The Best Decade in Movies; the 80s (in progress, likely not going to finish)

The Best Decade in Movies; the Eighties

The Greatest Decade Movies; the 80′s.

The eighties. Most of you probably weren’t even born yet. Those that were old enough to remember the eighties may also remember the world-wide controversy that broke out during this seminal decade. No, I’m not talking about AIDS. No, not talking about David Lee Roth being kicked out of Van Halen. I’m talking about the technological controversy of the century; Beta or VHS?

Most of you should know the answer to this if you ever looked in your grandparents’ entertainment cabinet. VHS won the battle but ultimately not the war as VHS tapes multiplied like tribbles throughout the 80′s and 90′s before slowly finding themselves being herded into the 8-track section of your local pawn shop or yard sale cardboard box.

Yet the eighties could arguably be considered pop culture cinema’s greatest decade. From the teen angst of John Hughes’ works to the high gore, multiple entries of the Freddy and Jason slasher flicks to the pumped-up action figures of Sly Stallone and Arnie Schwarznegger the eighties had it all. It was so cool that Robert Downey Jr. was in it, that’s how cool it was.

But for cinephiles and the point of this article, I present Must See 25 great and influential movies of the 80′s.

25 Airplane! (1980)

Sadly, Airplane! and it’s non-stop barrage of jokes has been dumbed down over the years, evolving into the sad, sad ‘spoof’ industry. Where Airplane! succeeded is it took a little-known airplane disaster movie (1957′s Zero Hour) and used that as the blueprint for their own movie by borrowing plot and characters (in a way). By spoofing the trend of disaster movies rather than specific movies it made a household name out of Leslie ‘don’t call me shirley’ Nielson, and a hundred other jokes. For better or worse (worse) Airplane! is what created the crapfest that is Epic Movie, Scary Movie 2-ongoing, The Farrelly Brothers, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie, the 41 year old virgin who knocked up Sarah Marshall…etc, etc. etc.

Timeless Quote;

Strike; “Surely, you can’t be serious.”

Rumack; ‘I’m always serious. And don’t call me Shirley.’

24 Die Hard (1988)

Now at sequel #5 and counting, Die Hard revolutionized the action picture by breaking the mold of the eighties bulging biceps action heroes into the much more everyday wisecracking figure of Bruce Willis who successfully jumped out of America’s TV sets into the big screen. If you don’t know this movie, you can just go to WhatCulture’s Die Hard page and feel vast amounts of shame.

Timeless Quote; “Yippee kay yay, mother f@#%er.”

23 Princess Bride (1987)

Princess Bride made a (bigger) star out of one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Andre the Giant. Finally able to hone his cinematic acting chops, his reputation as one of the nicest people in the world played up to his character of Fezzik. Directed by Rob Reiner (who went against typecast and created the greatest trilogy of differing genre films in Princess Bride, Misery and A Few Good Men) it promised a story about true love, pirates, sword fights and monsters and delivered. One of the best 'sick in bed' movies ever.

Timeless Quote; “My name is Indigo Montaya. you killed my father. prepare to die.”

22 Tron (1982)

Before CGI, there was Tron. It was one of the first movies to acknowledge this whole computer ‘fad’ as perhaps being more than just a bunch of kids goofing off. By using state of the day special effects during a time that depended less on CGI and more on people’s abilities to create sets and uniforms that were thought to be logically what an inside of a computer would look like.

Timeless Quote; N/A but there is this awesome invention that has since came true; the light bike.

21 Robocop (1987)

Before drones, there was Robocop. Half man, half machine, all cop.

20 Friday the 13th (1980)

Do I need even to recap this series? You know that there has been over 10 movies made with Jason right? All of them made money. ‘Nuff said.

Timeless Quote; “ch-ch-ch-ch  kill-kill-kill-kill”

19 Purple Rain (1984)

If you thought Madonna’s ego was big, (it is), Prince’s semi-autobiographical tale hit the public at the right time, unlike his other film projects. The album remains one of the top best sellers of the eighties and despite it’s unmemorable plot line… Prince sings, rides a motorbike, and talks dirty to Nikki and dry humps a speaker. There’s something in there about a rival slick band that is the basis of a little fun for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back…so there’s that.

Timeless Quote; ’It’s Maurice Day and the Time! oh ee oh ee oh.

18 Heathers (1988)

Before Mean Girls, there was Heathers. It made stars out of Christian Slater and Winona Ryder.

17 Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Wes Craven’s break out horror flick of Freddie, the serial killer with the knife gloves that killed while you slept. Freddie went on to become one of the go-to’s of Halloween costume parties and nearly single-handedly brought back the fedora.

Timeless Quote; ”one, two Freddie’s coming for you, three/four better shut the door…”

16 Highlander (1986)

Throughout history there has been a select group of Immortals that occasionally bump into each other and engage in the ultimate elimination match to achieve…I don’t know…being the only Immortal? But it has Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert and his trademark voice that he has made a decent B movie career out of.

Timeless Quote; "Hey, is that Sean Connery?”

15 BladeRunner

Timeless Quote;

14 Big Trouble in Little China

Timeless Quote;

13 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Timeless Quote;

12 Terminator

Timeless Quote;

11 Karate Kid

Timeless Quote;

10 The Shining

Timeless Quote; “Here’s Johnnnnnnieee!”

9 Gremlins

Timeless Quote;

8 Goonies

Timeless Shuffle; The Chunk Shuffle

7 Ghostbusters

Timeless Quote; “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick.”

6 ET

Timeless Quote; “ET phone home.”

5 Raiders of the Lost Ark

Timeless Quote; “Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?”

4 Red Dawn

Timeless Quote; ”WOLVERINES!”

3 Back to the Future

Timeless Quote; “Hello? McFly?”

2 Empire Strikes Back

Timeless Quote; ”Luke, I am your father.”

1 The Breakfast Club

Timeless Quote; hey hey hey hey! Don’t you….forget about me…

Indie Author Tips #5 -Rehash Old Material - Zombies!

Indie Author Tips #5 -Rehash Old Material - Zombies!

{click on the title}

Top 'Red' Movies that I know of

You know how when you repeat a word so many times in a row it fails to make sense? That's what I'm feeling now after doing a little research on movies with the word 'Red' in the title. And all because my wife confused the classic American Russian Paranoia movie Red Dawn with the classic American Russian Paranoia movie Red October.

Perhaps if Republicans were a bit more forward-thinking (they'd be Democrats- buh duh dum) they would not have chosen a color that represents their core values and the Communist threat since WW2. So deeply ingrained is the idea of Red = Enemy State they even once made a movie called Enemy State, which if I remember right was actually the American government chasing Will Smith in a case of high-stakes paint ball for his cell phone or something. I digress.

So despite my recent hate-on for making list type articles, I've decided to give it another shot, maybe because everyone who likes lists is proof-reading their own 'Valentine's' themed List. Instead, I'm remembering some classic and not-so-classic movies that had Red in the title. Here's my order of preference.

I also learned I could piss in the radiator if
my truck was overheating

1) Red Dawn (1984) - If you are going to only ever see one movie with the word Red in the title (good luck on that) it would be this classic from the pinnacle of the Cold War, the year 1984. It was a crazy, wonderful time; Ronald Reagan was destroying the very foundations America professed to espouse. Apple Computers changed the images of George Orwell's shocking dystopian book 1984 into an iconic commercial for selling computers pre-Internet. There was a growing crop of young Hollywood talent that was able to share screen time with each other for a brief time before setting out on their own to achieve top (and sometimes only) billing. But before all that ego-politics, there was Red Dawn. The ultimate camping male-bonding movie and the reason I shout Wolverines when I go camping.

The Interview Blackmailing

I've had a change of heart from my last blog in the last 24 hours, the one where I finally pay attention to the Sony Hack. This was mainly because of a CBC Current episode this AM where the host kept referring to North Korea as the Hermit Kingdom, a term I never heard before but seemed to reek of that classic 'branding' of a potential enemy/scapegoat with no to little cultural knowledge of the country in question. The question was 'Could North Korea really have done this?'

There's also this timeline of the Hack as gathered by someone that isn't CNN or NBC.

Then I started thinking of the Hack. It has all the classic bits of a typical blackmail that Hollywood itself could have written (if it was in the habit of reading original screenplays). Let's look at it closely.

The hackers are called Guardians of Peace, which is a pretty 'Americanized' sounding name.
The victims are a conglomeration of nameless Multi-Millionaires that have millions and millions at their disposal. There's some public shaming, then a scapegoat is suggested and finally, the demands...

And what are the demands? What do the hackers 'publicly' want?

On Recent Eventy things

The Interview gets Majorly Censored.

I don't really know what to label this on the WTF meter but at least it's kept us distracted from a few more important news items that should be of more relevance, such as that damning CIA torture report that (no surprise) the US of A was/is torturing 'enemies of the state' ever since 9/11 and that of those hours of misery and pain in the name of all that is Freedom pretty much amounted to nothing.

Then there is also the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Massacre, sponsored by the NRA. Remember how sad as fuck most of us were and then the NRA's response to Obama's somewhat sane plea to limit who can purchase automatic weapons? Fuck the NRA on that one.

But at least we can thank Seth Rogan and James Franco for helping us remember what Freedom and America is all about - movie critics. (click to continue reading)

Top 10 Stoner Movies (Part 1)

So when you read 'Stoner Movies' you may have been thinking; here we go, another easy to click-bait list of repetitive movies I've seen on other lists.
The lists I looked up when doing ... research... for this blog were the same; they all have some drug-related theme in them. Most likely a list of comedies that are easy to digest, buddy comedies such as Harold and Kumar, Jay and Silent Bob, Cheech and Chong, etc. Maybe someone will be brave enough to throw in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, just to say that they know not all 'stoner' movies have to be mainly about smoking weed and insulting one another.

Ogie doesn't play that way. I hated those stoner lists - most stoners I know of don't sit around discussing the finer intricacies of Harold and Kumar (or which was which) or want to watch actors pretending to be stoned when they are not. I enjoy them for what they are - comedies that have actors pretending to be stoners in them. If you know how movies are made and how pot actually works, it's pretty difficult to actually get shit done in a way that will make it easy for an editor to piece together a film. I wanted a list of movies to watch while baked. This is what I came up with.

12 Ways The Dark Knight Rises and the 2012 Canucks playoffs were eerily the same.

[republished due to its original immense popularity, Chris Nolan's Interstellar release and I find it really funny] 

12 Ways The Dark Knight Rises and the 2012 Canucks playoffs were eerily the same. 

I want the Batman!

For some, the summer of 2012 was to be the cause of great rejoice; The Dark Knight Rises was to cap the end of the amazing Batman trilogy, the Vancouver Canucks were going to win the Stanley Cup after losing in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins a year earlier. That experience would be enough to give them the drive to Win It All (spoiler alert; it didn't). Canucks fans also wanted Zdeno Chara to climb back up his beanstalk and leave all the other hockey players alone. None of that happened, leaving Canucks (and Boston) fans and hockey analysts alone to contemplate the pleasures in the smaller things in life, like drool and soft helmets.

(BIGGER SPOILER ALERT: The Canucks lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings in the 1st round of the 2012 playoffs)

12 Similarities between The Dark Knight Rises and The 2012 Vancouver Canucks: 

1-For fans of both franchises, there were exceedingly high expectations going in from previous showings.

2-Ryan Kesler appeared in neither.

3-Batman took eight years off before returning for TDKR and the ending was left open for another possible return years from now. Vancouver decided to also take some years off and is preparing for their next Cup push sometime around the year 2020.

4-Both Batman and Mason Raymond took 5 months to recover from a broken back to limited effect.

hmmm... can you take off the bat and add the number 16?

5-Neither Batman or the Canucks showed any ability to dish out a hit.

6- Apparently both Gotham and Vancouver have professional football teams that nobody cares about.

7-Anne Hathaway’s eyebrows scored just as many points with film critics in Los Angeles as the Sedin twins.

8-Batman had a few thousand cops that did nothing to help the situation, the Canucks had these guys; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBQ1rmIbTjw

9-Once Batman and the Canucks left the city, life went on and it was like nothing had ever happened.

10-If Darryl Sutter’s coaching style could be physically described, it would look like Bane. If Alain Vigneault’s coaching style could be physically described, it would look like Michael Caine’s quivering lips.

11-TDKR had a lot of supporting characters from previous movies that proved to have no discernible purpose for being there; the Canucks had Jim Hughson, Nick Kypreos and Gary Valk.

Uh, hello?

12-Bruce Wayne came out of self-imposed hiding to find his overall value had plummeted to barely being able to provide for himself, Vancouver had Roberto Luongo.

I'm sorry but it's the Guy On A Buffalo in Four Part Harmony

Maybe cuz it's late or that i just really appreciate that people take the time to do crazy, stupid stuff like this; from making the original Buffalo Rider movie to someone watching it and putting it to music.

So it was originally posted in 2011. I'm a bit behind the times - thanks Obama.
But maybe you haven't seen it so here you go ... you're welcome.

PART 1

Where you meet the Guy on a Buffalo and how he deals with pesky forest critters...

 PART 2 

Where you wonder if it can get better - and the answer is yes, yes it does...

   

 PART 3

Where you think this song is getting pretty pretty repetitive but you need to, you know...

   

 PART 4

Where you think, what the hell am I watching and why haven't I done something like this? 

 

The Retroactive Oglethorpe Award (Movies) 2010

My new favourite idea (brought to you by Netflix Canada, unofficial motto 'Not the most popular movies but how about this documentary?') is to create a time machine that goes back in time and does nothing but change the Academy Awards results.

Imagine the possibilities...

We all know the Academy Awards. In one word; pretentious. Another word might be 'narcissistic' which besides being incredibly hard to spell is not something Hollywood has never been called. If it weren't for Hollywood, where would be America's white trash magazine industry?

It's the ultimate awards show, where past winners decide who new winners will be. Once you have been awarded an Oscar, you become one of the voters in the Academy. You become part of a 'clique', a special circle within a wider special circle, like the illuminati or the G7. Your influence can either help or kill a career and most importantly, sell tickets for the studios as the proudly proclaim X actor was an 'Academy nominee' at one point in their careers. Be and Academy Award Winner and expect an extra 100,000 people in the seats. That's sheeple marketing for you.

It's an exercise in societal voyeurism where the common people are invited to watch the beautiful, rich people perform fellatio on each other. In theory it's designed to bring artistic credibility to a medium that reflects our humanity or inhumanity to fellow human beings with thought-provoking movies such as Schindler's List or 2013's winner 12 Years A Slave (haven't seen it but i'm guessing it's about someone being a slave for 12 years). The Awards are an attempt by the culturally elite to erase the reality that most of Hollywood is built on the profitability of brain-numbing, gun-shooting, hi-faluting moral garbage like the Saw or Star Wars franchises or Adam Sandler's latest piece of shit.

Jack and Jill 2 coming soon.

When I invent my Time Machine and go back in the past, I will make sure the Awards have a Best Comedy Award. Or a Retroactive best Cult Movie Award - movies only qualify after being in circulation for 10 years. That way movies that may have done nothing at the Box Office will finally get the acknowledgement they deserve, like Idiocracy or Rocky Horror Picture Show.  And best comedy? Why not create an award for the movie that makes the most people happier leaving the theater than when they entered it?

So, let's go back and make things right starting with 2010.

David Lynch Called... I didn't answer cuz he's pretty weird.

Movies that make you go WTF are special indeed. Just ask (or read) this Whatculture contributor who’s viewing habits make Hollywood focus groups cringe in fear that she has such influence on main stream culture. While we all bitch about the current state of cinema with its popcorn predictability, dumbed down mass releases and beating on the usual dead horses, let’s instead take a look at a visionary director that has such influence on cinema that his contribution cannot be overlooked at a time when our attention span is so short that we want to just jump into the main part of this article, so much so that it’s difficult to follow to the end of this sent

David Lynch is an oddity within himself. A non-mainstream visionary who hit the mainstream right in its American nutsack.  His film genre CV reads like a student itinerary with ‘Undeclared’ written all over his class choices. Nothing wrong with that. Yet at a time when ‘family connections’  play such a large part in Hollywood’s next generation of film-makers, Lynch is the strange uncle at the family Christmas Party that nobody ever talks about yet you found he was the most amazing person in your family.

Here’s a personal ranking of David Lynch films, in order of bizarre surrealism, story-telling and cinematic vision.

11. The Straight Story (1999)

This is the easiest of the bunch when ranking WTF, although it bears special merit as straying far outside the norm, like Snoop Dogg doing a song with Miley Cyrus. The Straight Story is what it proclaims to be: a rather straight up bland Americana drama (for David Lynch) based on the true story of a man who drives his lawn mower 300 miles across America to make amends with his ill brother.

No dancing midgets, no moody soundtrack or supernatural splits of reality, it starred Hollywood legends Richard Farnsworth and Sissy Spacek and for a brief moment in time, Lynch’s confusing career trajectory looked like it was heading for ‘After School Special’ territory. It was the only Lynch movie ever to be rated ‘G’ to the viewing audience. WTF?

Sam Raimi's Movies of Preference

Hi, Ogie and friends.

A great director can be defined by at least three main criteria; they have complete understanding of the film technology available, they are able to translate the script visually on film, and they know how to work with actors to make them avoid becoming caricatures of themselves.

Say hello to Sam Raimi.

Sam Raimi is the epitome of the Hollywood filmmaker’s dream. He started making films with his BFFs Bruce Campbell and Rob Tappert and brothers Ted and Ivan back in high school in the backwoods of Michigan. After high school they begged, borrowed, and stole to make a little horror movie called Evil Dead and eventually sold it, where it is now heralded as one of the best cinema horrors ever.

They went to Hollywood, where Raimi made a bunch more movies with ever increasing budgets, reaching A-list ranking by taking the helm of the very profitable original Spider-Man trilogy. His lateste work, Oz: The Great and Powerful isn't included in this list as... well, I pretty much already wrote the thing before seeing it and I didn't feel like picking a spot (somewhere between 7-10).

Raimi managed to avoid the burn-out phase which generally occurs happens upon hitting the high of Hollywood. He has maintained his loyalties to those that have helped him pursue his dreams and maintained working relationships with those that shared in making Evil Dead and he has never forgotten where he came from.

Raimi’s signature trademark is the ’73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 that he casts in near every movie and has become the fun of a neat drinking game on the side. And most of the time, despite studio executives protests, he always tries to find a role for brother Ted or self-admitted B-movie star Bruce Campbell. That’s true loyalty right there. Oh yeah, he was also a driving force behind TV’s Xena, Princess Warrior and Hercules as a side project when he wasn't making films back in the 90's, giving the world an updated kick-ass version of Wonder Woman.

Being an admitted fan of Raimi’s, here are Raimi’s films ranked from worst to best - minus Oz. 

13 Canadian Cult Films

Here there be Spoilers....

Canada. The poor b*stard stuck between America’s arrogance and British self-righteousness. Like an over-compensating eldest child, it also strives to keep the peace with its First Nations population and their French step-sibling of a province, Quebec. We are internationally known as the nation who say sorry when you step on our toes, unless you are on a hockey rink – then it’s every nation’s ankles for itself. We strive to be culturally diverse, yet try to have a culture of our own (which is pretty much impossible when your closest competitor is the United States).

In an effort to maintain or create a cultural heritage of our own, Canadian filmmakers usually turn to the Canadian government for film financing. Telefilm Canada is much like what BBC Films is to British filmmakers. Canadians fund Telefilm through taxes, so it goes to say that it’s pretty difficult for the general public to justify allocating money to Telefilm when its films are generally regulated to the art-house circuit (which most of the public presumably thinks is an actual art house, where one buys art and good quality posters).

With a mandate to fund only films that uniquely (and often vaguely) express the Canadian identity, it is a source many beginning producers often try to tap into, usually with limited results. Of course, it helps if you have already distributed a film to positive reviews and sales, but for beginning filmmakers, odds are you will have just as good a chance as receiving financing from a community bake sale than from the cost-conscious Canadian government. When government cut backs are announced, Telefilm (and Canadian filmmakers) tend to feel the pinch more than most.

Yet, despite the dryness of recent Canadian films, here are 13 of the Canadian government’s most embarrassing – if not successful – films, all of which became legends in their own right…

And now for Something Completely Different...

If you are like me, you are probably sick of reading about hockey. In the end, was it worth Russia spending $111 Billion  to create a place called 'Sochi' just so Canada could lay waste over the hockey landscape once again? Was it worth the $28 million directly spent on sending a bunch of Canadian athletes over to Russia? Or the $20,000/$15000/$10000 financial reward to each athlete that brought home a medal which Air Canada didn't lose on the flight home? For the record, the 25 medals Canada won don't include the 47 individual ones (excluding coaches) awarded to the men's and women's hockey teams for their annihilation of the rest of the world's hockey self-esteem (or any of the other team events for that matter). 

So, rough estimates make that 10 Gold medals (really 55 inc. hockey teams at 20G apiece, 10 silver at $15 G apiece and 5 bronze at $10G apiece.  Who has a calculator?  That's roughly $1,300,000 in reward money. There may have been more 'team' medals but i wouldn't know as i didn't pay attention to any of the other preliminary sports that were mere eye candy while we waited for our hockey teams to destroy Canadian good will.  

Good investment for our tax dollars? That's nearly $30 million directly spent on the 220+ athletes that attended, excluding 'training subsidies' - which is kind of like unemployment insurance but instead of working, you are training in your chosen sport which is why you can't find a job. I'll leave that to your own discussion. For some athletes, it's not about the money (mind you those are the NHL players who make more than $20,000 per game on any given weeknight). And being good ol' Canadian boys, they may just donate it to charity anyways, like this great role model/Olympian/non-stanley cup winner did back in 2010.

So, Let's Move on to Something Different.  Name that Person!


These are people that you know. But you don't know. Maybe you do know them but I don't so I googled them, just in case they are living next to me and I didn't know it. It's like stalking, but not - because I'm just curious a little bit about people who become famous without relying on a huge Public Relations media blitz in order to 'Brand' them to their product. It's not like I'm going to become best friends with them unless they are my neighbour, in which case I most definitely will.

The All-Time Dirty Dozen (Limited Edition)

I finally gave up on this article, after 3 editors, 4  feedback letters and 2 much time spent. I'll put it here for now for your consideration and maybe later submit it somewhere else. If you have an idea of a website that may be interested in this, pls let me know via comments.

20th Century Fox

George Clooney's Monuments Men is set to be released this month, the true-ish story of a pack of maverick renegade loner art curators (5 nouns that never usually go together) on a top secret mission to save historical objects from the Nazis and kill some while they're over there. Barring the art side of things, the story line is reminiscent of The Dirty Dozen. The 1967 ensemble war movie was notable for its multi-ethnic casting of the time, ended the football career of all-star running back Jim Brown and created years extra work for most of it's cast. If you haven't seen it, stop what you are doing and download it now. We'll wait. 

If you decide to forgo the movie, seeing as how you watched Inglourious Basterds and know how World War 2 really ended, some potential SPOILERS ahead.

The original Dirty Dozen were criminals first, soldiers second (Donald Sutherland a distant third). They were all recruited from military death sentences and given a chance to redeem their honor for themselves and America by accepting 'one last mission,' from which they'd never return . But on the plus side, they'd get to kill lots of Nazis. So in honor of the original, this is a list of the all-time Dirty Dozen, America's toughest, meanest military unit never to grace the screen in what would have been the biggest testosterone remake since The Expendables 3 with some notable exceptions.

For instance, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator and Conan The Barbarian, but he was also in Kindergarten Cop and Jingle All The Way. In later years he became a politician. Sylvester Stallone was Rambo and Rocky, but he once asked Dolph Lundgren to punch him for real in Rocky IV, resulting in him having to go to the hospital for four days as they tried to pull out his rib cage from his spine. So...no. Don't look for them because they aren't on the list. 

 And while there are some current tough guy actors who are continually assaulting people (looking at you, Alec Baldwin), they aren't renowned for playing as such on film, so they're also excluded. Finally, this list is very Hollywood, so no disrespect intended to someone like...say, Bollywood's Amitbah Bachan.

So consider yourself forewarned.

12 Days of Christmas Not-Christmas Movie Marathon

12 Days of Christmas Not-Christmas Movie Marathon

Well, this one was a bit out there and in terms of Christmas, now a bit late. But maybe you want to do a movie marathon this weekend, this could be a list to get you through it...it was rejected for valid reasons of which I am not able to explain here. Perhaps it has something to do with Christmas and the #1 movie being Jewy...

Christmas is here, yet again. Time for some of us who don't like to be force fed Christmas cheer to hunker down in our Xmas-proof bunkers and avoid all things festive society spews forth. It's a time when we wonder why that 'Festivus' idea from Seinfeld never took off. Instead of complaining about it, why not just sit back and cruise Netflix or internet website lists for movie recommendations to get you through the season? 

So here's my Christmas gift to you, ogieoglethorpe reader. After all, who better to give you classic movie recommendations than me, a perfect stranger? And I'm nearly as perfectly strange as they come. I once met Quentin Tarantino and given this once in a lifetime opportunity, asked him if he ever had a Nutella and banana sandwich (he hadn't). It was a highlight of mine before he launched into a stream of thought ramble of the movies he watched that weekend.

So if Tarantino can gorge on a random selection of movies why can't someone like you? These aren't even necessarily classic movies; they're just a sneaky way to tie in a random movie list with a Christmas/December type theme. Plus it gives you something to discuss with your mates if you are holed up at the Winchester arguing over which Simon Pegg movie was better.

So here are movies you may have seen, or not. They all have a number from the 12 days of Christmas in them and because I am a dad and watching a complete movie that doesn't have talking animals in them is a thing of the past, I only watched the trailers. Good enough. If you have kids you understand. If you are going to have kids one day, enjoy this time of uninterrupted movie bliss. 

Dads are Real People Too Who Like(d) to watch movies without animals once.

Dads; Fiction vs Reality

I know who this is, I just don't have the time to care.

Cuz Dads are people too, we like to watch movies. We used to watch movies too. Not just any movies, but real movies that don't involve magical ponies, tweens in striped shirts or cheap-ass toys that are available for a limited time only at the local fast food/bad parenting restaurant/day care.

I miss staying up late, being able to watch a full movie in it's entirety without hovering over the pause button. I know that one day I will be able to do this again, and maybe perhaps have in-depth discussions about what the definition of a 'classic' movie is and a 'retro' movie is with my kids. I'll get upset when they refer to Harry Potter or Madagascar 2 as being in the former category and 'Red Dawn' and 'Donnie Darko' being in the latter. Then I will have to take a deep breath and try not to weep for their generation when they say things like "Who is Patrick Swayze?" or "Star Wars Episode 10 is the best movie of all time."

So for now I have to live with the films or pop culture TV shows that I wish I could see but for that little 4 year old leg I can see around the corner, my daughter 95% out of sight but still quite impressionable and not yet ready for the gun-smacking ways of the Avengers or the nuanced script-crafting of Arrested Development. When I see that leg I have to stop the movie and take her back to bed, tuck her back in and hope that she doesn't start swearing tomorrow. Then I will go back to the movie but when it's halfway over I will find myself feeling too tired to keep watching and instead promise myself I will watch it tomorrow. Or the next day, I tell myself. Right after I empty the dishwasher, do some writing, clean up outside, or one of the dozens of other things I could be doing to keep our house productive and functioning at a level that hopefully will allow our children to grow up without trying to kill us or deal meth out of the furnace room.  

2012 Movies of the Year

2012, the year 2012 is based on, which came out in 2009.  If you remember, John Cusack basically starred as the lovable smuck  who does a Planes, Trains and Automobiles disaster flick with _____ as his lovable sidekick.  The movie was an attempt to cash in early on the Mayan End-of-Days concept which you probably never heard anything about in December.

The Most Disappointing Movie of The Year;  The Dark Knight Rises

At least one of these characters dies in a completely non-memorable way.  

Instead of a year of disaster flicks, there was really only one large disaster flick that appeared onscreen The Dark Knight Rises, the amazingly bad ending of the Batman trilogy directed or rather mailed in by Hollywood's newest A-Director; Christopher Nolan.  TDKR, or as I like to call it WTF was one of the two most anticipated Big Budget Superhero movies of the summer (I'll get to the other one in a minute).  WTF had everything going for it; an amazing, proven cast and director, a story-line taken from the comic book and Anne Hathaway's eyebrows, and all the gimmicks from the last two movies.  We all knew what we wanted from WTF and instead we got...WTF.
From the opening James Bond scene where (spoiler alert) the most illogical kidnapping takes place in cinematic history (hold on...if they already had the scientist, why did they even bother to put him on the plane?) to everybody but Commissioner Gordon apparently knowing Batman's true identity within minutes of actually meeting him, to the motivations of basically everybody involved in any scene of the script to the friggin' Batwing that had been sitting undiscovered on the top of a skyscraper because it HAD A CAMOUFLAGE TARP OVER IT?  SERIOUSLY, WTF NOLAN!!!  

ok- so that scene apparently didn't piss off the internet as much as it did me, so instead here's a strange video that actually is pretty funny.  Eyewitness video of the fabled 3000-cops-missing-for-three-months-underground charge past machine guns and tanks to get in a fistfight with 3000 bad guys.  See if you can spot the Batman along with a large group of pedestrians just watching...

WTF felt like an actual swarm of bats had dropped bat guano all over the script and someone let Nolan's dog write the thing, blindfolded.  One or two mistakes in a movie are (unless monumental) are easy to forgive, dozens, not so much.  I can't even remember how Bane was defeated, which should have been the high point of the movie when instead it was this;

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty

Instead of creating a novella of all the things that were lacking in WTF, someone else already did it so here is just a partial list of mistakes that I agree with.  If there is to be a movie-saving Director's Cut edition much like Ridley Scott's Bladerunner it would still take some serious thought if i would want to subject my brain to that quality of punishment again.      

The real natural disaster of the movie was that it was trying to follow up on the amazingly well-crafted artistic and conceptually imagining of a world rife with moral ambiguity in the previous installments of the trilogy, The Dark Knight aka The Joker and Batman Begins starring the other guy that unfortunately has to also get dragged back into WTF;.

Seriously? This isn't another Star Wars prequel?

The Least Disappointing Movie of The Year;  The Avengers

Despite the Across-The-Board generic marketing poster

Thankfully, the King of the Geeks, Joss Whedon, took the Superhero movie into the stratosphere with Marvel's the Avengers.  It was all that WTF wasn't; a strong story, an assortment of comic tried and true fallible mortal heros (and an immortal Thor) fighting an infallible and baby brother annoying Norse God. And aliens too, but those were just as a bonus because that's what i want in good movies; bonuses!
  
The Avengers was also years in the making; the final conglomeration of at least 4 different individual super hero prequels and 3 different Hulks into one whole, fighting other world forces in order to save humanity.

It's just a rule of the game that the better something is, the less there is to write about.  So instead of me just wasting everyone's time kissing ass, let's just watch this symbolic scene between the summer's superhero movies, where DC comics is played by Loki and Marvel Comics is played by The Hulk.

  
That pretty much sums up what Marvel did to DC's movie franchise universe in 2012.

Most Surprising Movie of the Year;  The Cabin In the Woods

Bonus Trivia; Joss Whedon also co-wrote The Cabin In The Woods, the Scream-esque horror movie of the year as well, starring a quite mortal Thor.  If you haven't seen it and don't mind the genre, check it out.  It's worth it.

the final four of the 12 days of Christmas Movie Collection.

So last week, i started my 12 days of christmas movie list for no other reason than i want to watch a lot of movies right now but am unable to, what with my TV tied up in showing Alvin and The Chipmunks or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for my 3 year old daughter (whom i love dearly).  Yet, if i was alone this Christmas, this is how i would go about spending some of those hours.  The first 8 days of Christmas can be found here, along with the entire 12 together.

But if you already have those memorized by heart, then here's the final four;

I am Number 4    I don't know anything at all about this one, but it became my default pick when i found out the other options were Fantastic Four, Four Christmases, and Four Rooms.  I unfortunately have seen all of those and the best way to put it is if you took the best parts out of all three, it would make for a decent sitcom.  The poster makes me think it's some sort of X-man rip-off. 

The Trailer;

Well, after the trailer, it still looks like an X-Man rip off.  The guy is #4 (we got that).  He's a loner, doing what all loners do, hanging at the beach and getting hit on by hot chicks.  Then a merman or something attacks him so he has to leave and so he heads to Heartland America, where he apparently finds one of those high schools where everyone looks in their mid-twenties.  The bad guys still find him, he goes around using his superpowers to defeat them and find others with superpowers where i would be quite shocked to find that they don't defeat the bad guys (who are obviously bad because they have tattooed heads and trenchcoats).

Three Amigos   At one time, these were three of the biggest names in comedy.  Chevy Chase aka Fletch aka Clark Griswold who's head was still small enough to share screen time with other equal comedians plays Dusty Bottoms.  Steve Martin aka The Jerk aka the lonely guy aka the man with two brains plays a fellow washed up silent movie star named Lucky Day and Martin Short aka that cute little annoying guy from SCTV as Ned Nederlander.  This was the comedy apex, hot on the heals of GhostBusters where it was proven that although two comedians are good, three are better.  Plus, it was written and produced by Steve Martin.  A classic.  I don't even need a trailer for this one so i will just post 'My Little Buttercup'.

The Two Towers   If I could only have one LOTR movie it would have to be the 2nd installment, in my opinion the best sequel since  Empire Strikes Back and also fits the article's theme  I remember giant trees, the battle of Helm's Deep, and that little fucker Gollum having a conversation with himself, which at the time i think was a groundbreaking way to portray split personalities and has since been copied many times.  It was a great movie that really lead nowhere, but had it's own stories within it.    

The Trailer:

Fuck yeah!  Makes me want to sit through the entire 3 hour movie again.  It now looks like a condensed version of Game of Thrones, only with actual fighting and great CGI and intense melodramatic soundtrack.  It's got it all, if all you want elves, orcs, catapults, sweeping pans of New Zealand countryside and Aragon opening those giant doors to maximum effect.  

And finally, Year One.  Micheal Cera was all over the place after Arrested Development and in the race to be the 'mopy, expressionless go-to guy' lost out in a close race to Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg.  Yet, Cera hit two peaks of comedy excellence, old school with Year One, working with Jack Black and one of the greatest comedy directors in Harold Ramis and then going on to nearly extinguish his movie career in the cult-classic *heard it here first* Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.  In Year One Cera and Black are cavemen that stumble into the story of the Bible (sorta) all because they are idiots.  It's a basic fish out of water story but good for a few laughs during Bible Study class.     

 The Trailer;

Man, a lot of great one-liners i don't remember.  This would be a great Stoner film.  Cera plays Eisenberg at their finest, while Jack Black manages to still come across as your creepy single uncle.  It has the look of the Life Of Brian, but earlier.  So technically, this is year one of the Jewish calendar, not the Christian one.  But really, it shouldn't make a difference, except in your Bible Study class.      

12 Days of Movies to watch before Christmas

And to get through the holidays, my true love gave to me
my own soundproof media room with these movies...

Oh yay. Christmas is here, again. Time for some of us to just hunker down in our sound-proof bunkers and avoid all things Christmasy as the festive season springs upon the land, with people wishing for world peace and Iphones and big screen TVs and pretending to care about why Christmas isn't celebrated in other parts of the world. Why not try to ease the pressures of Christmas by partaking in some of your neighbourhood's finest greenery and cruise Netflix or internet website lists for movie recommendations? And here you are!

So here's my Christmas gift to you, whatculture reader. After all, who better to take classic movie recommendations than from a perfect stranger? And I'm nearly as perfect as they come. These aren't even necessarily classic movies; they're just a sneaky way to tie in a movie list with a Christmas/December type theme. Plus it gives you something to discuss with your mates if you are holed up at the Winchester.

So here are movies i may have seen. Or not. So because i am a dad and watching complete movies that don't have talking animals in them is a thing of the past, i just re-watched the trailers to summarize them and because it's that year of the month that includes Christmas, they all have a number from the 12 days of Christmas in them.  Reason enough.

12 Monkeys

I remember parts of this one. Brad Pitt goes full retard in Terry Gilliam's most commercially successful feature film starring Bruce Willis playing Bruce Willis as a time travelling emo-type guy who goes back in time to give Brad Pitt career advice and either stop or start some kind of world wide plague. You never actually see the 12 monkeys, which at the time I remember pissed me off a little bit. I had no kids at the time so i was able to watch all of it. The movie poster looks like it's maybe about a Terminator-like robot and something's happening to the right of the frame but we can't see it. It's a good time travel movie if you are into that sort of mind twisting.

The trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15s4Y9ffW_o

It starts off in true Terry Gilliam set piece style, a low-budget astronaut appears in cellophane, which must be Bruce Willis. Then he's in a mental asylum in 1996, and someone mentions the word future, so you know it's about time travel. There's a lot of talk about what's real and what's not while jumping from Gilliam world to some snow-covered city. There's a bear and an elephant and some cops burst into a room with guns drawn and Bruce Willis gets more and more confused then he's holding a gun and says "I just want to do my part and get us back on top of the planet" in a not-tough but still Bruce Willis tough voice. In true Gilliam style this trailer made me think 'what the hell is going on?' just like when i find myself changing a stinky diaper at 4 in the morning.  


Last Minute Substitution: 12 Angry Men - 12 Men in a room. One man leaves. A verbal Royal Rumble that is considered a veritable classic and one still on my 'to be seen list'.


Ocean's 11

Another guy's movie in theory but featuring so much man candy it's okay to throw this at the mother of your children when she's wondering why you don't take her out anymore. It features a bunch of George Clooney's friends, including a non-retard Brad Pitt dress up in cool Las Vegas suits and teaming up to rob the guy you've seen in a lot of other things but you can't name one, like most of the other guys in the movie. There's a lot of standing around looking cool, and Julia Roberts, which your girlfriend/wife will also appreciate. The poster looks like a line up for every woman's speed dating fantasy. Even Julia Roberts is there, behind the bad guy but ahead of eight other men so at least she has that going for her.

The Trailer 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_bzUIbE5jo

George Clooney gets out of jail after sticking it to his parole board by asking them how much they make per year (burn, social justice system!). Clooney is quickly seen to be an overachiever, but probably not a good one because he was in jail after all. However, he's Clooney and he has balls; he tells his best friend Brad that he wants to rob 3 casinos for $150 million.They need 10 guys (or else the title wouldn't work) but it looks like they already have a few million dollars with all their fancy toys and gadgets they plan on using shown through the trailer. Julia comes in looking pissed off and Matt Damon is also in it, dressed like Linus from Charlie Brown. There's a little man jumping around and i am guessing what is supposed to be some tongue-in-cheek humour, like when Brad Pitt dons a Clark Kent disguise and asks 'did someone call for a doctor?'.  George ends it with 'you are either in or you are out'. Which is exactly what she said.

Last Minute Substitution 11:14 - five stories all 'crash' into each other. Starring Henry Thomas (that kid from ET) and Colin Hanks (Tom's kid) it's interesting because on the imdb box it totally doesn't mention them, instead going with Patrick Swayze and Barbara Hershey, which are both names that mean nothing if you are more familiar with Colin and Henry.


10 Things I Hate About You

I saw this because someone said i should which is how i used to choose most of my movies before babies came along. I don't remember anything about it. From the poster it appears to have a lot of young people in rock star poses, so there probably is a lot of teenage-talking angst about what they want to be when they grow up, how tough school is and why X doesn't like me. A young Heath Ledger is in it, pre-Brokeback Mountain fame so he's like the James Dean character from Rebel Without A Cause, I'm guessing. The title does sound like it's something an ungrateful teenager would say to their hard-working father when he forbids them to leave the house at 11 pm to go 'hang out' with friends.

The Trailer  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWmjzCZr0Jw

Ok, so it is a high school flick as i thought it was; there's the kid from 3rd rock (JGH or whatever he's called now), that angry looking girl who was going to be the next Julia Roberts,  the teen princess who i assume is passed out in a trash bin somewhere and Heath Ledger, sounding Australian and a bit dickish.  For some reason that makes no sense to the overall script it looks like No Doubt is stranded on top of a building singing that Cheap Trick song. Boy wants to date Cute Girl but Cute Girl can't date unless her Bad Girl sister dates so Boy gets other Bad Boy to win Bad Girl's affections and i assume everyone lives happily ever after.  Except for Heath, who dies as the Joker and in real life while JGH goes on to become Robin and a Hollywood heartthrob.

Last Minute Substitution; How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days - Starring Mathew McConaghy doing his patented Mathew McConaghy thing and Kate Hudson doing Drew Barrymore's thing with a script that probably shouts ROM-COM from the opening minute.


Plan 9 from Outer Space  

I saw this because i went to film school and it helps to see what you can do when you have nothing but the willingness and desire to do what you need to do, whatever it takes. Of course, I saw it in the nineties when anything was possible, thanks 9/11. It helps that Johnny Depp and Tim Burton teamed together to immortalize the director, Ed Wood, who is often regarded as 'the worst director in history', which is, if you know your cinema (or read Claire Simpson's lists) isn't possible.  I made a movie once and it was pretty crappy but i don't see Tim Burton knocking on my door wanting to make a movie about me. Ed Wood, the legend, to me seemed like the first film geek/Quentin Tarantino of low budget sci-fi, and in doing so became insanely cooler. I don't remember very much about it - it reminded me a bit of Amazon Women From the Moon perhaps. There's a vampire girl in it and a couple of cops standing around. And some aliens, but human aliens. No biggie. Once I saw The Dark Knight Returns I realized Plan 9 had less plot holes so it has that going for it.

The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBoT0LJ0mgM

Wow. This trailer rocks it from the opening line: 'It is safe to say that the grandchildren of some of the people in this theater will not be born on Earth'. How's that for completely and utterly overly optimistically thinking what the future had in store for us fifty-plus years ago? There's that zombie vampire girl in a spooky cemetery, an explosion, a dead body going past some cops; all in the first 10 seconds. This shit looks to be the bomb. Then a lot of words appear on screen with Bela Lugosi in big letters and what appears to be the bomb now is looking more like a real bomb. The spacemen can't work their space guns, the cop seems to want to shoot people in the groin and the zombies (all two of them) can't seem to walk any faster than my daughter when she was '9' months old.

Last Minute Substitution; Lots to choose from. The Whole 9 Yards, District 9, Nine, 9 1/2 Weeks, Another 9 1/2 Weeks, but why not try The Nines? Ryan Reynolds is in it, playing Gary, an actor who plays a cop on television, uses too much lighter fluid when he burns his ex-girlfriend's things, then he drinks and drives, uses crack, and crashes his car, all in that order. Then it gets weird. You had me at Reynolds smokes crack...



8 Men Out

I remember it's about baseball and a team from Chicago that conspired to throw the World Series back in the early 1920's because, well, winning isn't everything and they sure weren't getting paid to win.  Unlike today where most make the equivalent of a small African nation back then they were gettting paid jack shit and the mob paid a lot better. That's all i know. From the title and my knowledge of baseball, someone is obviously innocent but calling it 8 Men Out and 1 Snitch probably didn't market America's other other other national past time correctly (after the NFL, dabbling in foreign politics and eating).  The poster doesn't really help me. Apparently it's a national scandal, but then again, what isn't in America?

The Trailer

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSHQw85pvek

Ok, I was pretty close. It's about the Chicago White Sox, set in 1919. John Cusack is in it, so you know it's going to be sappy and he's going to be the innocent one. It's also about baseball, so you know it's not action-packed although a guy gets slapped and there's gun in it. It is about America after all.  Dickish owner, cuz it's about sports. No latinos, which is because it's 1919 and this was before baseballs were introduced to the Dominican Republic.    

Last Minute Substitution; Eight Below. In honor of Paul Walker, kick it old school with this one from before the Fast and The Furious Franchise with this Disneyfied version of the much more powerful 'Antarctica'. Warning - you are probably going to cry at some point if you love either Paul Walker or dogs.




se7en

I must have a bit of a man crush on Brad Pitt. This is his third movie on my list. Here he plays the yet to be grizzled young rookie cop teaming up with the grizzled old cop, Morgan Freeman playing Donald Glover. If you haven't seen it, it's a must. This was an intense movie, from the opening murder scene. I didn't know the 7 deadly sins so it was a bit of lesson in Catholicism and this was the first David Fincher movie i remember. He is Tim Burton to Brad Pitt's Johnny Depp, who would go on and direct Pitt again in Fight Club and something else. For some reason i remember that Pitt and his wife Gwyneth Palthrow lived beside the railroad tracks.

The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmZbLbPv6Fs

The trailer makes it seem like an over-hyped episode of Criminal Minds on steroids. There's a few guns, because...America.  Pitt looks beat up through most of the trailer, as if it's a prequel to Fight Club. Gwyneth hates 'this town' and Pitt does a lot of running around, getting shot at and falling off things. Freeman lists off the seven deadly sins too fast for anyone not religious to remember and there is that single ominous tone playing throughout and that announcer's voice that makes everything sound either way too important or way too stupid.

Last Minute Substitution; The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. Because, you know, Silver Vampires are so second-class. Plus eight was too many Golden Vampires, six too few. But seven, seven is just enough Golden Vampires to make this qualify for this list.


6 Million Dollar Man 

Given the limited choices of movies with a 6 in them, i will have to stick with a nostalgic favourite from childhood.  It's hard to explain to you young folk now but at one time six million dollars was considered an insanely amount of money and if you had that much money you could make a man into a part robot with super ability to appear to be running fast while actually running superslow or throwing things. Or just looking. Today, there are nearly 50 hockey players that make more than $6 million a year and the only one who may be part robot is Zdeno Chara.  Frig, even a Mexican from Alaska named Scott Gomez was apparently worth over $7 million. There's a golfer named Tiger Woods who made $75 million in 2011. The seventies really undervalued cyborgs... I remember his name was Steve Austin (not the wrestler).  He was an astronaut who crash landed, but they rebuilt him. There was another guy named Oscar who was his boss. Together they fought crime or something. In it's most memorable episode for me and a host of others, he fought Big Foot.

The Trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlcuiDUVyVQ

Well, it's a tv series, but i found one that flashes back to what made it so awesome; the pulsing music, the strange 'bionic' sound whenever he used one of his robot parts; Big Foot. Plus at .55 I'm pretty sure that's an eternally young Sandra Bullock.

Last Minute Substitution; 6 Plots. Quick what to you do if you are an Australian filmmaker and only have enough funding to make one movie yet have 6 ideas you think are excellent? Boom! Problem Solved. Or was it?



Slaughter house 5

This is a movie of the book that film directors like to strategically place in shots to show via cinematic short cut that a character is smarter than they look. The novel itself is a famous one by Kurt Vonnegut and it's a messed up story of a man split between at least two dimensions; one as a zoo specimen in an alien world and another as Kilgore Trout, who may or may not have been in World War 2. The poster doesn't really help, other than making it look like it's cold and probably set in World War 2. Apparently this movie is a classic, which you can say of anything made in the seventies.


The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvlZtlBfCi0

it looks like someone squished together 3 or 4 different movie trailers for this one and it reminds me of a Stanley Kubrick film, or basically any other film done in the early 70's and it's by far the longest trailer I've seen, clocking in at over 4 minutes. There's Nazis being Nazis, explosions, talk of aliens, someone gets shot cuz you know, America. A naked boy gets thrown in a pool. There's a few brief seconds that remind me of Pink Floyd's the Wall. It appears to be a story about a boy named Billy. At the end of the clip young Billy is running through the snow. I don't know why. I have a headache. Interesting fact; the director was George Hill, who would go on to direct the greatest sports movie of all time, Slapshot.  I did not know that.

Last Minute Substitution; Fast Five. Let's go with another more famous Paul Walker 'vehicle', his buddy action flick franchise with Vin Diesel. Not to be confused with Kung Fu Panda; Secrets of the Furious Five which has no car racing in it.

I am Number 4  

I don't know anything at all about this one, but it became my default pick when i found out the other options were Fantastic Four, Four Christmases, and Four Rooms all of which were lame for their own reasons. If you took the best parts out of all three of those, it would probably make for a decent sitcom. I'd rather chance watching something that might be okay, despite the glowing blue power fists in the movie poster, which makes me think it's some sort of X-man rip-off.




The Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP6zhpST3Ro

Well, after the trailer, it still looks like an X-Man rip off. The first 30 seconds is all the exposition you need about the other three so this guy is #4 (in case we didn't get that) and there's still an awful lot of film time to sit through. He's a loner, doing what all loners do, hanging at the beach and getting hit on by hot chicks. Then a merman or something attacks him so he has to leave and so he heads to Heartland America, where he apparently finds one of those high schools where everyone looks in their mid-twenties. The bad guys still find him, he goes around using his superpowers to defeat them and find others with superpowers where i would be quite shocked to find that they don't defeat the bad guys (who are obviously bad because they have tattooed heads and trenchcoats).

Last Minute Substitution; Four Lions. Yeah, British cinema Represent! A comedic look at internal terrorism, this will be sure to spice up the old xenophobic rants of your neighbours as they call in to report you on suspicion of terrorist activities if you dare to play this with the volume too high.  

Three Amigos   

At one time, these were three of the biggest names in comedy.  Chevy Chase aka Fletch aka Clark Griswold aka Pierce who's ego was still small enough to share screen time with other comedians plays Dusty Bottoms.  Steve Martin aka The Jerk aka The Man with Two Brains plays a fellow washed up silent movie star named Lucky Day and Martin Short aka that cute little annoying guy from SCTV as Ned Nederlander. This was the comedy apex, hot on the heals of GhostBusters where it was proven that although two comedians are good, three are better. Plus, it was written and produced by Steve Martin. A classic. I don't even need a trailer for this one so instead here's My Little Buttercup

Bonus clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5T8FJ7TldU

Last Minute Substitution; uh...now we are getting into the dreaded sequel to the sequel of a great movie territory which gives you a lot of sucky movies to choose from. So instead, let's go full cowboy; 3:10 To Yuma as both Russell Crowe and Christian Bale have yet to make an appearance this Christmas season.   

The Two Towers   If I could only have one LOTR movie it would have to be the 2nd installment, in my opinion the best sequel since  Empire Strikes Back and also luckily happens to fit the article's theme I remember the giant trees, the battle of Helm's Deep, and Gollum having a conversation with himself, which at the time i think was a groundbreaking way to portray split personalities and has since been copied many times. It was a great movie that really lead nowhere, but had it's own stories within it.     

The Trailer

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wek5UClasY8

Hellz yeah! Makes me want to sit through the entire 12 hour trilogy again. Time and pop culture have now made it look like a condensed version of Game of Thrones, only with actual fighting and great CGI and intense melodramatic soundtrack. It's got it all, if all you want elves, orcs, catapults, sweeping pans of New Zealand countryside and Aragon opening those giant doors to maximum effect. A great way to spend an evening forgetting Christmas is just around the corner.  

Last Minute Substitution; Miss Congeniality 2, Armed and Fabulous.  In the world of sequels to good movies there are a lot of great ones, most famous being Terminator 2 but let's assume for the moment that you are getting pretty tired of all the testosterone I've thrown at you. Instead, so close to Christmas why not just relax with a real no-brainer starring the previously mentioned Sandra Bullock, looking as young then as she did way back then. Complete brain candy with some eye candy for both sexes with Bullock and a younger version of Ron Swanson. 

And finally, what to watch on Christmas Eve? How about...

Year One

Let's celebrate all things Jewish with this Micheal Cera/Jack Black bit of comedic stupidity directed by the legendary Harold Ramis. Cera was all over the place after Arrested Development ended it's glorious initial run. He looked to be a shoe-in for every role that involved a 'mopy, expressionless young character' but instead, he lost out in that closer than expected race to Social Network's Jesse Eisenberg. Yet despite the Jesse doppelganger tag, Cera has starred in three great comedies to underappreciated or not yet acknowledged critical acclaim, Arrested Development, this one and then went on to nearly extinguish his movie career in the cult-classic (yes, it will be) Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Year One is a basic fish out of water story but good for a few Old Testament laughs, especially if you have questions about circumcision, what happened after Cain killed Abel and the difference between Sodom and Gomorrah. Lots of cameos by other semi-famous funny people as well.

The Trailer;  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qHWVW52XDI

Man, a lot of great one-liners i didn't remember. Maybe because I was pretty stoned, but not like the way they refer to it in the film. Cera plays George Michael at his finest, while Jack Black manages to still come across as your creepy single uncle you don't want to hang out with but kind of do. It has the feel of the Life Of Brian, but earlier because it's more mocking The Old Testament as opposed to the New. So technically, this is year one of the Jewish calendar, not the Gregorian-Christian one we base our lives around now.

Last Minute Substitution; The One. Just pretend this is the true story of Christmas, Jet Li is the real Jesus Christ and let your mind explode with all that could have been if they made this into a Christmas martial arts movie because really...there isn't one.

That's it; 12 classic and not-so-classic movies to help get you through the Christmas season. Hope it helps.