61 - Disaster Movie

Connection To THE SILENCE OF THE HAMS - Tony Cox

61 movies... 61 movies... SIXTY ONE BLOODY MOVIES... So 61 movies is what it took for me to have the urge to turn the film off within 5 minutes - it was the moment "Amy Winehouse" showed up that made me just want to give up there and then...

But I decided to go on... yeah I should have just turned the film off at the beginning. For a start, what the "filmmakers" Seltzer and Friedberg seem to think a disaster movie seems to be different to what I think a disaster movie is - in fact a better title would be "2007-2008 Movie" as that's when all the references are just about pooled from so in some ways this film is a time machine of a period of popular culture I don't exactly have the nostalgia for (just yet). Anyway I'm not here to get on the bandwagon of the Seltzer and Friedberg hate I'm here just trying to see how I feel about a film I've heard so much awfulness about.

The film opens with the captain 10,001 which to be honest just reminded me there was a film called 10,000 BC (that was released in yes 2008) which I have thought about as a film not at all since then which is where we meet Amy Winehouse - now my hate for this bit has nothing to with her death that came later but just how awful it all comes across, I was alone watching this (didn't want anybody else finding out) and I just cringed...

We soon get a party which introduces us to the characters some of them main but firstly we have Juno (I guess unwanted teenage pregnancy is some sort of disaster...) who seems to think Juno was sardonic while in the film she was really more hipster, as well as characters based from Wanted, Superbad, No Country For Old Men and even have a scene aping High School Musical, what year was this made again?  Anyway during this party we also get acting heavyweights Kim Kardashian and Carmen Electra having  a cat-fight, Kardashian I must assume as had a boob job but if not you go girl, this scene did nothing for me because neither are my type.

On the streets with all the meteors and shit going by we get the chance to meet even more characters such as Hannah Montana (the scene with her is almost verging on funny but doesn't quite get there), Hancock (predictably bangs his head trying to fly off), we also get a bunch of bikini clad models running from the chaos where one of them literally shits themselves (that bit there is probably the perfect example of the humour in this movie), then they go to a shelter where the Sex and The City girls are... and get this the person playing Carrie Bradshaw is a MAN... HA HA HA

What do you say - as this film only being on 30 minutes??? I was really, really hoping all this would get us to the end of the movie.

Back on the streets and it's more references including from Enchanted (in fariness the impression is pretty good though), followed by an overlong parody from Step Up (I have never seen any of the Step Up films but they keep saying step up to remind us) which is ended by a twister, which reminds us this is mean't to be about disasters which fucking brings out skinny Iron Man who gets crushed by a cow... FOR FUCK'S SAKE then Hellboy comes and he also gets crushed by a cow SERIOUSLY at least The Incredible Hulk loses his shorts (like the oldest joke there is) before getting hit by a cow, at that point I was I was expecting Batman (since Dark Knight came out in 2008) but nope.

The rest of the movie does features characters of references to (yes) Batman, Indiana Jones (tiny and played by Tony Cox), Alvin and The Chipmunks (overlong), Prince Caspian, The Love Guru, Kung Fu Panda and Beuwolf among others

Overall as a comedy it's a dis... (nearly said it), it just throws a barage of unrelated references at a wall and hopes that something sticks, which reminds if the "comedy" isn't about references to stuff of the moment then it's a poop joke. when I'm an old man though in years to come I can watch this and instantly remember what 2008 was like though, so that's... good... I guess

And then the end --- I'M DATING MATT DAMON - what's the bloody point of doing a parody of a song that was dirtier and funnier to begin with. Maybe it's worth watching it because it features all the parody characters so can save you watching the entire film!

60 - The Silence Of The Hams

Connection To POSSE - Billy Zane

The common misconception is that when Friedberg and Seltzer started getting their hands on the spoof genre is when it went to shit, I've even heard the statement "spoofs aren't as good as they used to" but the truth is even before they got there grubby mitts on the sub-genre, there was plenty of spoof that was less then classic - Plump Fiction, Mafia, Repossessed - are among those, the truth is actually for every Airplane or a Naked Gun there was films just fleetingly funny or downright poor.

The Silence Of The Hams, which to me is such a groan-worthy name for the film, seems tone of the most forgotten of the mid-90s spoofs and is something I did see on TV back in the day, truth is all I remembered though was Billy Zane and his name being a play on Jodie Foster and Dom DeLuise as the Hannibal Lector character, and though it's listed as 1994 on the internet I could of swore it came out in the UK in 1996, which I just checked on, so good memory there.

There's scenes that spoof the interrogation scene in Basic Instinct and the cell scene in The Silence Of The Lambs, anybody who has seen Loaded Weapon, which predated it by a year will know these scenes have already been spoofed. The two films it really spoofs most is of course Lambs and Psycho and besides them there is spoofs of Bram Stoker's Dracula and (rather on the nose) The Addams Family.

I found myself smiling at a far few parts of this movie, mostly with my eyes rolling at the same time. The film is bad, but it was so enjoyably bad, I was right about the Billy Zane character - he is called Joe Dee Fostar, I'd totally forgot about Ezzio Greggio being one of the stars (he also directs and writes), I think he's the weakest part of the cast, struggling a bit with English, but there is an awesome cast here including Martin Balsam apeing his Psycho role (this was a very late in his career role), and small roles for Shelley Winters and Mel Brooks among others. Tony Cox who would appear in some of those Selzter Friedberg spoofs a bit later also a very small role. For me though John Astin (this is like the fourth film I have watched with him in) and particularly DeLuise have the funniest moments for me.

Overall, groan worthy very often but oddly entertaining, it made me smile and was on the verge of making me laugh out loud, so to me it was actually better then I remembered.

59 - Posse

Connection To SANTA'S SLAY - Tommy 'Tiny' Lister

The early 90's western - maybe it's because it's my era but I have an affection for it. Young Guns (which was 1988 I know but I found my love for it in the 90's) and it's sequel, the very awesome Tombstone and of course a film I've already covered here The Quick and The Dead, obviously not forgetting of all movies - Unforgiven - Eastwood's awesome farewell to the western genre that made his name.

Posse though for me just got lost in the shuffle and was a film I'd never picked up to own on DVD even when my western shelf was picking up on these 90's westerns, but I genuinely believe if I saw it then I reckon I would have the same affectionate for it as some of them, I think maybe for me I'm just seeing it for the first time some 20 years too late.

For me though now once it gets past the opening scene, despite it's positives I lost interest somewhere along the way despite some nice imagery. I don't have a problem with bad-ass characters at all, except in usually one instance - when they are played by the director, and the most bad-ass of this posse is played by the director himself Mario Van Peebles, while he's nowhere near as bad as Larry Bishop in Hell Ride, who could seemingly make women drop their panties by looking at them, the rest of the "posse" seem to have big man-crushes on Van Peebles.

Billy Zane was fun in a supporting role because he acting like Billy Zane should and be chewing a fair bit of the scenery and to be fair some of the other cast have enjoyable moments such as Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, not Stephen Baldwin though he starts to wear a bit thin after a while.

Overall, Posse is proof that a film needs to seen in the right time of your life, it really isn't bad but in the end it fell into the category of not really doing out for me.

58 - Santa's Slay

Connection To CARRIE - Emilie de Ravin.

For me it's impossible for me to hate a film like Santa's Slay - it knows it's premise is ridiculous and it just goes out there and as much fun as it can, on for me it was a very fun film

The opening scene is a case of dead star walking - 4 famous (or famous enough) faces gets slaughtered by Santa Claus (Bill Goldberg) - they are Rebecca Gayheart, Chris Kattan, Fran Drescher and James Caan, all of these are Jewish as is Goldberg - and is an extremely enjoyable opening scene seeing these horrible people die (the characters not the actors, I've not met any of them so can't speak on that).

Watching Santa's Slay just breezes by, well it only really comes in at about 80 minutes - there's a lot of Christmas related deaths - exploding presents, drowning in the eggnog that make the film always entertaining. We even get an animated scene in the vein of Frosty The Snowman which helps tell the back-story of Santa being the son of Satan.

Of the two leads I'd certainly say the very pretty Emilie de Ravin leaves more of an impression on the screen then Douglas Smith, who doesn't really leave that much of an impression. There is other great support from Saul Rubinek and Robert Culp, who overall gave the film a cast better then the type of film seems to attract.

Overall, the movie is just a lot of fun, kind of wish I got the chance to see this for the first time around Christmas time, but that's not really a complaint to do with a film just my timing.

57 - Carrie (2002)

Connection To STUCK IN LOVE - Stephen King, who had a voice cameo in the previous movie.

Carrie, Stephen King's first novel and the first film adapted to the screen in 1976, well that movie to me (including the very 70's parts of it) is a classic to me, so the fact that now 2 remakes (which both I think owe the same debt to the movie as they do to the book) exist from a film that was only made in the mid-70's is odd - I am not one of those I think I might have noted before who gets pissy about remakes or long awaited sequels (which the original Carrie did have as well) etc., it's just I believe there is more that could of got remade even once before even the first Carrie remake.

This is a TV movie version - Stephen King as been a mixed bag on the television, I mean we've had Salem's Lot, The Stand and IT (I liked it) but on the other hand we've had stuff like The Langoliers and The Shining from 1998 did nothing for me, but I thought honestly, curiosity killed the cat and really wanted to see it, just to see what it's like.

I think the first thing they got right was the casting of Carrie White, for me at least - Angela Bettis, it's maybe because the film I instantly think of when I think of her is May, which I guess is a character not a million miles away from Carrie, Patricia Clarkson as Margaret White is also good (she's no Piper Laurie though), the rest of the characters I wish I could say more about but none of them stand out, I remember them because of who plays them to be honest - Emilie de Ravin as Chris, Kandyse McClure as Sue, Katharine Isabelle as Tina - and I'm not it's the performances but rather the characters they've been handed.

The film takes elements from both the book and the first film - the prom scene is obviously in mind when they was making it - but the film is and feels over long coming at 130 minutes, I think 20 minutes, maybe more could have been chopped off easily.

And SPOILER FOR THE ENDING - Carrie actually survives this version, she is resuscitated... it feels quite a cop out, however I'll give them the benefit of the doubt as this was mean't to be a pilot to a television series that was never picked up END OF SPOILER

Overall, it's not bad really, Bettis shone for me but there is no way I would watch this instead of the 76 one in the future, this was a one time watch for me.

56 - Stuck In Love

Connection To THE HEART OF JUSTICE - Jennifer Connelly

I kept calling this Stuck On You before I watched it and I knew it starred Greg Kinnear, so I kept thinking why would Greg Kinnear appear in ANOTHER movie called Stuck On You. But in actuality it turns out I'm just an idiot and the film was called Stuck In Love (duh).

Well I don't always expect to relate to all characters on screen, something about Stuck On You Stuck In Love (I genuinely did just type Stuck On You first then) was extremely noticeable, maybe because by the point the film starts Kinnear is already a successful writer and his daughter played by Lily Collins is so super talented as well she is getting her first book published.

Honestly, though that was just one of the problems for me - how the characters speak, you know they cool indie speak sort of way, while I don't mean to rag on the writer but it's one of those scripts where you feel like the writer thought was awesome when he was thinking of the dialogue, and while it sounds profound or whatever in theory it just didn't seem natural coming out of the characters mouth, because nobody realistically speaks and acts that way to each other in real life.

As a child of divorce I can normally identify of the pain characters are going through, I don't it's maybe because I never really get to feel what it was like when Jennifer Connelly and Kinnear where married in this, early on he stalks her by looking through her living room window (yes really) but it seems a real none issue between other characters (and even her), but Connelly and Collins as the daughter relationship is much better explored and the residual feelings of being let down.

Among the supporting cast is Kristen Bell (it's obvious by now I'm in love with her) pops up as Kinnear's "fuck buddy" her appearances are fleeting but welcome even if she to suffers from the indie speak in this - I just wish she had more to do.

Overall it feels like it falls into a lot of traps of what I dislike about indie films but to be fair there are moments in the film that genuinely keep me from disliking it 

55 - The Heart Of Justice

Connection To THE RAVEN - The legendary Vincent Price

I had no idea that Vincent Price and Dennis Hopper had two credits appearing alongside each other, let alone both in the 1990's and this is the second I'm covering on here after the disappointment of Crossfire. This TV movie from 1992 besides the pair as a strong cast including Jennifer Connelly, William H. Macy, his future wife Felicity Huffman (I assume they was a couple at this point), Eric Stoltz and Dermot Mulroney among others.

Vincent Price (his final role) is having lunch with Dennis Hopper as he leaves the restaurant, he gets killed off before the opening titles, he's a famous writer who's clearly pissed somebody off, who turns the gun on themselves. This is an effective opening I just wish the rest of the movie was as good (though Connelly has a scene in her underwear and later strips, so no complaints there)

For me it was the sort of film that seems to spend 90 minutes getting to a place where you totally expected it very early one, while that's not always a bad thing, with this film you where just sort of waiting for it so I could get on with another film or the rest of my life.

It didn't help that a bland actor to me (Mulroney) and somebody playing a bland character (Stoltz) have most of the screen time especially when there was much more interesting characters and performers in this, Connelly though - as always - was good and the likes of Hopper (who does appear then just the first scene) and Price really do very little in the story in the long run.

Overall the film's plot in the end really did nothing for me, honestly Jennifer Connelly is the what that makes this film most awesome, you can probably internet any scene of her rather then watching the full thing though, so I'm going on the it's not bad in the end but no need to waste time on it.