Top 10 Most Underrated Films

10. Reign of Fire (2002)

Instead of writing why I love this movie so much, I just want to ask you all for a moment of silence for the fact that this was released in 2002. 2002! @))@!?! (That was 2002 in all-caps.) Gosh, seven years is a while. 

9. The Party (1968)

This movie got a little forty-years later buzz recently, when it was mentioned in like, every review of The Love Guru. (Either in the form of "This is not as good as The Party" or "Didn't we decide this sort of thing was a bad idea after The Party".) Well, forget it, because this movie is in another league. Peter Sellers (as Hrundi V. Bakshi) deserves every single Oscar ever for this performance, including the ones he didn't win for Dr. Strangelove. Far from the obviously awful, obviously awful route that British-guy-in-Indian-face could easily go, this film is sweet, subtle, and absolutely friggin' hysterical. Also, the original tagline was "If you've ever been to a wilder party than this... you're under arrest." Um, this movie has some sort of legal jurisdiction over similarly-wild parties? Double points!

8. Beautiful Girls (1996)

Aaaaah, I have dropped so much "OMG BEST MOVIE EVER" praise on this film, ever since two minutes into my first viewing of it. What can I say... get a cast of that-guys and that-girls, get the dude who wrote Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead to write the script, set it at a high school reunion in upstate NY, throw in Matt Dillon and a baby Natalie Portman... yeah, there's no way I'd go crazy for that movie. What, there's a "Sweet Caroline" singalong? Oh god, tell me where to go, I am already going crazy for this movie.

7. Starship Troopers (1997)

Really just for that moment when Neil Patrick Harris touches the gigantic bug's brain and yells, "IT'S AFRAID! IT'S AFRAID!" and everyone cheers. Oh, also, how did America not get that this was a satire on jingoistic recruitment films from the 40s and that the basic message is war makes fascists out of even the best people. I read a nice bit on CHUD.com that basically said, "This is the best 9/11 film ever made, even though it came out in '97." Yup.

6. Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

Okay, so it's basically The Big Chill before there was a The Big Chill. (Yes, I know, five thousand other people have made this connection already, but it's just true.) But here's my whole deal on that. They both have their merits. Secaucus 7 has long, rambly, banter-packed scenes that feel like actual conversations--ie; there's a 50/50 chance between brilliance and boredom. Chill has the laser-refined script and and the perfect score and the gift-wrapped ending, where even the heartache is the good kind. This last bit, incidentally, is my favorite thing about Secaucus 7--it deeply appreciates the "So... what next?" aspect of life. You can't just reconcile your loves, losses, and old ideals in one weekend at the lake. 

5. Dog Soldiers (2002)

So, by now, it's pretty cool to like Shaun of the Dead. And I see why... I mean, it's a perfect movie, after all. But if you want to make a deeper foray into very bloody, very funny films from the British isles, Dog Soldiers is a great place to start. The laughs to screams ratio is off the charts--which director Neil Marshall kind of abandoned on his next film, The Descent, but whatevs. I like werewolves more than cave-monsters, anyway. (As a grad school-bound 23-year old, that is exactly the kind of sentence I should stop writing.)

4. Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Again, this is a film I give pretty regular laudations to... for good reason. Yeah, you've got your "End of high school/college is crazy!" movies. Yeah, you can find a Baker's dozen of "We are adults for the first time!" films. Oh, and don't get me started on the billion and one movies that follow the "We have drifted for so long..." plot. This is the in-between of the three. A perfect triangulation. Oh, sure... all of these characters will be totally fine in a year. But there's that brief but crushing time period immediately following graduation and lasting until you decide that you are actually a real person--that's a killer. (A killer for wealthy-ish white kids who can always teach at their high schools, sure... but, I mean, we're people, too. Right?) Endlessly quotable, eternally watchable. Also, Parker Posey.

3. The Monster Squad (1987)

I don't think you get how much I watched this as a kid. If you are my parents, I don't think you get how much I snuck away to watch this in secret as a kid. THERE ARE KIDS. THERE ARE MONSTERS. THERE IS A BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL. End of story. This was a winner from the pitch. 

2. My Name is Nobody (1973)

A baby-faced blond gunslinger goes out in search of his hero, so that he can make sure his hero goes out in style, "style" being a hail of bullets. Henry Fonda plays the hero, the baby-face is maybe the first gay cowboy of cinema, Sergio Leone is producing, does the rest even matter? Blurring the lines between slapstick and Western, homage and parody, pathos and bathos, this is a film I will always love. And thanks AMC for showing it at 3 AM like, five years ago...

1. The Long Goodbye (1973)

This film is a drug in and of itself. It takes a while to kick in... suddenly, it grabs hold of you and knocks you clear of your feet before you even see it coming... finally, it spits you out on a dirt road in Mexico, as a whistling man dances away from you. (That is what all drugs are like, right?) You want pedigree, you got it: Directed by Robert Altman, shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, scored by John Williams, based (ugh, loosely) on Raymond Chandler novel, and led by a mumbly, brilliant, tongue-so-far-in-his-cheek-it-hurts Elliott Gould. You want supporting cast, you got it: out-of-the-park performances from Nina Van Pallandt, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, and Sterling "Big fucking bear of a man" Hayden, as well as hey-look-at-that-guy cameos from David Carradine and baby Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, and Jim Bouton, the pitcher who wrote Ball Four. The 70s, LA, noir, drugs, thugs, booze, money... just watch it.

Top 6 Lines of Criticism that I Find Stupid

Like most irritable, pretentious jerks, I read a pretty good amount of criticism--especially criticism of newly-released movies, books, and TV shows. Sometimes I find it enlightening, sometimes I find it engaging but disagree with it, and sometimes it makes me really, really angry. Mostly, it makes me angry when one of the following happens:

6. Defending something by saying, "You couldn't have done better."

Okay, this isn't something that any professional critics actually say, so I'm starting off with it. I don't know who came up with the ridiculous idea that you have to be good at something in order to recognize when it's terrible, but that person is terrible at coming up with critical ideas (and I'm no good either). Do you have to be Steven Speilberg to know that the movie Bride Wars is terrible? Do you even have to see the movie Bride Wars in order to know that Bride Wars is terrible? Or even better is extrapolating this to other things: can only the greatest rodeo clown tell you when a rodeo clown is terrible? Do you have to be an excellent prop comic in order to find this incredibly unfunny?

(P.S. If you are going to claim that there is no such thing as an excellent prop comic, you are wrong)

5. Praising a movie/show/book for "subverting convention"

There are times when "subverting convention" can be good--if a joke or situation is well set-up to resolve in a more realistic or different way than it frequently would in fiction. But I think it's often really much lazier to defy fictional convention for the sake of defying it--there's a reason that, say, the original ending of Clerks (with Dante getting shot for no reason) is unsatisfying and stupid, and it's the same reason why the two main characters HAVE to get together at the end of Eternal Sunshine, and that's the same reason why episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program feel pointlessly nihilistic at their end whereas How I Met Your Mother provides normalcy and relative closure. Convention, especially in structure, is there in the first place because it usually dictates good storytelling. Altering it doesn't mean you're doing something good, and it often means you're doing something bad.

4. Turning a critical essay into a showcase for the critic's own intelligence and humor

I'll admit, I do this sometimes. But I don't have any pretensions to being a real critical source, and the few things I've ever written with the intent of being a real, critical article (rather than something for yuks), I try to avoid self-indulgent jokery. The buzzword for this kind of stuff is "snark," and I would say that this excellent essay by Heidi Julavits is about the first and last thing that needs to be read on the subject.

3. Praising comedy as meaningful for its dramatic elements

This is one that REALLY gets me. There is some cultural value that we place on things only when they are dramatically weighty, and as a result, we get reviews for things like Superbad that say something like, "It's often hilarious, but what really makes Superbad a great movie is the friendship between the two main characters." I'm paraphrasing, but you get my point. Yes, Superbad is hilarious. Yes, it has an honest and positive depiction of male friendship. But why is it the latter that makes it great? Doesn't the latter serve the former rather than the other way around? Why do reviewers thing something is inherently meaningful when it tugs at their heartstrings but not when it makes them laugh?

2. Reviews where "judgment" is passed definitively, but only in the last sentence or two

The purpose of criticism should be to identify the audience that would enjoy a movie, let the members of that audience know that they would, and let those who wouldn't know that they wouldn't. That's easier said than done, but it's often not even attempted, especially with criticism written by non-professionals (read: students). I can't tell you how amateur reviews I've seen that consist of 1) three sentences of plot summary 2) one "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" sentence of passing judgment.

1. Criticizing a work for the possibility of it being misunderstood

Okay, this is the reason I wrote this list. I saw Bruno yesterday. It's great, well worth seeing, and I personally liked it a whole ton more than Borat for reasons that don't need to appear on this list. But while Googling criticism of it online, there was one anti-Bruno refrain that I found troubling: "What if the people watching and interacting with Bruno don't understand that the vast majority of gay people are nothing like that?"

This is, to me, a wholly worthless line of thought. Should Sacha Baron Cohen stop doing Bruno for fear that people might not get that it's an absurdly cartoony characterization? Should we include title cards that explain the "real" meaning of what someone is doing? Should we stop making any sort of art for fear that it might be misunderstood? If you can argue that Baron Cohen shouldn't have made Bruno because it might be fodder for homophobes, it's a slippery slope down to arguing that Saving Private Ryan shouldn't have been made because it could be seen as glorifying war, or that Huck Finn shouldn't have been written because it can be completely misread to be seen as endorsing racism. If Baron Cohen had stopped himself from creating something as intelligent, hilarious, daring, and deep as Bruno because he was worried about making bigoted people more bigoted, the world would've lost a great movie.

6 Screenwriting Tips from Judd Apatow

Hey guys, it's Judd Apatow here to write a guest list!  That's right, I'm the critically-acclaimed, box-office-dominating writer/director of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, as well as the executive producer of Superbad and Pineapple Express.  I'm here to make your screenplay stop suckin' a big chode and start boning some chicks way out of your attractiveness range.  Ready--go!

6. Meaningful relationships are between dudes!!!

Here is the first thing to check to see if you wrote a good movie--is the main story arc about friendship between two or more dudes?  If so--nice!  If not--don't worry!  Before I talked to the writers, Superbad was just some dumb teen sex comedy and Pineapple Express some dumb stoner/action comedy.  But with my help, Superbad became a teen sex comedy about the friendship between two dudes!!!  And Pineapple Express became a stoner/action comedy about the friendship between two dudes!!!  Seriously, I didn't even have to give Rogan and Goldberg different dialogue for those two movies.  Just, like, add in one scene where the guys are bein' cool friends, then one scene where they get angry at each other and separate for a bit, then a scene near the end where their friendship is all awesome again!  You don't even need to change the rest of the script!  Tight!

5. ...but be sure to laugh at them if it gets too gay

Friendship is cool, but sometimes when you're bein' all friendly it seems kinda gay.  That's okay--don't remove those parts of the script, just play up the funny, because haha, gays!  Like in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, when they call each other gay, it's funny because who would want to be gay?  NO ONE.  Also, you can thank me for that Pineapple Express scene where they were trying to untie each other's hands and it looked really, really gay.  Haha, oh God, I'm just remembering how gay they looked.

4. Dick jokes!!!!

Shit yeah, bread and butter.  Make sure that there are a lot of dudes who like droppin' joke-bombs about gross stuff like dicks and buttholes.  Here is some dialogue that I have layin' around that you can use if you want:

Dude 1: "My dick is as big as the Eiffel Tower." (This is funny because the Eiffel Tower is BIG!)

Dude 2: "Yeah right, your dick is as big as a snail but smells funnier."  (This is funny because a snail is SMALL and smells BAD!!!  Another thing that is funny is the second level because they eat snails in France (where the Eiffel Tower is also!)!)!

Also note that this dialogue is between two dudes, which can be your main two dudes like in tip #6 if you want!  Nice!!!  I've like, half-written your screenplay already!

3. ...but then make it awkward and it goes from, like, low comedy to high comedy

Okay, so the dick jokes will win over all the chill bros, but we have to make sure that everyone will laugh at this!  The way you do that is have some chick hear their conversation and be all like, "Ugh gross stop talking about your dicks," or just make an uncomfortable face at them or some other dumb shit.  Then it's like, any girl or snob or whatever who is watching the movie will be all, "Oh man it was really about the awkwardness of social interactions and I really like The Office and the British one is better and shit!" or whatever annoying things they say.  Anyway, this way the prudes and movie reviewers will think you're funny, too.

2. On that note, comedy is fun!!!

Seriously, let's keep it real, we're making a movie that's gonna make people laugh.  Then they will tell their friends how much they laughed and stuff and that way you can't criticize them because anyone else can be like, "But did you laugh!" and they'll be all "Shit yeah son!  I love Judd Apatow!" and then everyone in the city will come carry me on my back like some sort of populist film hero or some crap and award me with 10,000,000 awards that they made out of paper and love for me and I'd rather have that than a fucking Oscar anyway because Oscars are shit.

1. ...but drama is fuckin' deep

Really, though, if it makes them laugh but also tugs them where it hurts (the heart and the dick), then you know you have made a great movie.  Like, check the trailer for my new movie, Funny People.

Holy balls, did you see what happened at 0:54?!?!?!  It was all fun and shit but all the sudden ADAM SANDLER IS DYING??!?!?!  MOTHERSHIT!!!  Then the music gets serious and stuff so you know this is the serious part because you're all "Adam Sandler don't die!!!"!

Note that he is NOT going to die but it lets us get at the serious shit about his friendship with Seth Rogen.  Which is a friendship...BETWEEN TWO DUDES TELLING DICK JOKES THAT SOME GIRLS ARE KINDA AWKWARD ABOUT!!! I AM A BRILLIANT GOD OF CINEMA!!!

(Also please make sure to laugh at how they are kinda gay at 2:14)

Top 5 Pre-1950 Movies I Would Watch Anytime

I love old movies. Whenever I visit my Uncle Bob and Aunt Amy, I always look forward to figuring out what we're going to watch on TCM or AMC after dinner. Sometimes it'll be some ridiculous monster movie, sometimes it'll be a lost classic I've never heard of... whatever we end up deciding on, it usually just serves as yet another reminder that people have been making great films for a long, long time.

Anyway. Here are five of my favorites.

5. The Maltese Falcon (1942)
Okay, so... I'm going to come right out and explain while Casablanca isn't on this list. I couldn't have two movies featuring the trio of Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, and Sydney Greenstreet. And as much as I love Casablanca, it's not like it needs me to champion it. This is OG film-noir... this is John Huston and Dashiell Hammett at their double-crossing best... this is like, the best MacGuffin of all time. Also, one time, sophomore year of college, I went to see Maltese Falcon at Film Forum with my then-girlfriend and I felt like a guy in a Woody Allen movie. (Y'know, in one of those rare moments when that's like, a good thing.)

4. The Rules of the Game (1939)
This is a nearly perfect film, plain and simple, borrowing the tried-and-true frame of the comedy of manners and transplanting it into the self-absorbed anxiety of pre-WWII France. You might not think that I'm the kind of guy who likes watching wealthy folks running from bedroom to bedroom, tripping over their egos and neuroses, hunting rabbits, and accidentally killing each other. Well, I do. That's actually my favorite genre of drama. I'm not saying that this is the feel-good movie of the year--not in 1939, and certainly not in 2009. That being said, it's still a timeless work of art.

3. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Forget Godfather II or Two Towers. (Although that part in Godfather II where Diane Keaton screams, "It was an ABORTION, Michael!" is on my list of the Top Whatever Most Intense/Most Unintentionally Funny Moments ever.) THIS is the greatest sequel ever made. It has a) Frankenstein's Monster learning to talk and smoke, b) more Colin Clive running around and screaming, c) a crazy new scientist named Dr. Pretorious, d) Dr. Pretorious' tiny people that he keeps in glass jars, e) an old blind man who plays the violin and becomes BFF with The Monster, f) TONS of thinly-veiled homosexual themes, g) certified Hottie-McHotterson Elsa Lanchester as The Bride, and h) the truest line ever spoken: "Alone, bad... friend, good!" This movie has something for everybody.

2. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
When I was a kid, I had a few trusty VHS tapes that I returned to over and over again. Dr. Doolittle, The Monster Squad, Star Wars--these were the stand-bys. But nothing can compare to The Adventures of Robin Hood, or as a five-year old me dubbed it, "The Flynn Robin Hood", on account of its star, Ol' Swashbuckles himself, Errol Flynn. This is the Robin Hood film... from Flynn tossing that poached deer's carcass onto Prince John's banquet table to the split arrow in the archery contest to the greatest swordfight in cinema history to that goofy-ass grin on Flynn's face when King Richard tells him to go marry Maid Marian. "May I obey all your commands with equal pleasure, sire!" he snarks... oh, Robin Hood, you rascal. You're going to go sleep with Olivia de Havilland, aren't you! Well, as long as the king says it's okay... (Also, the score by Erich Korngold is probably the first truly great film score.)

1. The Third Man (1949)
I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love The Third Man. It's a commentary on morality, on friendship, on foreign-ness, on heroism. It's a case study on how to imbue a film with atmosphere. It showcases some of the finest dialogue spoken by some of the finest actors in film history. (Best line: "I'm just a hack writer who drinks too much and falls in love with girls.") And, oh-by-the-way, speaking of amazing film scores... Anton Karas and his friggin' zither. "What if we made a film noir that was entirely accompanied by zither music?" "Oh, I bet that'd be the best movie ever?" "Do ya?" "I sure do!" And that last shot... Alida Valli walking past Joseph Cotten--later paid homage to in The Departed--absolutely chilling. Yeah, I'm totally going to end up watching this tonight... oh well, luckily, I love it.

GUEST LIST: 13 More Aphorism/Movie Title Mashups

We have been graced with a GUEST LIST from Laura Kleinbaum, who gives us a sequel to the riffing started by Peter in this list.  Thanks, Laura, and to anyone else who wants to write a guest list, send it to us and we'll totally post it if we love you enough!

13. Don't throw the Baby's Day Out with the bathwater.

12. All roads lead to Roman Holiday

11. Raining cats and Hotel for Dogs

10. Be the change you wish to see in the Waterworld

9. Slow and steady wins the Race to Witch Mountain

8. Mi casa es su Casablanca

7. Beauty is in the I've Loved You So Long 

(of the beholder is where that was going...)

6. Beauty is only skin Deep Impact

5. Time heals All the President's Men

4. Shot in the Armageddon

3. Up shit's creek without A Walk to Remember

2. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on Meet the Fockers

1. Always the bridesmaid. Never the Brideshead Revisited

Top 15 Aphorism/Movie Title Mashups

Hey! A lot of people like mashups. (Unless you are Laksh.) Also, aphorisms and movies. Well, what if I told you that you could mashup aphorisms with movie titles! IT IS THE BEST GAME. Here are some examples! (Some of them are even true--this is the kind of humor people have been striving for since the invention of laughter in 1525!!!)

15. When the going gets tough, the tough Get Shorty.

14. American Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

13. Out of sight, Out of Sight.

12. A bird in the hand is worth Two if By Sea.

11. Every cloud has a Silver Surfer.

10. Waste not, want Not Another Teen Movie.

9. 24 Hour Party People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

8. We have nothing to fear but Fear itself.
(Note: This is TRUE. Laksh showed me this movie and it was terrifying.)

7. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for Say Anything.

6. Curiosity killed the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

5. In this life, nothing is certain but death and Texasville.

4. All bad poetry springs from genuine Feeling Minnesota.
(Note: This is also painfully true.)

3. Every dog has his Day of the Dead.

2. To thine own self be True Lies.

1. What comes up Must Love Dogs.

Top 12 Movies That Probably Would Have Been Better if They Had Somehow Incorporated Quantum Physics (and What Their Names Would Have Been)

12. Schrodinger's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

11. The Last Action Constant Hero

10. Along Came Wolfgang Pauli

9. Wallace and Gromit in "Wave-Particle Duality"

8. Air Bud Deals With the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

7. Amadeus Discovers A Fucking Quark

6. Timeline But This Time Actually with Quantum Physics

5. Men in Black Body Radiation

4. The Terminator of Quantum Particles

3. Saving Silverman From Accidentally Giving a Bad Lecture on Quantum Particles

2. Che: Quantum Particles

1. Life As a House Made of Quantum Particles As All Things Are

Top 9 Egregious Errors in Today's Oscar Nominations

Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards, released this morning, have set the blogosphere abuzz.  Or at least I assume they have--I don't read blogs because I'm not a fucking loser.  In my wonderful social life, however, I do talk to people, and some of them have brought up objections to the nominations.

9. Category: Best Picture

Egregious omission: The Dark Knight

Come on, guys.  This is the populist opinion, the critical opinion, the film nerd opinion, and the most engaging, entertaining film this year if not in the last three or four years.

8. Category: Best Screenplay (Adapted)

Egregious omission: The Dark Knight

Not only the most quotable movie this year ("Some people just want to watch the world burn," "I'm gonna make this pencil disappear," "You complete me"), but also the most interesting moral quandaries anyone was put into on screen.

7. Category: Best Score

Egregious Omission: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for The Dark Knight

More viscerally tied to the onscreen action than any other score this year, this score is also great listening when you're not watching the movie.

6. Category: Best Supporting Actor

Egregious Omission: Gary Oldman in The Dark Knight

Look, I'm not saying Heath shouldn't have gotten nominated--he should've, and he should win--but to my mind, the relatable character who deals with the most interesting moral questions is Oldman's Gordon.  When you watch it the first time, he seems just like mostly the extremely good-guy foil to the darker heroes.  The second time you watch it, you start to appreciate how his transformation deals with darkness in his own way.

5. Category: Best Supporting Actress

Egregious Omission: Katie Holmes in The Dark Knight

What a transformation she went through for this movie!  She looks, acts, and feels like a completely different person in The Dark Knight than she did in Batman Begins, a complex reflection of the stresses she has undergone in her relationship with Batman.  Not a huge role, but such a stretch always deserves praise.

4. Category: Foreign Language Film

Egregious Omission: The Dark Knight

The part of this movie that took place in Hong Kong and probably involved some Chinese was better than any stupid foreign films this year.

3. Category: Best Song

Egregious Omission: "All the Shit that the Joker Hums to Himself" in The Dark Knight

I have had it stuck in my head for days.

2. Category: Short Film (live action)

Egregious Omission: The Dark Knight

I was on the edge of my seat the whole time and I assume this movie must have been very short.

1. Category: Documentary Feature

Egregious Omission: The Dark Knight

The most amazing part was that it was all true.

Top 12 Proposed Sequels to 2008's Oscar-Contenders

Alright, I don't watch enough movies to tell you what the best ones in 2008 were.  I considered doing something like "the best movies in 2008 from somebody that didn't see that many movies in 2008," but then I decided that it would be more fun to write fake sequels to critically-acclaimed movies, only some of which I've seen.

12. Dawn

The Dark Knight, as we learned, was darkest just before Dawn.  How is Dawn?  Pretty bright.  Almost too bright, actually.  The light kinda gets in Batman's eyes.

11. The Retired Wrestler

Might he wrestle one last match?  Nope.  He's retired.

10. Changeling 2: This Time It's Actually a Sci-Fi Movie

Made with the intention of appeasing those who went to a film called Changeling and were treated to a total of zero alien shapeshifters.

9. Vicky Cristina Elena Maria Sonja Melinda Portland

Vicky and Cristina take some friends to a new location.

8. BALL-E

WALL-E questions his relevence when Eve is wooed by a smooth-talking brother robot with the titular name.

7. Non-Dairy Creamer

After the tragic loss of Milk, a healthier substitute is found.

6. Revolutionary Garage

Tagline: "Every road ends somewhere."

5. Rachel Getting Divorced

Rachel then draws Anne Hathaway's character into her next deadly addiction: chocolate.  Written by the woman who draws Cathy.

4. Frost/Off

Robert Frost must switch faces with Nicholas Cage to increase the ratings of his TV interview show.

3. Slumdog Wife Swap

In his appearance on another game show, Slumdog Millionaire's protagonist is again accused of cheating.  By his wife.  Cheating, like sex.

2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2: Return to the Womb

Speaks for itself.  Spans 9 months instead of 80 years.

1. Assurance

90 minutes of Philip Seymour Hoffman molesting a boy.  This time he definitely did it.

The Top 14 "[article] [adjective] [noun]" Movies that Don't Exist But I Would Like to See

Look, I'm not going so far as to say that somebody needs to make these movies just so I can see them.  I'm not nearly that self-important.  I'm just saying that I'll be first in line if and when they commence existence.

14. The Obvious Laundry

13. The Baleful Volunteer

12. The Candied Candy

11. The Courtly Spark

10. The Velvet Frog

9. A Civil Fraction

8. A Hispanic Premise

7. The Waylaid Boutonnière

6. The Convincing Artery

5. The Fluctuating Pantomime

4. An Inspired Swamp

3. The Saccharine Speculum

2. A Pandering Panda

1. The Loneliest Benvolio

Top 6 Scenes from the Movie Cabin Fever

To my knowledge, not a lot of people have seen the movie Cabin Fever.  That's too bad, because Cabin Fever is friggin' great.  It's a horror movie with UTTER NONSENSE humor thrown in.  And by utter nonsense, I don't mean Family Guy-esque pop-culture-seizure "randomness," I mean really, seriously, nonsense.  Or even when the humor is coherent, it has nothing to do with the style of the rest of the movie  Basically, this movie rules and is amazing.  Here are the best scenes in it that I could find on YouTube.

6. Dr. Mambo

An awesome idea is to shout "OOH, FACED!" at people when you diss them.  I love this movie.

5. Racism!

The second part (which occurs at the end of the movie) is such a lame joke that it somehow increases the hilarity of the situation 5000%

4. This clip is actually gross and don't watch it

The part at the end with Dr. Mambo is fucking awesome though.

3. Hunting squirrels

Um, I love this movie.

2. Pancakes!

This is quite seriously the weirdest thing that has ever been in any movie ever. The biggest comedic gem of the whole thing is easy to miss the first time (hint: it's what the guy who gets bit shouts after it goes back into normal speed)

1. The End

 

I love this movie.

Top 6 Screenplays I Wish I Had Written

6. The Naked Gun

As fare as pure great jokes-per-minute, The Naked Gun is certainly in contention for greatest comedy ever made. I know that it's boring and obvious to bash the recent rash of "X Movie" comedies (the most recent of which, Disaster Movie, SURE LOOKS LIKE ONE HUH???), but if you really want to see how to do spoof right, look at The Naked Gun. When it does direct parody of other detective/spy movies, like it does of Telefon and Casablanca (not really a spy movie but whatever), it actually just lifts direct plot elements from those and puts them in the movie. See, Disaster Movie? It's funny because it emphasizes what's ridiculous about the original movies by restating those lines in a context where you're supposed to laugh. Juno breakdancing does not emphasize what is ridiculous about the movie Juno, which is plenty of stuff. Anyway, this movie has more specific gags that make me go "LORD I wish I had thought of that" than perhaps any other film.

5. Hot Fuzz

As this and #2 elucidate (no peeking!!!), I strongly believe that an underutilized genre combination is the action-comedy. Hot Fuzz is great because it is both a good comedy and a good action movie, and it doesn't make any sacrifices of one towards the other. Often times, even at a good action movie that isn't as much of a comedy (like, say Die Hard), you'll find yourself laughing in a sort of "this is ludicrous and I approve" way, so why not take that a step further and make a true comedy out of it? One thing I really like about Hot Fuzz is that for the significant amount of genre-parody they do, they never are insulting towards the action genre; they never condescend to the audience as to tell them they shouldn't be enjoying the somewhat mindless action parts of this movie for the sake of getting a cheap laugh.

Anyway, yeah, I love Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright and company, and I think this movie absolutely destroyed Shaun of the Dead (which I really liked) in all areas. This is maybe the only movie I have ever seen in theaters, and afterwards thought, "Well, maybe I shouldn't even try to go into the entertainment industry, because these guys are basically already doing what I would want to do, and really well."

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Boy, is this a well-written movie. It uses a backwards-told narrative, but does not at all feel derivative of Memento? It involves extended trips into the head of one character, but doesn't feel like rehashed ideas from Kaufman's earlier Being John Malkovich? It's about a technological procedure to erase the memories of someone with whom you've had a bad romantic relationship? Sign me the fuck up (NOT FOR THE PROCEDURE GUYS FOR THE LIST TO WATCH THIS MOVIE).

Really, Kaufman makes every scene in this movie count doubly. Watch the movie again and notice how basically everything comedic also has a dramatic purpose, and vice versa. It's a pretty tight movie, too (about 1:45) for all that it does. And wow, I'm not sure if I've ever really genuinely cared about a romantic relationship ending well in a movie as much as I did about Carrey's and Winslet's at the end of this. This movie is imaginitive in all the good ways without ending up having the pretension of other "extremely creative mind" movies. It's got something to say, but it tells you through fidelity to the characters and concept.

3. The Big Lebowski

When I was planning this list out a little bit ago, I was very seriously considering leaving the Coen Brothers off it entirely. Not because I don't wish I could write as well as they do--obviously, I do--more because I think of them as seriously on a different plane as me and most other people, such that it's almost insulting to them to imagine that I wish I had written one of their movies.

I know this sounds like near-religious idolatry, but yeah, I have near-religious idolatry for the Coen Brothers. Once I have seen the four of their twelve movies I still haven't seen (really, 8/12 seems like a pretty lame record for someone who considers themselves as big of a fan as I am), I'll do a list of their best movies, and I'm pretty sure Lebowski will be number one.

What I mean when I say that I don't think I could have written one of their movies is I tend to be a pretty formulaic writer, questioning myself pretty hard if beats or plotlines don't go in the "traditional" place. The Coen Brothers somehow both flaunt convention and make movies that are entertaining in the most classic way imaginable. Lebowski is basically a shaggy-dog story, where a man is being battered around by both his friends and enemies, taking very little initiative for himself, and just trying to get by.

So...why is Jesus in the movie? I don't fucking know. And what's the deal with the specific choices made in the acid flashback scenes, like Sadaam Hussein? I don't fucking know. And why does the film work as one of the greatest adventure/mysteries ever created? I don't fucking know.

It helps that the Coens have about the best ear for dialogue and the best sense of visual comedy of anyone ever making movies, but it's probably something more than that, something that I just haven't got. I watched this movie today, and god DAMN it is so good, and now I'm depressing myself becuase I'm not a fucking prodigy like the Coen Brothers are and will never create anything this amazing.

Also the best character is Walter and if you disagree you suck.

2. True Lies

By contrast, I feel somewhat more secure in imagining that maybe I could be able to write True Lies or something similar and good like it someday. It doesn't hurt that probably relatively few people think that True Lies is a brilliant piece of film the way that people think that Coen Brothers movies are, but also...in True Lies you can see the seams better.

True Lies is basically an action farce. That's how I describe it to people who haven't seen it in order to sell them on it. You have Arnold Schwarzenegger (God is he fun to watch, I don't care what anyone thinks about his acting ability) as a governmental secret agent whose wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) doesn't know about his real job, so when he suspects her of having an affair, she doesn't know that he's surveying her. Needless to say, the entire thing goes WAY out of hand, and both hilarity and tag-team husband-and-wife ass-kicking commences.

The REALLY great thing about True Lies's comedy, even better than Hot Fuzz, is that it never even attempts references to action movies. It's just a really great farce comedy that happens to center on people who live action-filled lives, so there is action as well, and farce, and fucking farcical action. If you can watch this movie without smiling your ass off and laughing the whole time, there is something wrong with you.

1. Dr. Strangelove

Well, yeah. It had to be. As some people may recall from this list, I'm a big sucker for well put-together satire, probably more so than I am for any other subgenre. Dr. Strangelove is terrifying because all of the awful and hilarious things that go on seem way too plausible. It's really a very broad movie, but it manages to be both over-the-top and relatably poignant.

Once I read someone try to make the claim that Dr. Strangelove isn't relevant anymore. Not relevant anymore? You've got to be fucking kidding. Replace communism with Islamic fundamentalism, and this movie could probably be retooled and remade today, and it'd be the most relevant political satire currently being produced.

I might go so far as to say that my TWO favorite all-time scenes from any movie are both in Dr. Strangelove, the Muffley phone call to Kissoff (PETER WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT MERKIN MUFFLEY ON YOUR LIST OF FICTIONAL PRESIDENTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH), and the Mandrake/Jack Ripper conversation about flouridation and purity of bodily fluids. Both of those are extremely good situational humor on their own, then made a thousand times as hilarious by both what hangs in the balance and the knowledge that there truly are people that stupid and loony in real life. God, this movie is good.

Top 16 Movies Whose Titles Would Be Better with a Question Mark After Them

This list was co-written by Rob Trump and Ryan Henneboehle.

16. Remember the Titans?

15. Forgetting Sarah Marshall?

14. Feel the Noise?

13. Hope Floats?

12. Howard Stern's Private Parts?

11. Three Men and a Baby?

10. Love and Basketball?

9. My Giant?

8. But I'm a Cheerleader?

7. Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Never Stop Worrying About the Battle over Peter's Exclusion of Merkin Muffley...

...

?

6. What Happens in Vegas...?

(for people who really want to know)

5. Who Framed Roger Rabbit??

(for people who...really want to know)

4. Win A Date with Tad Hamilton!?

3. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar?

(who is this Julie Newmar and why is she writing to me my name isn't even Wong Foo)

2. The Color Purple?

(seriously man, I don't know if you want to paint your house that)

1. Seabiscuit?

51 Things that Went Through My Head Chronologically as I Watched the Trailer for the New Oliver Stone Movie W.

1. Oh, sweet, there's finally a trailer for W.
2. I hope this is good.
3. Thanks for approving the trailer for me, MPAA. Where would I be without you?
4. Not watching this trailer, that's for sure.
5. The production company is Lionsgate? Don't they mostly do horror movies?
6. Horror movies like movies about the BUSH PRESIDENCY? Oh God I hate myself.
7. Hehehehe that's our president and he's getting drunk.
8. Oh that's not actually our president this is a movie.
9. Hey, what the hell? That thing where you wear a college sweatshirt and a dress shirt underneath and the dress shirt hangs out around the college sweatshirt...for some reason I think of that as a fashion style only this generation is stupid enough to advocate.
10. But, now, thanks to historical document W., I have been shown the truth.
11. Oh, sweet, they're including that thing where he drove drunk and ran over a trash can and didn't even realize it and drove home with the can lodged under his car.
12. Glad to see that Oliver Stone has done his homework about Bush.
13. Either that or just read the Wikipedia page on his youth.
14. What if your homework was reading Wikipedia pages? I would do homework all the time.
15. But I already do homework all the time. :(
16. In college can you still call it homework? You're not really home. And it's a very juvenile term.
17. Oh my, I just missed 30 seconds of this trailer. Rewind.
18. James Cromwell as H.W. - sweet.
19. H.W. saying, "What do you think you are, a Kennedy?" - not sweet
20. Seriously, I hate jokes like that. Stone knows that a movie about Bush's irresponsible 20s is going to mostly appeal to liberal people, so he throws a bone to them to convince them they can laugh at Democrats, too. "Haha, Kennedy was a womanizer!" It's in no way a good joke, it's just put there to make liberal people feel more secure in laughing about W. It's bullshit.
21. I've seen that kind of stupid joke a lot of times, too. In some bad play I read for a class last year that was pretty much all about how liberals are the best, there was just a "Nader sucks," joke in the middle of nowhere, and it wasn't a good joke. Writers: I give you absolutely no credit for being impartial in which side you attack. Attack the side being stupid, and don't throw off easy jokes in the other direction as if it makes up for the fact that you're opinionated. I like opinionated people.
22. I'm going to come up for a term for this shitty kind of joke.
23. Okay, here's the term: a "reverse pander."
24. As in, did you see last night's episode of South Park? It was about how global warming is bunk but in the end they threw in some Republican poop-joke reverse panders.
25. Haha, that kind of sounds like "reverse pandas." "Republican poop-joke reverse pandas." I want more of those.
26. Rewind.
27. Who is that as Jeb? I can't tell. It looks kinda like that Brad Pitt gypsy character from Snatch.
28. Haha, what if he was in movies about snatch and Bush?
29. That wasn't funny, never mind.
30. You know what is funny, though?
31. Republican poop-joke reverse pandas.
32. Whoa, Laura Bush looks bangin'.
33. I would have sex with Laura Bush. I would. I would have sex with Laura Bush in that movie. This is difficult to type.
34. Who's that girl? Oh, it's the girl from Wet Hot American Summer. Sweet.
35. BUSH ADMINISTRATION ROLL CALL!
36. DADDY!
37. BARBARA!
38. POWELL!
39. ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
40. That was a Mystery Science Theater reference if you are too dull to get it.
41. Wait, what? Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice! My God, there go all of my Mission: Impossible 2 boners. And I had a lot of Mission: Impossible 2 boners.
42. RUN, DUBYA, RUN!
43. Okay, well, I think that actually looked quite good. I was worried they were going to go too hamhanded with the presentation of him as a jerk/idiot, but I think they're being pretty faithful to his life from a dramatic standpoint.
44. Like, I read some Oliver Stone thing where he said it would be in the tone of Dr. Strangelove. And I wanted to be all, "That's a pretty damn broad movie. You know that movie was scripted to have a friggin' PIE FIGHT as the last scene? You can't have that be your basis for a biopic. However great a movie it is."
45. And man, it is a great movie. What was Peter thinking with not putting Merkin Muffley on his best fictional presidents list?
46. "Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... Of course I like to speak to you!... Of course I like to say hello!"
47. That's seriously one of the greatest movie scenes ever.
48. Peter, you're a fool.
49. I should see if I can stick criticism of that choice of Peter's into all of my lists.
50. Anyway, it seems like they're sticking pretty tightly to his life, which is cool, and the cast is sick.
51. Republican poop-joke reverse pandas.

Top 12 Best Ways to Incorrectly Spoil Movies [FALSE SPOILERS ALERT!]

12. The Empire Strikes Back

"Lando Calrissian is Luke Skywalker's sugar-daddy."

11. Citizen Kane

"'Rosebud' is Klingon for 'blowjob.'"

10. American Beauty

"Every single character is bisexual according to the Kinsey reports."

9. Planet of the Apes (1968)

"At the end of the movie, you realize that it is our planet that is overrun by stupid apes who will probably try to remake this movie in 30 years and do a terrible job of it."

8. The Usual Suspects

"Kenan Thompson is Keyzer Soze."

7. Dr. Strangelove

"Going by Peter's last list, this movie must not exist because otherwise Merkin Muffley would have obviously been one of the best fictitious U.S. presidents. Therefore it is impossible for me to spoil it for you, since it doesn't exist. Similarly, milk that doesn't exist cannot spoil. I am not sure how similar those two actually are, but I am going to go buy some milk that doesn't exist because I have problems with milk spoiling a lot."

6. Anchorman: the Legend of Ron Burgundy

"Anchorman is supposed to be a comedy."

5. Fight Club

"Brad Pitt exists only in the mind of Sesame Street character Fozzy Bear. That is, the actor Brad Pitt."

4. The Sixth Sense

"Haley Joel Osment's career is actually dead on its feet for this entire movie." *

3. Memento

"This movie is actually moving sequentially forward, only you skip the several month-long interludes during where he endures painful and costly tattoo removal."

2. Unbreakable

"The movie Unbreakable does not completely fucking blow."

1. Soylent Green

"SOYLENT GREEN IS WHEATGRASS!!!"

*Not actually incorrect, but not a spoiler, either