#18 - Order of Films

1. The Spanish Prisoner: The twist at the end redeemed the somewhat slow paced movie that could have gone twelve different ways.

2. The Karate Kid: It was a classic, that's what the Katate Kid has going for it, It was the first but by today's standards it relies on its retro status to remain interesting.

3. The Borne Identity: It was an interesting film, in the end it was a two hour escape from the real world and it didn't end up having any real moral.

4.5 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: This was a childhood favorite of mine, the colors and bright theme amazed me. In retrospect there was no deeper meaning to the film.

4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: It was well a crafted film, I can't say I'm a fan of the pedomorphosis sub-genre but all things considered it wasn't bad.

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark: Yet another escape movie. Such memorable quotes as "Why done it have to be snakes" may live on for a time but like all the films on this list, there was no deeper meaning.

6. The Dark Knight: A similar situation to Benjamin Button, I was never into comic strips or batman movies, and while the Dark Knight was an OK movie, it wasn't something I would have picked out in a video store.

7. Serendepity: This is where the films start getting bad. No, I don't like romantic comedy, it is the lowest form of human distraction. I certainly don't like films that seem to be glorifying idiotic and selfish behavior in the name of love.

8. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: There are some movies that shouldn't be remade, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of those, Sadly this remake, that forsakes it's predecessor's name, was the first in a lengthening line of films by Tim Burton that is not worth seeing.

9. Finding Nemo: The animation wasn't that great, and it was all Finding Nemo rests on. Without it you have a stupid storyline with a ridiculous number of needless tangents.

10. Wall-E: No dialog, No dice. That's what I say. The characters where one sided, and like Finding Nemo, once people realize the animation is so-so they will see this movie sucked.

11. The Italian Job: I have one thing to say to the creators of The Italian Job "If you are going to try to rip off Ocean's 11, go ahead and just remake it, because you can't write something better".

12. Ironman: You know, I could be a super sexy, smooth taking millionaire too if I had a super suit I designed in a terrorist cave.

13.Watching the Grass Grow: What can say, I like it more than watching Never Back Down


14. Never Back Down: I think I can honestly say that I have never been forced to watch a worse movie. I would say if I was in a therater I would walk out, but that would be impossible because no force on God's green earth could make me pay to watch a movie as obviously idiotic as Never Back Down.

#17 - 10 Favorite Films

10 - The Godfather: The Godfather was the Mafia movie to define all mafia movies, with an excellent cast to boot. Not only was the Godfather pleasing on the surface with shootings and grand betrayals but of several levels complexity added to its aesthetic.

9 - Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas: Fear and Loathing, in movie form was not the best film of all time, perhaps not even a great film, but in conjunction with the original gonzo journalism contained in book form it was one of the greatest cinematic master pieces of all time. To learn more about his role Johnny Depp spent a month in Hunter S. Thompson's basement.

8 - French Girl: Any movie that can inspire the same amount of amazement, neither positive or negative, that I felt after watching French Girl, is a masterpiece in its own right. I mean watching a driving scene that lasts for 20 minutes, need I say more? That's David Lynch for you.

7 - Tron: Call me a Sci-Fi loving nerd, but Tron was great. The graphics take me back to a simpler time, when you still could do state of the art CGI in your basement and it was OK to wear a Hawwian shirt in public. Despite being a minor misnomer, the title summons visions of blue tinted battles and horrible abuse of acronyms.

6 - A Scanner Darkly: There are two kinds of dystopian fiction in the world, total control and partial control, A Scanner Darkly is the quintessential  of the later group. Besides, any movie based on a Philip K. Dick (the most renowned science-fiction writer of all time) book earns instant credit.

5 - American Psycho: A film that involves a man dropping a running chainsaw on a hooker has to be great, but what's funny is that the far more disturbing part of this movie is the non-murderous side of Patrick Baitman's life. Killing scenes are nice, intense psychological twists are even better.

4 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: This was the western to end all westerns. Imagine, Three gunslinging characters, all a gritty shade of grey (despite what the title might suggest) battling across both sides of the civil war in a grand and epic struggle for a lifetimes worth of riches. Few films have been more huge in their scope and those that have, have been failures.

3 - Waking Life: After watching this movie I was compelled to flip a light switch every few minutes, it was that compelling. Waking Life moved far from the norm of film making, and achieved something great in doing it. The movie covered a range of topics from gun control to every major fringe science to divinity and god.

2 - Lady Snowblood: Yes, Lady Snowblood is a difficult film to watch, more so if you stick to subtitles as a true fan would, but after watching you will experience one of the most profound experiences of your life. You will realize if you don't have a vendetta against someone you aren't living, and that every revenge film since 1972 has been a ripoff of Lady Snowblood.

1 - A Clockwork Orange: If you want to know more you can read my first blog post. In summary A Clockwork Orange delivered a powerful political message as well a profound moral declaration. It was a revolutionary book that went on to do even more on the silver screen.

#16 - Raiders of the Lost Ark

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's classic movie did not invent adventure, as it was largely inspired by old serials, pulp magazines and B-movies, but it certainly revamped our conception of big screen adventure. Even "Star Wars" from a few years before wasn't as relentlessly exciting, and one could argue that very few movies have been since either. Not that they haven't tried to crack the "Indiana Jones" formula countless times. But none of the knockoffs possess the wit, the energy nor the thrills of the 1981 film and its sequels. 

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" doesn't waste any time and grabs your attention right away, starting right smack into danger and adventure as Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) and his cowardly assistants  discover an ancient temple in the Amazon rainforest and enter it to retrieve a priceless golden idol. All the elements are in place already: exotic locales, historical artifacts, lethal traps like statues shooting poisonous arrows and, in the middle of it all, good old Indiana Jones. He's one of those iconic characters that have truly made their mark on popular culture. You hear Indiana, you don't think of the state, but you instantly picture the hat, the whip, Ford's wicked grin... You hear, "I hate snakes", or "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go" or whatever your favorite line is. You see Indy running away from that huge boulder, or matter-of-factly shooting down that show-off Arab with the big sword... I really enjoyed the Temple of Doom, watching "Raiders" again, I was still totally taken away and I appreciated the film.

#15 - Never Back Down (-1 of 10)

Never Back Down is essentially Fight Club minus every admirable point. In fact, with its thin characters and derivative plot, the finished product seems more like a marketing concept than an actual film.

Brooding teen Jake Tyler (played by Sean Faris, who resembles a young Ben Affleck) relocates with his mom and little brother to Orlando. Jake had gotten into a brawl on the high-school football field back home, and his rep as a fighter has followed him to the family's new digs. 
Apparently, Jake's fight was such a riveting event that everyone under 17 in the entire country viewed the video on the Internet. What did bad scriptwriters do before the Web?

Jake struggles to fit in at his new school. Things come to a head when he winds up in a brawl with a bully named Ryan (Cam Gigandet, looking more than a few years past graduation). After getting pummeled, Jake is drawn into the world of mixed martial arts.

Under the guidance of a wise mentor named Mr. Miyagi, er, Jean (Djimon Hounsou of Blood Diamond), Jake learns to fight by the rules and to grow up emotionally. Heck, he even attracts the attention of a pretty blonde at school.

Obviously, the movie is squarely aimed at pumped up youths with no sense of shame. That's fine, but the audience still deserves characters that are fleshed out and a plot that shows some flashes of originality.

Don't look for that here. All the characters are stock types, down to Jake's nerdy little sidekick (an unappealing Evan Peters). The worst off is Hounsou, who's stuck offering the kind of platitudes not heard since Kung Fu went off the air.

Director Jeff Wadlow shows little imagination with a bad script. This is the kind of film in which the fighting sequences are filmed in slow motion. Sometimes, that's exciting; here, it only makes them seem duller - and longer. 

#14 - Wall-E (4/10)

In a dystopian future world of about 700 years hence, the planet as we know it has become fouled by so much garbage and consumer refuse its inhabitants have gone. Except for one. Wall-E, a diminutive robot programmed

to collect trash, compact it and use the resulting cubes as bricks to erect strange, high structures;

But inside little Wall-E's circuitry there pulses a heart and mind, not unlike the little real-life kiddies targetted to bond with him by the hundreds of millions. His happy hours in a city he has virtually to himself are interrupted one day with the arrival of a massive spaceship which deposits a "probe" and then returns to wherever it came from. The white egg-shaped visitor turns out to be an Extra-terrrestrial Vegetation Evaluator "Eve"- that is quick to zap that which she doesn't understand or thinks poses a threat. Her mission is to electronically report any sign of organic life to the mother ship Axiom.

For the adult who doesn't watch all this through the eyes of a young offspring, the joy is in the expressiveness of the characters, art direction and seamless visual artistry. In that, this is a high achieving movie. But the story may be too artificial (no pun intended) and predictable for a demanding viewer. The story provides action and effects, all exceedingly charming, but doesn't bring to life or interest the "evil" forces so hell bent on avoiding a return to earth, the reason for which is less than adequately explored. Does it mean the loss of absolute control?

In fact, once Wall-E boards the Axiom the story takes a turn that sheds no light on what made him the brave mini-compactor that he is, which is where we want the story to take us. Without the understanding of villainous co-pilot and the source of its power, we're asked to just go along with it without too much questioning. The threat level is too lightweight to be felt (other than a feeling of detachment).

All in all, lacking as any sort of meaningful movie.

#13- Batman v. Ironman

In a grand death match, who would win between batman and Ironman? To me the answer is clear, Ironman. Which movie was better? Without a doubt and for that same reason it would be batman. No one wants to see a movie where a guy in a robot suit who can't be beat. Batman on the other hand had to fight using his wit and skill. Batman was smart, he was a kungfu master and he had to win his fights using more than just brute strength. Additionally Batman's morality was constantly in question, and the viewer was asked to examine the validity of Batman's motives. Iron man on the other hand is fighting in an imperialist war and we're asked to simply accept that his side is the right one for the simple reason that he's on it. All in all there is little question which movie was better, Batman, although he might not win in a fight he would and dose win this film critique.

#12- Iron Man (2 of 10)

If we had to make a scatter graph of films, the vertical axis would represent quality of substance with the top being the best and the horizontal axis representing the number of bad, mindless cliches with the least number being at the left we could easily put the 2008 Iron Man movie in the extreme bottom right corner, further even than such movies as The Evil Dead (not to speak poorly of The Evil Dead, it was a great film, just chock-full of cliche and bad filmmaking.) 

In Iron Man we have the super-genius super rich womanizing millionaire who is an American weapons manufacturer up against evil middle eastern 'terrorists' and power hungry villains within his own company(which, may I say, was sooo obvious from third minute of the film on.)

The first scene of the movie spoke volumes of what was to come. Let me just say this, a bunch of marines with big guns in a big vehicle playing AC/DC is not original. I suppose it might appeal to a certain brand rednecked ultra patriots but not to me and not to an intelligent audience.

Secondly, the idea of making the film into a iron man vs. iron man was terrible. It was like The Incredible Hulk, and so many Godzilla films before it, clearly the writers weren't smart enough to think of a villain that wasn't exactly like the protagonist. 

Don't even start on the dialog, it was clear that several of the characters where there for the sole reason of presenting dialog opportunities for Tony Sark to show off how impressive and "witty" he is. A little film making tip, if you have to create characters to supplement other characters you probably have a bad script on your hands.

All in all, one bad movie.