Den of the Cyphered Wolf

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Favorite Firsties

So I mentioned that The Mask of Zorro was probably my favorite movie between when my parents dictated and influenced just about everything I watched, but before I had my own sense of taste and movie preference.

That idea intrigues me because to this day a lot of those movies are my favorites mainly because now I'm old enough to pick them a part and see what makes them tick.  But more over those first movies set up my aesthetic. In a weird way they are responsible for introducing me to the themes, and tropes I would get a kick out of for the rest of my life. Let's go.

The Craft

Okay you're never going to catch me saying The Craft is an actually good movie. But I was a social misfit and dug the hell out of it's themes of social isolation. Furthermore it along with the next movie were my introduction to Horror. That having been said the plot will probably seem familiar. After her mother dies Sarah Bailey and her dad move to a new town. There she meets 3 other girls and they sort of become friends. The thing that draws them together is they all practice magic, and since there are now four of them all of there magic is stronger than usual. The problem is that the power goes to their heads, with all of Sarah's friends slowly getting crazier and crazier.

You know what? It it's Chronicle but worse and with girls instead of guys and witchraft instead of superpowers. Hmm maybe that's why I dug Chronicle so much.

Not unlike our antagonist from that movie most of the girls have in someway or another been mistreated by the school leading the the movie to slowly blurr the lines between  "good fun", "reasonable payback", "okay that's kind of creepy", "and oh shit, oh shit!.

By the way nobody plays crazy like Fairuza Balk.

The Faculty

Who doesn't love the Breakfast Club?

It's the story of how all these high school stereotypes aren't that different after all.  I actually really like that movie but I also think it really did underplay what made all of these kids different. It's not just that their parents are screwing them up, but they all have different problems and priorities in their lives.

I like to think of the Falculty as a messed up yet "more realistic"  Breakfast Club at least in terms of characters.  You have the nerd who actually get's his ass kicked, the beauty queen who wears the mantal of bitch proudly, the jock who is actually kind of pissed off that nobody expects anything from him but his arm, the burn out who's actually kind of smart but doesn't give two shits about school and the headcase that lies about her sexuality to keep guys from hitting on her. What brings them together isn't detention but an alien invasion that proves that all of them are human after all.

But I saw this movie before I saw the Breakfast Club so none of that maters, what matters is that Casey, the nerd seemed like at the time the most realistic nerd I'd seen in a movie. And considering I identified with nerds that made him one of the coolest characters I'd ever seen. It doesn't hurt that he's the last man standing in our body snatchers plot, or that he's played by young Frodo Baggins.

Brokedown Palace

Okay I have very complicated feelings about this movie it being the first movie I ever saw that actually involved the law. Like the craft I'm not going to call this a good movie, but it's interesting and has some twists, mainly that it's the "good girl" character's nievity that causes a lot of the films problems but because of her reputation as a "good girl" she get's more or less off while her friend rots in a Thai jail.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

I have the sense of humor of a 8-year old. That's how the movie got me. I've never been much a fan for Bond movies, not even the Daniel Craig ones so I had and still do have little clue of the Roger Moore and Sean Connery mannerisms these guys are spoofing but the movie does have good comedy.

Problem Child 

I am an evil evil man. I try to hide it, but damn it my sense of humor is kind of black.  And I aint talking about Katt Williams. And you know this is one of those times where I absolutley hated the kid show that was based on the show. The entire point of the two good movies is that Junior even at 8 is kind of an asshole bordering on sociopathy. That's where all the jokes come from. Making him a good guy, or at least any more of one as is in the second one where he actually did mellow a little just makes no sense. I mean the title is Problem Child.

But anyway I love dark humor, and this is probably the first black comedy I ever saw.  The plot is that John Ritter's  Little Ben Healey and his wife (oddly enough played by Ritter's real wife who is kind of evil in this) are having trouble conceiving and decide to adopt the adoption agent sees him as a mope which he kind of is and pawns the orphanage's worst kid on him.

The rest of the movie is about Healey trying to reach this kid by doing typical father son stuff only to get goose eggs until the third act which involves the kid's idol, a serial killer.

The interesting thing is that almost all of the kid's antics are some form of disproportionate retribution as most of other characters except Jon Ritter's are in someway just as bad. And his slight turn around is realizing that Little Ben is kind of a decent guy and therefore should have some immunity. Though everyone else is still fair game.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Keeping with dark comedy Drop Dead Gorgeous. Do you absolutely hate beauty pageants. Then this might be the movie for you. All the girls in town are trying their darnedest to win the thing and one is taking things a bit further by killing all the competition. But where other movies might want to play the murder mystery quasi-straight, the joke of this show is that everyone continues as if it's business as usual as the contestants start dropping valuing the crown more so than each other's and by the end of it their own lives.

Scary Movie

People forget this but at the time the original scary movie was pretty well received, largely because with a few exceptions it was parodying a specific genre, teen slashers and two movies in particular Scream and I know What You Did Last Summer and it had pretty good visual gags.  Heck if you break it down you could almost call it a remake but more obviously trying to be funny. A lot of people consider the first 2 Screams to be parodies and I can see that. They both viciously deconstructed the 80's slasher movie in a way that later allowed it to be reconstructed in the 90's but it's also kind of subtle except with Randy. Oh Randy.

Apart from him, rather than a parody it played out more like a self aware straight movie. Scary Movie on the other hand, puts the laughs above the screams.

Men In Black

Okay Men in Black has been talked a lot about mostly in criticism of its latest installment but most people agree the first one was a near classic. The big beef is that as these movies go on a character dynamic between the two leads that no longer works. In both movies it now makes sense for J to know more about what's going on than K thereby disrupting their whole relationship.

But in the first movie it works and Tommy Lee Jones playing a caricature of his other notable roles, most obviously Gerard from The Fugitive despite all the crazy around him was legitimately funny.

Also on re-watches it does become clear that the movie does have something important to say. It's using the Ugly Americans metaphor 10 years before Ugly Americans would exist, using extraterrestrial aliens as a pastiche for the experiences of real aliens.


What if instead of hunting Ghosts, Spengler and company hunted aliens? That's pretty much this movie it has the same tempo and energy as Ghostbusters but since it came out after I was born I saw it first. Not unlike it's spiritual predecessor what makes it really is the dialogue as well as a meta joke. David "Aliens are out there" Duchovny is is pretty much playing a more cynical and snarky yet more energetic version of his last big role.


Ron and Randal were right about monkeys. Chances if you have a friend who can't stand the little buggers they saw this movie growing up. It's the nightmare scenario. A world wide plague. Well we had a nice run.

Battlefield Earth

You know what for all it's flaws this was probably the first "serious" science-fiction film I saw. And I loved the hell out of it. Sure now I can say naming your main character "Goodboy" is kind of stupid and that dutch angles are distracting. But back then my 13-year-old brain was like evil alien overlords, lost technology, fighter jets, human rebellions to retake the planet. OHMAGODZTHISISSOAWESOOOOOOME!!!!!

I know I'm not going to convince anybody that it's a good movie. I've been trying for years and will admit I've lost on that count, but damn if there ain't a good movie in there somewhere. You hear me remake it but good, rat-brains in Hollywood.

You know as I keep thinking about this movie it's harder and harder to see why it failed. It's ideas ain't half bad, and you have a damn near all star cast. It was the direction.

And yes I did read the book. You know maybe I should convert to- NO! NO! NO!
For whatever reason around 9th Grade I started becoming interested in what makes a good movie and started seeking out "good movies". Recommendations from movie websites as well as movies that kept being replayed in my classes(non-film classes mind you) because there was enough stuff there to talk about.   And I think I'll start talking about those next time.

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