Twisters
Notes:
Jay went without a net this time! And it likely shows!
Bottom Five Guilty Pleasures
It’s weird – when I look at lists of biggest Guilty Pleasures for people, I rarely see anything that I would classify guilty pleasures. Also? There’s a whole lot of hand-wringing around the term. So many people seem to be scared to admit they’re ashamed of something they like, so instead they say “there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure” or “I’m not guilty about any of the things I like.” But then, they go and list off a bunch of movies and, you know what, almost none of them are really, truly guilty pleasures. These lists regularly list things like “Independence Day” or “Big Trouble in Little China,” movies that may be shlocky, but which are undeniably entertaining, at least to most movie goers.
So with this bottom five, Mike, I wanted to truly plumb the depths of my shame and choose movies that I enjoy which almost everyone else agrees are total turds. So keep your “Armageddon’s” and your “Mummy” movies with Brendan Fraser, “Tremors” and “Happy Gilmore,” because all of those are meant to be exactly what they are: popcorn flicks good for laughs and thrills and are no where near what I would call worthy of guilt. No, no… I’m here to thoroughly and completely humiliate myself with these choices. Because there IS such a thing as guilty pleasures and I, sir, am pretty damn embarrassed to admit I like any of these, never mind that I enjoy each and every one to the point where I have watched them MULTIPLE TIMES.
5.) Suicide Squad (2016)
Dir. David Ayer (best known for writing Training Day, the original Fast and the Furious) and the WWII flick U-571.
No, this isn’t James Gunn’s weekender flick he made while on he was tossed on his ass by DIsney for shit he wrote on Twitter when he was an ultra-independent filmmaker. Nah, this is David Ayer’s sloppy, crazy, barely-a-cohesive narrative “Suicide Squad, ” which might be one of the worst-plotted films of all time and is clearly a slap-dash affair due to studio intervention. It’s loud and stupid, filled with dunder-headed exposition and over-the-top characters, but you know what? I fucking adore it. Straight up. I think it’s far superior to Gunn’s cheeky and not-nearly as interesting retake on this team of anti-heroes from the DC Comics universe who end up saving the day because… reasons. Ayer’s “Squad,” first of all, benefits from an incredible cast – remember, this is the movie that made Margot Robbie a star as Harley Quinn! But we also got Will Smith, all charismatic and snarky-yet-dangerous as Deadshot – a character I would watch with fifty more times more enthusiasm than Deadpool. Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flagg, a surprisingly likeable jarhead who acts as the honorable, moral center of the group despite walking around with a remote that will detonate microexplosives in the Squad members’ heads. Viola Davis as the seemingly indestructible agency-head who gives exactly zero fucks about killing a roomful of dedicated employees because they have seen too much. Ike Barinholtz as a lecherous, wise-cracking and hilarious black ops security guard who is in the flick just enough to make a long-lasting impression without wearing out his welcome. And and and… I could go on here, but this is an hour-long show and by just discussing the cast alone, I could fill the time. But I need to make mention of what most people hate most about Suicide Squad, Jared Leto’s bizarre, tattooed and genuinely off-his-rocker, hip-hop Joker who has a grill over his teeth and says shit like “Listen, you are my gift to this handsome hunka hunka! You belong to him now.” The whole damn thing is batshit. Karen Fukuhara kills people with a katana that she talks to because it contains her dead husband’s soul. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Ade-wall-ay Akeyno-e Agbadgee) plays a BET-loving half-man, half-crocodile that wears hoodies and gold chains. And fucking Cara Delivinge… she takes the cake here. As doctor June Moone, who might have the worst name of any doctor in the history of cinema, Doolittle included, she uncorked an artifiact that allows a powerful Aztec witch to possess her at random. Her inclusion as one of the members of the Suicide Squad backfires, providing the whol damn flick with a “story” about how the remaining members of the Squad, assembled because… REASONS… have to get her back alive while overcoming an army of tar monsters she created out of real people. I honestly don’t know if there’s ever been a crazier, more loosely-plotted big budget movie, but the characters and action are so fun that this is, BY FAR, my favorite DC movie produced since Christopher Reeve fought Zod in Superman II. Amazingly, despite never being released on the big screen in China, Suicide Squad was the seventh highest-grossing superhero movie of all time, so while the critics positively excoriated it, the great unwashed moviegoing public – of which I’m proudly a member – thought differently.
4.) Love Actually
Dir. Richard Curtis
Writer/Director Richard Curtis directing debut is a much-beloved film that undeniably has a ton of problematic characters, themes and events. A kind of weird anti-romantic-comedy set during the holidays in London, this behemoth of a movie is beloved and loathed in equal measure, but those who love it and watch it annually at Christmastime, like me, usually do admit, yeah, it’s a mess. Each storyline, and there are way too many, has some bizarrely upsetting, weird and offputting situation or characters. Alan Rickman cheats on Emma Thompson. Emma Thompson tells her friend, Liam Neeson, who is suffering the loss of his wife, that he needs to man up and stop moping around. Liam Neeson tells his dead wife’s young son that he’ll need to fuck off if Neeson ever gets a shot a supermodel Claudia Schiffer (plot twist, she plays the mom of the kid’s school crush.) Colin Firth proposes to a woman he’s never had a proper conversation with that cleans his house because he likes driving her home each day. Hugh Grant, playing a single Prime Minister, falls for the positively stunning caterer played by Martine McCutcheon who literally everyone calls “fat” when she’s most certainly not. At all. Bill Nighy sings the most bullshit Christmas song ever that tops the charts because he promises to shake his old, nude ass on TV. Two no-name actors do a sex scene as nude doubles and fall in love. One down-on-his luck dipshit decides to go to America because women there love British accents and he promptly ends up in a five-way with four gorgeous co-eds played by Denise Richards, Shannon Elizabeth, January Jones and Elisha Cuthbert. Laura Linney can’t bang her office crush because of her needy, developmentally disabled brother. And, in what is the singlemost troubling thread of the whole film, Rick Grimes from the Walking Dead – actor Andrew Lincoln – creepily videotapes Kiera Knightly at her wedding to his best friend, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Cheewaytell Ayjayfohr), and then confesses his love on posterboard messages while pretending to be a Christmas Caroler because, at Christmas, “you have to tell the truth.” FUCK. It’s all exhausting and so painfully stupid and I adore EVERY GODDAMN LAST MINUTE OF IT. All of it. I’ve even ranked the stories from best to worst and debated people about my ranking. It’s the looniness of the whole thing, I think, the sheer audacity of it to be such a grinch in so many ways, yet still be charming. And within all of these sort of troubling scenarios, there’s a sense of heart and fun that’s, for me, undeniable.
3.) Basket Case
Dir. Frank Henlotter
Some people will say they “love” this 1982 grade-z horror film from director Frank Henlotter, but most claim as much because it’s sort of hip to like something so bizarre and depraved. Not me. I simply love this movie because it’s 100% pure filth and Henlotter gives zero fucks about what’s right or believable or, you know, ethically acceptable. The story, for those who don’t know, is about a social outcast named Duane Bradley who comes to New York City with a larger wicker basket and revenge on his mind. You see, Duane was born with a conjoined twin named “Belial” growing out of his abdomen and the two were surgically separated by a crew of nere-do-well doctors. Belial is tossed out, but Duane recovers him and the pair go on a killing spree that begins with their own father, passes through all of the doctors who performed the operation and ends, in one of the most horrific, yet-hilariously gross scenes ever, with Duanes new would-be girlfriend, Sharon. The ending of the film, which finds Belial and Duane fighting and then dangling out a high-up window, is surprisingly tragic and there are many moments within this grimy flick where the affection between the brothers, as well as the friction caused by their murderous ways, seems genuine. I’m not saying this isn’t a video nasty – shot on 16mm for $35,000, it’s got a full-on porno vibe and gore for days. But it’s also a time capsule of New York’s 42nd Street culture and a bygone era of dangerous, weird and dirty city living. The cast is full of misfits and the special effects are outrageous, but this flick manages to surprise and enterain every time I watch it. And apparently, I’m not alone: in 2017, the movie was remastered from its original 16mm print and inducted into the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. I think those art-snobs may have missed the point a little. Basket Case is way better when it’s screened via VHS on a cathode ray tube sporting that boxy 4:3 ratio. All the better too if the tracking is a little dodgy. It makes everything a little harder to see, and thus, a little more unsettling – like a secret spilled from New York City’s sleazy past. For the record, no real love for the sequels. They’re ok, but none capture the pure lunacy of the original.
2.) Howard the Duck
Dir. Willard Hyuck, Jr.
Along with his wife, Gloria Katz, Hyuck collaborated with George Lucas on a number of pictures including American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and they were apparently consultants on the original screenplay for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. But it’s his writing and directorial effort, Howard the Duck that most people remember Hyuck for, and oh mama, what a fucking mess of a misfire. Starring the combination of dwarf performer Ed Gale and voice actor Chip Zwiel as Howard, the movie takes this c-tier Marvel comic book character and brings him to life in a noisy, nonsensical story where regular Joe, Howard, is ripped from his ho-hum existence on Duckworld and tossed into 1980’s Cleveland, Ohio. There he meets a struggling rock and roll singer named Beverly played by Lea Thompson and her friend Phil, played by a young, blundering and goofy Tim Robbins. Shenanigans ensue when scientists, led by Jeffrey Jones, track down Howard and discover that something much bigger than him, and more-threatening, is coming to Earth from a dark corner of our universe. Before you can say, What the Duck – Jones is possessed by a space demon and shooting animated lightning all over the place while Howard tries to romance Lea Thompson. Let’s be real here, though. Have you seen Lea Thompson in this movie? Literally any alien from any corner of space would go for her, so… all those those pearl-clutchers worrying about beastiality in a children’s flick? Well, they’re probably right. Still, despite the fact that the film stars not one, but apparently TWO pedarasts – both Ed Gale and Jeffrey Jones have had run-ins with law-enforcement for questionable dealings with minors – I remain a fan of this gloriously madcap box-office dud that I simply cannot believe anyone thought wouldn’t bomb as bad as it did. I blame my love for cheese, Lea Thompson in her underwear, Tim Robbins and early ILM special effects for the continued joy this flick brings me. Is it bad? Oh most certainly, yes. But is it winningly entertaining? Also, yes.
1.) Sucker Punch
Dir. Zack Snyder (2011)
Snyder called this, an original passion-project which he put on hold to direct “The Watchman,” Alice in Wonderland with Machine Guns. And really, that’s probably all you need to know. The movie is an anime-inspired fanboy spectacle that both sexualizes its leads – especially in the real world – while simultaneously, sort of empowering them. The plot – what there is of one – oscillates between the harrowing existence of two orphaned young women in a decidedly gross mental hospital that farms out its sexy patients to crime bosses who love… modern dance? – and a fantasy world in which Babydoll – yes, that’s the lead character’s name – and several of her fellow inmates, fight there way through some positively INSANE action set-pieces that disregard time, space and anything even approaching logic or reason. Seriously, the film appears as if it’s set sometime in the past – possibly post WWII, although the style of the criminals’ suits are decidedly Al Capone-esque, evoking a 1930’s vibe. Yet in the fantasy sequences
Runners up: 1942 and David Lynch’s Dune, which I tormented my son Justin with when I took him to see it on the big screen.