjoyable thing about it, and it doesn’t feel like it has much of anything to do with the rest of the movie.  The victims seem to be randomly selected.
    I suppose I can elaborate on the quality of the opening sequence.  We get to see a rowdy theater (I’ve seen The Room and Snakes on a Plane in theaters, and neither of them were as ridiculously rowdy as this) where a hip couple argue.  The guy loves horror movies, she seems to be annoyed by them (even though she seems to get really into them).  She leaves to go to get popcorn.  After she gets it, they meet by the door, and he says he’s going to the bathroom.  In the bathroom, he’s killed by a guy in the ghost mask.  He’s stabbed in the side of the head.  The knife manages to be thrust through a bathroom stall.  Seriously.  This isn’t a great way to start the movie, especially if you want to establish that this is taking place in the real world (which is what we’re supposed to get by seeing scenes from the first movie being re-staged in the theater).
    Then we go back to the girl, who’s getting really into the movie.  A guy in a ghost mask comes and sits next to her.  She eventually realizes that it isn’t her boyfriend.  She gets stabbed.
    This sequence feels very Hitchcock.  Someone in danger while they’re in a crowd.  The audience’s misunderstanding is part of the tension.  I like this.
    Then things fall apart.  We get a bunch of scenes bringing all of the surviving characters back.  We get more tongue-in-cheek dialogue referencing other movies.  Sigh.  And it seemed kind of obvious that they were telegraphing who the killer was.
    Of course, there’s a big twist ending, which is mostly impossible to see coming.

    Okay, a pair of people are killed at a movie theater.  For some reason, the police hold a press conference on the local college campus.  Why?  So that there’s a reason to have Sidney there!
    There’s a sequence that involves Jerry O’Connell getting up on a cafeteria table and singing “I Think I Love You” to Sidney.  I’m not sure why this sequence is in the movie, except that they thought it was a funny idea.  It’s dumb, and it’s kind of annoying.  The rest of the students react to this with clapping and cheers.  I'd have an easier time believing that reaction if they were in high school.  In college, most people tend to just ignore that kind of stuff.
    I wonder what the deal is with these movies.  These should be exactly my kind of thing.  I know virtually every reference they make, but I simply can’t make myself care.  Maybe I’d rather see something a little more original than a bunch of ground-up references.