19 - Hot Fuzz

     An exceptional police officer is reassigned to a small village, where he finds the accident rate is unusually high.
      I showed this to Eric.  It's hard to believe that I wasn't as wildly enthusiastic about this movie as I am now.  Over time, I've come to feel like it's much more polished and well-written than Shaun of the Dead.  I still haven't seen The World's End for a second viewing though.  The one thing that is a legitimate complaint about Hot Fuzz is that it's long.  It feels long.  But I can't point to anything that should be cut.  Everything in the movie is a setup and a payoff.  The editing is tight.  Even the scenes that play a little more slowly are perfectly appropriate.

18 - Triangle

     Their boat wrecked, a group of people take refuge on a large liner, which seems to be empty.  They are stuck in a time loop.
      Man, I love this movie.  I think I've seen it at least five or six times now, and I really love it.  I've tried to persuade just about everyone I can think of to watch this.
     This is one of these exceptionally rare time-travel stories that works really well.  Each time we go through the loop, we understand the main character and how her motivation has changed.  It makes the whole movie feel like a natural progression, and it doesn't feel nearly as forced as Time Crimes.
     If I have any complaints, I think there are two of them.  One of them is a shot that involves a gun being thrown, and somehow this knocks a person over.  It seems comical, and it takes some of the tension out of the situation.  The other one is the recurring Aeolus logo on a drum head.  It's an obvious way of tying together what happens on the ship to what happens on land, but I can't tell what the significance of it is.
      It's a beautifully dark and well-crafted story.  This should have gotten far more exposure.

17 - The Onion Movie

     The Onion, a legitimate news source, has been acquired by a larger parent company, which plans to use the nightly news to advertise their other properties.  Their head news anchor is unhappy with this.
    This movie functions mostly as an extended skit format, especially earlier in the movie.  What helps make this movie rise above being a collection of youtube-ready gags is that there are a number of callbacks that happen, and the number of those rise as the movie progresses.  The ending is surprising in how satisfying it is to see Melissa Cherry show up, to have Cockpuncher arrive, and even the Peruvian appear.
     I've been a little puzzled about why this movie hasn't been more successful.  I've seen it a few times, and it's easily more skillfully assembled than something like Kentucky Fried Movie, which has achieved a cult classic status.

16 - Good People

    A blue-collar couple finds a stash of stolen money.  They decide to keep it, dealing with the police, drug dealers, etc.
     When I first started watching this, I didn't know what to expect.  I saw that James Franco is in it, and I've been pretty pleased with most of his career.  It's a surprisingly dull movie, and the biggest mystery about it is why Franco was involved in it.
     It's not a big-budget production.  This wasn't a big payday for him.  It's not well-written.  This wasn't something where the story or writing was so interesting that he couldn't stay away.  The story isn't unique.  It's been done before, and it's been done far better.  (Notably with Shallow Grave)
     The only thing that seems like it may have been interesting to Franco is that it's a character unlike most of the ones he's played.  He's a blue-collar contractor.  He's not especially funny or charismatic.  It's different, but not remarkable.
     About 3/4 of the movie is really dull.  The last act gets a little fun near the end, as the couple lays a trap for their opposition.
     There's one element that bothered me quite a bit.  At the beginning, the couple is on the verge of losing the house they're living in.  At the same time, they're completely fixated on having a baby.  The stolen money allows them to continue living in this house.  Then, going into the big finish, it's revealed that they actually own another house.  It's a big one that he was intending to fix up.  So here we have two big problems.  They're paying for two houses for no good reason.  Second, they're consumed with the idea of having a baby that they won't be able to afford.  These aren't things that make me like the couple.

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.

14 - Revenge of the Nerds

     Picked on by jocks and sorority girls, freshman nerds at Adams College beat their opposition.
     I don't know how many times I've seen this movie. I owned it on VHS.  I watched it on TV.  I've had it on DVD for a long time.
     I recently read a fantastically long analysis of the movie, which raised a lot of interesting questions about the moral.  Some of these points were already well known and are suspiciously regarded - like the quasi-rape scene on the "moon."  Others require a little more thought, like the relationship of the football coach to the players, and that the coach might actually be responsible for bullying his players into everything they do.
     I did learn something new from watching this.  A well-crafted movie can overcome all sorts of plot problems through sheer force.  After the pigs are let loose in the nerd party, everyone rushes outside where they are taunted by the Alpha Betas.  I realized that they never address what happens to the pigs.  They simply disappear once they are no longer needed.  But it's easy to forget this sort of thing once we are distracted by the ridiculousness of the jock's display.
     Another thing... Michelle Meyrink is remarkable.  She has ten credits on IMDB, and somehow, I think she managed to encapsulate the nerd-girl fantasies of just about every geeky guy out there.

13 - Maniac

    A disturbed mannequin restorer stalks and kills a variety of victims.
    This is a remake of the 1980 cheap horror classic, which I was impressed with when I saw it back in 2011.  While the remake is able to improve on a few aspects of the original, mostly some effects work and a variety of technical aspects, it also suffers from having a well-known actor in the leading role.
    While Elijah Wood gives a solid performance, and by most standards does a good job, it’s nowhere near as captivating as the original movie.  The performance winds up being exactly the sort of performance you expect, nothing more or less.  With the original, the performance was unexpected.
    There’s a clearer story this time through.  There’s a primary love interest, and there’s more tension raised.  But somehow, the movie feels like it runs slower than the original did.
    The most interesting aspect of the movie is the way it’s primarily shot from a first-person perspective… but it doesn’t keep that as a rule.  The perspective changes occasionally, but I’m not sure if it’s only done for logistical purposes.  The perspective doesn’t accomplish anything that makes me like the movie more.  If anything, it may have been effective every now and then, but it tends to give the lead less real acting to do, which pulls some of the potential out of the story.